Page 68 of This Stays Between Us
“You don’t know my father,” Adrien snaps. “He’s not the type of person you say no to.” She pulls up the sleeve of her shirt, and I inhale sharply at the mottled skin coating her forearm. “I ran away when I was little. He had grounded me, and I was stubborn and acted out. When he found me, he dragged me home and held my arm over a lit flame until I promised never to do it again.”
I have nothing to say.
“That was for running away as a child,” Adrien says. “Imagine what he was willing to do when he found out I was planning to elope.”
The statement fades into silence. I know the others are thinking the same thing I am. Adrien was always the perfect one. Rich,beautiful, poised, never a hair out of place. We all just assumed the reality of her life back in South Africa matched her glittering veneer.
The thought strikes me again.None of us really know each other.
“My father gave me an order,” Adrien continues. “To end the engagement and go back to the plan he’d made for my life. Graduating with my law degree, working at his firm, which I would one day take over, marrying a powerful man just like him. He didn’t have to tell me what would happen if I didn’t. So, I did what he wanted.
“Kyan and I lost touch, mostly, other than the group text and the occasional message on Instagram. It was too painful for us to stay connected, even though I thought about him constantly.” My eyes dart to Declan, catch him looking at me, before I turn away. “Kyan did end up moving back to Sydney, and I lived the life my dad wanted me to live in South Africa.
“When I got here and saw Kyan, it all came rushing back. All those feelings.” Her eyes gloss over with a sentimentality I didn’t know she was capable of. “I made a huge mistake. I should have done more to get away from my father, to make our relationship work. And now, it might be too late…”
I watch as a tear drops from her cheek, landing on the table’s wooden surface. Ellery wraps Adrien in a hug, and I feel the familiar pang of guilt. This time for wrongfully accusing Adrien, without having any idea what she and Kyan went through back then.
I open my mouth to apologize, but before I can, a sharp, screeching sound erupts next to me, causing everyone to jump in unison.
My phone, vibrating against the table, where I’d placed it when I first sat down.
Confusion blurs my mind as I wonder who could be calling me. It isn’t until I see the familiar, overly long number on the screen that the confusion turns to panic.
It’s Inspector Villanueva.
32
Phoebe
Then
I stare at them for what feels like hours. Two lines that change everything. That cleave my life in two.
I think of how it happened. I do the math, count the days back to our time in the Whitsundays. And then I think about my options.
I’m still on the bathroom floor when I hear the door to the room open. Quickly, I shove the test in the trash under some used tissues so Claire won’t stumble across it.
“Phoebe, you still sick?” she asks through the closed door.
Taking a deep breath, I open it to see Claire, a slight sunburn across her cheeks.
“I’m feeling a bit better,” I say. It’s partially true. My nausea—or morning sickness, I now realize—has gone, only to be replaced with a soul-crushing anxiety.
“That’s good,” she says. I’m about to ask how her day was, moreout of politeness than curiosity, but she beats me to it. “We’re planning on going out tonight. There’s a place down the street that apparently does drag karaoke. In the middle of Jagged Rock, can you imagine?”
“You can’t be serious.”
If Claire can tell that I’m referring to the olive branch she’s extending me, rather than the existence of a drag bar in the middle of the Outback, she doesn’t show it.
“It’s what Tomas would have wanted,” she says.
And there it is. The blame that laces through her words, twisting in my gut.This is your fault.
I’m pretty sure Tomas wouldnothave wanted to be lying in a morgue in the middle of Australia somewhere while his friends partied in his name, but I force myself to stay quiet.
“Please say you’ll come,” she pleads.
I stare at her for a moment. Days ago, she was volunteering me as tribute for her fuck, marry, kill game. Up until now she’s barely looked at me, let alone spoken. Why the sudden about-face? I’m trying to articulate that in a way that doesn’t sound completely bitchy, but she beats me to it.
