Page 10 of Auctioned to the Billionaire Stalker

“What?” I asked.

“Nothing.” He kind of shook his head before smiling at me. “And you work at Dinardo’s?”

“Yes.”

He nodded, taking this in as if I’d just told him something really important, some answer to the universe. “That’s… well, that’s great.”

“It is?”

“Yes. That means I get to see you again.”

I heard a sharp intake of breath and turned my head to see that Jack’s grandma had come back into the lobby. She was holding an enormous shirt in her hand and staring at the two of us, an interested expression on her unusually pretty face. Tallon also stared, looking completely shocked and more than a little amused.

Jack Lancaster wanted to see me again.

Me. Daisy Tiller. The woman who’d ruined the lunch he obsessively craved and covered him in tomato soup in the process. I couldn’t wrap my head around that.

“She needs to change, Jack,” his grandma said, gently. “You can put her down now.”

Jack looked down at me, jaw clenched. He didn’t say anything, but I could practicallyfeelthat he didn’t want to put me down.

He did, though.

“Yeah,” he said, slowly putting me down and holding onto me until he knew I was steady on my feet. “Yeah, okay.” He held my arms for a couple of more beats before finally dropping his large handsto his sides.

“Thanks,” I said. “For you know, the carrying and the not getting mad at me and the shirt and all.” I was self-conscious and whenever that happened, I tended to blurt things out or talk too much. I turned away from him. “Is there a place I can change?” I asked.

“Sure, honey.” Jack’s grandma gestured for me to follow her. “You can call me Cynthia,” she said over her shoulder.

“Okay.” I followed her.

This had been one of the strangest days of my life so far.

And I’d had a lot of strange days.

CHAPTER THREE

Jack

Tallon waited until he heard the door close to the bathroom. “What the fuck,” he had a huge grin on his face, “was that?”

I ran a hand through my hair, forgetting it was drenched in tomato soup. “I don’t know,” I said honestly. “I just… like her.”

“Well, yeah. I picked up on that. I’ve never seen you like that before, man. What’s going on?”

“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “I want to be around her, though.” I suddenly panicked. Once Daisy came out of the bathroom, she wouldn’t have a reason to stay. “Quick. What do I do?”

Tallon frowned a little, a disturbed look on his face. “What do you mean?”

“I can’t let her leave without knowing when I’ll see her again.”

His eyes widened. “She’s a delivery girl at the deli you’ve literally ordered the same lunch from for the past ten years. Or more,” he said, shaking his head. “Just call Old Man Dinardo and request her as your delivery person from now on.”

I heaved a sigh of relief, putting my hand on my chest as the feeling of tightness that had appeared there when I thought I’d have to watch her walk away from me started to ease. “God, you’re fucking brilliant,” I said, reaching for the phone on Grandma’s desk.

He gave me a strange look. “That’s one of the least brilliant things I’ve ever said. It was pretty obvious, man. What the hell is wrong with you?”

I heard a door closing and then footsteps headed our way.I started to dial the number Grandma had taped to her desk beside the phone. It was on a note, titled ‘Frequently Dialed Numbers’.