Page 52 of How to Fall for the Secret Billionaire
I shake my head, the smile still on my face. It’s been so long since I laughed like that. Since I felt this light.
And now I’m sipping contraband tea in the quiet of the inn kitchen with a man I should probably be keeping at arm’s length… but somehow, I don’t want to.
We linger in the kitchen far longer than we should—curled around steaming mugs of Aunt Edie’s prized tea, the kind of warmth that seeps past your throat and settles somewhere deep in your chest.
We talk.
Not about anything particularly grand at first. Just… little things. Cal tells me a ridiculous story about trying to fix a garbage disposal as a teenager—one that ended in a minor electrical fire. I snort so hard I nearly spill my tea. Then I tell him about the time Hazel installed wallpaper in Room 5 upside down and tried to convince everyone it was “artistic.”
We laugh. A lot.
It’s easy. Effortless. His presence takes up space in a way that doesn’t crowd me—it fills the room without pressing in. His eyesare soft when I talk, and for some reason, that makes me want to talk more.
I tell him a little about myself. Not the whole story, but enough. That I used to live in Bardstown. That I worked in PR. That I left when Aunt Edie got sick. That this place—Key & Kettle—has always been my second home. My first home, really. The only one that felt like mine.
I don’t say how hard it’s been. I don’t tell him about the nights I cry in my truck or the weight of the bills or how scared I get sometimes that I’m not enough to keep this all running.
But somehow, I think he hears all that anyway.
He doesn’t press. He just nods slowly and says, “I think you’re doing something really beautiful here.”
It catches me off guard. The sincerity. The quiet way he says it. Like he means it. Like it matters.
And for the first time in a long time… it does.
Until a shocked gasp from the doorway shatters the moment.
“Are you two drinking my tea?”
The voice is so dramatic, so full of betrayal, I nearly drop my cup.
Then—
A louder gasp.
“And my rarest flavor?”
It’s Aunt Edie, standing with wide eyes. “Oh, you’re both in trouble. You can’t get out of this one.”
CAL
The sun is hot on the back of my neck as I dig into the soil, sweat beading at my temple. I wipe it away with the inside of my wrist and keep going, the earthy scent of mint and rosemary thick in the air.
Three days.
Three days of tilling Aunt Edie’s herb garden as penance for stealing her “rarest” tea. She takes her leaves seriously—like holy relics stored in velvet-lined drawers.
Honestly?
Could’ve been worse.
Margot got the real punishment: thirty-minute foot massages every night. That was the deal Aunt Edie handed down like a mafia boss in floral slippers.
I’ll take dirt and sunshine over feet any day.
Still, I don’t really mind the work. There’s something calming about it—hands in the earth, birds singing in the background, the inn just out of view behind the hedge. Peaceful. Simple.
And it makes Margot laugh when she sees me out here like some kind of Victorian farmhand. That alone makes it worth it.
