Page 57 of His Daughter's Best Friend

Landon was nodding. “If you try to play this any other way, all she’s going to think about is that you fucked her best friend. If you tell her why, it changes things. People can handle almost anything, so long as there is an explanation. A reason. A motive.”

“It’s the senseless acts of violence that fuck with people the most,” Garrett agreed.

“Tell Halley the truth,” I repeated, mulling it over. It made sense when Garrett put it like that. I could be honest with Halley about what Lily meant to me without saying, like it or not, Lily and I are together. If Halley genuinely couldn’t deal with it, I’d stay away from Lily forever. But at least this way I had a chance of keeping my daughter and the woman I loved.

“Tell Halley the truth,” Landon and Garrett agreed.

* * *

After I left lunch, I knew I didn’t have much time. I didn’t know when the PI was planning to hand over the information to Kim, but I knew that only seconds would elapse before Kim passed it on to Halley. I’d be shocked if she tried to blackmail me with it. Ruining me in Halley’s eyes was infinitely more valuable than any pay day. She was hoping to find evidence I was hiding assets and lucked into finding out the one secret I’d kept from Halley.

Thinking about it made my back teeth clench so hard that my jaw began to ache, but I couldn’t focus on getting revenge now. One day, I would. But first I had to get ahead of the story. I’d learned that much from Garrett over the years. The first person to step up usually got the benefit of the doubt. I needed every advantage I could get right now. The only thing that could make this worse would be if Halley found out from Kim instead of me.

I called her on my way back to the office.

“Hey Hals, clear your schedule. I’m taking you to dinner tonight.”

“Dinner?” she said surprised. “Is this like, a Zoom dinner? You’ll eat at Giardo’s while I’m at Olive Garden?”

“No, we’ll both be at Olive Garden, if you really want to go to that god-awful place. I’m flying in.”

Another lesson from Garrett—never do important shit over the phone.

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