Page 61 of Fake Dating My Billionaire Boss

“Come on… come on…” I mouth to him.

My tongue has turned to sandpaper, and I can feel my heart thudding away like a jackhammer. Fizzy scampers my way, and then past me. “Got it!” he whispers as he pushes through the thick wall of curtains.

I spin on my heel and reach for the edge of the drapes, to pull them aside and make my getaway, too. But as my hand wraps around the embroidered material, I feel something hard and blunt press into the center of my back.

“Got you, Missy,” Minerva hisses, as she jabs her cane into my back a second time. “Turn around and smile for the camera.” I turn slowly and actually give a forced smile as she snaps a photo of me with her phone. “Evidence,” she says, as she taps the screen. “That’ll be nice to have when this goes to court. Thank you.” She lifts her phone to her ear and listens to it ring.

“Mrs. Knight, I can explain,” I plead. “You see, my friend and I were flying his, um, toy thing outside, and by mistake it—”

“Save it for the judge,” she snaps. Then she turns away from me and speaks into her cell.

“Hi, yes Officer, this is Minerva Knight at Golden Horizon’s, Unit 14, and I’d like to report a burglary.”Oh no she didn’t.

Minerva called the cops on me!

A breeze gusts through the open patio door behind me. I want to escape, but it’s a little late for that. She already has evidence of my trespass, and I have a strong feeling that if I run, she’ll get the cops to chase me down. Talk about embarrassing.

If Minerva has her way, I’m going to be leaving here in handcuffs.

Chapter 19

Damian

I’ve lived in Silver Springs for nearly my entire life. There were years during which I went away to college, and then to grad school. And after that, I spent months at a time abroad, of course.

But throughout it all, I considered this little town my home base. And in all those years of thinking of this town as home, driving its streets, conducting the day-to-day business of living, I’ve never once had reason to visit the police department.

Until today.

Today, I have a reason to see what the place is like inside, and I’m not happy about it. I hike up the wide bank of granite steps to the front double doors and pull one open. A woman behind a barrier of plexiglass greets me warmly. “Hey there! Was wondering when you’d make it in.”

“I’m Damian Knight. Here to pick up Bella Sinclair.”

“You think I don’t know that?” she waves off my statement. “You’re the talk of the town these days. You and Bella; how you fell in love in the city and now she’s up at your place, living withyou. Now, your Gran called to drop the charges against her, and I’m sure you’re eager to see her and give her a big old kiss. Bella, I mean—not your Gran.” She laughs and waves again. “Sorry. Long shift. Let me grab her release forms…”

She examines a few papers on her side of the glass and then gives me a nod and another warm smile. “Great, come on in through the door to your left.” A buzzer sounds, and I hear a ‘click’ as a locking mechanism on the door to my side releases. I pull the door open and try not to breathe in the wall of stale coffee-perfumed air that greets me.

“Follow me,” the chatty officer says. “She’s right back here. Anxious to see you, too, I’m sure. She’s been telling us all what a big mistake this is.”

Big mistake.

Those two haunting words reverberate in my skull.

Has all that’s happened with Bella been some sort of big mistake? My mother thinks so. She was entirely too happy to call me up and deliver the news:“I just got off the phone with your grandmother. She says that Sinclair girl broke into her home and was carted away in a police cruiser. I won’t say I told you so, but…”

She then proceeded to pretty much say exactly that she ‘told me so’, and that Bella is nothing but a conniving criminal who's probably been after my money from the start.“Damian, darling, how many times do I have to warn you about women like her? She may have put on a good act, but at least now you see what she’s all about. Robbing your grandmother; what a shameful act. If you ask me, she was after Minerva’s China. Or perhaps jewelry. Minerva does have quite a valuable collection.”

I had to rub my sleeve against the phone speaker to fake a loss of cell signal, to get off the line. Because my mother would have happily gloated for hours if I’d given her the chance. I called my grandmother and begged her to drop the charges. Andfinally, she reluctantly agreed. In this game of life, the ‘favorite grandson’ card trumps most others.

Now, as the officer before me chats on about how she used to play on some junior varsity softball team with Bella, I tune out the distraction.

I don’t care about the fact that “Bella was always happy, even when we lost,” or that she “used to kill it on shortstop.”

I only care about the fact that Bella broke into my grandmother's condo. Why?

I can’t believe it was an attempt to steal China. Or jewelry. The Bella I know wouldn’t stoop to something like that. But how well do I know Bella, really?Not that well,a little voice inside my head whispers.

I blink a few times as Chatty Officer twists her key in a door handle. “We had her in the holding cell at first, but that place stinks something awful, I swear, so I checked with my Cap, and he said I could stick her in the break room as long as I locked the door. He was good friends with her dad, back when Jack lived in town. Great guy, Jack. You ever meet him?”

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