Page 126 of Forbidden Billionaires: Vol. 11

Saturday

No . Nooooo! “What do you mean you didn’t ex out of the men’s locker room footage?!”

“I panicked and just slammed the lid of the computer closed,” Sophie said.

“Sophie!”

“It’s not my fault! I didn’t want Aunt Hailey or Uncle Tyler to walk in and see.”

I stared at her in horror. Nooooo!

Sophie groaned. “This is bad. Really bad.”

“I know!”

“Axel’s going to open it and see, Scarlett.”

The severity of the situation somehow made me hyper focused. I took a deep breath. There was only one solution. “No. He’s not. Because we’re going to go back in.” I raised my fist to knock on the door but Sophie swatted my hand down.

“We can’t,” she said.

“We have to!”

“Scarlett, there’s no way we can get back inside, get the key from Parker, sneak down the hall, and get into Axel’s room without causing suspicion.”

“But we can’t let Axel see the footage.”

“Which means we need another plan.” Sophie pulled me to the elevators.

“Maybe I can call Parker... Wait. No. That footage isn’t age appropriate.”

“Yeah, we can’t let Parker see the footage either. What if Luis the Cheater is still currently cheating. She may watch a bunch of reality TV, but I don’t think she’s ever seen that .”

“I know! I realized my mistake as soon as I said it.” I groaned. “Sophie, what are we going to do?”

For once, Sophie didn’t seem to have a plan.

We were both quiet as we walked outside.

My stomach was in knots. Axel didn’t want me to kiss anyone on his team. And I had a feeling that he’d think spying on them was a hell of a lot worse. “He’s going to be so mad,” I said. “He’ll probably make out with every girl in the whole school now.”

“So it’s a good thing he’ll never find out.” Sophie hailed a cab.

“He’s going to see it, Soph. You said it yourself.”

“No he’s not.” A cab pulled to a stop in front of her and she opened the door. She gestured for me to get in.

“I really think we need to go back in.”

“Nope.” She shoved me into the cab, climbed in after me, and slammed the door closed.

“Where are we even going?” I asked.

She gave the driver my address and then turned to me. “You’re going home. And we better hope to God that Axel is already in your bed waiting for you.”

I slowly nodded. “That at least delays it. And even if he’s not there yet, I can make sure he comes straight to me instead of going home tonight.” I pulled out my phone and shot Axel a text saying that being out so late had freaked me out and that I was scared. I hit send.

“Brilliant,” Sophie said. “And everyone is going to the Stevens’ for the football game tomorrow afternoon.”

“Oh my God, I forgot about that!” My parents and all my aunts and uncles hosted the game on a rotating basis. And it was Uncle Tyler and Aunt Hailey’s turn. “What time is tomorrow’s game?”

“The Giants play at 1. Which means you just need to distract Axel tomorrow morning. Keep him at your place until kickoff.”

“I can do that.” I hope.

“I’ll try to get to their place super early with the guise of helping out. And then I’ll convince Parker to give me the key again, sneak into Axel’s room, and ex out of the security footage.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. “Good plan.”

“Easy peasy.”

My phone buzzed.

Axel had already texted me back. “Big brother mode activated,” I read out loud. God. Him showing up in my room every night hadn’t felt like big brother vibes to me. But apparently it had to him.

Sophie laughed. “He sounds very drunk. Probably because George ditched him for Luis the Cheater.”

I kept staring at my phone. Did that mean he was coming? Probably. He’d already told me he’d see me in bed later. After telling me to have a fun night babysitting. “So how should I distract Axel tomorrow morning?”

Sophie shrugged. “I don’t know. Tell him you’re only fake dating someone else because you’re actually madly in love with him? That’ll lead to a long conversation.”

“Soph.”

“Or you could give him head. You’ve had some practice now.”

“I’m not blowing Axel.”

“Oh.” She raised her eyebrows. “Because you’re only interested in blowing Jacob?”

“Stop it.”

“That wasn’t a no.” She stared at me.

I was pretty sure the cabbie was staring at me too, but it was better to pretend this wasn’t happening.

“Hey,” Sophie said. “If there was something actually progressing in this fake dating thing, you’d tell me right?”

“I...” I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter.”

“No, tell me.”

I sighed. “I think maybe I’m starting to have real feelings.”

“Shut up.”

I shook my head. “That’s not even the right way to word it. I already had real feelings. But then he turned me down, so I tried to shake the feelings away. But...”

“But?” she pressed.

“But it doesn’t matter. Because clearly Jacob doesn’t have feelings for me. He’s not into me.”

“He’s into you enough to let you blow him.”

“When I asked if I could practice on him even though he wasn’t attracted to me he literally said, ‘Well I’m still a guy,’ ” I said in a deep voice.

“Oh. That’s all he said?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, think. What else did he say?”

I sighed. “He might have said something about how he never said he wasn’t attracted to me. It was just that I changed. Yadda yadda.”

Sophie smiled.

“What?”

“So he is attracted to you.”

“I don’t know. I can’t remember exactly what he said.”

Sophie laughed. “You really need to pay better attention. If you did, we would have already unmasked your kiss thief ages ago.”

The cab pulled up outside my building.

I sighed. “Time to go distract Axel.” I climbed out of the cab.

“Scar?”

I turned around. “Yeah?”

“Maybe you should tell Jacob how you feel.”

“What’s the point? No one I like ever likes me back.”

“Scar.”

“Soph.”

She smiled. “Just think about it. Maybe if you had told Axel back in sixth grade you could have prevented years of pain. That’s all I’m saying.”

“He didn’t have to kiss anyone in spin the bottle.”

“So don’t let Jacob get to the point where he kisses someone else in spin the bottle.”

I pressed my lips together. I didn’t really know what to say to that. I still liked Axel too. And the kiss thief. I was just so confused.

“Goodnight, Scar.”

“Nigh, Soph.”

“Text me in the morning with updates,” she said.

“You too.” I went to close the door but she put her hand out.

“Wait. We need an operation name.”

“Do we though?”

“Yes. How about Operation Big Brother?”

I shrugged. “Sure.” I hated it. But at least it didn’t have the actual word incest in the name. I closed the door to the cab and watched it speed off.

My phone buzzed as I walked into my apartment.

I glanced at the text from Soph. “Operation Big Brother has been activated.”

I laughed and my voice echoed around me in the empty apartment. Liam was probably out. And even though Aunt Hails and Uncle Tyler were home, apparently my parents were still out too.

The floor creaked under my feet as I made my way to my room. I swear a floorboard creaked behind me too. But when I spun around, no one was there.

“Hello?” I called into the empty living room.

But there was no response.

Our housekeeper Ellen was never here this late. But I knew I wasn’t entirely alone. Either Porter or Briggs was still watching. One of them would have gone with my parents. And the other one would have stayed here.

I pulled out my phone and called Porter. It rang once and went straight to voicemail. I did the same with Briggs. His rang a bunch and then went to voicemail.

I thought I heard another noise and spun around. But I didn’t see anyone.

Screw this. I ran into my room and closed the door behind me.

I was glad I’d texted Axel. Because I actually was scared now. I knew zombies didn’t exist. But I was barely halfway into my week long fear fest from that stupid movie.

My phone rang and I almost dropped it on the floor. Briggs’ name lit up across my screen. I quickly answered it. “Hey,” I said.

“Is everything okay?” he asked.

“Yeah, I just got home and I thought I heard a noise.”

“Do you want me to come check it out?”

I heard a loud crashing noise. Below me. I looked down at the carpet above the trapdoor.

“I’m coming now,” Briggs said.

“No, that’s okay,” I quickly said. “It was probably nothing.”

Another loud crash sounded beneath the trapdoor.

“Are you sure? I haven’t seen anything on the screens at all. But they have been glitching recently.”

My heart started racing as I stared at the carpet. It was probably Axel. Or...the owner of the apartment beneath ours wondering what the heck was going on. Or a zombie. I swallowed hard.

Either way, it would be worse if Briggs was here to witness it.

“Yeah, I’m sure,” I said. “I was just being silly.” But my heart was pounding so hard it actually hurt.

“I’m still going to come do a sweep,” he said.

Crap. I was so screwed.

The trapdoor started to lift and then fell back in place with a thud.

Well, if I was going to be caught anyway... “Great,” I said. I was wrong before. It would be better if Briggs was here to help me with the intruder. He was actually trained for this. I was most certainly not. “See you in a minute.” I hung up the phone just as the trapdoor started lifting again.

I grabbed a big jarred candle as a weapon and waited for the zombie to come up.

The trapdoor fell again and there was a groaning noise.

Crap. It really is a zombie! And if there was one thing I’d learned from that stupid scary movie, it was that it’s better to be proactive. I wasn’t just waiting around to be eaten. I flung the trapdoor up and threw my candle down the hole.

Well, more like let it fall out of my hand.

Because as soon as I saw the top of Axel’s head, I tried to stop. But it was too late.

The candle fell right onto the top of Axel’s head and then shattered on the ground below.

Oh no . “Axel?”

“What did you just throw at me?” He rubbed his head and laughed.

At least he was laughing. “It was more of a gentle toss,” I said.

“Ow.” And then he laughed again. He looked up at me. “You look pretty tonight. Big brothers can say that, right?”