Page 45 of The Mysterious Billionaire
He puts his hands on his hips and stares at me for a moment, his chest heaving and his jaw working. Then he looks away, across the fields.
He doesn’t say anything for a long moment. I wait, though, because I can see he’s trying to form his thoughts.
Eventually, his gaze comes back to me. “Can I tell you something without being mocked?”
“Almost certainly not.” My lips curve up as he huffs. “I’m teasing. I’ll do my best to restrain myself.”
“I have strong feelings about AI,” he says. “I’m not a Luddite—I know it’s here to stay, and we have to learn to live with it. I can see its possibilities, and I understand how we should be utilizing it and making it work for us. But it scares me.” He leans on the fence, looking across at the view. “I don’t want it anywhere near my company. But if we don’t embrace it, we’ll fall behind.”
I lean beside him. “I totally get that.” I look down and kick the fence post. “Honestly? I feel the same.”
That earns me a surprised look. “I thought you were all-in on Brielle’s model.”
“The tech is sound. The science works. The results are promising. Doesn’t mean I have to like it.”
“So… why didn’t you let her show me around?”
I scratch at a mark on the fence. Then, as he watches me, I look up at him. “Why do you think?”
“I don’t know. That’s why I asked.”
“You really have no idea?”
There’s a slight frown on his face.
“Jesus,” I say, “men are dense.”
The frown vanishes, and his eyebrows rise. “Are you saying…”
“That I wasn’t going to let my sister within a country mile of you? Yes, absolutely.”
His lips curve up a little. “Madeleine Rutherford, are you telling me you feel jealous at the thought of Brielle and I spending time together?”
“I’m saying she’s funnier, sexier, and more beautiful than I am, and if you two got it off and ended up getting married or something, yes, I would be a tad pissed off.”
His dark-brown eyes scan my face, taking in my features before returning to my eyes. “She’s nowhere near as funny as you.”
“Oh, that’s the compliment you choose to elaborate on? The fact that I do a better Harold Lloyd impression than she does?”
“She is not sexier or more beautiful than you, Cupcake.”
My breath catches in my throat at the soft endearment. “You’re just saying that,” I mumble grumpily.
“I don’t say things I don’t mean.”
“Yeah, right.”
He blows out a breath. “Jeez, you’re infuriating. I swear, if you weren’t a Rutherford…”
His sentence trails off. What was he going to say? Something derogatory, no doubt. I glare at him. “If I wasn’t a Rutherford,what?”
He runs his tongue over his teeth and looks away. “Nothing.”
“No, come on, get it off your chest, what would you do if I wasn’t a Rutherford?”
“Maddie…”
“What? You’d be nice to me for once?”
