Page 3 of Forking the Billionaire

“Ghosts?” I asked Sage as I set to work on another drink for Fred. “Why am I only now hearing about this?”

“It was before your time.” She pushed her empty glass toward me. “Used to be all kinds of accounts of haunting around here, ever since the old resort was abandoned.”

I filled her glass from the pitcher of virgin margaritas I’d made as soon as I saw her coming this morning.

“The island’s been quiet for a while now.” Sage grinned her thanks, with an extra spark of mischief in her eyes. “A ghostly revival could be good for business.”

“Yourbusiness,” Ziggy said. “And only in the short term. People get hard-ons for card readings when they think the island is haunted. Word spreads too far, people won’t want to come to the resort at all.”

Fred’s gray face turned exceptionally white. “Do you really think there are ghosts?”

I handed him his drink. “Don’t worry, there’s no such thing as ghosts.”

Ziggy chuckled.

Fred shot him a concerned glare then slowly followed after his wife.

“No such thing?” Sage shook her head. “You won’t think that once you see one.”

Seeing one would be difficult since they were make-believe. For most people, when experiences turned into memories, data was lost. Brains filled in those gaps to complete the stories. Mybrain was wired wrong and didn’t work like that. It would have been easier if it did.

Without judgment, I asked Sage, “Have you seen a ghost?”

“Here we go,” Ziggy said.

Sage swatted his shoulder, but kept her focus on me. “Oh yes, many times.”

I looked over the deep wrinkles around her eyes and mouth, over the somehow blank but also knowing expression she’d perfected over a lifetime of reading auras and telling tourists their futures. I couldn’t tell if believing in ghosts was part of her shtick or if it was her truth. If she didn’t really believe it, she was a stellar liar.

“I grew up in a haunted house,” she said.

Ziggy twisted his lips and shot her a side-eye.

“The Halloween kind?” I asked.

“Silly girl, therealkind.” Sage leaned forward, conspiratorially. “The spirit moved things at first, confusing and later terrifying my parents. I was never afraid, though. Because of this, she began leaving me messages in the bathroom mirror.”

“Fascinating,” I said, because it was. I couldn’t help but wonder, though, if Sage had been a really lonely kid who made up an imaginary friend to fight that loneliness. I’d wanted an imaginary friend when I was a kid, but my brain was too practical or something, because I never could get myself to believe in it.

“Messages likemurder your parents?” Ziggy shot her a wry look.

“Nothing like that.” Sage sucked up a long sip through her straw. “Her name was Endora. She inspired my love of the supernatural.”

I was about to ask what kind of message exactly this “ghost”didleave, but my phone buzzed in my left pocket. I pulled it out and checked to see who it was.

Gabriel.

“Now it looks like you’ve seen a ghost, too, Esme,” Ziggy said with a soft chuckle.

His voice sounded distant as a rush of anxious energy coursed through me.

“I have to take this.” I took a breath, steeled myself, and answered with forced enthusiasm. “Hey, Gabe.”

Sage spun her straw. Ziggy twisted in his seat. They looked at the ceiling, at each other, everywhere but at me, pretending they weren’t listening.

“Esme, hello,” Gabe said in his stiff, too-formal way.

“You never call me,” I said. “I call you.”

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