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“You love it, right?” Skye’s voice rises an octave on the last word, squeaky with satisfaction. She already knows she did a good job.
“Yes.” I clap my hands and clasp them together, genuinely enjoying the ripple of awe sweeping through me. “This is it. Mom would have loved this.”
“She definitely would,” Madison agrees, reaching across the table to tap the tops of my hands. “Sugar, it’s important that you love it too. This is for you now.”
I nod, blinking back tears and smiling. “I love it for myself too.”
“Perfect.”
“I wanted to do something that would blow your mind.” Skye rubs her bony hands together, and her hazel eyes brighten.
“Consider my mind blown to kingdom come.”
“Then my job is done. Think of it as an early wedding present.” She laughs heartily and guilt tugs at the hem of my heart.
Unlike Madison, Skye doesn’t know the full story of the recent developments of my life. Madison and I exchange glances. Hers is troubled, but mine remains the mask of pretense I’ve sported all morning that I’m the doting bride-to-be of the deadly handsome Knight Grayson.
I take a measured breath to clear my mind. “I can’t thank you enough.”
“Don’t be silly.Although”—she pretends to pout—"I’m still annoyed you didn’t tell me you were secretly datingKnight Grayson. But I’ve decided to forgive you. I love you too much to stay mad for longer than five minutes, and I’m so excited for you.” Her voice rises even higher.
Nervous laughter falls from my lips. I was nothing but a bag of apologies when we met earlier, but I still feel like I owe her more of an explanation than the flimsy one I gave. “Everything all just sort of happened so quickly. Knight and I met after his yacht party and hit it off so well we started dating. The next thing I knew, his ring was on my finger.”
That’s exactly what happened, even if I’m making it sound like Knight and I have been dating on and off for months, and we actually like each other. There’s no way in hell I’m telling her the truth that Knight is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, who took advantage of my father’s situation to take ownership of Sunset Cove. It was hard enough telling Madison.
“My God, it’s such a beautiful story. I love that you had love at first sight. My parents got married after two weeks of knowing each other. They’ve been together for thirty-five years.” Her voice swells with emotion, and she touches a hand to her heart. “I wish that for you.”
“That means a lot.” I glance at Madison again, noticing that she’s said very little. Her stoic expression is a tell she’s allowing me to take the lead on this so we can get our stories straight.
As close as the three of us are as friends, Madison is the one I’ve chosen to keep my secrets. That’s no offense to Skye at all. There are just some things I don’t feel comfortable sharing with anyone besides Madison. My recent trauma is one of them. Even if I weren’t practically sworn to secrecy, it’s also not the sort of thing to broadcast anyway.
I never even told Skye when I was getting engaged to Nathan. I knew she would make a big deal out of it when I would have hated that.
As she was away the week of the engagement party, and the only other friend I had at that party was Madison, I managed to keep it all away from her and slip right into the current story without having to go into any deep explanation.
With the big-ass rock on my finger, it was harder to hide my engagement to Knight. It also didn’t feel right for her to find out tomorrow through a press release when I knew I was going to see her today.
“Keep looking, keep looking,” Skye squeaks, pointing to the portfolio, her expression the perfect combination of ecstatic and honored. “I want to see your face once you see everything I’ve done. The forties are my favorite time period, so I really went to town.”
I love seeing her this excited. “I can already tell you I’m going to love all of it.” I pull the portfolio closer and flick through each page, my heart swelling as I take in all the gorgeous designs.
Immersing myself in this today is like food for my soul.
Yesterday was just horrendous, and it grieves me to have to go back to Knight’s house tonight.
I’m not sure which worries me more—having to deal with Chelle, Knight’s uppity assistant, orhim.
After the other night, I decided I was going to try and focus on all the parts of my life I could still control. It was a mental decision to keep going even in the face of doom and uncertainty. I took that strength and spent yesterday morning working with my editor on the next chapter for my serialGirl No. 9.
Seeing my readers’ reactions and comments after I uploaded it to the reader platform, gave me more strength. But the euphoria died within seconds of meeting Chelle. One, because she sized me up like a puma marking its territory, then proceeded to treat me like I was dog shit she was trying not to step in.
And two…
Well, if I’m being completely honest, the second reason is all on me and my imagination because my stomach turned over when I suspected she could be Giselle.
Chelle—Giselle.Since the dawn of time, people have had strange nicknames and shortened versions of their full names. Like Liam and William, Dick and Richard, Charles and Chuck. So, Chelle could very well be Giselle.
I also thought she could be her because of the striking similarities between Chelle and the pictures of Giselle in Knight’s photo album.
