Bad Bridesmaid (Billionaire's Club Book 11) by Elise Faber (important books to read txt) 📕

junior year in college and fed the travel bug that had bit me by traveling all over Europe.”

“And you haven’t stopped?”

“No,” he said. “I haven’t stopped. I work for two things—well, three things, I suppose. One, retirement. Two, to eat. Three, to travel.”

“So, why did you move out here? It’s got to be more expensive keeping an apartment in the Bay Area than where you used to live.”

That was true.

“When my parents followed Tammy and Jaime out here, I figured it was better to have a place close to everyone.” Even though Penny was still in the Midwest, she was thinking of moving to this coast, since increasingly more of her business was keeping her in San Francisco.

It was a Huntington invasion.

“That’s sweet.”

He shrugged, even though she couldn’t see him. “It just made sense. What about you?” he added. “How long have you been in California?”

“Born and raised.” A chuckle. “East Bay all the way.”

“And you haven’t gone far.”

“Nope. Just away to college and then right back here.” She laughed. “Hang on a second.” There was a blip of noise, almost sounding like she’d rolled her window down, and then he heard her say, “Thanks.” He waited another moment, and then her voice was back on the line. “Sorry about that.”

“Where are you?”

“Driving into work. I had to show my credentials,” she said, tone amused. “As my assistant would say, so I don’t put the top-secret shit at risk.”

“Top-secret? Wow, color me impressed.”

She snorted. “It’s a lot less exciting than it sounds. Trust me. I’m just a nerd with lots of computers, running lots of models, who spends her days in muffin-crumb-covered T-shirts and chugs coffee like it’s my life’s blood.”

“What’s your favorite type of muffin?”

“Banana chocolate chip. From Molly’s.” She waited a beat. “What’s yours?”

“I don’t know, cinnamon and sugar?” He waited a beat. “What’s Molly’s?”

“What’s Molly’s?” She gasped. “Only the best bakery in all of the Bay Area. And as a connoisseur of all things baked goods, that’s saying something.”

“I guess I’ll have to check out this Molly’s.”

“Not without me,” Heidi said. “It’s sacrilege to go by yourself the first time. You need help navigating the deliciousness.”

“Deliciousness?” He couldn’t help but tease. “Is that even a word?”

“Don’t know,” she said, her voice going slightly muffled. “Don’t care. Unless that caring gets me to Molly’s.”

“Is this you asking me on a date?”

“Again,” she said. “Don’t care, so long as it gets me to Molly’s sooner.”

He laughed outright. “You’ll take me to Molly’s as soon as possible.”

“Sold.” A beat. “You coming over tonight?”

His heart squeezed tight, excitement trickling through him. She was asking him over. She’d called him. This was big. This was him making his way back into her good graces. This was him getting his second chance. “Do you want me to come over?”

“I . . . well . . .” Now there was hesitation in her words. Shit. He should have just said yes.

“Heidi—”

Voices in the background.

“I’ve got to go.” He heard a rustling, as though she’d lifted the phone from her ear.

“Heidi,” he said quickly, pulse pounding in his veins.

The rustling stopped. “Yeah?”

“I’ll bring pizza.”

Silence. Long, interminable silence.

Then a soft sigh. “I’ll be home by six.”

Relief poured through him as they said goodbye and hung up. God, he was so not smooth, so not a player. He’d already fucked up the best thing he’d ever had with a woman once. Now he needed to be smart, to play this right.

Because Heidi was . . . everything.

Ten

Heidi

Normally, her work drew her in, made her lose all sense of time, forget every bit of her real life.

Normally, she was reduced to spreadsheets and calculations, the occasional coffee and muffin break. Oh, and her favorite kind of email exchange.

With her dad.

He wasn’t like her mom. He was nice, if more than a bit absentminded and wrapped up in whatever project he was currently working on. She remembered that distance used to hurt her feelings. But then he’d seemed to sense her loneliness, or maybe some part of him had finally registered what her mom’s sharp words had been doing, because one day he had brought her to his lab.

He hadn’t said a word to her mother.

Just packed her up one Saturday morning, loading her backpack with coloring materials, books, her favorite set of paper dolls—she’d had a thing for the American Girl dolls when she was young, okay?—and plenty of snacks, and they had disappeared into the world of science for a day.

She’d fallen out of love with paper dolls.

And into love with mass spectrometry.

Yup, the nerd gene ran deep.

Her mom had been furious—she’d missed some activity that Colleen had deemed very important for Heidi’s female education, never mind that she’d been all of seven at the time—but that hadn’t stopped her dad from taking her back every Saturday.

And sometimes on Sundays, too.

That time had kept her sane.

She still didn’t understand how her dad could be married to her mom—it wasn’t like she didn’t love her mom. She was her mom; of course Heidi loved her.

She just . . . didn’t like her.

But she loved her dad, and she kept in regular email contact with him, and because of him, she’d held on to her sanity during her childhood. Also, she supposed her mom wasn’t always completely awful. Occasionally Colleen said something nice, and it wasn’t like her entire childhood had been traumatic.

There had been good times.

They just . . . mostly involved her dad.

But regardless of the good or bad times, she loved that she could boot up her computer, get to work, and start the day with an email from her dad,

Remind me of the assay calculation for barrelene we talked about last time?

She loved that she could smile over lunch at the picture he’d sent of him posing in front of his new mass spectrometer.

And then feel her heart squeeze with happiness when he sent mid-afternoon,

I read your paper. It’s good, peanut. I’m proud of you.

Silly, huh?

Short little notes in her dad’s typical scattershot method.