Page 33 of My Forbidden Billionaire

“Oh, I’ll change into it once I’m there, don’t worry,” she adds while admiring herself in one of the window panes.

“Alright, but won’t you be cold? In sandals? And a … cape?”

“We have a limousine.”

“Fine.” I give up. She’s obviously not in the mood to give any explanations and extracting words from her in this state is more difficult than extracting gold ore from a dried-up mine.

“What are you doing with that ladder, then?”

“Teaching it how to waltz,” I say before I can stop myself. I can see where she gets her sarcasm from. The only thing I hope for is that she doesn’t say this kind of stuff at school. A fool’s hope, probably.

“Any luck?”

“Yes. In fact, I went up to that top shelf to retrieve this copy of One Hundred Years of Solitude.”

As if on cue, she asks, “One hundred years of what?”

“I knew you were going to say that.” I grin. “Solitude. It’s another word for loneliness. See, when you told me that Josephine’s favorite flowers are yellow orchids, you also mentioned that she read about them in a book. But you didn’t know which one.”

“Mhm.”

“I did a little digging, even though I already had a hunch. And then … I sent her a little gift.”

“What was it?”

“Obviously, yellow orchids. And Turkish Delight, just like you advised me.” Clem smiles and nods with appreciation. “In return, Josephine sent me an email with a quotation from a book. Which book do you think it was?”

“I know, I know! One Hundred Years of Lonelitude!”

She claps her hands together, elated that she managed to put the pieces of the puzzle together.

“Solitude.”

“What?”

“Solitude.”

“What did I say?”

“Lonelitude.”

“How is that different?”

“Lonelitude is not a word.”

“Yes, it is.”

“No. The word is loneliness. Or its synonym, solitude. There is no lonelitude.”

“Okay, you are literally saying the same thing,” she whines.

I take a deep breath and carry on. “As I was saying. I want to give this book to Josephine. Would you like to write a little something special on the first page for her?”

Once more, Clem’s face illuminates as she finds this a tremendous idea. She reaches for one of the gold pens on the service desk in the library and opens the novel. With her tongue slightly poking out, she scribbles.

Thank you for being my favorite teacher and one of my favorite people in the whole world. Love, Clem

“How’s that?”