Page 18 of Threaded Lies

“You can’t hide away here in Gran’s house forever,” Sloane, one of my best friends, says as she lifts a glass of wine to her lips from where she sits on the floor. She absently pets Winnie’s unruly fur while constantly surveying everything in Gran’s study. “But this place is rather quite remarkable. Especially this room.”

“It is, isn’t it?”

We both look around again at the history lining its shelves and the crazy wall of photos and everything in between.

“It is. But at some point, you’ll have gone through all those stacks of papers and there will be nothing left to hide behind.”

“A girl can dream that they’d be endless, now, can’t she?”

“She can.” She nods and points to a particularly tall stack. “What is all of that?”

“Memories. Receipts from the drug store. Junk mail. Legal shit.” I press my fingers to my eyes, the weight of the day getting to me. “This room was always off-limits to us if she wasn’t in it. Now I can see why.” I lift up the closest paper and see one of the first surprises among many that I’m certain I’ll find in here. “She paid off student loans for a couple of strippers who worked across the river.”

“She what?”

“You know Gran. No doubt she met them somewhere and wanted to help them out.”

“Gran was a legend in the real world and a pariah in the Westmore realm for being compassionate to anyone other than her own kind.”

“She was.” My smile is bittersweet as I think of my shock when I found her letters to the two ladies earlier amid the first stack I tackled. When I look over, Sloane is studying me.

“This is where you feel the closest to her, isn’t it?”

“It’s as eccentric as she is.” I make a noncommittal sound. “Was. That still seems so hard to say. To believe.”

We both fall silent for a beat, but I can hear her laugh echoing down the halls like it was yesterday. I take a sip of my wine and when I look back toward Sloane, she’s still looking at me.

“Are we going to talk about all of this?” she asks.

“All of what?” I feign innocence.

“Well, that huge rock on your finger for one. The blindside of finding out you were engaged through the Westmore telephone game. The whiplash shortly thereafter learning that your betrothed is none other than Chadwick of all fucking people. And then you choosing to hide out here in Gran’s house and avoid the world.” She shrugs indifferently. “I don’t know. I think those are all great starting places.”

“I already explained it to you.” I glance at my finger and tap on the ridiculous ring weighing it down. “Well, except for this earlier today.”

“I figured that meant Chad found you. I knew hiding from him could only last so long.”

“The girl’s got smarts, hence why you’re the lawyer.”

She rolls her eyes. “So you agreed to marry him—the man you’ve been dodging for years—because marriage would give you more voting shares in the company that you still won’t own.” When I go to refute her, she holds her hand up so she can finish. “But the marriage is less about the voting shares and more about you claiming your inheritance early despite knowing there is a two-year time period on your nuptials before you can get it?”

“When you put it like that it sounds stupid.”

“But it’s the gist?”

“Yeah. I guess.” I scrub my hands over my face and then look at her as I shake my head. “I just need to feel in control somehow. Can you understand that?”

“Not only do I understand it, but I also encourage it.” She lifts her glass my way. This is why when I needed to confide in someone, I chose her. It doesn’t hurt that she’s a lawyer and might be able to help me on that front.

“And I may have asked Chad that if I agree to do this with him, marry him, that he’d try and influence his uncle to find a work-around to Gran’s two-year codicil.”

She raises her eyebrows and blows out a low whistle. “You’re playing hardball.”

I shrug. “Perhaps. Or maybe it’s more like I’ve heard Chad tell more people than I care to count over the years how his family can get rules bent if need be. So how about getting them bent for me—his soon-to-be wife?”

“His soon-to-be pretend wife.”

“Yes.” I hate that there is judgment in her eyes when they meet mine but also love it because isn’t that what a best friend is supposed to be? Your biggest cheerleader and the person who calls you on the carpet? “It’s the only reason for me to even agree to this—”