Page 101 of The One for Forever

There’s a pause. Rex has a tiny smile. Kendall stares at me in awe, and any trace of color drains from Amber’s golden complexion.

She scrambles for her purse and tears her phone free, breaking a few expensive beads in the process. She relaxes slightly when she’s holding the device, but then her thumbs keep poking at the screen. “Why isn’t the facial recognition working? And it’s saying my passcode is wrong. What thehell?”

Slowly, I reach into my pocket and remove Amber’s phone from the carefully designed holster inside. There’s a layer ofmesh sewn into the iridescent fabric on the outside of my skirt. Hard to notice if you don’t know it’s there. But the mesh is placed so that the camera of a phone placed inside can see out.

This never would’ve worked if I didn’t have Amber’s code. But Derek knew it, because lawyers learn all kinds of confidential things about their clients, and he agreed to give it to me on the condition that he’d deny it to his grave.

He also told me the kind of case she uses and the image on her lock screen. It wasn’t hard for me to order a similar case and put the same photo, one of Amber’s modeling pics, as my wallpaper. If Amber had glanced at the phone in her purse after I switched them, she would assume it was hers. She would’ve gotten suspicious if she’d tried to unlock it before now. But she didn’t.

“Looking for this?” I ask.

While she watches, I enter her passcode on the screen. It unlocks, revealing that the Instagram app is open.

And streaming live. Just as I said.

Amber screams.

Kendall lurches toward the door, pushing Rex aside. Suppose I can’t blame her for running. Her involvement in this was just revealed to the world. Who knows how many guests at the party were watching all this unfold in real time?

Everyone knows the truth, and Amber has no hope of spinning this.

Maybe Amber is safe from prison, but her innocent reputation is trashed. So is Kendall’s. I’ll bet all those corporate sponsors are already scrambling to cut ties.

I glance at Rex, feeling pretty damn proud of myself. Proud of us. Because I couldn’t have done it without Rex by my side, being his foxy self and distracting Amber. He nods back at me.

“Guess we can see ourselves out,” I say.

Then Rex’s face blanches in horror. “Gun!”

Before I can react, he lunges toward me. There’s a deafening pop. Rex lands on top of me on the carpet. My ears ring, and the smell of gunpowder is acrid in my nose. He rolls to one side of me, and I sit up.

A red stain is spreading on the white fabric of Rex’s shirt over his chest.

“No!” I cry.

Amber stands by an open wooden box on Thompson’s desk. She holds a gun, her mouth an O of pure shock. Like she can’t believe it either. Her hand drops, and the gun clatters to the wood floor beneath the desk.

She runs for the door, and I don’t try to stop her.

“I’m okay,” Rex says hoarsely. He tries to get up, but I won’t let him.

“No. No, no, no.” That’s all I can seem to say. My brain is rejecting it. This can’t be happening. I push my hands to the wound, and he groans, but nods.

“Good. Put pressure.” He can barely speak. Blood bubbles on his lip. He fumbles for his phone in his pocket and hands it to me.

I remember his phone code, which he told me on that day we went to Los Angeles, and I call 911. “My bodyguard, the man Ilove, has been shot. The Thompson Hayworth residence. Please hurry.Please.”

The operator tells me to stay on the line, but Rex says, “Quinn. Look at me.” I lean over him. “I love you,” he whispers. “Always and forever.”

“Me too.” My tears fall onto his cheeks. “Always and forever. But I promise this isn’t the end.”It’s not, I repeat in my head.It’s not. It’s not. “Our forever is going to last a long damn time. You’d better fight for it.”

“I am.” He smiles. “I’ll go to war for you. Any day.”

28

We’re back at the hospital. But I’m the one in the bed this time.

Not a fan.

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