Page 82 of The Grumpy Billionaire

“This is the real deal—I know you feel it, too. Tell me you don’t feel something.”

Of course I feel something: ecstasy with a side of pure terror.

I’ve been down this road—and crashed. There’s a tragic wreck still there at the end of this road, all twisted metal and broken limbs and a crushed heart. Sirens are wailing.

The only difference is that my joy is more extreme this time. What is it that they say? The higher you go, the harder you crash?

“You can’t say it, can you?” he presses. “You can’t say that there’s nothing here because you feel something, too—I know you do.”

“Yes, I feel something. It’s called the thrill of the forbidden.”

He shakes his head. “It’s more.”

“I’m your best friend’s little sister. We’ve been off-limits to each other for years. Forbidden fruit is always delicious, but you can’t live on it. Forbidden fruit can’t sustain you. In fact, forbidden fruit is what kills people.”

“I love you. You don’t have to say it back, but you can’t change how I feel. How I’ve always felt.”

“Okay, Mr. Oxy-dopamine—”

“Don’t—”

I pull the bathrobe tightly around myself. “You and your pleasure hormones are on a serious joyride today.”

Hugo’s having none of it. “All these years… I spent the energy of five nuclear reactors not letting myself know how much I love you. You have no idea how hard it was to be in the same room as you. How hard I tried to push you out of my mind. It was always you—always. I’m done walling off that feeling.”

His words are a sparkly fire hose of happiness. But firehoses like that always start sparkly, only to end up toxic and sludgy. He doesn’t know. He hasn’t been down the road like I have.

I touch his lips because I’m a bandit, taking what I want before retreating to safety. “I’m just the off-limits little sister. You’ll see that I’m right.”

He comes to me. “The things that I would tell myself, the promises that I would make myself, over and over. Only assholes look at their best friend’s little sister. What would Charlie think. What would your parents think, having taken me under their wing like they did. The codes of honor I set for myself, burned into my own brain. I’ve made a lot of codes for myself, Stella. Do you know how many codes I’ve broken in my life?”

My voice is a shaky whisper. “No.”

“Take a guess.”

“I don’t want to guess.”

“One. I’ve broken one code in my life—it’s the code to stay away from you.” He gives me a hard look. “And I’d break it again. This is the real thing. And the code about not telling what gets said at the poker table? I would’ve broken it if I hadn’t gotten permission. I’ll do what it takes—I will.”

He sounds so sure.

Hugo thinks he loves me and my recklessness, my unruliness.

My Hugo-lites loved that sort of thing about me, too, until the day-to-day reality of me became too much, until they saw flaws they could not unsee, followed by cutting me out of everything important, and then the gut-wrenching disgust.

“I know youthinkit’s real.” I grab my phone. With shaking hands, I put in our usual order at the deli.

“I know it’s real.”

“Look who’s unruly now,” I say. It sounds like a joke, but it’s not. Hugo’s breaking the rules, and he has to stop. I put the phone aside and look him straight in the eyes. “Play by the rules or this game is over.”

ChapterThirty-Seven

Hugo

It’s a dark,cold Sunday night, the kind where the wind whips down the streets with an aggression that makes it seem alive.

Stella’s been doing her best to pretend this thing isn’t real, but I’m done with that. What’s more, I haven’t seen her since Friday, and I don’t want to wait for Monday lunch.

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