on the good side of Claudia and Ford’s parents. I had no idea what the future held, but I promised myself that I was going to meet it bravely. Even if that meant rocking the boat a little.
Or a lot.
“Your dress?” Ford said, handing me the garment bag. He had already slipped into his tux, which took him all of three minutes flat. I envied him.
“Thank you,” I said. “Can you hand me my purse? My MAC lipstick is in there.”
“As the lady wishes.”
But when I propped the bag open, I saw something tucked in there that I’d somehow forgotten about. The Test. Because I was a tiny bit late.
I was sure I had nothing to worry about, but after the brouhaha with Ford’s parents, I was on edge. I figured now was as good a time as any to just take it, confirm what I already knew, and be done with it. That way I could banish the niggling worry in the back of my mind.
Grabbing my lipstick, I palmed the test and slipped them both into my makeup bag. Then I zipped it up and tucked it under my arm.
“You know what?” I said, trying to sound casual. “I think I’ll fix my hair and makeup in the bathroom, and then you can help me into my dress afterward. Shouldn’t take too long.”
“Sure,” he said from the wingback chair he was sitting in, glancing up from his phone with a smile. “And try not to stress. You already look perfect.”
He had no reason to be suspicious of me; the guest bath down the hall had a luxurious full vanity with a cushioned velvet bench and a bunch of those Hollywood-style round bulbs spaced out around the mirror. It was basically fit for a princess. I’d mooned over it as a teenager.
I kissed him on the cheek, adjusted his bow tie, and headed down the hall.
First things first, I locked myself in and peed on the stick. I was supposed to get my results in five minutes, so I set it on the back of the toilet tank and then busied myself doing my makeup in front of the vanity.
Luckily, I didn’t need to do a full face, just freshen up my skin with some blotting paper and powder and spend a few minutes turning my daytime eyes and lips into evening look. Liquid eyeliner, a fresh coat of mascara, and a swipe of deep burgundy eyeshadow later, I was just about ready to check on the test when I heard a knock.
“Just a sec,” I called out, assuming it was Ford coming to check on me.
But when I opened the door, it was Claudia, her blonde hair gleaming, her midnight blue evening gown flowing around her in a rustling cloud of tulle.
My stomach dropped. “Um. Can I help you?”
“I need to use this bathroom,” she said.
“There’s another one right down the hall,” I told her, still standing in the door. I fought the urge to add, “So you can fuck directly off.” There were probably half a dozen bathrooms in the Malones’ mansion—she had to know that. Yet she’d busted into this one.
Claudia let out a huge sigh, rolling her eyes. “I need to use this bathroom,” she repeated. “It has the good mirror. The best one in the whole house, you know.” She paused to give me a smug, self-satisfied look. “Actually, I guess you wouldn’t know. You haven’t really spent that much time here, have you?”
Of course she had to remind me how well acquainted she was with the house and all the people in it. But the joke was on her. I’d known Ford years longer than Claudia had, and I sure as hell knew this was the money mirror. The last thing I wanted to do was start a fight about it, though. Especially not with the fundraiser less than an hour away.
Shoving her way past me in a most unladylike fashion, Claudia flounced over to the vanity and leaned over to study her reflection. My eyes darted to the toilet in the corner. I silently prayed she wouldn’t suddenly decide she had to use it, because if she turned around, there was no way she’d miss the pink plastic pregnancy test sitting right there.
Unsurprisingly, however, she was completely focused on her makeup and oblivious to me and my nerves. Thank God.
“You look great,” I told her, partly to keep the peace but mostly to try coaxing her the hell out of there.
“I know,” she said breezily, ignoring my attempts to get her out the door. “Is that MAC?”
Her evil gaze had lit upon my prized red lipstick.
“It’s Viva Glam,” I said.
She was taking up too much space, dabbing on my lipstick and then frowning at it like it was distasteful, talking nonstop the whole time.
“Ew. This is way too plum for me. I guess it’s meant for people with really pasty skin, like you. Pass me a cotton ball so I can get it off.”
I sat back down on the bench and handed her a few cotton balls, hoping to get her on her way, but she continued fussing with her hair and lips as if we had all the time in the world. I’d never felt so claustrophobic. Her body, her heavy white floral perfume, and her voluminous dress were physically blocking me in against the wall. I couldn’t have gotten away if I’d tried.
“It’s so weird you and Ford ended up together, isn’t it?” she asked, releasing a violent cloud of hairspray in my direction.
Waving it away, I said, “What do you mean?”
If anything, I’d always thought of our relationship—real or not—as the kind of thing that people assumed was just inevitable. We’d been close friends for almost a decade.
Claudia shrugged. “Oh, well, you know. With everything that happened to you back in high school.”
“You didn’t even go there,” I pointed out. “And what’s so weird about longtime friends getting together?”
She turned to look at me pityingly. “I’m his longtime friend too, Em.”
A flash of anger rippled through me hearing my nickname. I didn’t like anyone calling me Em that wasn’t a good friend or a family member. Claudia was neither. Not by a long shot.
“I remember him telling me all about the way you latched onto him back in tenth grade. His little sucker fish, right? Cute.”
My face went hot. “Well, I wouldn’t…I mean, that’s not—”
“I just find it really ironic, considering,” she went on.
Fine. I would bite. “Considering what?”
She turned to face me, staring down from her willowy height, made even more impressive by her stilettos. Judging by the smile on her face, it was clear I had just walked right into a trap.
“Oh, you know.” She looked at her nails, pretending to be casual. “Considering that he’d written all those nasty slurs about you in the locker room after he found out that your father had been supplying his with whores.”
A shockwave went through me. “What?”
“Oops!” Claudia said. “I mean ‘sex workers.’ We don’t want to be bad feminists, do we? Well. See you out there!”
With that, she gave me a condescending pat on the shoulder and then sauntered out, leaving me stunned and sick to my stomach.
I was staggered, caught between devastation and disbelief. Could it possibly be true?
Ford was the one who had started the bullying all those years ago?
Ford had known about my father’s human trafficking ring before I did—before anyone in my family did—and he had done nothing?
The floor was dropping out from under me. I ran back to the toilet and sank to my knees in front of it, lightheaded and still nauseated. I didn’t throw up, but it took me a few minutes to calm down as I realized that my entire relationship with Ford, from day one, had been based on a bigger lie than I could have ever imagined.
And as much as I wanted to believe Claudia had made it all up, the only way she could have known any of those things was if Ford had told her.
I got to my feet shakily and took a deep breath. Just as I was convinced that things couldn’t possibly get any worse, my eyes settled on the thing I had completely forgotten about. The only thing that could be more important than what I’d just heard.
The plus sign on my now-positive pregnancy test.
Don’t miss the conclusion of Emzee and Ford’s story…
Find out what happens in The Truth.
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Also by Stella Gray
Arranged Series
The Deal
The Secret
The Choice
Convenience Series
The Sham
The Contract
The Ruin
The Convenience Series: Books 1-3
Charade Series
The Lie
The Act
The Truth
Bellanti Brothers: Dante
Coming Soon
About the Author
Stella Gray is an emerging author of contemporary romance. When she is not writing, Stella loves to read, hike, knit and cuddle with her greyhound.