Page 31 of Billionaire Retreat

You could see the mood around the table change when Griffin sat down. I’m pretty sure he hadn’t been invited.

Jerry looked at him as if he was fly in his soup and took his attention away from me to talk to the pretty waitress who was coming around to take our orders. I sighed. Griffin was great at ruining things for me. I tried to jump into other conversations going on around the table, but that wasn’t very successful. The crowd was much more sedated now that an outsider was around. And why exactly was he there?

I tried in vain to inject myself into a conversation with Jerry, but he was now on his cellphone texting or doing whatever.

Griffin waved a hand in my face, as if to get my attention, and I slapped at it and glared at him.

“What? I was just trying to see if I were invisible to you suddenly.”

I ignored him and took a sip of my drink.

He shrugged. “Funny, I remember you being a lot more fun before.”

I gave him an evil look before saying, “Funny, I don’t remember the same about you.”

He laughed. “So what have you been up to all these years?”

“That’s my business.”

“So, secretive… no sense of humor… You’ve changed over the years.”

“You have no idea,” I said cryptically, looking for a polite way to end the evening and get the hell out of there. I didn’t like this at all. The last thing I wanted to do was sit around and chitchat with Griffin as if the past four years hadn’t happened. And to be honest, his nearness was bothering me.

I decided to just be blunt, a skill I’d learned to get out of all sorts of mommy expectations like carpools and playdates. Being a single mom, I didn’t have the luxury of blaming a spouse when I wanted to get out of things, so I’d learned to be direct instead.

“I’m heading out. See you guys later.”

“So soon?” Jerry said, standing up too. “Hey, let me give you a ride.” I had a sneaky suspicion that he was trying to wait out Griffin. I think his plan had been to ignore Griffin until he eventually left and then talk to me.

“She already has a ride,” Griffin said before I could speak.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Jerry,” I said, ignoring Griffin and making my way towards the exit again. Of course, Griffin fell into step next to me.

I ignored him and headed towards a bus stop.

“Jerry seems to have a crush on you.”

I shrugged and sat down on the bench. He surprised me by sitting down next to me.

“This is a first, a billionaire sitting down at a bus stop.”

“I’ve caught my share of buses.”

“Really? When and where?”

He smiled. “Well, I could have if I wanted to. So why are you avoiding me?”

“I’m not avoiding you. I just have nothing to say to you.”

“Listen, I know things didn’t end well for us on the island...”

“That’s one way to put it,” I mumbled.

“And I had no idea that security had you escorted out when you dropped by the office. I knew you’d stopped by, but I had to take a call and my receptionist said you’d left abruptly. There must have been a misunderstanding.”

I scoffed. “I was thrown out by security, I didn’t leave abruptly.”

“Again, I’m sorry. I have no idea how that happened or why I didn’t know anything about it.”