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“That’s all I’ve got, angel.”
Maybe Hawk’s private investigator could use this information to tail her and confront whoever this was.
“That’s perfect. More than enough. Thanks, Dad.”
“Will you tell me what happens?”
“Yes,” I said. “I’ll keep you posted. Thank you. Love you.”
I ended the call to find Maddox and Duncan watching me curiously.
Before I could explain anything, Hawk strode through the door. His smile stole my breath.
“What was that about?” Maddox asked. I couldn’t tellwhich of us the question was meant for, but Hawk answered first.
He didn’t direct it to Maddox, however; his response was for me.
“It was your stepsister,” Hawk said.
The wordstepsisterwas a whip crack to an already wary lion. “Pris?”
I stared at the phone in my hand. Why would Pris go see him? Unless it was to further incriminate me with more lies.
Did she say something about whoever she was meeting with tonight? Did she mention the money?
“Charlotte, actually,” Hawk said.
“Charlotte?”
“It turns out she’d overheard a conversation between your stepmom and other stepsister. You were right. They set you up.”
“I knew it.”
Suspecting was different from having it confirmed. And to hear it was Charlotte who’d come clean? I hadn’t wanted to trust her when she’d offered to go dress shopping with me.
Pris hadn’t put her up to that after all.
Or if she had, Charlotte was trying to mend her ways.
“What did she say?”
“She was in tears about it,” Hawk said. “She said she wanted to do the right thing, and so she confessed everything:
“Your stepsister’s jealousy, her desire to ensure you didn’t get in the way of her recent engagement. Even Stina’sdesire to save face with your dad so she didn’t have to outright fire you.”
Pris’s stinging words from the ball reverberated in my mind. When she’d said she hated me, shereallyhated me.
And Stina did, too.
I wasn’t sure why. Aside from the mix-up with Derek, I’d always done my best to get along with them. What had I ever done to make them feel so harshly toward me?
They’d always had it in for me. Other memories surfaced, about jealousies that I had prettier hair or nicer shoes—which wasn’t necessarily the case at all. Simply their perception that they used as fodder for grudges.
“Unbelievable,” I said. “And yet totally believable at the same time.”
“She also mentioned something else. She had an accomplice.”
I opened my mouth to reply, but Maddox beat me to it.
