Page 43 of Doctored Vows

I purse my lips before answering, “Critical enough that I don’t think even I can save you.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

“Still freaking out?”

As Zoya flops belly-first onto the sunlounge next to me, I stop admiring the way the midday sun reflects off the diamonds of my engagement and wedding rings and put all my focus on my “supposed” best friend. The title is negotiable after last night. Her hair is wet and flopped on top of her head in a messy bun, and the tropical paradise she missed yesterday since she was shaking her ass on a stage has removed almost all her makeup.

She could still stop traffic, though.

“A little,” I reply, being honest. “I’m more worried what Gigi’s reaction will be than anything else.”

“I think I can help with that.” She breathes out slowly before saying, “Tell her you did it for me. That I made a deal I had no intention to keep, ran with the money negotiated for said deal, then convinced you it was a good idea to marry a sugar daddy so you could lend me the money to pay back the fool I tried to swindle.”

I laugh, assuming she is joking.

I’m so far off the mark my dart doesn’t even hit the board.

“Z—”

“I fucked up. I got cocky thinking he wouldn’t go through with it. Then when he did, that was a lot of money to walk away from.”

“So you walked away with it instead?” When she nods, I give her my best motherly scold. “Zoya.”

“It’s okay. It isn’t as bad as it seems. Now. Maksim is squaring everything up as we speak.” When worry flares through my eyes that I’ll owe Maksim far more than the six figures he’s already shelled out to pay off my credit cards, she says quickly, “I spent hardly any of it. I just upgraded our flights and paid for us to stay in the penthouse. I’m sorry.” She pushes out a sob when she can’t miss the disappointment on my face. “I wanted to make Aleena’s hen night special.”

“What’s that got to do with first-class tickets?”

I want to remain angry, but she makes it almost impossible when she replies, “I was hoping you’d sleep. You were coming off a double, and I knew you wouldn’t rest in economy since you’d be freaking about the germs, so I splurged a little.”

“Z…” This one is nowhere near as scolding as my previous one. I love how much she loves me. I just wish she’d do it in a less dangerous manner.

She looks up at me with begging eyes like the cat in Puss N’ Boots. Her stare is pleading but also filled with remorse. “Do you hate me?”

“No. I could never. I just wish you would have told me.”

“I had planned to come clean last night.” She lowers her eyes to the wedding set on my left hand. “We all know how that turned out.” She laughs at my rolling eyes before saying, “He picked well. That set is gorgeous.”

My pulse doubles when my sluggish head clicks on to what she just said. “Maksim picked my rings?”

She rolls over and rests her cheek onto her folded hands before nodding. “Uh-huh. He said something about a carat for each lie he believed.” Her breathy giggles echo even with the cabana’s walls being made of material. “He must have trusted the wrong people.” If life was a cartoon, love hearts would bounce from her eyes as she says, “Because that is a heap of please-forgive-me carats.”

“Please-forgive-me carats because he thought I should have been a part of the malpractice suit he’s planning to pursue against Myasnikov Private?”

Zoya props herself onto her elbows, her expression unreadable. “You remember what happened last night?”

I wish I could nod, but unfortunately, I can’t. “No. I just have a feeling it centers around that.” This kills me to say, but I’m hopeful a purge will chip through some of the confusion muddling in my head. “I mentioned his mother when we were about to…” I make a gesture someone as deviant as Zoya should be able to understand. However, she acts clueless. “When we were about to… fuck.”

“Sweetie, I didn’t think we needed to have this talk, but clearly we do.” Zoya gathers my hands in hers, then looks me straight in the eyes. “You never bring up a man’s momma during sexual activities. It lets the air straight out of the balloon.” She holds her arm in the air, straight and rigid like a flagpole, before she drops it to represent a floppy elephant’s trunk. “Penetration is hard when his manhood isn’t.”

“That wasn’t the issue.” When she soundlessly mocks me like she doesn’t believe me, denials tumble from my mouth. “It wasn’t. He was hard. And veiny. And long. So very long.” I mentally slap myself before getting back on track. “He said things to me he should have said to his mother’s medical team. Things Myasnikov Private should pay careful attention to if they want to avoid multiple malpractice claims. But he said it as if I was as much to blame for his mother’s misdiagnosis as Dr. Abdulov.”

“That’s what she meant,” Zoya murmurs to herself, her words whispers. She takes a moment to sort through the facts before she halves the load by sharing them with me. “Aleena mentioned last night that Maksim didn’t know the truth because they were placing all the blame on you. She said something about them telling him you knew he was there and that you were acting.”

Bewilderment colors my tone. “Acting? The only acting I did that night was pretend I didn’t want to slap Dr. Abdulov across the face.”

Zoya laughs. “I wish you would have. That creep needs to be taught a lesson.” She flattens her back to the sunlounge and covers her eyes with sunglasses like she’s about to catch as many z’s as she is rays. “But Maksim knows the truth now, and that’s all that matters. He can live out his insta-love fantasy full throttle without a damn thing in the way.” When I choke on my spit during the middle of her last sentence, she rips off her sunglasses with the dramatics of a small-screen actress. “You, of all people, are dissing insta-love? What would your momma say?” She shoves her hand in my face before I can respond. “You can’t use the dead mom ruse for this. Not when she was the biggest advocator for falling in love at first sight. She loved your daddy from the moment she laid eyes on him. And he loved her so much?—”

“He went to jail for killing the men who took her from him.”

---