Page 36 of The Bachelor Auction

I’m not even sure I feel bad about it.

Sure, we had some great flirting, teasing, and chats. But real life happened, which he must have expected that it would at some point. I’d rather treasure his memory as a good friend than risk finding out who he really is.

Besides, I never made a secret out of the fact that I’m not open to meeting an online acquaintance.

All those points aside, we agreed on just having fun, right from the beginning.

So—

A phone pings somewhere to my right, and I realize it’s Tyler’s cell next to my progress folder. He must have forgotten it. Given that the message might be important, I peer at the lit-up screen.

There’s a notification of a new message in his travelbuddy account, sent from Bumblebee07.

My heart stops as my brain tries to process what I’m seeing.

Bumblebee07

My user ID. On his phone.

For a moment, all I can do is stare at my screen name, my brain unable to comprehend the meaning of it. I click on the conversation and force myself to read every message I sent him over the months as it slowly dawns on me that Tyler is my chat buddy.

He is LuckyLuke.

He must have known all along that I’m Bumblebee07. That’s the motivation, the intent behind why I’m here.

He hired me for a certain reason. And that reason wasn’t my impressive résumé.

“I can’t believe it,” I mutter. The shock sits deep in my chest. My mouth feels dry, and nausea forms in my stomach.

Tyler is Lucky.

I feel betrayed, mortified, cheated as I scroll through almost one year of messages and all the things I told him. I can’t figure out what I could have possibly disclosed about myself that might have betrayed my real identity.

What could I have possibly said when I never gave him my real name, phone number, email address?

The only way he could have found out any of those is by accessing my private information on the travelbuddy.com website to find out who I was. Given that he’s the owner, he would have had easy access to all my signup information.

I’m shaking as I switch off his phone. I told Lucky that I wouldn’t meet him, but he decided to go against my wishes and trick me into meeting him anyway.

“The jerk.”

If I had known, I would have never opened up to him the way I did.

I grab my progress folder and head out of the conference room, ignoring Scarlet’s curious gaze as I dashed past her to grab my stuff from my office. My face is burning, my skin crawling with embarrassment, which I hope she can’t see. As much as I need this job, I also need my time to think, and that won’t be happening with Tyler a floor away.

I need to put as much distance between us as I can, and that’s only possible if I take the first flight back home where I can forget the fact that he tricked me into sleeping with him.

Running away back to my home where I can forget the fact that I might have fallen for him just a little bit.

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