Page 26 of Forking the Billionaire

He shrugged.

I should say no. I should tell him to go back to bed. But, I was fairly certain it was too late, and he’d caught me in his glow. I found myself grinning despite myself. “This way.”

I didn’t exactly have a plan. I was aimlessly walking with faux purpose as I figured it out. Mona had suggested the Barleys could have taken the glasses. Even though that seemed extremely unlikely, I didn’t have any better ideas.

We stopped in front of the employee break room. The door was shut, and likely locked. If that was the case, this pathetic lead ended here.

I turned to Jasper.

He took a step closer. His nice lips curled into a not-so-nice smile. It wasn’t the real one, or the fake one, but something entirely new.

Heat crept up my neck. Warning sirens went off in my brain.

His green eyes darkened. He inhaled. That look on anyone else would feel playful and harmless, but on Jasper, it was one hundred percent trouble.

He reached a hand out. My breath caught as I watched his fingers approach my arm. Those long, tan fingers were callused, from doing what I had no idea. But for a moment, I wanted to. I also wondered what they’d feel like on my skin. Simply because knowledge was power, of course.

Instead of touching me, he grabbed the knob a few inches away and opened the door.

Completely unaware of my mental meltdown, he said, “Well, let’s go in.”

“Right, sure, let’s go.” Clearly my alert system was on the fritz, because what exactly did I expect him to do? Why would he touch me? Worse, why would I care if he did?

He scanned the break room as he stepped inside, and strolled straight toward the sofa. He lifted the cushions. “Looks like an employee lounge. So I’m guessing these missing glasses belong to someone who works here.”

“Nope.” My voice came out like a croak.

I could feel his attention on me, but I didn’t look at him. I needed to regain my power, regain control. I walked straight up to the lockers.

They had combination locks built into them, which meant this was a dead end.

Jasper joined me. “The glasses were stolen by an employee?”

“Unlikely.”

He raised a questioning brow.

This little misguided quest was over anyway. It was only an excuse not to go to sleep, but if I was out and about all night, I’d be exhausted for the outing tomorrow. And then I’d have to deal with Gabe and Jasper on zero sleep, and lowered inhibitions. It was a recipe for disaster. I’d snap and screw up somehow. Better to cut my losses now and call it night.

I sighed and decided to finally tell Jasper why I was wasting both of our time. “This fairly horrible guest at the resort, Mona Maloney, swears someone switched out her glasses for an oversized pair of clown sunglasses.”

“A vandal with a sense of humor.”

I hugged myself, suddenly cold. “I guess.”

“And you took it upon yourself to try and find the culprit at three in the morning?”

“Yep.” I tilted my chin up, daring him to press me further, even though I wasn’t sure how much fight I had left.

“If this Mona person truly is horrible, she could probably use some lighthearted shenanigans in her life,” Jasper said.

I flexed my fingers into my arms and waited for him to tell me I was being ridiculous, that he couldn’t believe I’d dragged him around for this. I waited for him to call me immature, for him to dismiss me and then leave.

“I say when we find the glasses, we stage some kind of public scene to make it look like she’d had them the whole time,” Jasper said, his grin growing wider.

That was not at all what I expected him to say. Before I could find thoughts or words to adequately process this turn of events, Jasper brushed past me, pressed his cheek against one of the lockers, and pinched the nub of the lock between thumb and forefinger.

“Why are you fondling that metal nip?” I asked.

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