3. Emzee
EMZEECHAPTER 3
L ike I always say, there’s nothing like an emergency girls’ night to prop you up when you find out your husband is a lying, backstabbing, manipulative asshole and your entire world is shattered beyond repair.
Or something like that.
Thank God Tori had agreed to dog sit Munchkin during the fundraiser.
His warm, burly little body in my arms and the dark chocolate gelato in my hands were just about the only things keeping me in one piece.
Tori and I were on the couch with our feet up, a blanket draped over our laps.
I swiped at my leaking eyes with the sleeve of the oversized sweatshirt she had loaned me and took another bite of gelato, but the taste was bittersweet.
“I’m so sorry, Em,” Tori said, already scraping the bottom of her pint of salted caramel.
All I could do was nod.
Even though I’d known in my gut that Claudia had been right about Ford’s involvement in my high school torment and his knowledge of my father’s secret business, it had still been a shock when Ford refused to deny it.
Some part of me had been holding on to the futile hope that Claudia had been lying…
but seeing the way Ford’s face had fallen when I called him out in the car had made me want to throw up.
Or maybe that was just morning sickness.
In the evening.
“I don’t get why he did it in the first place, though it’s easy enough to chalk it up to sixteen-year-old Ford Malone dickishness,” I mused.
“But I still don’t understand why he went through the charade of rescuing me from the bullies afterward, and then faking a friendship with me for the last seven years. The whole thing is just…kind of sociopathic.”
Tori frowned.
“What makes you think the friendship was fake?”
“Uh, the fact that he never told me the truth? He’s been lying this whole time. By omission.”
She shook her head.
“That doesn’t mean you weren’t friends. It just means he was covering his ass. Obviously he knew you’d be pissed at him if you found out. Maybe pissed enough not to be his friend anymore. Right? I mean, you guys are—were—best friends.”
“Maybe. Or maybe he was just using me all along. Or fucking with me for his own amusement. I was like his puppet. What did Claudia say I was…his ‘little sucker fish.’”
“That bitch,” Tori said, which was pretty spicy for her.
My other sister-in-law, Brooklyn, was usually the resident trash talker.
And I loved her for it.
It was almost one in the morning.
Thankfully, my brother hadn’t even blinked when I showed up on his doorstep after the gala.
I’d texted on the way over and was greeted warmly by Stefan, Tori, and the only man in my life who was still completely loyal to me—Munchkin.
With a groan of effort, Tori leaned forward to set her empty gelato container on the coffee table, but her huge belly was in the way.
“Let me do that,” I said, grabbing the container from her.
“You just take it easy. The last thing we need is you going into early labor from overexerting yourself.”
She laughed.
“I highly doubt that leaning over is going to do that.”
“You can’t be too safe when it comes to my niece,” I teased, though under the blanket, I reflexively put my hand on my still-flat stomach.
Every time I glanced at Tori’s bump, I was reminded about the secret I myself was carrying—literally.
The uncertainty of my future was a million times scarier knowing that I didn’t only carry the burden of the Zoric family’s debt on my shoulders, but that there was an innocent life involved now, too.
An innocent life that was forbidden to even exist, under the terms set by Ford’s parents.
After all, they had stipulated that I was not to get pregnant, and I had to obey if I wanted them to keep their end of the bargain and pay off the Russian mob.
That meant the baby had to be a secret.
From everyone. Especially Ford.
But this tiny spark inside me…
I’d do anything to protect it.
That meant I had to come up with a plan, and fast. Unfortunately, all I could manage to do at the moment was cry into my gelato as a fresh wave of tears hit me.
Munchkin wriggled in my arms, attacking my chin with slobbery licks.
Tori patted my arm. “Love is easy. But marriage is hard. Especially when someone’s been keeping a secret. Speaking from experience, though, it doesn’t mean it’s all over.”
“Yeah, but…” I shook my head.
“I don’t know if I want it to be over or not. Maybe I can’t forgive him.”
“Give it a little time,” Tori said.
“Your wounds are fresh. And you’re welcome to stay with us as long as you need. Munchkin, too. Stefan put fresh sheets on the guest bed for you.”
“You two are the best.”
Sighing, I rested my head on her shoulder and stared at the TV.
I wasn’t even sure what was on, but it was some kind of home renovation show.
“I’m sorry for keeping you up so late, Tor. I’m sure you’re exhausted.”
“Oh, don’t worry about it. I slept for almost four hours right before dinner, so I’m actually wide awake. Hence my HGTV marathoning. My sleep schedule has been totally screwy. It’s so hard to get comfortable.”
“I guess it’ll be good practice for when the baby comes,” I said.
“Honestly, I can’t wait. I feel like my body’s been taken hostage.”
I laughed.
“I’m not sure I’ve ever heard anyone describe being pregnant that way.”
“That came out wrong,” Tori said, laughing with me.
“It’s not that I’m not super excited about the baby, and I’m grateful that we get to build a family. It’s just…it’s a lot.”
“How does it feel?” I asked, nodding toward her belly.
“What’s it like?”
She let out a groan, putting her feet up on the coffee table.
“It’s not all morning sickness and insomnia and swollen feet and back pain, but that’s definitely part of it,” she admitted.
“My body has changed so much, and it’s taken a lot of getting used to. I never thought I’d have a kid so young. But…I don’t think it was real to me until I could feel her kicking in there, and then it just seemed like a miracle. I know it’ll all be worth it.”
I nodded.
Soon enough, I’d know exactly what Tori was talking about.
“What’s the kicking feel like?” I asked.
“Does it hurt?”
“Not so much. It can be uncomfortable though,” she said.
“At first it’s almost like butterfly wings in there, and you’re not even sure what it is. Then they get stronger and more frequent, and you’ll get a jab in the ribs or the bladder or all of a sudden there’s an elbow pressed up against you from the inside, and you can even see a bulge. Sometimes Stefan says it looks like I’m carrying an alien in there, but I think of her as my little angel.”
“Wow,” I said.
“I can’t imagine.”
“Yeah, it’s pretty incredible. Stefan and I can’t wait to meet her. He’s really anxious, but I know he’s going to be a great father.”
She smiled dreamily, rubbing circles over her belly, and my eyes began to tear up again as I realized that I’d never know that kind of happiness, of expecting a baby with a man who loved me and wanted to share a life with me, who would never hurt me.
Because if Claudia’s bombshell had made one thing clear, it was that Ford had never loved me.
Our relationship—not just the fake one, but our friendship as well—had been an act all along.
A big fat lie. One thing was certain, though—I couldn’t fake my way through the next nine months.
I needed a real, solid plan.
There was no way I could finish my gelato, so I brought the half-empty pint into the kitchen and tucked it back into the freezer.
When I returned to the sofa, Tori was watching TV, still absently stroking her bump.
“Tori,” I asked. “Would you ever do it alone? Have a kid, I mean.”
Her eyes went wide.
“Oh God, I hope I’d never have to. Don’t jinx your brother.”
“That’s not what I meant,” I said.
“Although if anything happened to Stefan, God forbid, you’d still have all of us. I meant, like—if this had happened in high school or something.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” she finally said.
“I mean, I was pretty sheltered back then. I wouldn’t have known what to do with a penis if it bit me. Why do you ask?”
Suddenly, she narrowed her eyes and turned her full attention to me.
“You were a virgin?” I blurted out instead, desperately needing to redirect the conversation.
“Until when? Weren’t you just out of high school when you married Stefan?”
She went red.
“Yeah. I met him on my eighteenth birthday. I was…not experienced.”
“A virgin bride! Boy did my brother luck out on you, with nobody else to compare him to,” I joked.
“He must have had his work cut out for him.”
Generally I didn’t like to talk or even think about my brothers’ sex lives, but I was doing everything I could to distract my sister-in-law.
Luckily, with Tori blushing and sputtering on the other end of the couch, I could tell the subject was officially changed.
Which was probably good, because she would have guessed the truth before too long.
There was only one real reason why anyone would ask a happily married pregnant woman about single motherhood.
And the last thing I needed was for someone to figure out what I was hiding.