half-gasp, half-shriek. And instead of pulling the arrangement to my face to smell the fragrance, I took the bouquet by the silk-wrapped stems and used it as a weapon. Luckily, I didn’t go too far before I understood that I was bashing Ty over the head with more than a dozen roses.
“Why do you always do that?” he asked while frantically fixing his hair. Not that it was messed up. That man used enough styling products that he’d be found in the aftermath of a hurricane, not a hair out of place.
“Maybe if you stopped sneaking up on me, then I wouldn’t always attack you.”
I’d heard from Ty a few times since leaving Tiff’s that day, though this was the first time I’d seen him in person. I’d never admit it, but I sort of missed the guy. I’d gotten so used to having him in my business every day that things had felt a little off for a bit.
Excited to see him, I wrapped my arms around his neck and squeezed, except it didn’t last long. After a second, my mother showed up, and let’s just say she wasn’t as happy to see Ty as I was. Apparently, things between him and Tiff didn’t go so well after I’d left.
“Why would you invite him here?” Mom moaned. “After all the problems he’s caused…”
“Well, I’m not Tiff, so I didn’t see the point in not inviting him.” After I’d walked away from my role as Tiffany Lewis, my sister fired Ty. Apparently, with no one to film for her, she was pulled from the show, ruining all her plans for a bathing suit line—as well as whatever popularity she had left.
Ty, likely feeling awkward, squeezed my hand and offered a sympathetic smile before excusing himself. I didn’t want him to leave, but I also didn’t want to subject him to more of this.
“If I knew he’d be here, I wouldn’t have come.” Leave it to my mother to be melodramatic.
I so badly wanted to scream at her, shake her until she realized that I existed, too. But I didn’t. Instead, I rolled my eyes and groaned, letting my annoyance show. “He hasn’t done anything to me, so I don’t see a problem with having him here.”
“What do you mean he hasn’t done anything to you?” Her eyes widened as if this news was more shocking than Janet Jackson’s wardrobe malfunction. “If not for him, none of this would’ve ever happened.”
That was enough to earn Dave’s attention. “Excuse me? You must be confused.”
Jacoby now lent his attention to the conversation, though he wouldn’t dare speak against my mother. Regardless of how obnoxious she could be, he just didn’t have it in him to voice his opinion, so he simply stood by and took it all in.
“Surely you know the hand he played in it all…” She stared at us, dramatically flicking her gaze between Dave, Jacoby, and me. Then she proceeded to tell us the most ridiculous story I’d ever heard.
It’d taken me less than two minutes to locate Ty—he was with Adam, no surprise there. Immediately, I took his hand and dragged him to a quiet corner. “Did you seriously orchestrate the entire thing? With Tiff and me? And Serenity and Adam and Jeannine?”
He was quiet for a few moments, although that could’ve had something to do with my paranoid questioning. But then he silenced me when he confidently said, “Yes. I was behind it all.”
That was not what I had expected him to say.
“How?” It was the only question I could come up with.
“It wasn’t like I set the whole thing up. My original plan had Tiff taking the fall for it all—literally—but then she had to go get botched plastic surgery. At first, I thought I’d have to give up on the idea of making Tiffany Lewis lay in the bed she made. That thought actually saddened me. Then I remembered you, so I convinced her to let me see if you would stand in for her.”
The world spun around me, though I remained completely still, becoming dizzier the longer it dragged on. “Wait…” I held up one finger while taking a deep breath in preparation for my next question. “You mean to tell me that you had this all planned out from the very beginning? That when you knocked on my door and offered me money to pretend to be my sister, you knew then that this all would happen?”