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You are an angel, Libby. I’ll pay you back. Promise.
She replied with an angel emoji and a wink.
Scarlet’s phone went off again. I frowned. Placing my own phone back in my pocket, I headed towards hers. She stirred once more, and I contemplated waking her. But after she snuggled into the pillow and kept sleeping, I simply didn’t have the heart to wake her. Glancing at the time, I saw that she only had a little while longer to sleep anyway.
Deciding once and for all to not wake her, I reached for her phone. It lit up when I touched the screen, and I saw that she had several new text messages. Feeling mildly guilty but justified regardless, I opened the messages, simply wanting to determine their importance so that I’d know whether or not to wake her.
The first one read: Did you tell him?
I stared at it for a moment, not understanding it, but deciding it didn’t sound all that important. Unable to resist, I continued reading the messages after it.
Did he believe you?
Is it done?
Is he going to give you money?
I paused, an uncomfortable feeling forming in my gut.
I knew the importance of not jumping to conclusions. Carefully setting the phone down, I turned my gaze back to Scarlet. Suddenly, words that I hadn’t thought about in a while came back to me.
Headmaster Greene’s warning about Scarlet, not-so-subtly implying that she was no good…
My stomach gave another uncomfortable swoop.
Again, I didn’t want to jump to conclusions, but that didn’t mean I could silence the cynic inside of me.
The text messages replayed in my mind. Did you tell him? Did he believe you? Is it done? Is he going to give you money?
I was stunned, but by no means was I stupid.
I closed my eyes, not wanting to believe what was right in front of my face, but unable to ignore the obvious.
If I wasn’t the ‘he’ with the money those text messages referred to, who else could it be?
I clenched my teeth, anger starting to bubble inside of me.
Was it possible that Scarlet was using this pregnancy as a scam against me? Did I really just go through all this stress only to be made a fool of?
It had never once crossed my mind that Scarlet was trying to use me. Everything about her had seemed so genuine. Yet now, I had to look at everything from a different light.
When she got upset and left me at the dinner table, I had automatically assumed she’d been pissed about my reaction, thinking that I didn’t want to accept the responsibility of fatherhood. Was there a chance that her frustration hadn’t really been about my unwillingness to accept parental duty, but rather fear that she wouldn’t be able to get money from me?
What were the
chances that she somehow knew about my wealth all along, right from the beginning? Had it just been an act when we first met and she pretended to mistake me for some guy she knew named Preston? Or did the act begin when I took her back to my hotel and out to a fancy dinner the next day?
Could I even trust her claim that she hadn’t been with anyone else, and that the babies were mine?
Did he believe you? That’s what the text message had said.
Did I believe what? That the babies were mine? That she was having twins? That she was really even pregnant?
She had hopped into bed rather easily with me, so was I being naïve to believe that she hadn’t been with any other guys since?
I stared at her sleeping, looking so peaceful and content. Had all her worries dissipated after my promise to be there for her and the babies, at all costs?
The headache I’d been developing intensified with alarming speed.
