Page 57 of Fake Dating My Billionaire Boss

She turns and hurries back to the stove, and I see more flower patches on the back pockets. She pulls the frying pan off the burner while twisting the gas burner off.

“Ready!” she announces.

This cooking thing confuses me. “You didn’t even lift the lid.” She graces me with another one of those quick, world-brightening smiles. “I didn’t have to. Sometimes…you just know.”

Our eyes lock, and emotion too big to name fills the kitchen.

I feel like I’m falling again.

Yes, this is dangerous.

Also, magical, and miraculous. I feel like a man waking up from a lifetime of slumber. It’s good to feel this alive.

“Grab some plates, will you?” she says. “You’re having some of this.”

I pull two plates from the cupboard and then set out cutlery while Bella serves up thick slabs of the omelet. Soon I’m digging into the best egg-and-cheese concoction I’ve ever tasted. She’s stuffed the inside with tomato, mushrooms, spinach, and fresh herbs.

As we eat, we tradeoff between moaning with taste-induced pleasure, breaking strings of cheese that stretch between our plates and forks, and chatting.

Maybe I’ll take the rest of the summer off,I think, as I serve myself seconds out of the pan.

How can I go back to sitting in my office and working, when I could be doing this all day?

Looking into Bella’s eyes.

Laughing with her.

Trading stories and insights into life.

Nothing I’ve ever done has felt quite this fulfilling. She’s in the middle of telling me a story about a time when she and her friend Fizzy got stuck in a cemetery vault on Halloween night when her phone beeps. She reaches for it.

“I don’t understand,” I say, as I enjoy another bite of omelet. It’s the perfect blend of cheeses. Perfect ratio of vegetable filling to egg. And, she must have gotten that fluffy-versus-rubbery thing right, because each bite is light, airy, and buttery. “Why were you in the vault in the first place?”

“ Because we weren’t supposed to go in there. And when we were younger, if you told me and Fizzynotto do something, we did it. His uncle was the cemetery caretaker, so he borrowed the key and—” She bites her lip as she scans a message on her phone screen. “Hang on, I should get back to him on this. But first I have to ask you something that might seem to be none of my business but believe me, it is.”

“I see. Another one of your weird, out-of-left-field questions.” I swipe my napkin over my lips as I brace myself for the query.

“So, Saturday afternoon,” she begins. “I went out for a while. And I’m just wondering… did anyone come by here? Like, a visitor?”

“And you want to know because…?”

“I just want to know. Curious minds…”

“Right, right.” It’s a line she’s given me before. “Curious minds want to know. Okay…” I pause as I consider the strange question. Then I shake my head. “Nope, no visitors. Oh, actually, my grandmother must have stopped by at some point to drop off a pie. I found it here on the counter when I got home from the museum site.”

Her eyes widen. “Dang. She did?”

“I don’t see why that’s a problem.”

Her fingers fly over her phone screen as she composes another message.

“Is the fact that my grandmother brought me a blueberry pie somehow relevant to your text messages to Fizzy?”

Her fingers fly across her phone screen. “Um, sort of. A little bit. Don’t worry about it.” But I am.

I am worried.

Because here she is doing it again—acting secretive. And for the second time, her strange behavior pertains to my grandmother.

---