Despite the Gentleman's Riches: Sweet Billionaire Romance (For Richer or Poorer Book 1) (7 page)

"What do you think you're doing?" my irate charge demanded when the puddle of calm had lengthened into a river. For the last five minutes, we'd been watching a nature documentary that I was pretty sure had made even Lena yawn, so she was obviously reacting to my take-charge attitude rather than to the interruption of her so-called entertainment. But would the teenager admit that I'd finally gotten on her nerves? There was only one way to find out.

"I'm turning off the TV," I told the girl, "to give us some peace and quiet. And because we need to talk."

We didn't talk. At first, I thought for sure Lena would erupt into complaints, her jaw clenching in preparation just like Jack's had last night when I'd pretended to dislike his sister. And, even though I knew the ensuing conflict wouldn't be pleasant, I was actually hoping to get chewed out. I wanted Lena to admit that I'd riled her up, that she was too old for a babysitter. In fact, I hoped the teenager's ire might even tempt her to let slip a clue or two to help me decipher the real root of her anger, allowing us to get started on lancing that wound. The metaphorical pus that oozed out wouldn't be pretty, but Lena would feel better once it was gone.

So I thought I'd gotten lucky when my charge
leapt to her feet, fists clenched in anger. If we'd been cartoon characters, steam would have come pouring out of the girl's ears as she opened her mouth...only to close it again with a snap as she turned her eyes back to the silent television.

To my dismay, I realized that the teenager was shutting back down, the spark in her eyes diminishing by the second. Soon, I'd be just another dust mote in her otherwise impeccably clean house, and I had a feeling that if Lena dismissed me now, I might never break through her walls.

But at least she was currently standing. So I grabbed the girl's hand and tugged, pulling her behind me down the long hallway that should have been covered with family photos, past the entryway that should have been clogged with dirty boots and forgotten hats, and out the door that should have been scuffed from the inevitable coming and going of a busy family. I didn't look back, knowing that if I did, Lena would quickly don an impenetrable mask of disdain. Instead, I hoped that the actual expression on her face, when no one was looking and she was nearly sliding down the polished wooden floors in an effort to keep pace with me, might be akin to glee.

Outside, I breathed deeply for the first time since setting foot in the Reynolds mansion that morning. The additional oxygen made me giddy, and I couldn't help succumbing to silliness, waving one arm toward my rust bucket of a car and announcing, "Your chariot awaits, my lady."

It was inevitable that Lena would tear down our mode of transportation, and she didn't disappoint. "I wouldn't be caught dead in
that thing
," the teenager said, her nostrils flaring but a hint of a sparkle entering her eyes. I was right—the girl
was
drawn to adventure despite her better sense. Why else would a smart teenager steal a plane and flee from a fancy boarding school with no exit strategy?

So I didn't take offense, and instead clattered down the front steps—no sedate walking for me until this stuffy mansion warmed up a bit and stopped being so full of itself. "Ah, yes," I agreed. "My chariot doesn't look like much on the outside, but your brother did an astonishing job last night. For example, look here."

I knelt down beside the tailpipe and, after a glance at her previously unblemished white pants, Lena followed suit. "I can't believe I'm looking up the asshole of a car," the girl groused, and I grinned. My charge's language wasn't precisely PG-13, but she
was
funny.

"
This
is the brand new exhaust system that your brother installed, ensuring that our chariot is as silent as she is non-polluting," I said proudly. I'd been supremely disappointed this morning when I removed the ribbon from my rust bucket, turned the key...and heard the starter engage but no additional engine noise fill the air. Only after a muttered complaint—
So you're Mr. Fish Sticks, not Jack, after all
—did I realize that the car
was
running; the vehicle was simply so much quieter than I was used to that I'd assumed the worst. In fact, when I'd jumped out of my seat and run around to the back of the car, I could see that the cause of my newly muffled ride wasn't a patched exhaust system like I'd expected, but a whole shiny expanse of fresh pipes running underneath the chassis and barely spitting out any fumes at all. Quieter
and
cleaner—my heart had seemed to rise up into my throat as Jack's smiling face filled my mind.

Shaking my head to return my thoughts to the present, I dug a penny out of my pocket and waved it in front of my companion's nose. "And look at this!" I felt like a magician pulling a coin from behind a child's ear as I stuck the penny down into the grooves of the closest tire to test the tread. "It covers the top of the Lincoln Memorial! I'll definitely pass inspection this time around!" New tires had been another major perk of the Reynold's Car Repair Caper.

Lena raised her eyebrows and said, with absolutely no expression in her voice: "Woo hoo?" But I was beginning to understand that if the girl was speaking, she was engaged, so I straightened, pulled Lena to her feet, and opened the passenger door.

"Get in," I ordered. "We're going to visit my cockatiel."
There
—what I'd been looking for all along. The true animation that had entered Lena's face when she'd argued with her brother over half-sibling DNA. No teenager would have been so familiar with the statistics spouted yesterday if she didn't harbor a secret interest in science, and what scientific-minded kid could resist a bird in the hand? Lena didn't display her excitement openly the way a normal kid would have, but she also didn't complain when her elegant clothes touched my grungy seat.

"Your lunch!" Shirley called from the front door, interrupting the moment. But that was okay—I had a feeling Florabelle would manage to knock the rest of Lena's walls down in short order. I met the housekeeper halfway between mansion and car, murmured quick instructions to tell Jack our whereabouts if he asked, then thanked her for boxing up our food so quickly. "No problem, sugar," Shirley answered. "Now get going before the girl changes her mind."

***

Lena didn't know how to lower unpowered car windows, and she looked at me a bit funny when her attempt to turn on the radio resulted in the piece of equipment falling out of its slot. The car had come without sound enabled, and the stereo that I'd bought for ten bucks at the junkyard didn't quite fit into the space provided. "Just shove it back in," I told my charge, suiting action to words without taking my eyes off the road. "It's no big deal." As a reward for my nonchalance, I thought I might have caught the glimmer of a smile out of the corner of my eye.

"So, I've trained Florabelle to tell friend from foe," I chattered as we pulled up in front of my trailer. It looked even smaller and older than usual when compared to the Reynolds' mansion, but my home also felt warmer and friendlier. I'd take my residence over Lena's any day of the week.

"You have an attack cockatiel?" Lena responded, and I could tell that she was working hard not to let a grin overwhelm her entire face. No problem—I could allow the teenager to play it cool as long as she kept asking questions.

"Not quite," I answered. "But I
do
have an annoying landlord, and if my bird yells loudly enough when he comes over, Mr. Reed usually leaves. So, anyway, when I open the trailer door, I want you to say, 'Hi, Florabelle.' That's my pet's cue that she doesn't need to go nuts and can use her company manners."

"She probably still won't like me," Lena muttered, her shoulders tensing back up as we stepped out of the car. I had a feeling her sentence hadn't been meant for public consumption, so I pretended not to notice, instead filing it away to mull over at my leisure. There definitely
was
some gaping sore in Lena's soul that would have to be addressed once I'd won a bit more of her trust.

"Hi, Florabelle," we chorused as we walked inside, and my cockatiel greeted us with an excited squawk. Despite my pet's enthusiasm, though, entering the kitchen with a virtual stranger made me embarrassed by my worn linoleum floors and by the cracked (but clean) dishes sitting in the plastic draining rack. However, it soon became apparent that Lena only had eyes for my pet.

"Can we take her out of the cage?" the girl asked. Florabelle knew the drill and was already excitedly bobbing her head as she walked up and down on her perch. The bird's eagerness was contagious, and Lena finally looked like a normal kid now, her whole body leaning toward the cockatiel.

"Sure," I answered. "Just lift the latch and put in your finger."

"Me?" Lena took a step back and turned to face at me. "I don't know what I'm doing. Dad never let us have pets, and Jack said we might not be staying in one place long enough even for a goldfish...." Her voice trailed off as Florabelle lifted a foot into the air, urging the teenager onward. Still the girl wavered.

I didn't say anything, knowing that anyone with sense would be unable to resist Florabelle's advances. And, inevitably, as the bird's behavior grew even more exaggerated, Lena finally caved. "
Okay
," the teenager said, pretending to be fed up with my pushy cockatiel, but obviously lapping up the attention.

However, as Lena opened the cage door, I started to rethink this trial by fire. A cockatiel's beak is pretty hefty, designed to crack open nut shells and offering a pretty severe bite when angry. Not that I thought Florabelle would nip my charge—the bird was far too excited at the opportunity of coming out of her cage midday to show such poor behavior. But when a cockatiel steps off her perch, she often goes beak first, using the sensitive organ to steady herself before making the leap. The gesture didn't
feel
like a bite, but it sure looked like one. And what would Florabelle do if Lena got scared and jerked away?

So I held my breath as the girl slid her slender finger into the cage, as Florabelle pushed her head forward...and as Lena giggled her response. "Hey, that tickles," my charge murmured, pulling my bird gently out of the wire entranceway and holding the ball of feathers up to her face. As if on cue, my traitorous cockatiel dipped her head and begged for a neck scratch. And without waiting for advice from me, Lena gently began massaging the pointy pin feathers that required removal from their itchy sheaths.

"I think you're the only person other than me that Florabelle has ever let scratch her neck," I told my charge honestly, and I could almost see the girl's self-esteem swelling at the words.

***

Hours later, Florabelle had managed to take a bite out of every edible that Shirley had packed for our lunch, had charmed Lena into treating her to another bath, and had graced us both with several little green "presents" to stain our clothes. Lena seemed remarkably unbothered by the damp droppings, which raised the girl up a notch in my estimation—I couldn't quite imagine what Jack would do if Florabelle had sullied one of his perfect suits. But Lena just kept peppering me with questions. What did Florabelle eat? Was she lonely by herself while I was gone? How would a cockatiel live in the wild?

Once the avian-biology lecture petered out, my charge seemed content to simply wander through my trailer, which made me cringe since I was well aware of the kind of living accommodations the girl was used to. But the snide remarks I expected failed to materialize...until, that is, Lena pulled a battered college guide off the end of the couch and brandished it in the air as if the text were a hand grenade with the pin pulled out.

"Did Jack put you up to this?" she demanded, the teenager's earlier cynicism back in full force. Any interest Lena had felt in my cockatiel was now squashed in the face of her sudden anger, and I wished I'd had the forethought to put the book away this morning before getting in the car. Even worse, as the girl spoke, a paper fluttered out from between the pages, and I leapt forward, hoping to snag the incriminating evidence before Lena could read my scores.

No such luck. "The SAT?" she asked, confused now. As her ire faded, so did my self-centered focus, and the puzzle pieces of my charge's anger started to fall into place. Of course Lena would think that her brother and I had cooked up some evil plan to get her enrolled in school once again, especially once she found my dream book, as I liked to call the sum-up of pros and cons of American colleges and universities. Ms. Cooper had gifted me with the text when I was her student, and I'd dog-eared dozens of pages, selecting the absolutely perfect opportunity for higher learning to match my unique personality. Too bad that, when push came to shove, I realized I couldn't really afford to leave home for college after all.

But my SAT scores...those were truly embarrassing. "You made a perfect score," Lena said, awe filling her voice and making my cheeks turn red.

"I missed a question in math," I replied, my words self-deprecating. "They were recentering that year, so it's not really a perfect score...." Okay, maybe my explanation made the test results seem even worse, especially after you considered the way I hugged them to me, keeping the paper within easy reach to pore over on my truly bad days. But sometimes I needed objective confirmation that I wasn't a complete loser, especially since the evidence of my housing and job suggested otherwise.

"So, where
did
you go to school?" Lena asked at last. I could tell she was struggling with her own paranoia about my motives in keeping the book around, before eventually coming to the obvious (non-paranoid) conclusion. If Mr. Fish Sticks had put the text into my hands, he would have chosen a brand new, modern edition, not this decade-old college guide that was starting to lose pages in the back. And even Lena's brother probably wouldn't have thought to forge a sheet of SAT scores to enhance the charade.