Page 186 of Faking Cinderella
You never know.
So between sips of tea and small bites of breakfast, I talk.
I start at the beginning, all the way back to my first communication with Lucky through the MatchDNA site, through arriving in Snaggletooth Creek, meeting Rhys in the middle of the night, him figuring out who I was, our negotiations for his silence, him teaching me to split firewood, getting to know the triplets, the GrippaPeen convention and almost getting made by a former fling and Jonas Rutherford, up to last night, when Mrs. Sullivan made it clear that she knew who I really was.
“And I—I left before I could tell them that you’re innocent and they’d love you,” I finish.
Which isn’t finishing.
Because I haven’t told her—them, actually, since Bea and Oliver are both in the living room with us now—that I broke up with Rhys because he deserves someone who’s already whole enough to be in a real relationship.
Someone who doesn’t fuck up when she tries to startanykind of new relationship.
Not the way I fucked up with my brothers.
“Margot, you don’t need to tell them I’m awesome. I’ll prove it to them soon enough.”
“They were so mad. I—I might’ve fucked it up for both of us.”
“Then they don’t deserve meoryou. Family forgives.”
I cringe. “Daph—you know our father would make their lives hell if he knew about them, right? It’s—it’s not entirely safe for them to know who he is.”
“Do you think they’ll want something from him?”
I shake my head. “No. They have everything they want and need already. I shouldn’t—I shouldn’t have gone.”
I hurt them.
I hurt Rhys.
I hurt myself.
I hurt Rhys.
She points a piece of bacon at me. “Just because our father’s a dick of the highest order doesn’t mean we don’t deserve to get to know our siblings.”
“I should’ve told them the truth from the start.”
“Hard disagree,” Oliver says, weighing in for the first time.
Daph nods as she munches on her bacon. “Same.”
“Speaking as somewhat of an outsider to this, I’m also on pageyou weren’t wrong,” Bea says.
“That’s notyou were right,” I point out.
She lifts a shoulder. “Life’s complicated. If like, some famous boy-bander-turned-fashion-mogul or, say, one of the Rutherford brothers showed up at my doorstep like,guess what, we’re related!, I think I’d freak out and start looking for paparazzi everywhere and worry I couldn’t trust anyone anymore because I didn’t know who wanted to make new friends with me for me or because of who I was suddenly related to.”
Daph blinks at her. “That’s basically exactly your life now with you dating Hollywood’s hottest leading man.”
“Exactly. I more or lessdoknow what they’re going through.”
“They’re friends with the Rutherford brothers already,” I tell her.
“Friend-friends? Not just acquaintance friends?”
“Friend-friends,” I confirm.
