approached the library, I slowed down, overhearing stern voices coming from within.
The fucking library. I’d hated that room as a kid. Stuffed with impressive books that my parents had never actually read, it was the place where I’d always gotten lectures about how I wasn’t living up to my “potential.” Even in high school, that’s where my parents would scold me about my future and every little thing I was doing wrong. More recently, they’d sat me down in there and tried to convince me to reconsider my breakup with Claudia.
“I have to say,” I heard my mother saying coldly, “I’m extremely disappointed in your recent conduct.”
Recent conduct? What was she talking about?
“You will recall, Mara, that we had a deal,” my father said.
A deal? What possible deal could Emzee have with my parents? I moved closer.
“Now, we have already warned you that you’d better not get pregnant,” my mother said. “But you two seem awfully close for a fake couple. So it seemed prudent to take this opportunity to remind you that this marriage ends cleanly.”
My fists clenched, my stomach turning. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
“If you get yourself pregnant, we’ll have to say it isn’t his,” my father added.
My mother chimed in, “And trust us, darling, when we finish smearing you in the press, not even a DNA test will convince the world that our son is the father.”
I stood there in the hallway, shock seeping into my system.
I’d never told my parents that it was a fake marriage.
Suddenly, the pieces started coming together, and I realized why Emzee had pulled away from me. Why things had changed between us so drastically after the wedding. Why her behavior had been so hot and cold, why she continued to put up walls and deny her feelings for me when, day by day, our connection felt so real.
It wasn’t because of anything I’d done, or because she didn’t truly care for me. It was because my parents had gotten involved. They had hated the idea of me marrying anyone but Claudia, so they’d pulled out all the stops and gone after Emzee to make sure we didn’t stay together.
And the only way she would have gotten so tangled up in their web of deceit was if they had something on her. Something bad.
They’d been threatening her all along.
Emzee
Chapter 27
Numb with shock, I was frozen to the floor as Mrs. Malone’s words stabbed me in the gut. There was a cruel smirk on her face as she threatened me, saying that if I got pregnant, she’d tell the world I was a liar and that the baby wasn’t Ford’s.
Truthfully, starting a family wasn’t something I had dared to think about much—not when I knew a divorce was looming in my future, not when my relationship with Ford was constantly giving me whiplash, and especially not when I hadn’t grown up with the best parenting role model in my father. Plus, I still felt like a kid myself sometimes. I had no business trying to get pregnant. It certainly wasn’t something I had been planning.
But the way the Malones were looking at me and speaking to me made me feel like a gold digger. Like trash. Did they actually think I was plotting to have Ford’s baby?
If it weren’t for the fundraiser tonight, I would have just run from the room and turned my back on the senior Malones for good. Nothing was worth the harassment I’d endured at their hands. I could spend the next nine or so months hunkered down at Ford’s place, and simply make plans to be out of the house whenever they came over for their regular dinners with Ford.
I still couldn’t tell my husband about the devil’s bargain I’d made with his parents, or how they continued to blackmail me at every turn, but I could at least stay as far away from the Malones as possible. Set a firm boundary. After all, it was self-preservation. Even if Ford thought I was being unbearably rude, I’d stand my ground.
Then, without warning, he burst into the library.
“Oh, Ford dear,” his mother said sweetly. “There you are. We were just—”
“Don’t,” he said, his voice cold.
I bit my lip, my eyes darting back and forth, my stomach in knots. I suspected by his tone, his expression, that he’d probably heard everything. That he understood what was going on—maybe not entirely, but enough to know that his parents had just been bullying me.
Ford moved to stand at my