Page 305 of Forbidden Billionaires: Vol. 7
She’s so drunk.And then I remembered something. “I actually did tell him about my letters to Santa.”Didn’t I?I thought I had, but we’d talked about so much that first night that the whole conversation was kind of a blur.
“And who brought up letters to Santa first?”
“I think I did. Maybe he did. Gah! I can’t remember.” I took another sip of wine to try to clear my head. Was it really possible that he was a runaway Christmas elf? Of course it wasn’t! That would be crazy. Then again, I had thought the same thing about my invitation to the Society, but that had turned out to be quitereal. And I was kind of dating a billionaire.Since when did my life get so crazy?
“Well there you go.” Chastity tipped the now empty bottle of wine towards me. “He’s a Christmas elf. It’s settled.”
“It’s a fun idea, but you’re crazy. He’s probably just in the mafia or something. Or pissed off the mafia. The police can’t help him because the mob paid them off. And it would explain why he can’t buy his way out of trouble. If he crossed them, they’d have to retaliate to send a message. Otherwise they’d look weak.”
“Oh!” said Chastity, totally ignoring my very logical argument. “I’ve got it. He’s a vampire!”
“Darn. I was hoping he was a werewolf. After all, I always was #TeamJacob.”Not.
Chastity stroked her imaginary beard. “I hadn’t considered that angle… We better consult the literature.” She grabbed my copy ofTwilightand started reading aloud.
That was about the time that the night really got away from us. First we speed-read the entire Twilight saga, and then we went into a paranormal rabbit hole. I thought we were just going to find more books about vampires, but no - it doesn’t stop there. We found books about dragon shifters, and other shifters. Really just about every type of shifter you can imagine. Then we dove deeper and found one series about a BBW (big beautiful woman) witch who fell in love with an alien werewolf dude and encountered some gnomes that lived on giant mushrooms or something. I don’t know. That description doesn’t do justice tohow weird it was. But the weirdest of all…that award definitely went to the bigfoot erotica.
I fell asleep dreaming of bigfoot and when I woke up in the morning, we got right back to our research. Before I knew it, it was nighttime again. And my phone alarm going off told me it was time to start getting ready for my date with Dr. Lyons.
My armpits were immediately drenched in sweat just from the thought of it. I couldn’t go on a date with Dr. Lyons. I was in love with my stalker. Well, not in love in love. He was the crazy one, not me. I just had a mega crush on him and I needed to do more research tonight to figure out if he was a vampire or not. He was definitely hiding something. And I had a feeling that the vampire thing might be it. Which led to a whole assortment of other issues. But I’d get to that later.Please don’t suck my blood, Tanner.I shivered just thinking about it.
“Can you please come too?” I asked Chastity.
She shook her head. “As much as I’d love to date Dr. Lyons, you found him first.”
“He’s yours. You can have him.”
Chastity laughed. “Nope. You need this. It’ll be good for you.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“I’m…sick.” I faked a cough. It was entirely unconvincing. “It’s probably the flu.”
Chastity put her hand on her hip. “Ash. I don’t care if you’re nervous. Or if you don’t like Dr. Lyons. This is theperfectopportunity to make Tanner jealous. And let me remind you. He’s a billionaire. With a B.”
Darn it. She was right. “Fine. Maybe you’re right. But if I went, what would I wear?”
“Uh…” Chastity gestured around the room to the Odegaard bags and shoeboxes. “You basically live in an Odegaard boutique now. Pick anything.”
“But these are all from Tanner. That would feel so…wrong.”
“But oh so right?” asked Chastity hopefully.
“Nope, just wrong.”
“But it’ll make him so jealous. Didn’t you watch any of that hotwife porn I sent you? Where the girls say things to their husbands like, ‘Thanks for the lingerie, honey. I bet your best friend will love it on me.’ ”
“That sounds pretty wild.”
“Don’t pretend like you didn’t watch them.”
I rolled my eyes. “Maybe I watched one.” I’d actually watched all of them. Was hotwifing now one of my fantasies? Maybe... But no guy in their right mind would put up with that. I knew what it felt like to get cheated on. And it was the opposite of hot. “Why do they even make porn like that? Just so scorned women can watch it and imagine getting revenge on their husbands?”
“Psssh, they don’t make porn for women. The only explanation for its existence is that guys love feeling jealous. Which is exactly how Tanner is gonna feel when you Instagram a picture of yourself on a date wearing one of the dresses he gave you.”
“I don’t know…” I said. But Chastity had a point. And Frankie had given me the same advice.Make him jealous.It had seemed to work at the boutique. “Fine. But only if you come and sit nearby. Or even better, we can find a way for you to listen in and tell me exactly what to say. There’s gotta be an app for that by now, right? I hereby invoke Single Girl Rule #34: First dates are meant to be spied on by your friends.”
