Page 96 of How to Train Your Billionaire

“You haven’t eaten since the service.”

“I had coffee.”

“Coffee’s not food.”

She finally looks at me. Her eyes are red rimmed and hollow. “Why are you still here?”

Good question. I should be back at work, dealing with the dozen crises that piled up while I was playing grief counselor. Instead I’m here, watching Frankie fall apart in slow motion.

“Where else would I be?”

“I don’t know. Your penthouse. Your office. Somewhere that isn’t watching me have a mental breakdown.”

I sit down across from her, pushing the take-out container closer. “Charles asked me to take care of you.”

“That’s not your job.”

“Maybe I want it to be.”

The words slip out before I can stop them. Frankie’s eyes widen slightly.

“Hayes—”

“I have an idea.” I stand up before she can finish whatever she was going to say. “But you’re going to hate it.”

“What is it?”

“Let’s order liverwurst. We’ll have dinner together in his memory. We can even play Scrabble.”

A short laugh bursts from her lips. The first real sound she’s made in days.

“You’re right. I do hate that idea.” She wipes her eyes. “But let’s do it.”

Two hours later, we’re sitting at Charles’s dining table with a spread that would make him proud. Liverwurst and onions from the German place downtown. Terrible red wine that tastes like it came from a box. Scrabble board between us like a peace treaty.

“He would have loved this,” Frankie says, cutting into her sausage.

“He would have beaten us both at Scrabble.”

“Remember that time in Montana when he got ‘quixotic’ on a triple word score?”

“And then acted like it was no big deal.” I shake my head. “Smug bastard.”

Frankie actually smiles. Small, but real.

We eat in comfortable silence. The kind Charles and I used to share during those late-night phone calls about nothing and everything.

“I still can’t believe he’s gone,” she says eventually.

“Yeah.”

“I keep expecting him to walk in and complain about us eating on his good china.”

I glance at the plates we grabbed from his kitchen. She’s right—these probably cost more than most people’s cars.

“He’d be more upset about the wine.”

“This wine is perfectly fine.”