Rich Bitch: Everything's Going to the Dogs Read Free

unexpected favor. “You know, mademoiselle, if my mother hears about this incident, she’ll probably report you to the Tyler Agency.”
    Sophie’s response was, “
En frangais, s’il te plait
, Morgan.”
    The pint-size troublemaker scowled and spoke in French, and soon they were beyond his hearing range.
    Vince wasn’t stupid enough to put the dog down again, and since it had had plenty of exercise running away when he called it, it seemed content to be carried half hidden in his coat like a wino’s bottle.
    But, in spite of one full day of poodle-induced torment, Vince was smiling broadly. For the first moment since he’d been saddled with Mimi, he wondered if Great-aunt Marjorie might have done him a favor.
    In the twenty-four hours since he’d inherited Mimi, Vince had discovered that he needed help. If he was out, the dog howled, his neighbors had informed him. This was bad. Worse, it needed regular trips outside and a gourmet chef to prepare its meals.
    He’d scoffed when the limo pulled up in front of his building and delivered Mimi’s things, which included a Limoges china set of dishes, for the dog’s exclusive use, a book of handwritten recipes of Mimi’s favorite foods, and her appointment diary. She had a standing appointment at Bliss for a weekly manicure, she was scheduled for a hair appointment in two weeks, and her doctor made house calls. The doctor was French.
    Andre, who’d delivered Mimi’s essentials before Vince’s bemused gaze, had hauled in a case of Perrier, and that had struck Vince as the final straw.
    “You have got to be kidding.”
    Andre had sniffed. “It is all she drinks, monsieur.”
    “You mean she doesn’t slurp Dom Perignon with every meal?”
    “Alcohol is not good for dogs, monsieur.”
    “Mimi, my friend,” Vince had said, as he looked at all the stuff littering his apartment, “things are going to change.”
    The first change he made was to go out and get a couple of cans of dog food. He didn’t want to shock her little system too much, so he dumped the stuff on one of her fussy hand-painted plates with the gold rims. He even poured her Perrier into one of the fruity little china bowls.
    She drank a little Perrier, lapping it with her tiny pink tongue, but she didn’t so much as acknowledge the existence of the plebian dog food.
    Sooner or later, Vince figured, she’d get hungry, and she’d eat.
    In twenty-four hours it still hadn’t happened, and now the dog food had a brown crusty layer. He wasn’t a cruel man at heart, and he didn’t think he could handle it if the dog starved to death. He also wasn’t going to cook up its special foods. That was plain ridiculous.
    And there was the little communication problem he and his new pet were having. He only spoke English. The dog only understood French. Privately, he thought she was putting him on, but she was doing a damn good job of driving him into the nuthouse.
    What Mimi needed, he realized in a blinding flash of brilliance, was a French nanny. More to the point, what Vince needed was Sophie Veneau.
    The Tyler Agency was amazingly easy to find. Vince made an appointment with the agency’s president for later that day—explaining that his case was an emergency.
    The woman who owned the agency tried to convince him that they didn’t hire out dog nannies; then she tried to convince him that Sophie Veneau was unavailable.
    Vince smiled at her. He’d ended vicious strikes, negotiated settlements between teamsters and multinational trucking companies. One little nanny agency was a piece of cake. Every time the woman objected, he simply upped the price he was willing to pay. Or that Mimi was willing to pay. With fourteen mil, an extravagant nanny salary was chicken feed to Mimi.
    “Please, Mr. Grange,” Ms. Tyler said at last, when she was flustered, torn between her rules and Mimi’s money, and he knew he had her, “I can’t simply take a nanny away from a family. They have a contract.”
    “I’m