Page 24 of Bribed by the Billionaire Bad Boy

Calypso

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Autumn’s Welcome is the one festival in this concrete jungle that makes it feel a little less concrete. Downtown, normally a bustle of glass displays and tall buildings, closes off to vehicles for a marvelous two days.

Stands fill the streets. Crowds clog the paths.

The scents of fresh cider, apple treats, and pumpkin spices flow through the air.

Life bustles. Music plays. Artists and small business owners rent tables to display their work. It’s a melangé of beauty.

“Do you have the schedule?” Mom asks, breaking me from the reverie of just letting everything pass me by.

I look at her while she shuffles through her purse, and suddenly the press of people and the fact it’s only late August tightens a fist around my chest. Releasing a breath, I shake my head.

“Ah.” She lifts the piece of scrap paper I scribbled out this week’s meal plan on yesterday. “Never mind. Here it is.” Her brown eyes brighten as she scans the sheet, and it’s so nice to see her fully awake with an actual weekend off now and again. “Who’s making burritos Thursday? And what do we need for them?”

“I’ll be making them before school. We both work that night, so when we get back, we can just pop them in the microwave.” I scan the area around us full of the farmer’s booths and swear I caught sight of someone familiar sifting through the crowd, but it had to be my imagination. “Maybe we can get some fresh spinach, and I can make a spicy white sauce?”

“That sounds amazing.” She drops her attention off the page and quirks a brow. “Don’t tell me you’ve been looking throughnew recipes again?”

“Not since the blueberry muffins.”

“Oh. Okay. So not since yesterday morning, when you were making out this list.” Her eyes roll, and she chuckles.

“You caught me.” I’ve already scribbled out half a dozen new recipes I want to try, and since they bleed into next week’s meal plan, I have that tucked away at my desk, too.

Starting toward a booth that seems promising in regard to spinach, Mom asks, “So? What’s bothering you?”

My heart thuds, but I take a breath and pay a head of lettuce far too much attention. “What do you mean?”

“You’ve been holed up in your room at your desk all weekend. I know when you get into moods. You distract yourself using anything in reach. Like new recipes.”

I find baby spinach, all wrapped up in a neat little bundle. “You’re still worried about me?” I pass her the bundle. “Let’s get this one.”

“Of course I am. You’re still a practical teenager.”

“I’m twenty-one.”

“And you just started your second year of college, on scholarship. And you’re working, and cooking, and cleaning.” Trailing through the points of her usual argument, she pays the man at the booth and opens her burlap bag to tuck the spinach inside. “Yet you’ve not said a single word of complaint about any of it. I don’t even know what you really do at that school of yours.” The bag closes, and she fixes her gaze on me. “You already know I don’t want you to end up burned to a crisp like me. You’re doing so much. Practically everything. You’re brilliant. I couldn’t bear to watch you waste away.”

The B word again. I bite my lip and force myself not to reach for one of my braids. Mom already knowsthatis a tell-tale sign of my nervous and avoidant tendencies, not to mention she hates when I fidget. “I’m fine. The start of school isn’t bad, and Ialready told you I was ahead. New recipes are my recreation.”

She huffs. “People are going to think I treat you like Cinderella.”

My lips hook up. “I don’t think there are enough similar elements. Should we get some mangoes?”

Mom pulls her attention off me long enough to consider the array of fruit being displayed at another stall. Her brows pucker. “I don’t know. It would be nice, but they’re a little expensive.”

“I can handle it.” All things considered, I have just gotten a rather significant raise. I haven’t even thought about how I’ll break the news to Mom about the fact I’m still making money and not working. Knowing her, she might fly down a rabbit trail of terrifying assumptions.

Oh, the things a young adult can get into at my age.

I shudder at the thought.

“Don’t think I’ve forgotten that something is wrong.” Mom veers toward the fruit, and I have the horrible urge to get a little of everything. Fruit is just so colorful. I like the idea of fruit.

Sighing, I try, “Mom, I keep telling you—”