“No wonder Connor flunked his last semester,” Graham growled.
“Connor.” Grayson clicked his tongue.
“I was too busy starting my business to study,” Connor whined.
“He’s taking summer school,” Finn said. “It’s a stain upon an already desecrated family name.”
Connor tried to lock his brother in a headlock. Moose the cat swiped at them from his vantage point on a nearby shelf when one of them got too close.
At that moment the cuckoo clock in the oversized bag on the gift table started shrieking. From the box on the luggage cart, barking could be heard.
“What the—”
Spencer was practically bouncing up and down.
“I know you had an itinerary for the party and that gifts were later, Lexi, but I must insist Grayson opens this at once.” He gestured grandly to the box.
“Can I put my name on it?” Connor asked.
“Hell no.”
A black nose pushed the top of the box off.
“Is that a puppy?” Marius exclaimed. “Wow, Lexi, you’re a miracle worker. Grayson is a changed man if he’s getting a dog.”
“The puppy was not on the itinerary,” I said, trying not to sound hysterical because, I mean, dead plants were one thing but a puppy? My eye was twitching as I looked at all the carefully selected furniture just begging to be chewed on by a dog.
“You have to look on the bright side,” Spencer reminded me with a laugh and pulled the top off the box. “Dalmatians are very Instagrammable.”
The puppy took one whiff of the food then hopped out of the box, sending the luggage cart careening away as he sprinted to the pigs in a blanket to a chorus of screams from McKenna and me.
Gizzy took one look at the Dalmatian puppy and hissed. The dog stopped short of the table.
“Good boy.” Grayson tossed Gizzy a snack.
The puppy, seeing that Grayson was wearing a black suit that could really use some white fur, practically jumped in his arms, licking his face.
“His name is Pongo—real imaginative, I know—and he was dumped on the side of the road. The Dalmatian rescue picked him up, and now he’s going to live with you,” Spencer said casually.
“A real happily ever after,” Graham stated dryly as the dog started peeing on my brand-new carpet.
“He’s just a puppy,” Grayson said softly, giving the puppy a very gentle shake to startle him midstream, then picked him up and carried him outside.
“I’m not a real maid,” Grenadine declared. “I’m not cleaning it up.”
“I’ll get it,” Grayson called from the terrace, where he had deposited the dog on the planting bed I had installed to liven up the space.
I was already racing for paper towels.
“You know,” Finn said as he helped mop up the floor, “I used to be jealous of this penthouse, but it’s a risky proposition living up here with a dog.”
“No kidding,” I said.
The dog raced through the penthouse, barking at everyone and everything.
“Where’s Aaron?” Grayson asked apprehensively.
The doorbell rang.
