Page 54 of Billionaire’s Promise

That would have been nice. “Unfortunately, I asked Siti to come with me.”

“That little mouse?”

I raised my eyebrows. “What? Yeah, my assistant. She said she’d never been to a gala before for fun. She’s had to work at a few, but she’s never been a guest, so I invited her.”

“But she’s still at work.”

“Don’t you worry about her.” I had no time to think about Siti right now. All I knew was that whenever she had to work at an event, she had always managed to be there on time regardless of what else she had to do. That woman was like a time management wizard. That was why I couldn’t do this job without her and in return I made sure that she was well compensated with plenty of bonuses.

I got into my car and drove home, distracted and tense. I needed a vacation from all of this stress, but I knew that wouldn’t happen any time soon. When I got home, there was a large parcel that the doorman had collected for me. It was something from Gucci. I thought I had made it very clear to their manager that I wanted nothing from them. I wondered why it was so hard for these people to take no for an answer.

I brought the large brown box upstairs and found the wine-colored red dress tucked inside.

Seriously?

There was a message.

Promise me you’ll wear this tonight,

Kai.

Kai had somehow managed to get Gucci to deliver this dress to me after I told him my evening plans. It annoyed me that he’d ignored my refusal of the dress, but that was Kai. I didn’t have enough time now to call him, or to do much of anything else but get ready.

I made a mental note to send Kai a text later. That was when I realized that I didn’t say goodbye to him in the parking lot. I’d just driven away like a mad woman. Had my life become so chaotic that I’d blanked the man of my dreams? This event was no more important than the last one I organized. Regardless of what I told myself, I still couldn’t shake off this bad feeling. The feeling that I had forgotten something, or worse something was going to go wrong because of that.

Fifteen minutes later, a well-dressed, fully made-up Siti stood outside my building with the town car I ordered. I had never questioned her ability to be there on time. Her college had really trained her well. Or she must have possessed some kind of superpowers that allowed her to do her job well, all while, also, being totally gorgeous at the same time. I thanked her for work and made her promise to enjoy herself tonight.

Tonight’s event was really important to us. At the Bennet Medical Group, we emphasized and celebrated the importance of women’s health. For the last year, I had been leading the group in promoting better women’s health, not only for the United States but for the world beyond. We have donated millions to countries in need, to help women in poverty overcome problems, from small problems like getting clean period products to bigger ones like fertility and abortion issues. Our group was working on correcting the problems caused by the outdated and poorly executed experiments of the past.

The main problem with those experiments were the test subjects. In the past, most of the test subjects were mainly white and male. Now, the university that we worked with was creating larger sample sizes that comprised females with a variety of backgrounds. We wanted to know how a variety of people, with different races and backgrounds, reacted to certain drugs and treatments.

Now, I’m raising money to further those studies, and I was really pleased about how well the gala had been received. As I stepped into the building, I saw that many of the guests that I invited had indeed showed up. We had invited philanthropists, celebrities, politicians, journalists, social media influencers but my real aim was to get the government’s attention, so we could help more people in need.

“Hey, you look great.” Lincoln, my brother tapped me on my shoulder.

I turned around and gave him a hug. “You look nice too. Where is my sister-in-law?”

“She’s just checking out backstage.”

“What? Is she performing?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Chloe was a first-class pole dancer, and a very talented ballerina. When I invited her to perform tonight, Lincoln had rejected the invitation on her behalf because she was pregnant. But that was almost six months ago, and I didn’t know about the pregnancy.

“Yes, she said she would if there’s an auction large enough. And if they didn’t mind her belly.” Lincoln said sheepishly. In spite of everything, I knew how much he loved watching Chloe dance.

“No one would mind a little bit of her belly. She looks nice with a bit of a belly.” I reassured him, my hand on his bicep to comfort him. He was so protective of his wife, and it was touching.

“Listen, Liam asked me to tell you that your item went missing.”

“You mean the antique vase from the Ming Dynasty?” It was an antique replica that a client gifted me. Although it wasn’t an original vase that was used by the emperor, it was a replica secretly made and traded during that time period among the aristocrats. It was still worth a fortune.

As much as I loved that vase, it didn’t quite fit in with the rest of my apartment. I knew it would collect lots of money tonight, so why not donate it for a good cause?

“I have no idea. Just that your thing was missing.” Damn, of course he wouldn’t know what I had donated. Lincoln and Chloe had been living in Myrtle Beach and had no part in organizing this party.

“Did someone steal my vase? What happened to it?” I whispered loudly to him, looking around me as if I’d see someone casually walking off with my vase.

“Junie, how many times are you going to make me say this?” It was too tempting. Link couldn’t resist giving me a lecture whenever there was a chance.

“I handed it over to someone from the auction house, alright.” I hesitated. “I’m pretty sure.”