Page 73 of Deserving Maisy
“Seduce him,” Ry said without hesitation.
Maisy almost choked. “What?”
“Take off all your clothes and climb into bed with him. He won’t be able to resist you.”
“Or he could shove me away from him and make me die of embarrassment,” Maisy said incredulously.
“Not gonna happen. Trust me.”
Maisy wanted to. She really did. But she couldn’t bear it if Jack rejected her when she was at her most vulnerable.
“Tell me the truth…do you think you’re pregnant?”
Maisy sighed. “No.”
“If yougetpregnant, that man isn’t going to let you out of his sight,” Ry mused.
“I don’t want to trap him. The last thing I want is to worry about whether or not he’s with me for the sake of his child or because he loves me.”
“Yeah, that’s a problem,” Ry said with a sigh. “I still say amazing sex will make him stop ignoring you.”
Maisy wanted that. Badly. She lived on the memories of the way they’d made love, before the shit hit the fan. And having Jack’s baby would be a dream come true. He’d be the best father any child could ever hope to have.
“Right,” Ry said, studying Maisy’s face closely, with a small smirk on her own. “So while you’re waiting to confront your asshole of a brother, you still have time to convince Stone that he can’t live without you.”
“How, though?”
“I don’t know. But you’re smart, you’ll figure it out,” Ry said easily, leaning back against the counter as if she didn’t have a care in the world.
“I’mnotsmart,” Maisy protested. “I dropped out of school, barely passed my GED. Jack was only the second guy I’d ever been with. I have no idea how to convince him that I really do love him and hate my brother for what he did.”
“Wait, what?”
“What,what?” Maisy asked, confused herself.
“What do you mean, you barely passed your GED?”
“Just that. Jason told me that I scored so low, I was one point from failing.”
“And you believed him?” Ry asked, her expression showing exactly how ridiculous she thought that was.
“Um…yes?” Maisy said.
“Look, while I was digging into info about your twatwaffle of a brother, I looked into you too. You scored a seven eighty-five.”
“Yeah, which is sixty-five percent,” Maisy said with a shrug.
“What? No, it’s not! Good Lord. Look, we know Jason isn’t exactly an upstanding guy, but if he told you the max score for the GED was twelve hundred, he was lying. Hell, that’s not a score foranything. The SAT is sixteen hundred for a perfect score, and it’s thirty-six for the ACT.
“The GED test is split up into four subjects. Barely passing is one hundred and forty-five on each section. Getting between one sixty-five and one seventy-four on a section? That generally means you’re college-ready. Above that means you’re eligible to get college credit. Maisy, you scored a one hundred and ninety in math—which was yourlowestscore, by the way—two hundred on reasoning through language arts, one hundred and ninety-seven insocial studies, and one hundred and ninety-eight in science. Girl, you’re practically a genius!”
Maisy stared at Ry in confusion. “I didn’t almost fail?”
Ry laughed. “No, Maisy. You got a perfect score in one section and almost perfect on two others. You certainly didn’talmostfail.”
“Oh my God,” Maisy whispered. “I always wondered how I could do so poorly. I used to get straight A’s in school. But I’d already started taking so many meds that I guess…I guess I just thought maybe the drugs were the cause. Regardless, I took Jason’s word for it, like everything else.”
“Your brother knew how smart you were. He also knew you weredefinitelysmart enough to eventually figure out he was a low-life scum. So I’m guessing he kept you drugged for years so he could spend money that was meant for you.”
