Page 120 of Cinderella Is Faking It

“I believe this lovely lady is looking for me.” I turned around to see Beck with his sleeves rolled up and a takeout bag in one hand. He placed the food on the counter and took the key instead. “Dinner’s on me, Henry, and feel free to put Delilah on the approved visitors list. She can come up whenever she wants.”

“I do not need to be on any list, Henry,” I said but Beck was already directing me to the elevator with a hand between my shoulders. I twisted around to shoot the trembling doorman another look. “Take me off the list!”

The elevator doors shut and by the fifth floor, the moment had sunk in, and I turned to see Beck smile at the ground. “Did you just go out and buy food for your doorman?”

He chuckled. “No, but I’m not going to expose you to chicken satay.”

“Oh.” Yeah, I could do without another allergic shock. “Thanks.”

“That means you owe me dinner.”

“No, this just means we’re even for the dinner you canceled on me.”

“What I’m hearing is, we need to catch up on two dinners.”

“I think you need hearing aids, Casanova.” I hated how easily I slipped back into conversation with him. This wasn’t supposed to be easy. For goodness’ sake. We had spent almost as much timenottalking since the White Ball as we had spent time getting to know each other. The fake versions of each other.

The elevator pinged and let us out on his floor. His new place was bigger than the old one, but most of his sleek, dark wood furniture had carried over. It was also a lot more cluttered, and I clutched the strap of my bag to refrain from starting piles for scattered clothes and books. Beck led me through the living room, a separate dining room, and into kitchen. “Where’s Brody?” I asked, picking up the single red converse that had been abandoned on the bar stool of the kitchen island.

“She’s with a friend. She’s…” He sighed and pulled one of those small orange juice bottles from the fridge, placing it in front of me. I’d never actually told him that I preferred juice to any other drink. It was something he had just picked up on. “She’s spending a lot of time with friends. Which the therapist tells me is good, because it means she’s seeking out the familiar instead of acting out.”

“For what it’s worth, she seems okay in school. All things considered.”

“Yeah,” he sighed, “I think she knows more about her father than she lets on.”

I should have been asking about him. And how are you doing, Beck? How are you coping with his death? How do you feel considering your brother was shot right in front of you?

“You were right about Brody’s trust,” he said, while collecting a mixing bowl and various ingredients around his kitchen, “I don’t think anyone would benefit from looking into her mother’s death, but you were right about her inheritance going to Brody, and Julian taking control of the trust. We met with her mother’s family in Portland. Her aunt will help if Brody ever wants to go into the Donut business.”

“Portland. That’s why you sent the books from Powell’s.”

“Buy indie, right? You came here because of this?” He slid the car key across the counter. “I’m not taking the car back. Or the books. In fact, I’m not accepting any further gift returns.”

“You had the car registered in two names.”

“I wasn’t sure if you had a license with Cordelia’s name on it.”

“Your whole scheme was one speed check away from blowing up in your face.”

“Yes, it was.”

I let that confirmation fester in the air between us before I asked the question I came here to ask: “When did you find out who I was?”

“First day of meeting you.”

“What?”

“Not quite, actually. We had someone monitor Cordelia’s house since this was going to be the first time she’d attended an event in years. Imagine my surprise when, after dancing and dining with you, I received the alert that Cordelia had already made it back home an hour earlier. In a change of clothes,” while explaining, he added eggs and flour and other ingredients to his bowl, before finally getting out a whisk, “I didn’t figure out you wereyouuntil money from the Montgomery estate was used to pay rent on a small studio in Mission Hill.”

“And when did you find out about Roger?”

He halted in his whisking, gray eyes bleeding to black as he fixed me in place with his stare. “When you told me.”

“I didn’t tell you about him.”

“I picked you up from High Tea. You were chatty. I did my research with what info you gave me.”

“So, you knew? When you pulled him from his car after the crash?” I refused to call it an accident now.

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