Page 50 of Forking the Billionaire

Oops. “Touché. At least I didn’t give you amnesia.”

“Thank you for that.”

“You’re very welcome.” As the path turned, towers of blackness loomed in the distance. I nodded toward them. “Looks like we’re here.”

“Ominous.”

“Ghostly.”

Jasper’s tone was gentle as he asked, “You sure you’re up for this?”

“Totally. Are you going to make me do another cartwheel to prove it?”

“Nope,” he said. “If you bailed, I was going to come back on my own.”

As we continued getting closer to the ruins, the sky seemed to dim, as if in warning.

“Is that so?” I asked.

“Absofuckinglutely. I need a fresh pair of underwear.”

“I can smell that,” I lied. Given my apparently overactive hormones, the last thing I needed to do was sniff him.

He laughed. “That bad, huh?”

“Totally. You’re disgusting.”

“Thanks for the confidence boost, Bramble.”

“You have so much confidence, it’s unhealthy. I’m helping prevent your head from getting so bloated that it lifts you into space.”

What little light in the sky remained sparkled against his devilish smile. I rolled my eyes.

“Do you know anything about Stan’s secret stash?” Jasper asked.

Secret stash?“Is that a trick question?”

“No. Today I noticed he has a drawer in his desk filled with cookies.”

“The top drawer on his left?”

“That’s the one.”

“He keeps it locked. You need a key to open it.”

“Maybe he’s a diabetic,” Jasper said with a shrug and a side-glance that suggested that wasn’t at all what he was really thinking. “He could need them to keep his blood sugar even.”

“He’s not.” A small thrill zipped up my spine. “But maybe those cookies are the biscuits connected to the biscuit bandit.”

“I thought the same thing,” he said. “Stan snapped the drawer shut awfully quickly when he saw me looking.”

“Suspicious.”

He nodded. “Do you think he’s the bandit, or do you think he’s the victim?”

That was a great question. I thought back to everything I knew about Stan, to all of our interactions and to the times I’d watched him interacting with others.

“I’ve never seen him do anything suspicious,” I said. “Except sometimes he hides in the storage room and talks to himself. In Italian, I think. I have no idea what he’s saying.”

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