Page 36 of Fake Dating My Billionaire Boss

So many tears well up in my eyes that they start to spill over my lower lids. I use the back of my hand to wipe a few off my cheek. She even drew a heart next to my name, with tiny sunbeam rays coming out of it, like she always did when addressing notes, letters, or postcards to me.

I miss you, Mom,I think, as I carefully tug the envelope free from the photo’s frame.

It’s sealed. There’s nothing on the front except the short note. No writing on the back.

With trembling fingers, I work the edge of the seal until I can open it. Inside, there’s a chunk of paperwork, folded into thirds. I pull it out and start to read the first of about ten pages.

Water rights.

I’m looking at water rights.

It takes me a couple more minutes to glean more information from the dense, tiny, printed text. As far as I can tell, all the confusing jargon and dated lingo points to the fact that a particular spring on the north side of town belonged to Elsa and Theodore Sinclair.

I read more, squinting at the letters, and biting my lip as I go: It’s not just any spring—it’s the Silver Spring. That’s the one that the Knight family uses to produce their Bubbly Springs soda. But, if my great-grandparents owned that spring, how is itthat the Knights use it to make their product? That doesn’t make sense to me.

My great-grandparents owned ten acres of land. The spring, according to the documents in my hand, came with the land. When they passed away, they left that land to my Nana and Pop Pop, who still own it to this day.

I remember spending plenty of time with my grandparents on their farmland. No one ever mentioned Silver Spring. For as long as I’ve been alive, I assumed that water source belonged solely to the Knights.

“Ah, hem!”

My shoulders hitch and I swivel around to find a short, elderly woman scowling at me. She has white hair that’s been sculpted into curls, probably with one of those old-school roller sets, and she’s carrying a cane.

Her cane thumps against the floorboards as she continues across the vast space, heading my way. I don’t know how I missed that sound, before now. Maybe it’s because I was so mesmerized by the papers in my hand.

I still can’t quite get a grip on what I’ve read.The Silver Spring belongs to the Sinclair’s? Can that be true?

In a daze, I watch the elderly woman close the gap between us. For a woman of not quite five feet, who walks with a cane, she moves surprisingly fast.

As she nears, I recognize her. The last time I saw her, she was sitting on the Bubbly Springs Soda Company float at a Founders Festival parade.

Minerva Knight. Damian’s grandmother.

“What have you got there?” she demands once she’s close enough so that she doesn’t have to yell.

I re-fold the papers and shove them back into the envelope. “Nothing.”

“It’s not nothing. It’s something. I want to know what.”

“Really… nothing. Are you here to see Damian?” The envelope is bulky, but I do my best to roll it in half and stuff it in the back pocket of my jeans.

It barely fits, but I feel better that it’s out of her view. My mom went to a lot of trouble, apparently, to keep this thing hidden. I figure I should do the same.

But Minerva won’t drop it. “I’m here to see Damian, yes, yes. I saw his car out front. I’m going to bake him a pie this week and I want to know what he prefers: blueberry or strawberry rhubarb. But now I’ve foundyouhere, and I want to know what you’ve got there.” She lifts her cane and jabs it at me. “Tell me. Or else.”

Have I ever been threatened by a woman this short, and this old?

No, I have not.

And it’s surprisingly terrifying.

I pat the wobbly end of the envelope that sticks out of my pocket to make sure it’s still there. The woman has not uttered some sort of witchy spell to make the documents magically defy gravity and float her way. Yet.

I better keep a hand on them, just to be sure.

“You’re being sneaky,” she tells me. “I know that look. You’re the Sinclair girl. The one Nora’s so up in arms about. I remember your mother, and she was always trouble, too.”

“Bella,” I say. “My name’s Bella.”

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