“Oh, it’sexactlywhat I think,” Crystal said with a sly grin.“Tripp Masterson.Mister Brooding Defense Attorney.Mister First Love.Mister?—”
“Don’t,” Nicole cut in, sharper than she meant.Her voice cracked through the room, silencing the chuckles.She pressed her fingertips against her glass, grounding herself.“Yes, we talked.Once.That doesn’t mean anything.I see him almost every day in court.We’re not together again.”
Paige bit her lip.“I didn’t mean to?—”
“It doesn’t mean anything,” Nicole repeated, though her voice wavered now.“We had to clear the air.That’s all.We deserve to know the truth.”
Crystal exchanged a look with Amanda, then leaned back with a little smile that said she wasn’t fooled.
Nicole forced a laugh, but it came out brittle.“We’re on opposite sides of a murder trial, for God’s sake.That’s not exactly a foundation for…” She trailed off, realizing she was about to sayforever.She snatched up her wineglass and took a long swallow instead.
The others let it drop, drifting into safer gossip, but Nicole felt Paige’s gaze linger on her.
By the time the bottles were empty and the laughter had softened into that warm haze only late-night wine could bring, Paige spoke again.This time, her voice was gentle.
“Nic?”
Nicole leaned back against the sofa cushions, eyelids heavy, glass dangling loosely in her hand.“Mmm?”
“What if it wasn’t just talking?”
Nicole’s eyes snapped open.Paige’s gaze was steady now, the wine flush gone, her tone serious.“What if you and Tripp…found your way back?”
A dozen retorts leaped to Nicole’s tongue, the trial, the past, the hurt.But Paige pressed on.
“Could you live with his mother again?”
The words landed like a weight.Nicole sat up straighter, the buzz of wine thinning in an instant.The other girls glanced between them, suddenly alert.How could she ever deal with his mother again?
Paige didn’t stop.“I remember what she did to you back then, how she looked at you like you were less.Like you were stealing something that didn’t belong to you.Could you really put yourself through that again?”
Nicole’s chest tightened.Images flashed, Suzanne Masterson’s icy smile, her cutting remarks dressed up as compliments, the way she had once called Nicolethat girlwith a curl of her lip.
Nicole swallowed hard.“I don’t know.”Her voice was small, raw.“I don’t know if I could ever forgive her, if I confirm what she did to me and Tripp.”
Crystal leaned in.“And what about your family?After everything that happened, do you think they’d accept him back into your life?Into theirs?”
Nicole pressed her palms to her knees, staring at the rug.Her parents’ faces came to mind, the argument in the kitchen only nights ago, the admission that they’d participated.Their duplicity still stung like a fresh wound.
“I don’t know iftheycould accept him,” she whispered.“I don’t know if I could accept them either.I know they did something, but we haven’t sat down and talked about what.Right now, I have to focus on this trial and nothing else.And tonight, I need a little fun.A chance to get away from everything.”
Silence settled over the group, heavier than the wine, heavier than the night.
Paige reached across and squeezed her hand.“Then maybe that’s the real question, Nic.Not whether you and Tripp still love each other.But whether you could survive the people who don’t want you together.”
Nicole’s throat ached.She blinked back tears, staring out the window at the dark horizon.The ocean roared steadily, endlessly, like it didn’t care whose hearts it swallowed.
She tightened her grip on Paige’s hand, holding on because it was all she could do.
And she knew Paige was right.
Love was one thing.Families were another.Families who hated your loved one could destroy any chance you have at happiness.
“I don’t know.I can’t answer that—not yet.I need to understand how they did this to us, and whether we can ever get past it.Right now, everything is up in the air, and it has to stay there until this trial is over.A trial about a young woman who wasn’t accepted into a wealthy family.Do you see?It’s not just her life on trial in that courtroom.It feels like mine is too.”
And sometimes, families were the most dangerous force of all.Bianca’s trial proved it—an unflinching reminder of what happened when love collided with pride and money, when bloodlines mattered more than the beating heart of the person beside you.Every testimony, every exhibit pulled Nicole deeper into the sickening thought that she might be prosecuting the wrong person.
The evidence pointed one way, but her instincts…her instincts whispered another.And the weight of that nearly broke her.She hated being wrong.Hated the idea that her drive for justice might be blinding her.Because if she was wrong, then Bianca and her baby weren’t just victims of a single man’s crime, they were casualties of a family’s ruthless refusal to accept her.And that truth was harder to face than any jury.
