Page 186 of Sexting My Best Friend's Brothers
Ethan opens his eyes. The initial shock vanishes, replaced instantly by calculated aggression.
“Harper, sit down,” Ethan commands.
“No!” Harper grabs her purse. “I can’t… I need to process this. I need to go.”
“Harper, wait!” Tessa cries, standing up.
But Harper’s already at the elevator, hitting the button frantically. “Don’t follow me. Just… don’t.”
The doors slide open, and she disappears.
We are left in the stillness of the penthouse. The pizza is cold. The champagne is unopened. And on four different screens, the photo of our secret is burning a hole through the internet.
“It’s out,” Owen whispers. “The secret is out.”
Ethan walks to the window, looking out at the city currently reading about his sex life.
“Markus,” Ethan says.
“What?” I ask.
“It wasn’t a random paparazzi,” Ethan says, turning around. His eyes are dead calm. “We took the service exit. We took the tinted SUV. No one knew we were there.”
“Except the person watching us,” I realize.
“Markus Vance didn’t stop,” Ethan says. “He had us followed. He fed her name and position to the press to frame it as a coercion scandal. He took that photo.”
Tessa sinks back onto the sofa, clutching her stomach, her breathing turning shallow as the reality of the Morality Clause sets in.
“Let them look,” Ethan says, walking back to us. He reaches down and takes Tessa’s hand, pulling her to her feet.
He looks at me. He looks at Owen.
“We prepared for this,” Ethan says. “We knew the war wasn’t over.”
“What do we do?” Owen asks. “Deny it? Call it AI-generated?”
“No,” Ethan says. He looks at the ultrasound photos still tucked in his pocket. He pulls them out and throws them on the table next to the phone displaying the scandal.
“We don’t deny it,” Ethan says. “We own it.”
“Own it?” I ask. “That is a high-risk strategy.”
“It’s the only strategy,” Ethan says. “Markus wants to use this to shame us. To make us look dirty. So we don’t let him. We control the narrative.”
He turns to Tessa. “Are you ready to tell the world?” he asks.
Tessa glances at the photo, at the hateful comments scrolling by, then down at the ultrasound.
She lifts her chin. The physical tremor in her hands stops.
“They’re our babies,” she says fiercely. “I’m not ashamed of them. And I’m not ashamed of us.”
“Good,” Ethan says. He picks up his phone.
“Who are you calling?” Owen asks.
“Sterling,” Ethan says. “I’m going to tell him to go to hell before he gets the chance to fire us.”
