made over the past couple of days, he'd been counting on the Vicario-Lopez Corporation for a major investment in his expansion project.
"Did you know that Steve and his brother were on bad terms?" Abuela Inez asked.
"He's mentioned that they don't get along," Maggie answered cautiously.
Her armpits and palms were sweating profusely now, and she was sure that every shifter in this conference room could hear her racing heart. How am I going to get out of this mess?
"Is it really true, Maggie?" Tía Esperanza spoke up for the first time. "Did you really hire Aarón's younger brother to pose as your fiancé? Has this all been an act?"
Her question hit Maggie like a bucket of ice water, freezing her to the bone. They know! But how? How did on earth did they find out?
She couldn't believe this was happening. She hadn't told anyone, not even Annabeth, about her plan. And she and Steve had been very careful to maintain the façade in public.
Now, faced with a direct question, she couldn't deny it, not in front of a group of shifters.
In desperation, she fell back on the strategy that had worked for her before: telling a related truth and hoping that they would make certain inferences.
"Steve and I are involved. Our relationship isn't fake—" Not anymore, she thought, and continued, "He asked to court me, and I agreed." She swallowed again, her heart pounding in her ears so loudly that she could hardly hear anything over it. Please, let that be enough to satisfy them.
It wasn't.
"But did you pay him to pretend to be your fiancé?" Abuela Inez pressed. "Knowing that it would anger Aarón and endanger our negotiations with the Lopez Clan?"
"I had no idea that Steve's family would cancel their deal with you," Maggie said miserably. She stared down at the carpet, unable to meet their eyes. "But yes, in the beginning, I did ask Steve to pose as my fiancé because you were pressuring me to agree to that arranged mating with his brother."
"Oh Maggie, I didn't want to believe it," exclaimed Tía Esperanza, and the disappointment in her voice was like a stinging lash across exposed skin.
"But everything's different now!" Maggie insisted. "I'm in love with him."
She stopped, shocked to hear those words emerge from the depths of her being.
But even in the midst of this crisis, they felt true.
Trying to gather the threads of her frayed composure, she added, "And I figured that it would be okay if I mated Steve instead Aarón. It still unites our clans, right?"
"That doesn't matter if you've pissed off the person controlling the purse strings," Tío Eddy answered. "Aarón Lopez is currently the acting CEO of the Vicario-Lopez Corporation. Due to his grandmother's illness, everyone expects the Board of Directors to confirm him in his new role very shortly. Your little game with his brother has hurt Aarón's pride and made him lose face."
"I'm sorry," Maggie told them. "I didn't know…I just wanted to be able to choose my own mate."
"You've had more than enough time to find someone," her abuela snapped. "You're just selfish!"
Maggie looked around at the assembled elders. "I'm really sorry. Please believe that I didn't mean for this to happen. Can I go now?"
God, she sounded—and felt—like a child caught misbehaving!
"Not yet. There's one more thing," said Tío Eddy. "While we were waiting for you to join us, we discussed the matter, and decided that if the accusation was true, we needed to act."
He looked at Abuela Inez. The clan's treasurer.
Maggie braced herself. She knew what was coming next.
Her grandmother didn't disappoint her. "Margarita Inez Ornelas, since you lied about something this important, and you admit to doing it to hurt the heir to the Lopez Clan and to sabotage the agreement between our clans, we can no longer trust you with our investment in your business." She paused, and Maggie was surprised that instead of the triumph she expected in her grandmother's expression, Abuela Inez just looked sad. "We're calling in your loan, and we're giving you one week to repay it."
Maggie's chest squeezed, and she found it hard to breathe. "Can I have a month to repay you? Please?"
There was a small chance that Cacao Denver might be profitable in another thirty days, but more importantly, Maggie might be able to secure a line of credit or another loan with a month to work on it.
She would never be able to manage it in a week.
"No. You've forfeited your right to leniency from the