Shopping for a Billionaire 4 by Julia Kent Read Free Book Online Page B

heartbreak that lives inside me, teasing me with subconscious fantasies of reunion, of unconscious motives that make me google Declan, follow him on Twitter, wish for one brush with him so we can talk it out and reunite.
    I’d take a drug to make the pain go away. So far, copious amounts of chocolate have done nothing but make the pudge around my waist a little softer. If only I could drive the pain out with a master cleanse. Someone should make a protein shake and market it.
    The Breakup Smoothie.
    Declan’s taste is in my mouth. The touch of his lips is between my breasts, so real I reach up my shirt to chase his fingers. The lingering sense that he really was here, that he really did travel across my skin and give himself to me in my curves and hollows, makes me feel haunted.
    Haunted.
    As the cool morning air fills in the space between dream and reality, it chases all the vestiges of my Dream Declan away, leaving me bereft.
    Chilled.
    Unmoored.
    I grab my phone and shut off the alarm, then check my calendar. I have a mystery shop today, one in person about two hours away.
    Two hours? That’s a rare one. Why would I—
    Oh.
    Yeah.
    That one. 
    The sex toy shop. We’re being paid travel time plus our mileage to handle a series of sex toy shops, to make sure they’re not selling pornographic materials to minors. And if they have a tobacco license, we’re checking on cigarette sales to minors, too.
    As my lady parts stop their Gangnam Style dance imitation and I catch my breath, I remember the worst part:
    Mom is my partner on these.
    Thoughts of Mom and a naked Declan doing unmentionably delightful things to me do not mix. It’s like Baileys Irish Cream and sloe gin: warning! Warning, Will Robinson!
    You throw up when you combine the two.
    Chuckles climbs on my bed, sniffs my crotch, and gives me a mildly disgusted look. It’s not rivetingly disgusted, though, which is alarming.
    That means he’s come to expect to be disappointed in me.
    Or I need a shower.
    Either way, even my cat thinks that my dreams are deviant.
    And you can’t sink much lower than that.
    Or so I thought.
    * * *
    “I thought Amanda was doing this shop with me. Not you!” Mom grouses as we pull into the parking garage in downtown Northampton. I love the rare mystery shop that brings me into this college town, where the coffee shops are fabulous, you can find the best smoothies anywhere, and street buskers are as conversant about American foreign policy as they are about the best pad Thai in town. 
    But I don’t relish the idea of comparison shopping vibrators with my mother. That’s up there with looking forward to getting a pap smear, a root canal, and a colonoscopy at the same time.
    Which I’d prefer over this.
    “Me too, but she tricked me.” Tricked is a tiny confabulation. Okay, a huge one. She offered to spend a few hours snooping on my behalf and getting some dirt on Declan if I took Mom on this sex toy mystery shop. 
    No bleeping way.
    “Fine, then,” Amanda had said. “If you don’t take the sex toy shop with Marie, I’ll tell her you the truth about that taping of Rachael Ray.” 
    “You wouldn’t!”
    “Try me.”
    My mother is the biggest Rachael Ray fan EVER. I had a chance to go for a customer service evaluation last year, and Mom had begged, pleaded, and cajoled, but I’d stood firm. Being embarrassed is one thing, but on television?
    I have to draw a line somewhere.
    And that line brought me here to Northampton to a nearby sex toy store with my mother.
    Being humiliated on the Rachael Ray show suddenly looks so much more appealing. Amanda stood her ground, and here I am... 
    “I can’t believe they put a sex toy shop here,” Mom says as we get out of the car. 
    “Here?” I look around at the quaint brick buildings, eyes catching the glint of sunlight off the large display window for an art gallery. “Oh, no. Not here. We’re just in the parking lot to grab a good cup of coffee.”
    She rolls her eyes