Shopping for a CEO (Shopping for a Billionaire Series Book 7) Read Online Free PDF Page B

Declan call out as the elevator doors close.
    I close my eyes and slump against the elevator wall, wondering how my night opened with dog butts and ended with plaid fingernails.

Chapter Four
    Living with Pamela Warrick is a physical, and emotional, landmine. She’s always been high strung. Neurotic. Tightly wound. A Museum Mom. So anal retentive you could put coal up her butt and get a diamond.
    But only in private.
    Mom’s OCD is like tree pollen in Massachusetts in May. It is just there, a fine layer that coats every surface, appearing with a spectral green hue when it is at its worst. It makes your eyes water and your throat itch, a malady you can’t escape. No amount of drugs can stop it. Trust me. I tried, back in high school. And not the kind you buy at a drugstore. 
    I have heard—and told—all the jokes about her uptightedness .
    But when you add the fibromyalgia that hit her my senior year of high school, it’s like taking obsessive compulsive disorder and living with that on double speed.
    With pain.
    When she’s so picky I can’t do anything right, including breathing, I remind myself it’s not her fault. And it’s not. Getting rear-ended in a compact car by a guy driving the biggest SUV on the market and who didn’t even apply the brakes isn’t something anyone causes.
    Except for the asshole driver who was—that’s right—texting.
    Sexting , we learned, in the trial. You really do not want to watch those exhibits being paraded around a courtroom.
    Neither did his wife.
    Because the sexy pictures he received while texting weren’t from her .
    Mom’s settlement covered her medical bills, some of her ongoing massage and physical therapy, and about half my college tuition.
    But there’s never enough money to cover the change in her.
    I extracted myself from Shannon’s place with promises to return tomorrow. They’re not empty assurances, though Declan’s look of appraisal made it clear he didn’t care so much about the fool’s errand of buying weird grocery items at the buttcrack of the day, but did find my flimsy excuse for leaving to be about as sturdy as Donald Trump’s sense of feminist principles.
    I get out of the cab and walk up the front steps of our house, a rented duplex in Newton, the journey as familiar and comforting in a damning sort of way, as if my life is on infinite repeat and all I can do is march along the deep grooves that my own feet created long before this moment.
    “Amanda? Is that you?” Mom’s voice is a mixture of concern and anxiety. 
    “Who else would it be?” I say, realizing my mistake as the words come out.
    “Who else? You could be a robber,” she answers, outraged at my insouciance. “A rapist. Someone trying to steal that nice computer your boss gave you.”
    “Right.” The less said, the better. Did I mention what my mother does for a living? 
    She’s an actuary. Working right now on terrorist insurance for large corporations. It’s like having Josh Duggar work in costume design for Hooters.
    Nothing like picking a line of work that feeds into your greatest source of weakness.
    “It could be Tommy Lee Jones,” she says. 
    “Right—wait, what?”
    Mirth fills her voice. “Hah. Gotcha.”
    One joke. One little, not-funny joke is all it takes for me to understand her mood. I’ve cultivated a series of coping strategies for understanding where she is emotionally at any given time.
    “You got me,” I say, walking over to her old vinyl record player and putting on some Thelonius Monk, the neat, orderly steps for starting the machine done by rote memory, a soothing ritual that cuts through today’s craziness.  
    Mom’s passion of vinyl carried over to me. The scratches and bumps make the music gritty and real, and jazz helps her to mellow out.
    “What were you doing?” she asks as the music provides a backdrop for our talk. 
    “Kissing a billionaire,” I blurt out.
    “Really? There certainly are plenty of billionaires going around