Glancing over, Emzee hissed, “Really? Like what? That you knew about my father’s ‘other business’ back then?”
My mouth opened, and then closed. How could I even begin to answer that?
“Well?” Emzee prodded. “Did you?”
Fuck.
I didn’t think the situation could get any worse, that there could be anything more damaging than confessing that yes, I’d been the one to graffiti the locker room back at the academy and start the rumors about Emzee being a whore. But admitting that I’d known about her father’s sex trafficking ring all those years ago would hurt her even more.
So I didn’t answer her.
Unfortunately, my lack of response only confirmed for Emzee what she already knew.
Blinking back tears, she let out a hollow laugh. “You did know. All that time I was in the dark about my dad and the KZ models,you knew. Seven years we were friends, Ford, and you knew theentire time. And you kept it all a secret. You kept both of your secrets.”
“Wait. You need to understand,” I said, knowing I sounded desperate. “Things were different back then.Iwas different back then. I’m not the same kid I was in high school.”
She looked at me and I waited for that spark, for that sign of affection that I always saw in her eyes. That indication that I was still her hero, even after all of this.
But there was nothing there but pain, anger, and betrayal.
“No,” she said. “Back then you were a shitty kid.”
Her words felt like a knife in my chest. Then she continued, twisting it even deeper.
“Now, you’re just a bad person.”
Our car had pulled up to the curb outside my building, but when the driver came around to open the car door, she didn’t move to get out. Instead, she crossed her arms.
“Emzee, let’s go upstairs. I’ll make you tea, and we can sit and talk it out.”
She shook her head. “I’m not going anywhere with you. I’m going to Stefan’s. Now get the hell out.”
Emzee
Chapter 3
Like I always say, there’s nothing like an emergency girls’ night to prop you up when you find out your husband is a lying, backstabbing, manipulative asshole and your entire world is shattered beyond repair. Or something like that.
Thank God Tori had agreed to dog sit Munchkin during the fundraiser.
His warm, burly little body in my arms and the dark chocolate gelato in my hands were just about the only things keeping me in one piece. Tori and I were on the couch with our feet up, a blanket draped over our laps. I swiped at my leaking eyes with the sleeve of the oversized sweatshirt she had loaned me and took another bite of gelato, but the taste was bittersweet.
“I’m so sorry, Em,” Tori said, already scraping the bottom of her pint of salted caramel.
All I could do was nod.
Even though I’d known in my gut that Claudia had been right about Ford’s involvement in my high school torment and his knowledge of my father’s secret business, it had still been a shock when Ford refused to deny it. Some part of me had been holding on to the futile hope that Claudia had been lying…but seeing the way Ford’s face had fallen when I called him out in the car had made me want to throw up. Or maybe that was just morning sickness. In the evening.
“I don’t get why he did it in the first place, though it’s easy enough to chalk it up to sixteen-year-old Ford Malone dickishness,” I mused. “But I still don’t understand why he went through the charade of rescuing me from the bullies afterward, and then faking a friendship with me for the last seven years. The whole thing is just…kind of sociopathic.”
Tori frowned. “What makes you think the friendship was fake?”
“Uh, the fact that he never told me the truth? He’s been lying this whole time. By omission.”
She shook her head. “That doesn’t mean you weren’t friends. It just means he was covering his ass. Obviously he knew you’d be pissed at him if you found out. Maybe pissed enough not to be his friend anymore. Right? I mean, you guys are—were—best friends.”
“Maybe. Or maybe he was just using me all along. Or fucking with me for his own amusement. I was like his puppet. What did Claudia say I was…his ‘little sucker fish.’”
