Page 11 of How to Train Your Billionaire

I remove the cards from their packaging. At the airport, we discovered we share the same birthday—May 15—which felt like a small sign from the universe that maybe I was on the right path.

“How do you play?” he asks.

“I guess I read the question, and we both answer?”

“Sure,” he says.

“A unique food or special treat you enjoy,” I say, reading the top card.

My brain flashes back to the chocolate muffins I bought us in the coffee shop.

“That’s easy. Liverwurst and onions.”

The vomit emoji flashes through my brain, but I manage to keep that to myself. “Never had it. What’s liverwurst?”

“It’s a kind of sausage made from liver.”

Vomit emoji. Crying emoji.

“Mmm,” I say, forcing myself not to gag.

He nods. “You’ll have to try it sometime.”

I flip over the next card. “Guilty pleasure?”

“I don’t understand the concept of a guilty pleasure. If something brings you pleasure, why should you feel guilty about it?”

The man has a valid point.

“Favorite hobbies?” I try next.

“Pass,” he says.

Why do I sense that he doesn’t have any besides dabbling in the stock market or checking his bank statements? I let it go.

“Pet peeves?” I ask next.

“Card games like this one.” He gives me a pointed look.

I flip to the next card, undeterred. “The perfect way to spend a Sunday afternoon?”

“Enough with the cards.” He places his hand over mine, lowering the deck of cards to my tray table. I think I’ve annoyed him with my questions, and I suddenly feel childish that I didn’t read his mood, that I couldn’t rein myself in.

He’s right. This is silly. What, did I think we were going to share our favorite colors? Or bond over our shared love of friendship bracelets?

Maybe he prefers to read quietly on a flight, or maybe he wants to nap. He is pretty darn old. Maybe he does need to nap or he gets cranky like a toddler. I tuck this information away for later.

When I meet his eyes, I realize that Charles is studying me with a soft smile. Maybe I haven’t annoyed him, after all.

“Tell me about your life, Frankie. About your family.”

And so I do.

I tell him all about Tessa and her lovable quirks, about how she’s the one who encouraged me to take this job. How she’s always there for me, the kind of family you choose.

I steer clear of my rocky dating history, thankful when he doesn’t pry. Old people tend to do that. They want to know why you’re still single. But he doesn’t pester me about it, which is a relief. I also successfully swerve around the topic of my father, satisfying Charles’s curiosity with the fact that I’ve never met him, so there’s not much to tell.

But I do tell him all about my mom, Hannah. She raised me as a single mom in the working-class neighborhood where I was often alone until nearly bedtime because she worked two jobs. I smile, telling him about our tradition of volunteering at the soup kitchen every Thanksgiving and how we used to make gingerbread houses from those little store-bought kits every Christmas. We didn’t have much, but Mom always made everything feel exciting and special.