Page 112 of Most Eligible Billionaire

“How’d you know I’d go this way?”

“Who cares? What’s going on?” His phone is going crazy. “That Denny guy back there. What was that?”

I shake my head. Everything feels so enormous.

More ringtones.

He pulls it out of his pocket. “Calls from the tower. Probably Brett. What happens when I answer? I’ve had him blocked all weekend. What happens when I unblock him? What am I going to see?”

I take his phone from his hands. “Uh,” I say, pressing the cool, smooth screen to my forehead.

He waits. I’m trying not to cry.

“Well, that answers that,” he says. “A forehead print. That’s what I’ll see.”

I shake my head. “No joke,” I whisper.

He puts his arm around me, pulls me into his warmth. His protection. I have this thought that everything from here on in is a stolen moment. I guess they all were.

“What’s going on?”

“I didn’t want you to know. I thought you’d never know.”

“Know what?”

I shake my head. “The thing is, I knew if we stayed together, it would come out, and everything would be ruined. You’d need to do damage control and, god, you’d hate me.”

“I couldn’t hate you, Vicky.”

“Maybe not,” I say in a small voice. “But you could hate Vonda O’Neil. You could hate her. You probably already do.”

He shifts, speaks closer into my ear. “Whatare you talking about?”

“Vonda O’Neil?” I pull away. “You don’t remember liar Vonda O’Neil? The whole sordid scandal eight years back? Everyone remembers Vonda O’Neil.”

He searches my face, expression remote. I see when he gets it, because it’s like he’s seeing me new. “Wait—”

“That’s right,” I say.

“You’re Vonda O’Neil.”

“Ding.” I say it breezily, as though it costs me nothing. It costs me everything.

“And Denny Woodruff…that was—”

“Denny. The wronged victim, yeah. Falsely accused,” I say. “The poor sweet boy with his bright future that was threatened by selfish, lying Vonda.”

I watch Henry’s eyes. My blood races as I wait for the removal of the arm, the retraction of affection, the blotting out of the stars that never made a real picture anyway.

He doesn’t remove his arm, but I can practically see the gears in his mind turning. The gears in his memory.

“Remember? The trial? The world-famous mayo shirt?”

“Oh, right. The shirt was supposed to prove he’d kidnapped and…tried to assault you. You said it was semen, but it was mayo.”

“Yup. It was mayo.”

“That was you? Wait—the well. You ended up in a well.”

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