“What the actual fuck? You’re sure?”
“I’m not Queen Elizabeth,” Ilena says. “I’ve got a pretty good sense of what jewels are mine and not.”
“Actually, she probably did too.”
“Princess Margaret?”
“Better.”
“Still...” Ilena says.
“What the actual fuck?”
“What the actual fuck.”
Mallory saw that ring. She knows she did. What the actual fuck, indeed. She shrugs out of the Burberry coat and reaches for the bottle of bourbon on the tray of after-dinner drinks that will have to serve as dessert, which she honestly prefers. She takes aswig and tips the bottle to Ilena, who considers for half a second before shaking her head.
Ring or no ring, Mallory needs to understand this. “Why were you meeting with him alone?”
Ilena spins the ring around her finger, her face growing more pale with each rotation. “Things weren’t great. With Jonah, with AIM, with you and me. Aubrey was sure to find out about the computer error, and well, I needed to know if Ethan loved her, if he truly loved her, if he’d be—”
“There for her? That’s why you were in the bar. To talk about Aubrey?”
“Yes, or sort of, but he...” Ilena keeps twisting the ring. “This is harder than I thought.”
A million ants writhe up Mallory’s spine. The woman Ethan had spoken to in the bar with such hatred was Ilena. “Christ, did he hit on you?”
Ilena sets a protective hand on her round belly.
“He did, then. Fucker.” Mallory reaches for a glass and pours what feels like a double since these useless eyes of hers won’t focus up close. “And we were fighting about going public, so you felt like you couldn’t even tell me. My god, Ilena, how did we get here?”
Ilena gives a half shrug, her eyes clouding with guilt.
But Mallory’s the one who did this, kept the secret about the night in the bar among so many others she’s losing count. She wants, no, she needs to tell Ilena the truth. Starting with the lie that kicked off all the rest. Yet as she confesses to sleeping with Grayson, the look on Ilena’s face makes it clear she already knew.
Ilena’s eyes are gentle. “I’m sorry, Mal. I should have said it earlier. You cared about him. It’s obvious. It’s okay to grieve, to truly grieve. Just like Aubrey.”
Mallory shakes her head. “Except it’s not ‘just like Aubrey.’I’m not accepting responsibility for Grayson’s death. Unlike Aubrey, who’s clearly been blaming herself for Ethan’s. And we’ve been too distracted to see it.”
They live in mutual guilt and silence for a beat before Mallory continues by relaying what she overhead at Grayson’s penthouse and the person she’s now convinced said it. “Pluck a bald chicken.”Fucking Ethan.
As she tells Ilena, it all clicks in Mallory’s brain. Grayson has—had?—an elephant’s memory, like Mallory cataloging everything, never knowing when something might prove useful. Like Ethan’s position in his tech firm. Grayson surely remembered just as Mallory did and must have enlisted Ethan’s help to hide the error in exchange for a job or money or prestige or all of it. Yet Ethan had gotten greedy. That night at the penthouse, he must have been trying to shake Grayson down for more. If that didn’t work, Ethan had already secured his backup plan with their best friend.
Ilena nods as they jointly put it together. “If Ethan married Aubrey, he’d have been rich. He’d have insisted on no prenup,” Ilena says without a shred of doubt.
“How do we tell her?”
“That her dead fiancé was only with her to steal from her? Maybe we don’t.” Mallory is surprised at Ilena’s uncharacteristic response. Ilena then adds, “At least while we’re here. What good would it do?”
“She might hate him. And hate washes away guilt.”
“Does it though? It hasn’t for you with Grayson.” Ilena picks up the coat Mallory had dropped, and Mallory can’t help looking at that ring as Ilena continues, “Grayson and the error, it’s why you chose him in the game?”
“Plus him threatening Aubrey at the outing. He said if I implicated him in the error, he’d point the finger at her.”
“Then he deserved it.” Ilena’s phone buzzes on the small desk in the corner of the kitchen.
Mallory pours more bourbon.
