Managing a bakery wasn't easy. My alarm went off every single morning at five a.m After getting ready, I had to start prepping up for the day.

I had two employees working for me who helped with the cake orders and such. I mostly made custom-made cakes for weddings, birthdays, bachelor, bachelorette parties, even a baby shower. Sometimes it got really busy with me preparing the bread and cakes for the bakery, while also supervising for a large cake order.

For me, this was fun. It wasn't exactly what I had planned to do at first, but my home remained in Cold-Bay. I didn't think I could leave this place so moving away had never been an option.

A part of me remained here, it forever would.

Archer was here to help me this entire month which was great. Training as a patisserie in France had given him a lot of different ideas that he decided to implement while he was here and he also taught me some delicious new recipes.

He had prepared a fresh batch of lemon tarts and red velvet cupcakes and he had made a few new alterations to the recipe. When I tasted them, I called him a genius.

"You have been surprisingly quiet," I noticed as my brother began arranging fresh Blue-Berry cheesecakes for display. "What happened?"

He didn't answer me, continued to sulk. That's the only thing I hated about Archer, his ability to tune everything and everyone out. He could go on for hours without saying a word, and that was frustrating, to say the least.

"Do you want to talk about it?" I tried again.

"If I tell you what's going on, you're going to have to do the same thing and tell me what's going on with you. Deal?"

I rolled my eyes. "You already know nothing is going on with me."

Archer glared at me, the silver in his eyes turned a shade darker. "I saw the note that Tyler left for you."

I passed him an innocent look, one which wasn't convincing him. "What note?"

He said the next words in a hushed whisper, "The note that says that he wants you to meet him in Lockhart's Legacy Hotel, Friday night."

My face lit on fire. "Were you snooping around in my room?"

"I wasn't snooping. I found the note on the floor outside of your bedroom."

It must have fallen out of the wastebasket when I brought it out to empty it.

"Please tell me you're not going along with it." He said, searching my eyes for answers.

I never lied to Archer because it was hard to lie to him. He always knew what was going on. You could call it a twin's instinct.

"It's none of your business," I said flatly.

He gave out a humorless laugh, "Has common sense and logic abandoned you since his return, Victoria?"

He used my full name, which clearly said he was ROYALLY pissed.

"It probably has," I responded.

"What are you trying to get out of this?" He asked in a frustrated tone. "He's not calling you to the hotel to play Scrabble. He wants to sleep with you."

I laughed, "Thanks for the heads up, but I already know that."

"Then what do you plan to do?"

"I'm planning to go there, sleep with him the way he expects me to and that's it."

"This strategy that you have of trying to hurt him is not going to work. Tyler can never get hurt, Vicky, don't you see? A man who pretends to have feelings could not possibly be affected by any of this. He will do what he has always done before. Use you and then..."

"That's very hypocritical of you, Archer. I never once gave you my peace of mind when it comes to Maya. You have always done whatever you saw fit. Now that you think about it, those weren't really the best decisions, were they?"

If you saw Archer right now, you'd think he'd walked out of a hot pre-heated oven. "That was different."

"Oh, was it?" I taunted him. "How is that different? If we're being real, yours and Maya's relationship was a lot more toxic then Tyler's and mine could ever be."

"Shut up."

I smiled in satisfaction. "I'm twenty-seven, Archie, and I've been lonely for a long time. Don't you think I need the means to humor myself from time to time? He's not going to just leave me alone, I know that."

"Remember this Vicky, whatever games you are going to play, it won't matter to him, but it will affect you. I won't interfere more into your matters after this."

I felt relieved. Finally, Archer was going to pretend to understand me. Finally, he was going to stop acting like a protective older brother (which he wasn't. I was fifteen minutes older than he was) and allow me to live my life the way I wanted.

"Jasper Lockhart is missing." He said.

"I heard that."

Tyler's father had left one night, it seemed that he'd gone for hiking but no one had heard anything about it yet. A month had passed now. The family still seemed to think that the man was alive and not dead as people were saying.

"There are speculations that Tyler might be involved." He said softly.

"Involved in what?" I asked.

Archer's eyes leveled with mine, and I had no problem understanding the hidden meaning behind his silence.

"Is that what you believe? If you look at it this way, and consider Tyler as your best friend not a power-hungry, young billionaire, do you think he is capable of killing someone?"

Archer looked away abruptly. When he was hiding something, he usually avoided eye-contact.

He thought Tyler was capable of murder.

"You're hiding something. What is it?"

"I'm sure it was nothing." He muttered under his breath.

I got hold of his arm and forced him to look at me. "I need to know, Archer."

An alarm was ringing in my mind as I studied him.

Archer blinked, turning his serious gray eyes to me. "After the birthday party on Sunday, Tyler called me to the mansion."

Now that I thought about it, I did recall Archer leaving with Tyler, and I'd assumed the boys had left to have a few more drinks and maybe play pool at the Lockhart's mansion. When Archer came home after two a.m., I never questioned it.

He looked around; making sure no one was here to listen to us. "He's my friend, Vicky. He's done things for me in the past...I couldn't..."

"Just tell me what happened, Archer!"

"He handed me a pair of hiking shoes caked with mud. There was also his father's wallet. He told me that he needed help with getting rid of them."

I stared at him in horror.

"So I helped him."

I squeezed his bicep. "If his father is indeed murdered by him, you couldn't get involved in this. Helping Tyler means you were an accomplice."

"I know he is bad, but he would never kill his father!" Archer said defensively.

"This is the same guy who left a Black Mamba in his father's bedroom, the same guy who's trained his dogs to rip a person to shreds anyone who dares cross his family. Are you sure Tyler is not capable of murder? If he was dangerous when we were kids, he's ten folds more deadly now."

Archer's hand was shaking as he gripped the counter. "Vicky...I...

"Did you ask him why he had possession of the wallet and shoes?"

"He doesn't believe Jasper is killed. Ty says someone is setting him up."

"If he is being set up, and he's innocent, why didn't he just take the evidence to the police? Where did you guys put it?"

"We went on the Lockhart's private yacht. Threw them into the middle of the sea..."

I closed my eyes and took deep breaths.

"Tyler didn't do it." Archer said. It seemed to me like he was trying to convince himself of that story.

"The only one to gain the most of out of Jasper Lockhart's disappearance is Tyler. Why would anyone try to frame him?" I asked. "He's trying to manipulate you, just like how he's been doing since all those years."

"He's my best friend."

"So you would go to jail for him for a crime that you did not commit?" I asked him angrily.

"That is the reason I want you to be careful of him." He said with a look filled with warning.

"I'm going to find out the truth even if it means I have to seduce it out of him" I said before I disappeared into kitchen.

My mind kept going back to the part where I imagined Archer being dragged in a police car to the station and being questioned by police and detectives about the disappearance of Tyler's father.

This was insane. Why would Archer even help Tyler with a cover-up?

Tyler had a lot of reasons to kill his father namely, the company. That's all Ty cared about anyway. He knew no one would be bold enough to step in the shoes of Jasper Lockhart as a company CEO, not even his oldest cousin Maximus Lockhart, and that left Tyler to fill in the space.

Tyler only respected his father because he wanted to be a capable businessman like him, other than that he hated his guts. In fact, he'd tried to hurt the man on numerous occasions so what were the odds that he'd successfully done it this time?

I wore a short sleeveless dress which looked satin (but it wasn't). I had pulled a coat over the dress and matched it with high heels. When I told the receptionist who I was here to see, her eyes almost bulged out of her sockets, obviously mistaking me as a posh hooker here to sleep with their employer.

I didn't particularly care. The Lockhart's Legacy Hotel was at least an hour away from Cold-Bay. People didn't even know me in this part of the city.

During my elevator ride to the twenty-fifth floor, I repeatedly told myself that I wasn't nervous and yet felt the anxiety snake wound around my neck.

What was I doing?

Had I completely lost my mind?

I told myself that I shouldn't have acted on impulse. This entire plan to hurt Tyler could go to shit.

If this wasn't about Archer I wouldn't even be here.

But, I needed answers.

I stood in front of the door of suite number 506 and looked at my watch. The time was exactly ten p.m. My palms were sweating but I really needed to pull my strong girl pants on.

Ty thought he was going to intimidate me like he used to, and I wanted to prove him wrong.

The burning need to see Tyler hurt was so high, I wasn't even acting like myself anymore.

I knocked once at the door and waited. For a second, I contemplated high-tailing back to the elevator and downstairs but suddenly the door opened.

Tyler stood at the door wearing nothing but jeans low on his hips. His delicious washboard abs were literally on display, and his dark hair tousled. The word 'Hot' wasn't even something I wanted to use to describe him. In fact, the adjectives I could use for Tyler's beauty did not even exist in my dictionary.

Those blue eyes turned dark and stared at me like he couldn't believe I was standing here.

So that proved one thing. He'd merely written the number for me that night out of his usual impulsive behavior, just as a tease and to see me squirm and he'd had fun when I'd flatly said no. He never expected me to actually show up at his hotel room.

I had caught him off-guard.

Tyler always knew what to expect so if he was surprised, well, more power to me.

I gave him my friendliest smile, "Are you going to let me in or are you just going to stand there and stare like a creep?"

His smile turned into a grin as he pushed the door wide open.

I had a feeling I was about to be devoured.

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