Booked with the Billionaire

Chapter One- Wren

"Whew. That's about it."

I slid the last book onto the shelf and stepped back, hands on my hips, admiring my work.

The admiration lasted all of three seconds.

A copy of Beach Read was sticking halfway out of the mystery section.

I stared at it.

The book stared back.

"You know what?" I said, pointing at it. "I tried."

Mr. Pickles, who had spent the better part of the afternoon asleep in the armchair by the register, lifted his orange head and blinked at me as if to say that my shelving standards were a personal disappointment. He let out a sleepy meow.

"Don't start with me," I warned.

He yawned.

Traitor.

I pulled the book free and returned it to the romance shelf where it belonged. Then I stretched, my shoulders popping in protest. I'd been on my feet since nine that morning, and every bone in my body was filing complaints.

The Hawthorne Bookshop had finally settled into its favorite kind of quiet.

Warm lamplight spilled across the old hardwood floors, catching the dust motes drifting lazily through the air. The scent of paper and coffee lingered from the pot I'd brewed hours ago and forgotten to finish. Outside, the street had gone mostly dark, the last of the evening shoppers already on their way home.

I loved this time of day.

When the chatter was gone, the shop felt like it belonged only to me.

"You're doing it again."

I looked over my shoulder to find Eleanor Hart standing near the romance section, one hand curled around the strap of her handbag.

"What?"

"That look."

I frowned. "What look?"

"The one where you stare at the shelves like you're in love with them."

I glanced around the store and smiled. "I might be."

She snorted.

At seventy-two, Eleanor Hart had silver hair, sharp blue eyes, and a talent for inserting herself into other people's business. She'd been my grandmother's best friend for forty years, which meant she'd taken it upon herself to become my honorary grandmother after my grandmother passed and I'd inherited the bookstore.

I never had much luck saying no to her.

"Normal people don't look at books that way," she said.

"Normal people are overrated."

"That's what I worry about."

I laughed softly and tucked a strand of dark hair behind my ear.

"You heading upstairs?"

"I've been trying to head upstairs for the last fifteen minutes. You're the one still puttering around."

"I'm closing."

"You've already closed."

"Now I'm… making sure we're closed."

She gave me a look.

I ignored it.

"Any plans tonight?" she asked.

I bent to straighten a stack of bookmarks on the counter. "I was thinking pajamas, tea, and unconsciousness."

"Oh, sweetheart."

"What?"

"You are twenty-eight years old."

"And exhausted."

"When I was twenty-eight, I danced until midnight."

I looked up. "You?"

"Yes, me."

"I don't believe that."

She gasped. "I was a catch."

"Sure you were."

"I had admirers."

"Plural?"

"Several."

I smiled. "I'm starting to think this is fiction."

She pointed a finger at me.

"Mock your elders all you want, but one day you'll regret spending every evening hiding in this bookstore."

I leaned against the counter.

"I'm not hiding."

"You absolutely are."

"I'm working."

"You always say that."

"Because it's true."

"Mm-hmm."

I narrowed my eyes.

She narrowed hers right back.

I lost first.

With a sigh, I said, "Fine. Maybe I like being here."

"I know you like being here. I just don't think this place should be your entire life."

I looked around the shop; the shelves my grandmother had chosen one by one, and the framed photographs that had become as familiar as breathing. "You're being dramatic," I said.

"I earned the right to be dramatic forty years ago."

A smile tugged at my mouth, and Eleanor's expression softened.

"You need to get out more, sweetheart."

"I do get out."

"Buying groceries doesn't count."

I shrugged, which she correctly interpreted as agreement; I wasn't willing to give out loud.

Eleanor sighed the way she always did when she'd decided I was a lost cause for the evening.

"Well, if you insist on spending your Saturday night with fictional people, I'm going upstairs."

"You say that like it's a punishment."

"It is."

I laughed, and she came around the counter and pressed a kiss to my cheek, warm and quick and smelling faintly of the lavender hand cream she'd used for as long as I could remember.

"Don't stay up all night. And for the love of God, eat something."

"I had a muffin."

"Wren."

"And coffee."

She pulled back and looked at me the way my grandmother used to, that particular brand of fond exasperation that somehow managed to feel like being loved.

"Your grandmother would haunt you for this. And then she'd haunt me for letting you get away with it."

"She always liked you better anyway."

Eleanor's mouth twitched. She squeezed my hand once, firm and brief, and then let go.

"Good night, sweetheart."

"Night, Eleanor."

I watched her leave the shop and cross the sidewalk toward the apartment entrance next door. The bell chimed softly behind her, and when the door clicked shut, the bookstore settled into the kind of quiet it only knew after everyone else had gone home.

Mr. Pickles dropped off his chair with a soft thud and waddled over. I crouched down and scooped him up, and he arranged himself against my chest with the boneless ease of a cat who had never once experienced a moment of self-doubt.

"Well," I said, scratching behind his ears, "it's just us."

He purred.

I carried Mr. Pickles behind the register and made the mistake of opening the cash drawer.

The smile slipped from my face as I counted the money once, then again, as though a second look might somehow improve the numbers. It didn't.

Rent was due in two weeks, I still needed to place next month's inventory order, and sales had been dropping steadily for months.

I let out a long sigh and leaned back in my chair.

"We're fine," I told the cat.

Mr. Pickles blinked up at me.

"Okay, maybe we're not fine. But if you know a secret way to pay rent, now would be a great time to share."

He answered with a louder purr.

"Very helpful."

I set him down and looked around the bookstore. At night, the place always seemed smaller somehow, cozier, as though the shelves and armchairs had drawn closer together after the customers went home.

My gaze lingered on the old bookcases my grandmother had picked out, then on the reading nook she'd insisted every bookstore needed. Finally, it settled on the framed photograph behind the register, the one of us on my fifteenth birthday, both of us grinning at the camera with cake frosting on our noses.

I wasn't ready to lose it.

I reached over and turned off the display lights one by one, the way my grandmother had taught me, until only the lamp behind the register was left.

Tomorrow would be better.

It had to be.

A deafening crash shattered the silence.

Glass exploded inward, and I screamed as Mr. Pickles bolted beneath the counter.

For one stunned heartbeat, I could only stare.

Then my brain caught up.

"Oh, my God."

I stumbled out from behind the register, my shoes crunching over broken glass. Half my front window was gone, and where it had once stood was the gleaming hood of a black sports car that had somehow ended up inside my bookstore.

"What the hell?"

I shoved the door open and stepped onto the sidewalk.

A crowd had already gathered, phones raised as if my disaster were tonight's entertainment. In the middle of it all stood a man.

He was tall, broad-shouldered, and wearing a dark suit that probably cost more than my rent. His black hair was slightly mussed, and his eyes looked impossibly blue.

He had one hand raised, trying unsuccessfully to wave the crowd back.

"Nobody's hurt," he was saying. "Can everyone please take a step back?"

A woman near the front gasped.

"Wait… isn't that Ezra Kane?"

Another phone immediately went up.

"Oh my God, it is."

"The Ezra Kane?"

The name meant absolutely nothing to me.

Apparently, I was the only one.

A man near the back muttered, "This is going to be all over the news tomorrow."

Wonderful. Not only had someone driven into my bookstore, but whoever he was, he was important enough to turn a car accident into an event.

Then I marched toward him.

He turned at the sound of my footsteps, his gaze settling on me for a beat before flicking to the shattered storefront behind me.

"You did this?" I demanded.

He looked at the car, then at the broken window, and finally back at me.

"It would appear so."

I blinked.

"You drove your car into my bookstore."

"I don't think we need to keep restating the obvious."

I stared at him.

"Oh, my God."

He exhaled and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Look, nobody's hurt, which is the important thing."

"The important thing?" I repeated. "My window is gone."

"You destroyed my storefront."

He glanced past me.

"I may have damaged it somewhat."

"Do you have any idea how much this is going to cost me?"

"No."

I let out a sharp, humorless laugh.

"Of course you don't."

He shoved his hands into his pockets. "Why are you acting like this is the end of the world? It's a window."

"Perfect. Give me your address, and I'll drive straight through your living room. It's just a house, right?"

One dark brow lifted, and for the briefest second, he looked almost amused.

"I’m going to call the police." That finally got a reaction.

"That seems unnecessary, lady."

"You drove into a building."

He frowned slightly. "I feel like we're focusing on the negative."

I stared at him. "The negative? You crashed your car into my bookstore!"

"And nobody got hurt, which feels like a positive."

A few people in the crowd snorted.

I looked around wildly.

"Why is no one else concerned about this?"

"Because they all seem to be having a great time," he said dryly.

Someone's phone flashed, and he grimaced.

"Oh, for God's sake."

I pointed toward my bookstore.

"You cannot seriously think you can just walk away from this."

He looked at the damage one more time before turning back to me.

"I'll have my assistant send someone first thing tomorrow."

"Send someone?"

"To fix it."

"Are you hard of hearing?"

That did it.

I jabbed a finger at him. "Listen here, Mr. Condescending Asshole. You, rich people are all the same."

One dark brow lifted. "Oh, this should be good."

"You think money fixes everything. You don't know how many nights I've stayed up wondering how I'm going to pay my bills, and you drive your stupid, ridiculously expensive car through my window and act like it's an inconvenience."

"Ouch," someone in the crowd muttered.

I didn't even glance their way.

"And then you stand there looking annoyed because I'm upset. Are you kidding me? Do rich people lose all sense of reality once their bank accounts hit a certain number?"

A collective, "Oooooh," rolled through the crowd.

For the first time, something hard entered his expression.

"You done?"

I blinked. "What?"

"Are you done?"

I opened my mouth, closed it, then realized I was breathing hard.

"...Yes."

He nodded once. "Okay."

Then he turned and started walking away.

I stared after him. "Hey! Where are you going?"

"I'm not standing here to be insulted by a random stranger."

The crowd erupted.

"OHHHH!"

I nearly choked. "Stranger? I’m not the one in the wrong here!"

“Neither am I,” he said as he turned to continue walking.

"You haven’t even apologized?"

One hand slid into his pocket. "Why apologize for something I can fix?"

Silence.

He gave me a brief nod, as though the matter had been settled, then got into his car. A second later, the engine started.

"Wait…"

The car pulled away from the curb.

And just like that, he was gone.

I stood there on the sidewalk, surrounded by broken glass, a crowd of strangers, and a bookstore with half a window missing.

A phone camera flashed.

I threw my hands into the air. "All right, show's over. Go home."

Nobody moved.

I turned to go back into the bookstore.

I had no money for rent, a giant hole in my bookstore, and apparently, a billionaire-shaped disaster had just crashed into my life.

I was so screwed.