Taming The Bad Boy Billionaire Box Set 1 (Taming The Bad Boy Billionaire 1-3)

“I was always under the impression it was a river. Come on,” he reached pleadingly for the keyboard, “give it to me. Let me help.”

“You’re not helping,” I clarified, shutting down the notion. “If anything, you’re making this take ten times longer than it’s supposed to.”

He ignored me, eyes lit up with a manic glow from the screen.

“Go back to ‘patio and garden.’ I think we should buy a rake.”

“We are not buying a—” I slapped his hand as he reached for the mouse, “don’t touch that! We are not buying a rake. You don’t even have a lawn.”

“Someday I might have one.” His eyes glassed over as he imagined a million possibilities he’d never considered. “In fact—I bet that’s something we could order from here too!”

I gave him a long look, before securing the laptop squarely on my own legs.

“This was a huge mistake.”

“No, it wasn’t!” he said excitedly. “Abby, you were totally right. This is great! And very normal,” he added seriously, upon seeing the look on my face.

I let out a snort of laughter, and continued browsing for clothes.

Nick hadn’t told me where the storage space was—according to him, it was somewhere on the Eastern seaboard, but that was the only thing he could remember. Instead, he had insisted upon building up my wardrobe from scratch—his treat.

Under normal circumstances, I would have refused. But no matter how hard we were pretending, these were hardly normal circumstances. And since it was his fault that I didn’t have any clothes in the first place, well...his treat.

“I still can’t believe you’ve never done this,” I muttered, adding a full length trench coat to my bag. At first, I’d tried to be thrifty. He’d deleted the entire bag and forced me to start over. “I think I could literally do it in my sleep.”

He bristled defensively.

“I could do it if I want.” The cool confidence was gone, replaced again with that same little kid. The one who was eyeing the laptop with a strangely covetous expression. “I’m sure I could do it a hell of a lot faster than you.”

“Oh yeah?” I turned to him expectantly. “What’s your email password?”

He hesitated, probably wishing he hadn’t made it the name of whatever girlfriend he’d had at the time. There was no way to track it now.

“It’s...uh, it’s...”

“What’s your cell phone provider? The name of those Belgian chocolates you like so much? What’s the PIN to your ATM card? I noticed the other night, that the teller just checked your ID and handed you money.”

Outgunned at every turn, he decided to ignore the problem entirely—turning up his head with a sneer. “Abby, haven’t you ever read Thoreau? That stuff isn’t what’s important. It’s people. It’s the connections we—”

“Really?” I cut him off with a sarcastic grin. “You’re going to try to get out of this by faking an existential awakening? Will I find you reading down by the pond?”

“Point is,” he countered defiantly, “all you need to buy those things is money. I have money. Case closed.”

“I have your bank passwords.”

The two of us shared a long look. Then he lowered his eyes with a shudder.

“That’s a chilling thought...”

I laughed and got back to my shopping, as he folded his hands petulantly in his lap, and tried ever-so-casually to insert what he thought to be vital input.

“You should get it in the blue...” he muttered, casting a sideways glance at the screen.

The mouse hovered uncertainly over two different designer slips. I had been going for the black. He was obviously leaning the other way. After another moment’s pause, I went with my original instinct. He leaned back his head with a long-suffering sigh.

“Really?” I exclaimed, turning to face him. “Who’s going to be the one wearing the slip, Nicholas? Who should be the one to pick it?”

He sat up—thrilled to finally be included, and just as indignant as me.