Page 160 of What Goes Around

No one believed that part.

He didn’t look at me as he left. He moved quickly, shoulders tight, like a man escaping a room before the walls closed in.

Brandon followed him with his eyes, then scanned the room. He saw the curiosity spreading table to table, the attention he had wanted earlier, but not like this. The Reynolds alliance he’d hoped to solidify publicly had slipped through his fingers.

The skin around his eyes tightened.

Then he smiled.

He lifted his glass.

“Well,” he said brightly, voice projecting confidence, “as some of you may have overheard, it seems I’m going to be a grandfather.”

The room responded on cue.

Gasps. Smiles snapping into place. Congratulations blooming like rehearsed lines.

Marissa lifted her glass, radiant now. Apple followed, chin raised, composure neatly reclaimed.

“To family,” Brandon said.

“To family,” the table echoed.

I lifted my glass last, letting the crystal catch the light.

What a performance.

I let the silence stretch, then turned my head slowly and looked at Apple beside me. I let my gaze travel over her, like I was trying to see through skin and bone, into whatever truth she was hiding.

“So,” I said calmly, “when are you seeing a doctor?”

Apple blinked.

“I will,” she said. “Soon.”

I raised an eyebrow. She’d announced it publicly before twelve weeks. And she hadn’t even confirmed it medically.

“How do you know you’re pregnant?” I asked.

She stiffened. “I took tests. Three of them. They were all positive. And I’ve had symptoms.”

“False positives exist,” I said mildly. “So do ectopic pregnancies.”

Her eyes flashed.

Marissa turned sharply toward me. “What is with the interrogation?” she hissed quietly. She lifted her wineglass, fingers tight around the stem. “Don’t be a hater of good things.”

She took a sip, then added, “Your sister is happy. That’s what matters.”

I held her gaze.

I wasn’t even sure Apple was pregnant.

It was all too convenient. The timing. The announcement. The lack of confirmation.

And I remembered my past life. How she’d cried into a camera months later. How she’d posted sad quotes and heartbreak songs. How the miscarriage had become content.

I said nothing.