Free Shopping for a Billionaire's Wife by Julia Kent Page B

shifting into a bear. Just as Declan takes the last spoonful of berries, I realize they’ve managed to eat all the fruit.
    “That was my breakfast!” I declare.
    Declan looks at Dad and they share a smile. “I’ll call for more.”
    Mom gives me a look. “You two need to stop it.”
    “Stop what?” Dad and Declan say in unison.
    “Not you!” Mom snaps, drinking half her mocha latte, then pointing the top of it at Dad. “These two!” She flails the drink in my and Declan’s general direction.
    “Stop what?” Dec and I ask.
    “Stop acting like you didn’t cause a major media circus and make poor Jessica Coffin have a nervous breakdown.”
    “Jessica?” I screech. “Who cares about Jessica?”
    “And James is furious! You’ve wasted all this Anterdec money on a selfish whim!” She gives Declan a condescending look that probably scares preschool boys but just makes Declan burst into braying laughter. 
    He begins humming Alanis Morrissette’s “Ironic.”
    Tap tap tap.
    “THAT BETTER BE THE SHOES!” I bellow, roaring across the room to whip open the door.
    To find myself face-to-face with Amanda and Andrew making out so hard he might as well surgically implant his tongue in her duodenum and be done with it.

Chapter Eight
    “Do all the men in your family have tongues like that?” Dad asks, tilting his head like we’re watching Animal Planet. 
    “Yes,” Mom and I sigh in unison.
    “MARIE!” Dad snaps, giving her a look. Sometimes, I forget that Mom and Declan’s father dated for a brief time.
    “You asked, Jason!” Mom squeaks.
    “Someone get me a spray bottle,” Declan grouses, neatly folding his cloth napkin on the table and crossing the room, grabbing Andrew’s shoulder and peeling him off Amanda. Does the man have suction cups on his—
    “Hi!” Amanda chirps, breathless. Unlike the rest of us, she and Andrew are wearing street clothes. They have showered, and both wear the same pink-cheeked, slightly dazed look of two people who have spent the last twelve hours embedded in each other’s mucosal glands.
    Or something like that.
    “Hi!” Declan chirps back, glaring at his brother. 
    Andrew’s arm goes around Amanda’s shoulders, her fingers peeking out at his waist.
    They are freaking adorable.
    “You two!” Mom roars, storming up to Andrew, her finger in his face. “You knew they were in this room all along and didn’t tell me!”
    Declan’s pinched expression softens. “You didn’t?” he asks Andrew.
    Andrew’s jaw tightens, his face going hard. I see the resemblance to James, and why these McCormick men can pull off tough negotiations. “Of course I didn’t. Marie got the company jet, but nothing more from me.”
    “Then how did you two know which room we’re in?” I ask Amanda. 
    “Because the cable news crew you kicked out of the hotel got their revenge,” Mom explains, picking out a black raspberry from Dad’s bowl and munching on it. “Their high school intern hacked into the hotel database and found you.”
    “What?” Declan groans.
    “He said it was easier than hacking a Minecraft server, whatever that means. Called your computer network security ‘a joke.’” Mom uses finger quotes to dig it in. Declan’s finally showing emotion. Finally.
    Over network security protocols.
    Or lack thereof.
    Andrew’s kissing Amanda again, her back pinned against the door frame, his hands working through a geometry problem where the goal is to find the point of intersection where two legs bisect.
    People would like math so much more if it involved real life like that.
    “SHOES!” Amanda’s squeal halts their kiss, poor Andrew standing there open-mouthed and alone, as the tailor’s assistant finally arrives with a shipping container’s worth of new shoes for me.
    Mom scans the scores of boxes. “All these for you?” she asks me. The assistant brings in the shoes, whispers something to Declan, and leaves quickly. 
    Amanda bends down and pulls out a strappy