Page 368 of Forbidden Billionaires: Vol. 7

“You sure? Because Matthew Caldwell is super rich. And we’re only working with Tanner because he has a contract with Matt’s brother. So we know that they at least run in the same circles. And he was just hanging out with James in his office. Isn’t James friends with Matt? And when we first got told about Tanner coming in, didn’t Bee say he was a friend? They all hang out together!”

Oh good God, she was right. “Chastity.” I grabbed her hand to make her stop looking at the texts because I’d just remembered something. Something horribly terrible. “When Tanner was joking about being a genie…he said he couldn’t be with me because he had a flaming genie penis.”

Chastity laughed. “He was just messing with you.”

“I know that. But it’s not funny. What if…what if he keeps running away from me because he’s scared that I’m going to set him on fire? Like I set his best friend Matt on fire. With the flaming penis incident. Because Matt told him all about it. Why else would he say he had a flaming penis? God, he knows aboutthe incident.”

Chastity thought it over. “If that was true, he wouldn’t still be into you. And he’s definitely into you. It’s probably a different Matt. I shouldn’t have even said anything. Think of all the Matts there are in the world.”

“But you just said James, Bee, and Mason are friends with him. Of course Matt is too.”

“Surely. But that doesn’t mean it’s his best friend. Think about all the Hannahs he had in his phone. Matt is just as common of a name as Hannah.”

True.

“Besides, his best friend Matt is going to be a hot single rich guy. I’m visualizing it, so it’s gotta happen. Ohh! Look. Tanner just got a text from Nigel the houseboy. Five dollars says it’s a dick pic.”

Well, if that wasn’t a good distraction from the Matt question, I didn’t know what was. “You’re on. I’m telling you, Tanner’s not gay.” I opened the conversation. I was happy to see that it was just a text confirming that he’d booked a yacht for the launch party. “I win.”

“You got lucky. Scroll back and I bet you’ll find the good stuff.” She grabbed my mouse and started looking through the rest of the conversation. It was all pretty boring and decidedly unsexy. Except for one text…

“Wait,” I said. “What’s that?” I pointed at a text from a few weeks ago:

Nigel: Good news, Master. The island is fully stocked with everything you might need in case you have to make a quick getaway.

“What do you think it means?” I asked.

“I guess he owns a private island,” said Chastity. “Man, I still can’t believe you somehow called dibs on him before me. Do you think Matt owns a private island too? I bet he does. Imagine the things you could do to a beautiful man on a private island…”

“I was more focused on the bit about Tanner needing to make a quick getaway. Now we have concrete evidence that he does in fact have someone that he’s scared of.” I’d never been so happy to know that someone was in grave danger. Because for a while I’d been thinking that he just kept pulling away during our kisses because he found me repulsive. And now my most recent fear: that he knew aboutthe incident. But this kinda proved that he didn’t.Hopefully.

We kept searching for more clues in the thread, but hours of work turned up nothing. I stood up and stretched my back out. “This is insane. How does he not have more stuff on his phone?”

“I dunno. He must really believe in inbox-zero, because he’s basically applied it to his entire digital life. I’m pretty sure my grandparents use their phones more than he does, despite their complete disregard for internet etiquette. Apparently forwards have migrated from AOL to Facebook messenger.”

I shut my laptop and put it in my bag. “Oh well. Even if he doesn’t use his phone much, he still has it with him all the time. He’s bound to let something slip when he thinks no one is listening. And if not, then the GPS will lead us right to Club Onyx.”

“You know what that means, right?” Chastity looked so excited, which made me incredibly nervous. Recently all of her ideas seemed to be geared around embarrassing me as much as possible.

“Um…do I have to send Tanner some naked photos or something?”

“Ohhh, you little slut! I bet you want to send him some nudies. But no, why would that be my plan? My plan is to have a stakeout! Only instead of sitting in an unmarked van eating donuts and drinking coffee, we get to go back to your place and eat pizza. And try on every Odegaard dress in your new closet. Best. Stakeout. Ever!!!”

“I actually kind of love that idea.”

“Of course you do. It’s an objectively good idea.”

It was. Except for one little detail. Chastity ordered the pizza before we were home. And we couldn’t get a taxi to save our lives. So the pizza arrived before we did.

“Stop right there, Rutherford!” I yelled as we exited the stairwell. He wasjustabout to open the pizza box sitting outside my apartment door.

“Stop what?” he asked. “I just saw your pizza sitting here and I wanted to make sure no hoodlums stole it.”

“There’s only one hoodlum in this building.”

“Nathan from 3B? I couldn’t agree more. What a little asshole.”

“Nathan is an infant. I was talking about you. I know that you always lick my pizzas.”