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“Can I have a dance?”
His cocky smile is in full swing tonight, but the bastard said it loud enough that everyone in the vicinity heard.
Iris could say no, of course, but she’s smart enough to say yes. I hope she steps on the asshole’s toes—all of them.
Impulse wins again today. “Stay here, please,” I tell Sunny.
He startles at my serious tone and nods.
I stand when Zack’s back is to us, as he leads Iris to the dance floor, and offer my hand to Beatrice. She takes it without a word and we follow them, and set up right next to them in the middle of the pretty barren dance floor.
A few seconds later, Eli and Lex are there too, on Zack and Iris’s other side.
We’ve got her.
“It’s not me,” Zack says, looking only at Iris, but I’m sure he’s talking to all of us.
“What isn’t you?” Iris asks, her face the perfect picture of calm. The Ice Princess of New York, hard at work.
“I’m not the person who’s fucking with us.”
Beatrice freezes, but I force her to keep moving so we don’t let them dance far enough away that we can’t hear him.
“Why would I—”
“My mother is dying.” Zack’s words stop all six of us, like we synchronized it.
Shirley is . . .
Fuck.
Zack is a cocky asshole, he always says the thing that’s going to piss you off the most, but the guy loves his mother.
“I’m sorry,” Iris says.
That gets us all moving again.
I can see in her eyes that she believes him. I mean . . . why would he lie about that? To throw us off his scent?
But he’s coming right out and saying he knows we think it’s him.
“I know I’m no one’s friend here, but that doesn’t mean I have the desire, the time, or the energy to plan something as elaborate as what’s been going on. I will show all of you proof that I didn’t pay Amanda if you want.”
This is getting to the point where if anyone hears this, they’ll know. I look around and see a few more couples have stepped up to the dance floor, but none of them are close enough to hear over the music.
“I’m focused on spending as much time as I can with Mom right now.”
He steps away from Iris at the exact moment that his brother Seth walks up.
What in the—
“May I step in?”
Iris is—for once—at a loss for words.
She recovers only when Zack turns on his heel and leaves the dance floor. She smiles at Seth and nods, but it’s absentminded until he leans in closer.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Iris Crawford.”
