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“You’re an artist,” Granny grumbles. “Don’t you need a good dose of heavy sadness to inspire you?”
“Ugh, Granny, listen, I—”
“No, you listen here. Whatever you did, you need to fix it. The ring wouldn’t come off Ellis’ finger for a reason, and now you have it, which means she broke the curse. It doesn’t mean she’s not your soulmate, but it means she’s found a way around it.”
“I…how do you know this?” The dots align as soon as I ask that dumb question. Granny knows Ellis’ name, and she asked me if I’d seen the news or turned on my phone, which means there’s something on there. A story of some sort. About. Me?
“There’s a story about you,” Granny snaps, confirming my worst suspicions. “Broke this morning. She sold it to a publication in LA. An online sleazy thing. They broke it, and now my phone won’t stop ringing. Everyone wants to know if it’s true that my grandson and Meryl Burbank were planning on entering into a fake marriage. More than that, people want to know about the cursed ring. I’ve had buyers offering me ten times the price for it. Ten times, damn it.”
Holy fuckshit, what? Ellis wrote a story about Meryl and me? She sold it to someone, and they published it? And now everyone wants to get their hands on the ring? She must have known the cursed ring is worth a lot, more so now, but she didn’t take it. Why?
Duh. Probably because it has a fuck ton of bad voodoo attached to it, and she no longer wanted to be cursed. Perhaps she thought selling it would curse her for the rest of her life, and she didn’t want to take a chance on it.
She appears to have washed her hands off me. And not only did she get the ring off, but I think she was lying to me the whole time.
“She was lying to you the whole time,” Granny barks.
Good god, it’s creepy how she can read my thoughts like that.
“How do you know that?”
“It was in the story too. About how she pretended to be your maid and went undercover. I suppose you did hire her, but she was looking for an in. I thought she looked familiar when I saw her, but I couldn’t place her. Now I know. She’s the daughter of Bob Hunter. He owned a small newspaper here. I bought it out and shut it down since it wasn’t profitable. I did promise him I’d keep it running, and that was my intention when I bought it, but it just didn’t make sense after running the numbers. There were people who lost their jobs because of it, including him, I’m sorry to say.”
Oh my god, Ellis’ dad. “I did something kind for her dad,” I blurt. Now I’m committed, and I can’t stop. Granny won’t let me get away with it. She’ll pester me to death by asking questions. “I…she told me before she introduced us that I couldn’t use my name. She asked me to just say I was a friend. When I asked her the reason, she said it was because her dad thought I was an asshole. She always thought I was an asshole. She made no secret about that.”
“So, your soulmate actually came to you hating you because she wanted revenge for something our family did to hers.”
“Her dad was really depressed, and it was bad. I thought it was because her mom died. She did say it was years ago, but some people never get over it. So I wanted to help. I know a good therapist; one mom went to see, and I managed to convince him to give it a try. She was so relieved. She was…she…it meant everything to her. And she was willing to let me help. I guess, in a weird way, I was fixing our family’s mistakes even though I didn’t know it.”
“But she still sold you out.”
“No, I…she…” Did she sell me out? That sounds cheap and so very not like Ellis. But what do I really know about her? Nothing. I’m surprised Ellis is even her real name.
“I had some guys look into her background this morning after I read the story. She’s a journalist who works for a crappy online publication. Or I should say, she did. Apparently, she sent in her notice late last night. I’m assuming right before or after she sent the article off to someone else.
“Granny, she probably needed the money. She lives in a crappy apartment building, and her dad isn’t doing well. He’s not working, and his house is tiny and old. I don’t know how he’s paying his bills. She’s probably paying them.”
“Hmm,” Granny grunts. “So you’re defending her. Interesting.”
Why the deuce am I defending her? “I mean, we did wreck something very dear to her family, and it sent her dad into a tailspin. She probably thought she had every right. But it doesn’t explain why the ring wouldn’t come off her finger, though. If she was going to betray me the whole time.”
