Page 61 of Meet Jon, the Billionaire

Jonathon, to his credit, looked rather confused. “How could I what?”

His seeming innocence only made me that much more furious. “Don’t act like you don’t know exactly what I’m talking about. I can’t believe I trusted you. That’s what I get for falling for your game.”

“I wasn’t using game on you, Amelia.” He spread his hands out wide. “And I swear to God that I have no idea why you’re so angry.”

I’d been half expecting him to deny it. I went to my purse and threw open the brass hasp. I dragged out the folded newspaper and slapped him in the chest with it.

“So do you really expect me to believe that you had nothing to do with this?”

He took the paper and stared at it. As he read, I noticed sweat break out on his brow. His hands fairly trembled, causing the paper to rattle.

“Jack, I said DON’T pull the trigger,” he muttered under his breath.

“Oh, so you do know Jack?” I hid my face in my hands for a moment and groaned. “God damn it, why did you have to do this? Why?”

“I—it was an accident.”

“You accidentally hired a private eye to snoop around for dirt on my aunt, me, and Breadcetera?”

“I—I didn’t specifically tell her to look for dirt.”

“But youdidhire her.”

His shoulders slumped, and his chest deflated. “I asked Jack to look into any possible ways we might convince your aunt to sell the bakery. I guess she got a little overzealous—”

“Sell the bakery?” I sputtered. “Are you insane? Do you have any idea of what that bakery means to my aunt? How much it means to her to keep it in the family? She’d sooner die than sell.”

“I’m starting to understand that, now.”

I made a strangled grunt and turned my back on him. I was so furious I feared I might slap him again. Not that he didn’t deserve it, but I’m not a violent person. Also, my hand still stung.

“Your stupid dirt-digging assignment was never going to make my aunt sell. Never. Do you want to know what you accomplished by doing it? Huh?”

The silence stretched out far too long, and I spun around in a circle and glared at him. “Well? Do you?”

“No,” he said, his tone flat and neutral. Anger danced in his eyes. The fact that he was mad made me even more mad.

“You made an eighty-year-old woman cry. That’s what you achieved. I hope it was worth the money you spent.”

Jonathon sighed. “I told her not to pull the trigger. Not to! But the connection was bad, and we got cut off, and…”

His words trailed off, and he stared out the window with a pained grimace.

“It doesn’t matter if you told Jack not to leak it to the press. You set that hound on the trail. The rabbits it slaughtered along the way looking for the fox are still your fault.”

Jonathon turned toward me and sighed. “I’m sorrier than you would ever know.”

“Oh, I doubt that.” I felt bile rising in the back of my throat, I was so upset. I swallowed it down, and tried to continue in a more normal tone of voice. “I doubt that very much, Jonathon. I mean, you said you were sorry about not telling me you were the owner of Acme Bread. You said you were sorry for one-upping me at the tennis tourney. And now you’re saying that you’re sorry about siccing a private investigator on my defenseless eighty-year-old aunt.”

I shook my head in disgust. “You know what I think? I think that you do whatever the fuck you want, and then when you get caught, you act penitent and say a lot of pretty words to get out of it. Then, you do something else that you know you’ll eventually have to apologize for.”

“It’s not like that…” Jonathon stopped himself. His jaw worked silently for a long time. “Okay, maybe it is like that. I don’t know. I’m the Tiger. I don’t ask permission and I always play for keeps.”

“You always play for keeps, huh?” I jabbed my finger at him and intensified my glare. “Well you know what you can’t keep? Me. I’m fucking done with you.”

He gasped. “Wait, Amelia, don’t go—”

“Don’t call me Amelia, you prick. You lost that right when you hired a private dick to ruin my aunt’s reputation.” I gritted my teeth and clenched my hands into fists. “All for that corner lot. What in the actual fuck, Jon? You’re a goddamn billionaire, and you fight like that corner lot is going to make or break you.”

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