“I will, right away. As soon as everyone has cake.”
“This is delicious.” Vera’s mouth is already so full that it comes out more like ‘dis ish delishmush.’
They clear out of the kitchen with the plates, and Wilder starts dishing up more. I thought we’d have cake leftover, but it’s disappearing faster than we can get it out to people.
“I’m just going to give this to Pappy S, and I’ll be back.”
“Sounds good,” Wilder says as he leans over the cake and kisses me again. My whole body turns all mushy and fluttery, and I stop worrying about cake. We’ll have enough. This day has been perfect so far, and I couldn’t ask for a better way to celebrate the end of our first year together and the start of so many more. “And speaking of life sentences, if that’s what you want to call it, then I’m happy to do mine with you too.”
“See? The cheesy lines always work.”
“Yeah,” I agree with a nod at Wilder, my heart filled to overflowing. “I guess they really do.”
The End.
Book 3
HATING THE BILLIONAIRE PRICK
Lindsey Hart
DESCRIPTION
I have to live with that high and mighty jerk for six months?
He's already harassing me about how messy everything is in my house.
Already making suggestions about what to change.
And I have no choice but to bear with it for six months?!
CHAPTER 1
Finn
Just because our family is wealthy, it doesn’t mean I’m one of those trust funds kids who sit on my ass eating caviar on little crackers and drinking champagne every night of the week. For the past nine years, I’ve worked my hind end off. It’s a family honor thing. It’s our last name on the line.
I told my grandfather’s lawyer as much at the reading of his will a week ago. Alright, so I might have had some ill-timed, not so thought out, spur of the moment words that the prim and proper old-fashioned lawyer lady with the grey curls and huge, pointy, nineteen-fifties style glasses didn’t like so much. It went something to the tune of this:
“What the heck was the old man thinking? Obviously, he was senile. Kansas? Some farm? I’ve spent years earning that money. Now I have to go and live with a stranger for half a year in order to prove I care about this company when I’ve been working in and for it these past nine years? Why in the ever-living country, hillbilly, hippy hell would I ever do that?”
The lawyer, after a long lawyerly sigh and a raise of those overly bushy white brows of hers, said something like this:
“I can assure you that your grandfather was in perfect control of his faculties when he made this will last year, Mr. Batchbottom. It’s true that it stipulates you have to live with Miss Wilkinson for six months to access your inheritance, but she was no stranger to your grandfather. He believed very strongly in what she’s doing, and he thought it would be good for you to do so too. And words like hillbilly and hippy aren’t appropriate for use here. And her lifestyle is not your place to judge. And you are not more special than she or anyone else is. That’s what your grandfather wanted you to figure out.”
After that beat down by Bushy Browed Betty, I shut the hell up and left with what little dignity I had left, which wasn’t much. I went straight back to my house to nurse my wounds. And think. I did a lot of thinking. The thinking went on for days as I weighed my options.
My grandfather's will basically stipulated I had to go live in some shit end of the world for six months in a faraway little house with a crazy, hippy, hillbilly—oh right, I shouldn’t be using those words—woman who I didn’t know on some tiny little sanctuary—most likely a dumpy farm—that took in farm and other neglected animals. The only thing I knew about her was that she must be one heck of a witch or a really good gold digger because she’d seduced my grandfather into making the world’s worst decision, which was then followed by the world’s worst will.
Essentially, it all boiled down to the fact that if I didn’t go live in Hickville (probably also not a word to be throwing about), then I would have to give up my billion-dollar inheritance, my place in the company since I’d be barred from working there, and also all my other assets. I’d be forced to sell everything because there was no way for me to maintain any of it. My current lifestyle would also be one big no-go. Everything I worked so hard for would be gone. I could live with losing the house, the cars, and whatever other possession I have, but I couldn’t stand the thought of losing my place in the company. It might not be exciting work—designing luxury motorhomes and their furniture was never something I saw myself enjoying as a kid, but I’ve worked hard, both in college and after, to carry on the Batchbottom name.