Page 97 of The Fake Out

Michael ran to my kitchen, and I heard him shuffling around in the junk drawer. He came back with a pad of paper and a pen. “Okay, let’s get a plan together to win Veronica back.”

It may have been the alcohol, but goddamnit, did I love my nosy family. Also, having a romance writer for a brother was extremely helpful. He’d help me figure out how to win her back for good.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

VERONICA

“WHO WAS SHE?” I heard a woman scream.

She was so loud I heard her from the office. Cautiously, I walked out to the lobby and saw Seth sputtering with excuses to his new wife, who was red in the face and jabbing a finger at his chest. She had the baby in the stroller and was rocking it slowly while the baby cried her head off.

The shop had opened an hour ago and had been a little slow. It was a weekday, so that was par for the course. I locked eyes with my brother. ‘What the fuck?’ he mouthed, and I shrugged in response. We still weren’t exactly on good terms, but since we hired Kelly and got an apprentice, Seth was going back to his old shop in a couple of weeks. Good riddance. I was hoping it could finally mend my relationship with my brother.

“Baby, let’s talk about this outside?” Seth pleaded, but he looked guilty.

“No. I want all your friends and coworkers to know what a piece of shit you are. We’ve been married for two months, and you already found someone else. So I want to know who you’ve been fucking behind my back,” she screeched at him.

He bent down to pick up his daughter, but Lily slapped his hand away. “No. I don’t want you anywhere near my daughter.”

Seth clenched his fists. “She’s our daughter.”

Olivia stood at the receptionist's desk, frozen in fear, and I didn’t blame her. None of us seemed to know how to handle the situation. Guilt wrapped itself around my throat. I should have told Lily she was the other woman.

“Baby, it’s not what you think,” Seth tried to explain.

She held up the receipts. “So please tell me when you were in Vegas for a tattoo convention? Because I checked with the shop so I could do the taxes, and Liv told me you had to take sick time because I couldn’t get off work and the baby was sick. When was the baby sick? And when was I working? Because you told me to quit so I could be a stay-at-home mom. Why did you need to stay at this luxury hotel? Or how about the work trip right before we found out I was pregnant? What was that?”

The guilt wrapped tighter around me. Could that ‘work trip’ have been when we went to Cancún for our anniversary? This man had shattered my heart, but I didn’t want Lily to go through the same heartache I did.

“Come on, Lily. Let’s talk about this at home,” Seth urged.

She shook her head, tears running down her face, and my heart wrenched. I should have warned her. I should have told her who she was marrying. But I didn’t want to butt in because I thought it wasn’t my place, and now another woman got her heart shattered by this asshole.

She wrenched her ring off her hand and threw it right at his face. “Fuck you very much, Seth!”

He grabbed her hand. “Baby, please.”

That’s when Eddie put a stop to it. He put a large hand on Seth’s shoulder. “Buddy, let’s go for a walk.”

Seth shrugged Eddie off. “Fuck off, man. This is between me and my lady.”

“And you’re interrupting our business. It’s not a request.”

Eddie wrenched him away. Lily picked up her daughter and tried to shush her. I walked over to her. “Hey.”

She gave me a pained look. “Oh, I’m so sorry about all that.”

“Do you want to come into the office with me? To talk?”

She nodded. She held the baby while I pushed the stroller down the hall. I gave her a water and let her settle into a chair.

She eyed me. “You changed your hair again.”

When I got over Blaise, I decided it was time for another change. So I chopped my hair to chin length, got bangs, and went back to my natural chocolate brown color.

I ignored her question as I sat beside her. “Are you okay?”

She shook her head. “Not in the slightest. Can I ask you something?”