The Billionaire's Hired Bride (BWWM Billionaire Romance Book 1) Read Online Free PDF

knew rumors well enough that he could probably sort out at least some of the facts, and the next message proved that Minnie’s faith in that ability was well-placed.
     
    [Guess he turned down sex at some party because he’s trying to be faithful. You haven’t gotten involved with him, right?]
     
    It didn’t take any kind of guesswork to know exactly what kind of involved Avery was talking about. Minnie’s response was a single short [no].
     
    [Didn’t think so.]
     
    They left it at that, with Minnie wondering still if there had been anything genuine to James’ words, or if it was all an act.
     
    *
     
    If James himself had heard the rumors, nothing of it came through in their interactions. He treated her just as he had when she first arrived, which made it easier to pretend that nothing had changed. As far as he knew, nothing had.
     
    Minnie tried to not let herself get worked up over it; luckily, after spring break, she didn’t have much free time in which to do so. Finals were approaching, and her workload went up steadily as April and May passed by. A week before June, she officially went into “no dates, no fun” mode, spending most of her days either at class or slaving away over animation projects, and thinking of James only in the sense that she was glad that someone else would do the dishes.
     
    On the day of her last exam, Minnie came home and thoroughly intended to collapse into bed, but was hindered by the bouquet of flowers thrown in the middle of it. There was no doubt of the source, even before she looked at the note attached to it.
     
    Congrats on your exams. Want to go to the beach tomorrow?
     
    Too tired for even the most basic of social functions, Minnie just texted him her reply, after she set the flowers up in the vase that had been left on her dresser.
     
    [sleep tomorrow. beach day after.]
     
    And that was that.
     

Chapter6
     
    Even though they arrived early in the day, the beach was already fairly crowded, mostly with college students who, like Minnie, were seizing the chance to enjoy their first round of freedom after finals. The central sandy portion of the beach – where the tide had gone out, leaving a formerly level patch of packed sand – was covered in towels and the occasional chair or tall sun umbrella. Further down, closer to the waves, a group of children built sand castles while their parents watched.
     
    Luckily, neither Minnie nor James had any intention of joining the crowd. James pulled up near the far end of the beach, where the sand was at least as much gravel as anything else, and rocky cliffs hung shadows over the surf. Rather than sandals, they had boots for a better grip on the slippery rocks.
     
    Minnie had spent most of the day before in post-finals recovery mode, but as she’d said to James at dinner that night, if they were going to go to the beach, she didn’t want to just lay there on the sand. Her mind hadn’t really relaxed yet, and now that she wasn’t in danger of passing out, she felt again the need to do something, anything.
     
    So instead of a lazy day chasing waves, they were going to go looking at the tide pools instead, climbing over rocks and expending some of Minnie’s energy so that she didn’t stay up all night refreshing her online grade tracker until exam results were posted. Marine biology wasn’t super interesting to her, but she’d taken one class way back in high school, and James had a couple of guide books that they’d loaded up into a waterproof pack in case they needed the reference. Minnie was carrying those, while James had their lunch strapped to his back, and so they set off down along the rocks into the spray.
     
    At first, all they found were barnacles and mussels, but going out a little farther, to where the waves crashed around the base of the rocks, gave them at least something more interesting, snails and limpets clinging to the rocks and a few clumps of seaweed. Further still, and Minnie called James