Page 84 of Mad Girl

You nodded, eyes closed.

“Oh my God. You could’ve befriended Michael on your own—or, I don’t know, approached my dad on the street. But no. You involved that bitch in some manipulative scheme to infiltrate our lives.”

You grimaced, your hand tossed out. “Listen, I’m not proud of it.”

“I can’t believe you,” I said, pushing myself up from the bed. “You and that stupid bitch. No wonder she shut her mouth when you said enough. No wonder she acted like your girlfriend as much as she did Michael’s.”

Something had always seemed off with Sienna. I’d sensed it the first time Michael had introduced her to me.

You grabbed my wrist. “Don’t look at me like that, Wednesday,” you said, gently tugging me back. “I hate how I schemed my way into your lives—especially Michael’s. Believe me, I regret all of it. I wish I’d never involved her.”

“Were you still sleeping with her while she dated Michael?”

“Of course not. Once she started seeing him, I didn’t touch her at all. I swear it.”

I tried not to be persuaded by your grip on my wrist. Or the feel of your other hand as it moved up my arm. Or the way you gazed up at me, desperate and pleading, as you anchored me in place. “Does my dad know this? Know about Sienna’s involvement, too?”

“He knows everything. But Sienna doesn’t—she has no idea what I’ve just found out. If she asks for an update, I’ll tell her Nic isn’t my father, but I have no intention of ever telling her the truth. I can’t risk it. I don’t trust her.”

That’s what pulled me back from the edge, Casey. Not your grip. Not the words. The fact you were choosing to trust me over her.

“When did you find out you definitely weren’t my dad’s?” I asked.

You breathed a sigh of relief as I lowered myself to the bed again. “Right before my birthday. Nic did a paternity test, and the results showed we weren’t related.”

“I don’t understand. By that time, you’d been here for over six months. Why did he wait so long to do the test?”

“Because, for the longest time, he kept trying to get a clear answer from”—you paused here, hesitating—“your mother.”

My heart skipped. “He talked to my mom?”

You took a deep breath. “He wanted to know if she’d had a baby without telling him. She disappeared during his second year at uni, so the timing fit—she’d have been gone for the last half of a pregnancy, and for months after I was born. She didn’t show up again until Nic’s third year.”

He talked to my mom. Feeling stunned and confused, all I could manage to say was, “And she…wouldn’t give him a clear answer?”

“He said she kept toying with him. She’d say yes one day and no the next. Then she’d say if she’d had a baby, how could he know for sure it was his? He said she was like that. She liked to fuck with him. It was fun for her. Finally, he got a DNA sample from you and compared our samples to see if we were siblings. He got the results back at the same time as the paternity test. You and I weren’t related, either, so there’s no way she could’ve been my biological mother.”

I still couldn’t believe it. Nic had been in contact with my mom. For months. But the other thing that surprised me? She liked to mess with people, too.

“What do you mean he got a DNA sample from me? How’d he do that without me knowing?”

“He had me take your toothbrush one day while you were at school and replace it with one that looked exactly the same.”

“Well, what about John? Did John give him a sample?”

“Um,” you said, hesitating again. “John doesn’t know any of this. Nic took samples from him and Michael while we were all at the beach.”

“Their toothbrushes, too?”

You nodded.

“Wow. My dad’s sneaky as shit.”

You smiled at me. “Yes. I see now where you get it from.”

I smiled back, knocking your arm with mine.

“I’d given up after the results came back on Nic,” you said. “He told me none of it mattered. That I belonged here, anyway. That I was his family now—whether I liked it or not.” You stared down at your bracelet and twisted it around your wrist. “I thought it was over. I’d never even considered John. So it came as a great shock when Nic took me into his office last night and showed me undeniable proof that John’s my biological father. Your dad wanted to be thorough, so he’d taken that sample from Michael, too.” You heaved a big sigh. “And we’re definitely brothers.”