Fifty-Seven
ENTERING THE FOYER, I REALIZE ABIGAIL NO LONGER FOLLOWS ME.
I face her, finding my sister hesitating. Walls of white frame her. In her black ensemble, she’s a shadow in the well-lit hallway.
“Why did you do that?” she demands.
With heartbreaking clarity, I read her guarded inquisition. She’s prying at the edges of generosity, looking for the catch. Waiting for the countermove. I would have done the same. I have done the same.
“I betrayed you,” she whispers, confessing to herself. “Why did you help me?”
I smile. In a wedding day packed with complicated questions, it’s nice to encounter one I can answer immediately. “I guess I’ve learned some people don’t deserve second chances. Some people do,” I say honestly.
It is the key in the lock holding up her unflinching facade. Her face twists, tears finally welling in her eyes. “He wasn’t who I expected he would be,” she offers.
I don’t need her explanation. I hear in her words the reprise of everything I’ve asked myself at night under the rose-patterned comforter in the house I can’t wait to return to. “I know,” I say sadly. “Me neither.”
She steps forward.
“I do not, however,” I continue, “offer third chances. If you ever double-cross me again, I will get revenge. Perhaps I’ll plan an elaborate heist on your wedding day. Just for instance.” Finally, I grin, dropping my intimidating guise.
Abigail laughs wetly. “I mean”—she nods, the imitation of our negotiating postures—“that’s only fair.”
In the past hour, I’ve reminded myself that everything Abigail has done was in service of her plan. Every kindness was orchestrated to win her way into my crew and my confidence. Planning the day required constant vigilance, constant skepticism, constant wariness. I’ve indulged the instincts, telling myself the person I once considered my ally was my opponent all along.
Except… now I do the opposite. I push myself to wonder whether under her mercenary machinations, she yearned in ways I couldn’t possibly understand. Performing friendship out of the fiercest hunger for family.
I can’t imagine how painful it was.
She doesn’t need to pretend now. “Well, Queen,” I say. “Should we go celebrate with our crew?”
Her face lights up, remade in exhilaration. While she didn’t get the family she expected from our father’s wedding day, she got us. She’s not alone.
I wonder where Abigail will go when she goes home. I vow right then—I’m going to know. I’m going to reclaim our entire lifetime of sisterhood. Everything we missed. Comforts and fights, memories and miseries shared, inside jokes and movie nights and double dates. If she wants me, of course.
Interrupting my resolve, security walkie-talkies hiss nearby. I guess Dash shook off his contemplative stupor and decided to set Millennium Security on the hunt for his daughters. “I’m guessing they’re here to escort us out,” I observe.
Abigail’s grin snares a renegade spark. “Only if they catch us,” she replies.
In the moment our gazes meet, our impromptu Phase Seven shared wordlessly, I realize my resolution might be very easy. Maybe I’ll love having a sister.
We’re off without hesitation—running, rounding corners, panting, laughing. I’m pretty certain I hear the guards in pursuit, following our pounding footsteps. It doesn’t matter. We’re caught up in wild joy, adrenaline making every elegant hall, quiet corridor, and chandelier-lit entryway into our playground. Making every opulence I once considered mine, and mine no longer, into ours.
We charge out onto the deck, the air cool on our flushed faces. With security close, we continue hastily down the steps into the tent. Our crew, minus McCoy, is on the dance floor. Jackson is with them. Yes, they may have decided dancing with other guests is clever camouflage. Really, it looks like they’re just having fun.
Deonte notices us first. “Everything good?” he asks.
I exchange a quick glance with Abigail, a silent agreement. No one needs to know what happened. Only family.
“Everything is great. Although we’re going to get kicked out soon,” I say. “Which obviously means we should enjoy this last song.”
Deonte needs no convincing. His eyes move from me to Abigail. When he reaches out, she puts her hand in his. He tugs her forward, into the music. In the crush, my crew raises the roof. Celebrating the way we deserve. We’re walking out of here millionaires.
Instead of joining them, I lock gazes with Jackson. “Hey,” he says softly. The hesitant word, wondering where we stand, is far from his exclamation on the day we met, the first word Jackson Roese ever said to me.
“I’m sorry I ever doubted you,” I say. “I know you didn’t send that message.”
“Good,” he replies.
I wait for more. “Don’t you want to know how I figured it out?” I prompt him when nothing else comes.
He pulls me close in one gently quick movement, lining us up with the precise grace of opportunities seized. I’m pressed to him, chest to chest, tuxedo to dress. “Olivia, as long as I have you, nothing else matters,” he says. He stares down at me, his eyes mixing love with confidence in the perfect cocktail he is.
I lean in to kiss him—
And a hand on my shoulder stops me. I turn, finding the bride. She looks pissed.
“I don’t know how you even got wedding crashers into my wedding,” she says, nodding to Deonte, Abigail, and McCoy, who is seated nearby, intruders in her crystal-and-lace kingdom. “Abigail isn’t even dressed appropriately. I don’t want any of them in the background of my photos.”
Unbothered, I shrug. “We were just leaving—” I start to say, until one word from Maureen’s painted lips snags in my mind.
Abigail.If the chandelier fell onto the dance floor, the surprise wouldn’t hit me harder. The final pieces of the day drop neatly into place. Maureen knows who Abigail is. The prenup. The short courtship. It’s not because Dash is madly in love with his young bride.
It’s because she’s blackmailing him.
I laugh, earning a concerned yet scathing look from my stepmother. Maureen, who met my father when she was earning her journalism degree. Maureen, who knows how to investigate offhand comments or incoherent details or whatever it was that put her on to my dad’s ignominious history. Maureen, who knows how to leverage information. I’ve underestimated her, I realize. The way people have continually underestimated me. It’s maybe my single regret of the day.
I pat her on her diamond-encrusted elbow. “Welcome to the family, Maureen,” I say sweetly. “I think you’re going to fit right in.”
When Maureen eyes me, a door opens down the long hallway of her gaze, as if she’s recognizing something. It’s almost a shame, I decide. If Maureen weren’t my stepmother, I feel like we actually could have been friends.
I face my crew, ready to usher us out.
“Who the hell is Abigail?” Tom asks.
My sister and I exchange glances. Promptly, we burst into giggles.