THE RECKONING
EMMA
Zoe's couchis not made for sleeping, but I managed a few hours between crying fits and wine.
My phone sits on the coffee table. I've been staring at it for twenty minutes.
Twelve missed calls. Eight texts. One voicemail.
“You're going to burn a hole through that screen.” Zoe appears with two mugs of coffee, hands me one, curls up on the other end of the couch. “Have you listened to any of them?”
“Read the texts.” I wrap my hands around the mug, let the heat ground me. “Haven't touched the voicemail.”
“Do you want to?”
I shrug.
Zoe sips her coffee, watches me over the rim. She's in full best friend mode since last night.
“He's a Hammond,” I say finally. “His father is Victor Hammond. As in Hammond Industries, as in one of the most powerful families in the country.”
“I gathered that much through the sobbing last night.”
“He never told me. Months together, and he never told me his real name.”
“Why do you think he hid it?”
The question catches me off guard. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, there's hiding something because you're ashamed of it, and there's hiding something because you're protecting yourself from it.” Zoe tilts her head. “Which one do you think this is?”
I stare into my coffee. I don't know. That's what terrifies me.
“Brianna said he ran. When things got hard, when she needed him, he disappeared.” My voice sounds hollow. “She said she got pregnant and he left her to face his family alone.”
Zoe's eyebrows shoot up. “And you believe her?”
“I don't know what to believe anymore.”
“Emma.” She sets down her mug. “This woman ambushed you in a bathroom at a charity gala. She knew exactly what she was doing. That doesn't sound like someone trying to help you. That sounds like someone with an agenda.”
“Maybe. That doesn't mean she was lying.”
“It doesn't mean she was telling the truth either.”
I pull my knees up to my chest, curl into a ball. “He admitted it, Zo. When I confronted him, he admitted he was a Hammond. He didn't even try to deny it.”
“Did you give him a chance to explain?”
The question stings because I know the answer. I was so hurt, so blindsided, that I shut him down before he could say anything.
“I couldn't.” My voice cracks. “I looked at him and I didn't know who I was looking at. The man I fell in love with, or a stranger wearing his face.”
Zoe is quiet for a moment. “Can I ask you something?”
“Go ahead.”
“What are you really afraid of here?”
