Page 173 of Faking Cinderella
Lucky looks at me again, and the bottom of my stomach drops out.
He’s kept this secret—that he’s known his dad isn’t his biological dad—for years.
He’s also shielded his parents from the truth at his brother’s request for years.
And now it’s coming out.
Has to be something of a relief.
But also scary as hell.
“Let’s all take a deep breath—” Rhys starts, but Laney shakes her head at him.
“You’re notdeep breath-ing your way out of this. You knew, didn’t you?”
“He’s not wrong,” Lucky says, more cautious than I’ve heard him at any point the past two weeks. “Deep breaths never hurt anyone. Let’s back up, and?—”
“Found your phone,” Jack says as he and Decker both approach too.
My gaze flies to Rhys’s.
“We found her phone,” he says, still looking back at me.
“No, I found her phone.” Lucky lifts a black phone with a white clock that’s similar to mine, but not the same.
Jack holds up something similar. “You found someone else’s. This one’s—wait. Something’s going on here. What’s this? What’s happening?”
“You need toleave,” Mrs. Sullivan hisses at me again.
I hold up a hand. “I’m not him,” I say quietly. “I amnothinglike him. I don’t want to?—”
“I don’t want you to say another word,” she interrupts.
“Mom? What’s going on?” Decker’s the first of the three to slip to her side and wrap an arm around her.
“She’s lying,” Mrs. Sullivan says. “Whatever she’s told you, she’s lying. You can’t trust her.”
My eyes are getting hot, and my nose feels swollen. I’ve never wanted to hug another woman as badly as I also want to yell at her in my life.
She’s hurting.
We’re all hurting.
I don’t know the circumstances around whatever relationship she had with my father, but she clearly knows who he is and what he’s capable of.
But her kids are grown adults.
They deserve to know the truth.
Theywantto know the truth, or they wouldn’t have invited me here.
And I meant it when I said they need to know the truth.
They need to know it so that when my father finds out, he can’t blindside and destroy them.
“Hear her out,” Rhys says.
Much as it’s comforting to know he’s on my side, I don’t think hearing me out is happening tonight.
