Page 335 of Forbidden Billionaires: Vol. 11
“I’m serious, Scarlett,” Mr. Halifax said. “You can’t date your first cousin.”
“Jacob isnotmy first cousin,” I said.
“What?” Mr. Halifax asked.
“His step-father is one of my dad’s best friends. So I call him Uncle Matt. But he’s not really my uncle. And he’s not evenJacob’s real father. Jacob and I arenotblood related. Not even a little bit. Zero relation.”
Mr. Halifax exhaled slowly. “Oh. Well...good. Phew.”
Sophie tried to stop laughing and snorted a little. And then she looked horrified that she snorted and settled down.
Mr. Halifax chuckled. “You scared me there.”
“Yeah. Definitely not related,” I said again, just to drive the point home.
“Sorry,” he said and shook his head. “Now where were we?” He leaned closer to see the page of the calculus problem I was on. “Do you need help finding that derivative?”
I glanced out of the corner of my eye at Sophie. She was the one that had asked for help. Not me.
“Here.” Mr. Halifax grabbed my pencil out of my hand. “Let me show you. And then you can try the next problem on you own.”
***
Uncle Rob said something as I helped him set the dinner table. But I wasn’t paying attention. I was still a bit shell shocked about how Mr. Halifax had behaved during detention. He’d sat with me half the time helping me with problems I already understood. And I couldn’t tell if he had acted shocked about the Jacob thing entirely because of the cousin assumption. Or if he was partially jealous.
I straightened one of the forks.
“Scarlett, did you hear what I asked?” Uncle Rob said.
“What?”
He laughed. “Did you like the finishing touches on your secret lair?”
Everyone needed to stop calling itmine. “I haven’t seen it yet.”
“What? You gotta go check it out. I did most of the work, but Tanner really brought the whole thing together. I’ll give him credit where credit is due.”
“Sophie and I are heading there after dinner.”
“Fantastic. Text me and let me know what you think.” He laughed. “James is going to be so pissed if he ever finds it.”
Yeah, that’s what I was afraid of. My father’s wrath.
“Did anything fun happen at school today?” Uncle Rob asked.
I quickly shook my head. “No. Nothing out of the ordinary,” I said.
Sophie walked in with some glasses of water. “Yeah, not much, Dad. Axel showed up high.” She rolled her eyes. “It turns out Jacob is not Scarlett’s kiss thief. But they’re dating anyway. Him and Scarlett were all over each other in the hallways today. It was adorable. And even though Scarlett is clearly in love withJacob, our calculus teacher flirted with her hard in detention. It was completely inappropriate.”
“Why did you girls have detention?” Uncle Rob asked.
I never understood why he didn’t react toeverythingSophie said. There were a lot of troublesome things she’d just said. And I was pretty sure the flirtatious teacher thing deserved some attention.
“Shockingly it wasn’t because of the cameras we installed in the men’s locker room,” Sophie said. “Which we still need to check today, Scar. We got detention for talking during class.”
Uncle Rob laughed. “I never know when you’re kidding, Soph. But remember what I said about those cameras...”
“Yeah, yeah, don’t get caught. We won’t, Dad.”
