Page 122 of Submission

“Naomi has not been totally truthful about who she is,” I say.

“Does Hunter know?” Naomi whispers.

“Is that all you care about right now, if Hunters knows? It sounds like you have bigger fish to fry than Hunter Middleton.”

“Did he tell you, Megan?”

“He told me your real last name–Fabre. He told me that your family is from Louisiana and not wherever the hell you said you were from when we first met. He told me that your family is powerful down there and definitely dangerous.”

“Holy crap!” Lena says, covering her mouth with a hand in shock.

“He told you a lot,” Naomi says regretfully. “Maybe too much.”

“No, Naomi, you didn’t tell me enough or rather anything at all. I’ve been friends with a virtual stranger. I don’t know anything about you. It’s fucking weird.”

“How long have you known?”

“Not long enough.”

“And let me guess, your baby’s daddy doesn’t trust me now?”

“Do you blame him? He thinks you’re up to something.”

“Megan, you know me better than anyone else in my life. I am not up to anything. Your boyfriend thinks too highly of himself if he thinks that any of this is about him.”

“Fiancé,” Lena corrects Naomi but I give her the big sister stare.

“Not now, Lena,” Naomi scolds.

“Then tell us what is going on. If we’re friends like you say we are, like I’ve always believed we were, then tell me about this fiancé of yours.”

“His name is Gabriel, and I’ve known him my entire life. Our families hate each other.”

“Then why is he your fiancé?” Lena asks, rightly confused. “Or are you two like star-crossed lovers or something?” she asks a little too excitedly.

“Trust me, we’re not star-crossed. We don’t like each other.”

“Then why does he have your phone number? I saw the call come in. You have his number saved,” I say, sounding like a Nancy Drew novel.

“We have one thing in common. Neither of us wants to marry the other. So, he was the one who helped me get out of New Orleans undetected. I went to Texas first, then Mexico, and finally, I settled in Los Angeles. He’s the only person who I kept in contact with from my old life and that’s only because it was the only way he would help me. It was part of the deal.”

“Why would you have to marry someone you don’t want to in this day and age?” Lena asks.

“My life in New Orleans is different than the normal one a person lives. We may live in a modern-day age, but familial expectations of me were established long before women had a voice in our family.”

“Yes, but you have a voice now.”

“No,” Naomi shakes her head. “I don’t. There are sacrifices people made from every generation in my family so that my family could thrive in America. I am expected to honor those sacrifices.”

“By marrying a man, you don’t love?”

“By marrying a man who understands the sacrifice,” she says in a voice that is not hers. It’s clearly something that’s been said to her by someone in her family, probably many times.

“Do you have brothers or sisters, Naomi?” Lena asks.

“A brother.”

“And you two aren’t close?”

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