Page 37 of The Charade

My mom might not have told Elyse and me very much about our bio father, but she had said that we were better off without him, so I just had to trust that she was right.

"Anyway, this is my room," Cambrielle said, moving away from the portrait of her family and to a door on the opposite side of the hall. "You can just put your things in here."

She led us into a gorgeous bedroom with pale pink walls and tall windows surrounded by long, shimmery gold curtains.

"Your bedroom is amazing," Elyse commented, setting her backpack on the floor just inside the door.

"Thanks," Cambrielle said as she ushered us farther in. "My mom let me redecorate it this summer, so I'm glad you like it."

"'Like it' would be an understatement," I said as I took in the queen-sized four-poster bed with white-and-gold bedding and so many throw pillows that it would probably take at least ten minutes to make the bed. "This is, like, my dream room."

"Really?" Cambrielle asked.

"Yeah, mine too," Elyse added.

"Well, thanks." Cambrielle smiled, genuinely happy that we liked her interior design. "It was fun to put together."

I noticed that while there was a nightstand on either side of the bed, a super cute, comfy-looking chair in one corner, and even a gas fireplace beside the chair, there was no dresser.

"Do you not have a dresser?" I asked.

A half-smile slipped onto Cambrielle's lips and she walked toward a door that led to what must be a closet. "I keep all my clothes in here," she said.

Only when she opened the door, it wasn’t a closet but a bathroom with a huge mirror, a nice big soaker tub, a shower, and a little toilet room off to the side.

Dang, her bathroom was the size of Elyse’s and my bedroom at home.

"The closet is just through here." Cambrielle walked toward a door next to the vanity, but then she stopped, grabbing what looked like an Old Spice deodorant and a blue toothbrush from off the countertop and quickly shoving them into a drawer.

"Sorry about that." She glanced back to Elyse and me with flushed cheeks. "I forgot to put those away earlier." She cleared her throat. "Anyway, this is my closet."

I briefly wondered why she seemed embarrassed that we'd see she preferred Old Spice to Secret deodorant, but my attention was instantly drawn away from that thought when she opened the door to her closet and turned on the light to reveal the most gorgeous space I'd ever seen.

The ceiling was painted pink to match the color of her room, with white crown molding. There were white built-in cabinets with open shelving on top with racks upon racks of blouses and designer jeans that could have come straight from one of my mom's fashion shows.

There were shelves of designer shoes. Shelves of jewelry and bags. Several racks of cocktail dresses and evening gowns. Fancy coats. Beautiful hats.

Hiding off to the side in the back corner, I spotted a rack of our school-approved uniforms.

And as I took in what just might be the most magical room in the whole world, I realized that with a fashion sense and a closet like this, wearing the school's uniforms every day must be even more painful for Cambrielle than it was for me.

"I know it's kind of a lot," Cambrielle said, noticing the look of awe on our faces. "But, um, if you ever need to borrow anything, I'm your girl." She gestured at the haute couture around her. "I know the school doesn't provide much space for clothes, so I'm totally happy to let you borrow anything you like."

I looked at Cambrielle. She was probably barely five feet, so I doubted much of what she had in here would even fit us and our five-foot-nine frames. But it was super sweet of her to offer, so I said, "I may take you up on that some time because this is amazing. Even our mom would be jealous."

A little while later, Cambrielle continued the tour by showing us the rest of the second floor. While Elyse was drooling over the movie collection in the theater room, I decided that I might need to take a bathroom break before we continued since there was still a lot of the house to see. "Do you have a guest bathroom up here that I can use?"

"Oh, sure." Cambrielle looked away from what she was showing Elyse. "It's just down that hall. Three doors down and on the left."

"Thanks."

I hurried down the hall in the direction she'd pointed and after counting three doors, I opened what I assumed was a bathroom.

Only, I didn't see a bathroom at all.

Instead, the door opened to a bedroom about the same size as Cambrielle's. Rather than pink walls and gold curtains, the room had a much more masculine vibe with lots of blues, whites, and grays. The focal point of the room was a king-sized bed with a gray, modern-style headboard. And behind the bed was a wall painted to look like the night sky with various constellations that covered the entire space and all across the ceiling.

I was tempted to step inside for a moment to see if I could figure out whether the room belonged to Nash or Carter, when suddenly, a bare-chested Carter walked out from what could be his bathroom with a gray T-shirt in his hand.

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