Page 53 of My Three Billionaire Rockstars

Istare at Xander, not sure if I should explode or not.

How is he so calm after what he did?

How is Gabe not saying anything?

Julian, meanwhile, is already elbow deep in the food bags like he’s catering a corporate retreat instead of eating takeout off a kitchen island the size of Rhode Island.

“Okay,” he says brightly, pulling containers out one after another and laying them on the dining table. “Amazing. We’ve got burgers, fries, onion rings, chicken tenders, pie… whoever packed this understood the assignment.”

I should leave.

I know I should.

The entire situation is absurd. I should turn around, march out of the giant villain estate, drive back to town, and spend the rest of the night complaining about rich men with control issues to Daisy until I feel like a person again.

Instead, I stay exactly where I am, still glaring at Xander.

He doesn’t look away.

That’s the problem with him. He never seems rushed. Never flustered. Never scrambling to recover a point or soften a blow. He just stands there, solid and controlled and very obviously used to having the room come to him.

Which is precisely why I want to push back harder.

“You think saying I can still leave somehow fixes this?” I ask.

“No,” he says.

That catches me off guard again.

His fingers tap once against the side of his thigh.

Then again.

Drumming. Like there’s more going on under all that calm that he’s not saying out loud.

He keeps his eyes on mine. “I think it means I removed the practical problem, not the personal one.”

I cross my arms. “Wow. Interesting.”

A corner of Julian’s mouth twitches as he opens the drinks. Gabe, who has been watching the whole thing in that unsettling way of his, reaches for a glass and starts pouring an amber liquid over ice like he’s hosting a board meeting instead of whatever the hell this is.

Xander doesn’t rise to the sarcasm. That alone should’ve warned me tonight was going to be weird.

“You’re angry,” he says.

“That’s an incredible observation.”

“You should be.”

I blink.

Julian pauses mid-reach for an onion ring. Gabe glances up.

I stare at Xander harder, because that cannot possibly be his actual approach here.

He inclines his head once, like we’re discussing weather patterns instead of the fact that he just bought my evening. “You’re angry because I stepped into something that wasn’t mine to manage. I understand that.”

“Do you?” I ask. “Because from where I’m standing, it feels a lot like you did exactly what you wanted and expected me to just deal with it.”