Chapter 18: The Heiress's Offer

[Juliette’s POV]

“I wanted to play a trick on Margaret,” I lied under my breath.

His eyes grew in bewilderment.

Hastily, I jumped into explaining. “I know it’s childish of me—.”

“Goddamn right it is!”

“Well, she started it!” And I told him everything that has happened to me in the past three days, the pranks and the meals I’ve missed because of them. As I talked, Ralph calmly sipped on his wine and listened wholeheartedly.

“...so I hid myself in the one place she wouldn’t think I’d be, hoping to send her into a frenzy. I swear I was about to leave when I heard you and Ben coming in.”

He snorted a chuckle. “So you hid in the store.”

“That was a store?” I jokingly pretended to be surprised. “No wonder it smelled weird.”

His right brows raised in pique. “There are no dead bodies in there, if that's what you're insinuating.”

I hastily clarified, "I wasn't insinuating that."

We gazed at each other with the same curiosity and compassion, and then arrived at an even understanding.