Page 17 of Forking the Billionaire

We.He kept sayingwe.It was probably the fact that I’d just been stabbed in the head with a fork, but this guy was really pissing me off.

Again, I ignored him and focused my attention on Esme. “You’re not sorry.”

“You’re not bleeding. You’re not concussed.” She crossed her arms. “You’ll live.”

“Esme,”the man said through gritted teeth, as if he had any right to judge her rude behavior.

“You forked me,” I said.

She shrugged. “Maybe you needed to be forked.”

“Esme.”The man grabbed her wrist.

I gritted my teeth.

“You still make that face?” Esme shook off the musician’s grasp and her dark eyes sparkled with delight.

She had Gabriel’s same eyes, so deep a shade of brown, they almost blended into her pupils. But the devious spark behind them was unique to Esme, an almost impish quality that meant her forking me was only a taste of what was to come. She intended to torture me every chance she could while I was on the island, and she’d savor every moment of it.

“My expression? I’ll assume it’s a frown,” I snapped. “People frown when they’re physically and then verbally assaulted.”

She laughed, not the happy laugh she’d shared at the bar with herfriend.No, this laugh was dangerous. Alarm bells went off in my head, warning me that I knew the look on her face, too. It was the look she’d give me before she’d tackle me to the ground for taking the biggest cookie on Oma’s tray.

“It’s not a frown. It’s a weird little twitch, right over here.” She poked just above my lip, then lifted her finger to my forehead for a second jab. “And a brow raise, right over here.”

“What has gotten into you?” the musician asked with an exasperated tone, because he clearly didn’t know the real Esme.

No matter what their relationship was, he was a blip on the timeline of her life. He’d hardly known her any time at all, and before long, she’d move on and forget him entirely.

The people who mattered spent years etching their way into each other’s lives. For better or worse, they left scars.

It didn’t matter how old this guy was. It didn’t matter who he was. And it didn’t matter what Esme was doing with him. None of it was any of my business. I needed to return to what I’d come here to do, which was support my best friend for a welcome night dinner.

I smiled at Esme, warm and calm and completely unaffected by her torture, and turned to go…wherever it was that everyone else was supposed to be.

Ah, there, I spotted them through the large, open windows sitting at a table outside on the deck.

“It’s the face you made when you were thirteen, that time you had to get your tooth pulled,” she said.

I froze, not knowing what she would say next, but knowing I wasn’t going to like it. I should have kept walking, but I couldn’t. I looked back at her.

“You woke up the next morning with white fuzz sticking out of your mouth. Two days later, there was still a piece stuck between your teeth, right here.” She pointed to her sneer, to the exact tooth.

My every muscle tensed. I’d forgotten all about the entire incident. Of course Esme hadn’t. She always remembered everything, in horrid detail. And she would never let me forget any of it either. It was a special kind of torture.

“In the fog of the sedatives, I had tried to eat my stuffed yeti.” It was the only stuffed animal I’d kept at that age, caring so much about what other kids thought. But I couldn’t get rid of Mr. Spaghetti the yeti. My dad had given him to me before he’d left my mom and me for his new wife and baby.

My throat thick, my pulse pounding in my wrists, I ripped my gaze from hers. “Thanks for the trip down memory lane, Esme.”

I walked outside and took a seat with everyone else. The sky had turned from mostly dark to completely dark during my short time inside the bar. String lights, tiki torches, and flickering candles illuminated the decking.

The excitement in the party was palpable. Everyone was talking about their day. Food was eaten. Drinks were had. I shared the usual pleasantries and responded when spoken to, wishing I could shake my interaction with Esme and enjoy this time like everyone else.

After a little while, Jules ran off with Layana, Layana’s sisters, and Layana’s friends on the beach.

Oscar, Gabriel, and I sat watching the others frolic. Usually, I would have enjoyed playing in the sand at the edge of the water, too. But I wasn’t in the mood.

“You’re quiet,” Oscar said to me.

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