Page 26 of Exposed

“No. It’s impossible to kill Nigel, trust me.”

Wait…what?

He put his hands on my shoulders and made me look at him. “I know you have a hot temper.”

“I have a right to be annoyed about Nigel drugging me last night…”

“I’m not talking about Nigel. I’m talking about you in general. You’re hot headed. You like to fight. You like to not listen. Honestly, sometimes it seems like you enjoy pissing people off just for the sake of it. It’s an odd quirk if you ask me. And I implore you, for the love of all living things, please keep your mouth closed and listen to everything Brooklyn has to say. Think before you open your mouth. Take deep breaths. Do some introspective thinking. Yes?”

“I’m not that hot headed.”

Tanner laughed and let go of my shoulders. “So you aren’t planning on going to James’ place and yelling at everyone this afternoon?”

I pressed my lips together. Honestly, I was planning on doing that. But they deserved it. They were supposed to be my friends.

“Silence is consent,” Tanner said.

“No, that’s definitely not right.”

“Huh. It must have changed recently. Anyway, you’ll listen to Brooklyn and not freak out? Because you’re really going to want to freak out. And you can’t.”

I stared at him. “What do you know?”

“Me?” He put my tuxedo back in the closet. “Nothing.”

“No, you know something. Tanner, you kept Brooklyn’s return a secret from me. Stop keeping more stuff from me. Just tell me what you know.”

“I’ve already said too much. And I need to go hang out with my grandson.” He started walking away.

“And what the hell is that about? You can’t buy children!” I said to his retreating back. What the hell was he doing? I just hoped that while I was out of it last night, Nigel hadn’t kidnapped a kid too.

As I finished getting ready, it was like Nigel knew I’d been thinking about him. He appeared in my bathroom mirror. I jumped and turned around.

Nigel cleared his throat. “Master Tanner says I must apologize. So…I’m sorry thatyouwere naughty last night and thatyouneeded to be put in a nice relaxing bath to ease the hysteria.”

I glared at him. “That doesn’t really sound like an apology, Nigel. You drugged me.”

“But I said I’m sorry.”

He didn’t even sound a little sorry. And he blamed it on me. “I was just talking to you last night. About how I was upset that Brooklyn married someone else.”

“Exactly, you were upset. So I helped.”

“I just wanted to talk, Nigel.”

He stared up at me. “You wished to talk…to me?”

“Yeah. We were having a conversation.”

“Oh. I like that. I like conversing. I won’t drug you again. Unless you specifically ask.”

That sounded like a much better apology to me. “I’ll forgive you. If you tell me what the secret ingredient in your green juice is.”

A smile spread across his face. “I can’t do that. It’smysecret ingredient.” He winked at me.

The way he said ‘my’ in that sentence, combined with the wink, made me want to hurl.

“Are you okay, Master Matthew?”

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