Page 121 of Forking the Billionaire

Had someone been spying on me and Esme? Why were they doing this? Why couldn’t I see whoever was doing this?

I closed my eyes, wishing this wasn’t happening, wishing I could go back to the conversation in the bathroom and get it right this time. Better yet, I wished to go back to last night, and tell Esme the truth as soon as I learned it.

“No big deal, so easy to forget,” the wind whispered.

Please let no one else have heard. Please let it stop.

“Harsh,” Oscar said.

“Whoa.” Luna looked around. “Who said that?”

Lydia shrugged. “There’s no one here.”

Everyone scanned the beach. All there was to see was swaying trees, ocean, and sand.

“You knocked me up.”

This couldn’t be happening. Disbelief and horror stunned me.

“Is everyone else freaking out that the wind is talking?” Luna asked.

“Yes,” Layana said. “Are there speakers hidden in the sand or something?”

Where could there be speakers? There weren’t speakers. The whispers came from nowhere. The voices defied logic and tore my heart apart.

“Then you planned to run away, back to Epiphany without a single word, Jasper.”

The words were Esme’s, but the voice and cadence were different, like someone was repeating what she’d said, yet somehow it also sounded like it came from the wind itself.

Everyone’s attention snapped to me.

I froze, unable to say or do anything except listen to the terrible conversation unfolding for a second time.

“Esme, I never wanted kids.”

It sounded worse than it had to me the first time, when I’d said it. It sounded like a rejection, which was not at all what I’d intended.

There was no context. There was no excuse.

Layana’s sisters ran off whispering to each other about checking the trees at the edge of the sand.

Gabriel felt like a cold statue beside me. I couldn’t look him in the eye.

“Is it true?” His voice trembled with barely contained rage.

Ice pumped through my veins, leaving me numb. I couldn’t believe this was happening. All of my supposed good intentions were stripped away to leave only the destruction I’d left in my wake.

That’s what Carringtons did.

We burned the people we loved the most.

I was an asshole. And I’d fucked up so badly I couldn’t see how I’d ever recover.

I said, “Yes.”

“Of all the women in all the world you could choose, you had sex with and abandonedmy sister?”He practically spat the words as he shot to his feet. Every line and tightened muscle ofhis body spoke of the wild storm of fury inside of him. His lips curled in a snarl. He clenched his hands into fists at his sides.

He wanted to hit me. Good. I deserved that and so much worse.

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