Hayes Alexander Rutherford, aka a billionaire who would give his fortune to never see another single woman again in his life
There’s exactly one thing a man wants after two weddings, a funeral, a clandestine overnight drive, and an unfortunate incident with roadkill, and it is not more drama.
It is never more drama.
Or more people.
Or a complete and total disaster in what’s supposed to be a haven.
Yet instead of falling into bed at my private retreat on a small island off the coast of Maine, with the French doors of my bedroom balcony open to let in the sound of the ocean waves rolling to shore while I escape into a mindless oblivion to recover from the past few weeks, I’ve arrived to a problem.
Someone has broken into my estate just as surely as the sun is breaking over the clouds off the horizon as it rises over the water.
The back door to the main house is unlocked, the lights are on, dirty dishes and clothing are scattered all over the covered porch, someone’s piled paint-stained rags outside the laundry room, and the refrigerator is gaping open.
Worse?
There’s cheesecake in my refrigerator.
Cheesecake, pink wine—no, I don’t care what kind it is, not if it’s pink—three bags of peanut butter cups, two Styrofoam containers of god only knows what, a massive raw steak, a bottle of Tabasco sauce, and a stick of butter. All inside the refrigerator that should have its doors closed but doesn’t.
I stick my hand into the fridge.
Room temperature.
The wine bottle isn’t even sweating anymore, which means the doors have been open so long the damn refrigerator has ceased to function at all.
Worse?
This means whoever broke into my house ruined cheesecake.
How is it that the cheesecake is the most egregious of my intruder’s sins?
My head aches. My body is stiff and sore. I might have a touch of whiplash, I definitely smell faintly of skunk, I’m exhausted, and someone—an unauthorized someone who should not be in my sanctuary after all the lengths I went to in order to reach this place anonymously and undetected—is letting cheesecake go bad in my open refrigerator.
This should not be the most appalling error of the morning, yet here we are.
I’m rapidly becoming irrationally angry over spoiled cheesecake.
One hand on my phone, the other wrapped firmly around my regrets in ditching my security detail, I make my way through the living room to the staircase. There’s a subtle hint of music drifting from somewhere above, mud prints on my wood floor—both human and animal—and a maroon jacket embroidered with a smiling hot dog hanging on the banister.
This keeps getting worse.
For god’s sake, Hayes, call the police, my mother would say. You’re already not the catch your brother was. Don’t ruin what little good looks you have left by confronting the ruffians.
Reason enough to do this myself.
If I were a tad uglier, perhaps the fortune-hunting bachelorettes that I can’t seem to avoid would be less inclined to bat their lashes my way.
Not that their attention has anything to do with my looks.
Who needs looks when your bank account has as many zeroes as mine, and when your mother is as encouraging as mine? Provided you have the right pedigree and pass her background check, that is.
The scent of something sweet and unexpected tickles my nose, and not the way cheesecake would.
This is a nose-tickle of perfume. Given the increasing volume of the echoing music—is that “I Will Survive”?—and the yowling to go along with it, I don’t believe I’m about to find my property manager here taking advantage of my absence to live it up.
While I’m hardly an expert on the man, I’m positive he’s not the girl power song type.
Which means I’m about to find my squatter in the bathroom.
I make my way down the hallway to my suite and gently press the latch. The door swings easily and soundlessly as I push it open, revealing another disaster of clothing strewn about my bedroom and increasing the volume of the singing drastically. Two bras dangle off the mirror over my armoire. A box of tampons sits open on the floor outside the bathroom door. Four pairs of muddy shoes are scattered about the floor, perilously close to the Turkish rug beneath my bed.
But the mess is nothing compared to the singing.
Dear god, the singing.
There’s not a human in my bathroom. There’s a hyena stuck in the awkward stage of puberty, sucking down a helium balloon, and then letting it all go in an off-key rendition of the world’s worst karaoke song.
Not helping the headache.
Not helping the bone-deep exhaustion from the travel to get here stealthily.
Not helping my desire to be completely alone, away from the world, away from scheming socialites and my mother and wedding cakes and funeral flowers and the weight of generations’ worth of expectations that have landed squarely on my shoulders now that I’m not only the new chief financial officer of my family’s company, but also, rather quickly and unexpectedly, the final unmarried male billionaire under the age of eighty-three on this entire planet.
You’d think being nearly forty would give me all the freedom I need to tell anyone meddling in my personal life to fuck off, but my family’s fortune started with children’s cartoons in the 1950s and has continued with family-friendly movies, television shows, streaming networks, amusement parks, and branded merchandise, with most of us still front and center as the modern family of dreams.
We’re the very pillar of perfection.
The Rutherfords do not engage in scandalous behavior publicly, even mild infractions involving a slip of the tongue, no matter how much I’d like to climb the Brooklyn Bridge and let out a massive fuck some days.
And if I think my relatives’ attempts to introduce me to dozens of women who will be the next woman of my dreams is irritating, it’s nothing compared to the brow-beating I’d get for not living up to the family name.
The song changes, and my squatter launches into an off-key accompaniment to “thank u, next.”
It is too damn early for Ariana Grande and her lovely voice on-key.
Forget a pubescent over-heliumed hyena off-key.
I take two steps farther into my bedroom and spot my intruder through the crack in the bathroom door. Three more steps, and I can clearly see her.
In a manner of speaking.
Her hair is wrapped in a deep blue towel, my black silk robe dangles from her shoulders, her face is coated in green something, and she has one leg propped on the edge of my elegant tub, where she’s—
Dear god, tell me she is not doing what I think she’s doing.
She wails along with the lyrics that I frankly can’t understand, and also which don’t seem to be lyrics that should be wailed, while she gives a hard yank that momentarily interrupts the singing as she yelps in pain.
She is.
She’s waxing her bikini line with one foot perched at the edge of my marble soaking tub.
While wearing my robe.
The very audacity of this woman.
Invading my home.
Leaving litter and dirty dishes and soiled clothing on every available surface.
Disregarding all respect for cheesecake.
And standing in my bathroom, grooming herself while ruining already questionable songs.
This ends.
Now.
I step through the open doorway, ready to toss her over my shoulder and then off the balcony. “What in the devil do you think you’re doing?”
She spins, screams, and then, with ninja-fast reflexes, grabs an industrial-size bottle of shampoo, also from the edge of my tub, and hurtles it at my head.
“Stop!” I order.
“Intruder!” she yells over the infernal music. “Marshmallow! Attack!” She grabs a towel and flings it at me too.
I dodge it easily, though my weary body would prefer this was unnecessary. “Stop.”
For the love of every Razzle Dazzle film ever made, why did I finally choose today to ditch my security team?
Her robe—my robe—is gaping open, revealing creamy skin, lush breasts, and half-waxed not going there, but her state of undress doesn’t stop her from diving across the bathroom to my vanity, where she grabs a tube of toothpaste and throws that at me too. “Thief! Murderer!”
I take three steps toward her, and an electric toothbrush comes flying my way. “Who the hell do you think you are?”
“Help!” she yells. “Marshmallow!”
I swat aside a flung box. What the fuck is marshmallow?
Is she kinky? Is it her safe word?
Does she think I’m a stripper? Or a paid companion?
And I thought this couldn’t get worse.
She grabs the towel stand that sits in the middle of the vanity, but I reach her and wrestle it out of her grip before she can send that flying also, snagging her hands to keep them from causing more damage.
“What,” I breathe in her green-goop-covered face, “are you doing in my house?”
She flips her wrist, ducks, and escapes my grasp, diving for the closet. “This isn’t your house!”
Is she playing technicality games? Christ on a crumpet, I hate talking to people almost as much as I hate that I’m still having to shout over this infernal music. “It’s sure as fuck not your house.” Whoops. There I go with the fucks. Apologies, Mother. “What are you doing here?”
“Marshmallow!” she bellows. She’s spinning in a circle, muttering about too many damn doors, the towel on her head tilting, robe flapping open and giving me more of a view than I want of any woman today, and I finally catch on.
Fear.
She’s afraid.
Slow on the uptake, Hayes?
I grunt to myself, fist my hands in my pockets, and lean in the closet doorway, forcing myself to calm down and look at her like a math problem instead of as a fleshy ball of emotions who’s latched on to a hair dryer and is aiming it at me like she can blow me out of the doorway.
“Who are you?” For the record, it’s damn hard to keep my voice steady. I used up every last drop of my peopling skills five minutes into my brother’s wedding reception last night and had to fake it for another six hours. I have nothing left to employ for patience with this woman today, but she’s between me and overdue alone time.
She shifts back and forth on the balls of her feet, towel drooping, robe swaying, hair dryer still aimed at me. The green goop coating her face is getting spots, like she’s sweating through her face mask.
“I rented this house fair and square, and you need to leave.”
“I own this house, and I didn’t rent it to anyone.”
“Prove it.”
Prove it? “You have no idea who I am, do you?”
“Are you kidding me?” she mutters. “Another one? Marshmallow!”
“Stop yelling marshmallow. What the hell—”
It’s the last syllable I utter before I realize what a marshmallow is.
It’s a dog.
A large, black-and-brown, long-snouted, pointy-eared, teeth-baring, snarling attack dog.
I have a feeling I’m about to be its breakfast.
This day truly can’t get any worse.
