It would seem that our secret source has the inside track, though. Not one week after the purchase of the channel went through, Cannon met with a famous women’s foundation and donated every dollar of the sale to charity. That’s right—every dollar of his sale of The Man Channel will now go to helping battered women and victims of rape.

We’ve tried to contact Cannon’s reps, but they’re not speaking. Could there be another angle to this fascinating story that we haven’t heard yet? If there is, we’ll get the scoop!

“Oh my sweet lord,” Marjorie whispered. She blinked, and then began to read the article again, looking for additional tidbits to glean.

“I’m surprised you haven’t heard anything about it, Marj. Don’t you ever google ex-boyfriends?”

She shook her head. “No! I . . . well, I did at first. Then I didn’t like what I saw.”

Agnes tapped one long, bony finger on Rob’s picture. “Call me crazy, but I think this sudden burst of charity has something to do with you.”

Marjorie didn’t know. Why hadn’t he said anything to her? She just stared and stared.

Rob had sold his network. He didn’t keep a dollar for himself. He was broke now . . . because of her. Oh, mercy. Her stomach gave a queasy lurch. What if he resented her now because he thought she’d forced his hand? Her head spun.

“Why don’t you take that article with you, Marj honey? It’ll give you time to read it later.”

There weren’t more than the two paragraphs, but Marjorie nodded and clutched it to her chest.

***

She was terrible at bingo that night. She’d promised Agnes that she’d go, but in reality, she’d just wanted to stay home and stare at that magazine article, and google more about Rob and this sudden sale of his business. Find out more details of why, and what he was doing now . . . and how broke he was.

Marjorie was sick at the thought of someone giving away a billion dollars just to please her. It went to a good cause, of course, but it was an unheard-of amount of money. An utterly upsetting amount.

So she tried to play bingo and chat with her friends, but she missed half the numbers because she kept googling things on her phone. She ended up handing Agnes her bingo card so she could fiddle with her phone more. As luck would have it, the card ended up winning a thousand dollars on the jackpot, and Marj insisted on giving it to Agnes.

The woman had been an incredible friend to her lately and it was a small thing to do. “Buy Dewey a ticket to visit you,” Marjorie had insisted, and Agnes’s smile lit up the bingo hall.

Eventually, the night ended and Marjorie and Agnes parted. Marjorie headed up the elevator a few more floors to her new apartment. Inside, all was utterly quiet—not even her noisy neighbors weren’t making a sound. She closed the door and locked it behind her, bolted it, then dragged her small bureau in front of it, because living alone in NYC didn’t make her feel all that safe. Then, she peeled off her high heels and headed over to the closet and tugged down the bed, and then flopped down on it to page through the magazine again.

Two paragraphs. She didn’t understand it. A rich, handsome billionaire had sold his business, lock, stock, and barrel, and he only warranted two paragraphs? That was ridiculous. She had torn through the magazine over and over again, looking for additional mentions. She picked through Internet sites but all the information and gossip was well over three months old. It seemed as if Rob’s people—if he still had any—were on lockdown and nothing was leaking to the media except for a few fluff pieces about the upcoming season of The Man Channel.

Where was Rob?

What was he doing?

And why had he sold his business?

Why could she find out more details about his partying in Ibiza than what he was doing with his money?

When all her searches turned up fruitless, she gently pulled the glossy page out of the magazine and gazed at his photo over and over again. She taped it up next to her bed, like she had with pop idols as a teenager, and then cried herself to sleep staring at his picture.

Chapter Twenty-four

A week later, she was delivering a box of The Prince by Machiavelli to a nearby nursing home in anticipation of Brontë’s next book club event. She handed off the box and turned down a street, only to see a familiar head of hair disappear around a corner.

Marjorie sucked in a breath. No way. Clutching her purse to her side, she walked down the street and glanced around the corner.. . . just in time to see the man disappear around another corner.

Shoot. She eyed her shoes—five-inch-tall purple Miu Mius. She’d never catch him in these. Curse her love for adorable footwear. She grabbed one and hauled it off her foot, then the other, and tossed them into her shoulder bag. Then, she ran down the street after the man.

She wanted answers.

He was ahead of her, his dark head bobbing in the weave of traffic, his shirt a pale, bland beige. She kept that beige in the corner of her eye as she followed him up one street and down another. It was a stranger, she reminded herself. It was just a man that happened to look like him. It had to be.

But when she finally caught up with him, breathing hard from her sprint, she summoned her courage and reached out and tapped him on the shoulder.

And to her surprise, Rob turned around.

He looked just as surprised to see her. “Marjorie?” He glanced at the cross streets and moved out of the way of traffic, his hand automatically pulling her along with him. They moved under the awning of a nearby business. “What are you doing here?”

“I saw you,” she panted. “I saw you.”

And she couldn’t stop staring at him right now. Good, sweet lord, but he was pretty. His hair was newly cut, his face clean shaven. His green eyes were bright in his face, lashes thick, and he looked delicious in that open-collared button-up shirt and the slouchy jeans he wore with them. He looked just as good as she remembered, and he was pretty darn tasty in those memories.

Rob rubbed the back of his neck and looked embarrassed. “You weren’t supposed to see me.”

“Yeah, well, you forget how tall I am in heels,” she reminded him. He laughed, and looked down at her bare feet, and she wiggled her toes. “I, um, took them off to run. I wanted to see if it was you.”

“Well, this is fucking embarrassing,” he said.

It was? Her heart broke a little at that statement. “What are you doing here in New York City?”

He stared at her for a long moment before answering. “Stalking you.”

“W-what?” She could hardly believe her ears. “Stalking me?” So that was him all those times she’d thought she’d spotted him? “Why are you stalking me?”

“I’m not really stalking,” he said, glancing around and lowering his voice. “Not in a creepy, illegal way. I just miss the goddamn hell out of you and thought maybe if I got to see you from afar, now and then, it’d hurt less. Still fucking hurts quite a bit, though.”

She stared.

“Say something.”

“I-I don’t know what to say, Rob.” He was here, watching her? He was hurting? Did that mean he missed her? Or was he just pissed about how things had turned out? For days—no, weeks—she’d thought of things she would say to him if she ever saw him again. Now he was right here, inches from her . . . and her mind went blank.

Just completely, utterly blank.

The look on his face was a little disappointed. His mouth curved. “I’ll leave you alone, sweetheart. I’m sorry if I scared you.”

He turned away and she grabbed at his shirt. “Wait!”

He stopped. Turned back around to her.

“I’m not scared,” she said in a small voice. She was, though. She was terrified, and her heart was beating like a rabbit’s. She wasn’t scared of him . . . just of being hurt again. Of getting her hopes up only to have them destroyed once more.