Page 104 of Fake It 'til You Make It

‘Abbey, you’re right,’ Andrew says, softening now and reaching his hand to my elbow, still from across the table. ‘Let’s go somewhere and talk this out.’

Ted rises to his feet again. ‘Don’t touch her.’

‘I’m not an object, Ted. Please don’t make me into one.’

Meanwhile, Dad has picked up the edition ofGQand cuts across us all as he asks, ‘Where did you get this? This is my copy. You’ve been in my office.’

Huh?

Andrew drops his hand away from me, caught in the act, and only now do I see who came charging into the room, hot on his shirt tails.

Maisie freaking Daisy. And the reality is, she could have been anyone. Just another woman.

I scoff. ‘Really, Andrew? You and Maisie? It’s like we’re back in junior high.’ I push back my chair. ‘I should have realized then that leopards don’t change their spots. You cheated on me then and who knows how many times you’ve done it before you finally confessed.

‘I really hope you two will be happy together andthank youfor giving me the strength to tell you that you’re a lying piece of shit. The only thing I regret about us is how much of my life I wasted on you.’ I look him in the eyes, seeing his shock, knowing it reflects everyone else’s shock in this room because, for once, I’m not walking away from the fight. ‘Go fuck yourself, Andrew. Or Maisie. But you can definitelystopfucking me over.’

With that proverbial mic drop, I step out from the table and storm through the silence of the room, making it past everyone and almost to the door before my rage turns to tears.

‘I have an announcement to make.’ I stop in my tracks and turn, seeing through blurred eyes as my sister steps onto a tabletop. ‘I’m pregnant. Yep. And I’m not even dating the guy who knocked me up.’

God, I love her.

49

TED

Goddamnit, she wasnotsupposed to find out this way.

None of this was supposed to unfold the way it just did. I could scream in frustration with myself, my idiocy. And I want to wrap her up and tell her she’s okay, hold her together.

Because if I had just been stripped naked in front of my friends and family like Abbey was, I’d sure as hell need putting back together.

I follow her away from the party, eventually catching up to her at the edge of the lawn, where the sound of music at the party can still be heard but we’re out of the eyes and ears of the prying guests.

‘Abbey, please stop. Let me explain.’

‘Explain?’ She swings around to face me and the sight of her cuts me like a knife to my heart. Mascara-stained tears are rolling down her cheeks. ‘How can you explain what just happened,Ted?I didn’t even know your real name!’

‘I know that. And I’m more sorry than you’ll ever believe, Abbey. I swear I’ve tried to tell you so many times bu?—’

‘How hard can it be?’ She throws her arms up. ‘Hey, Abbey,you know how you think I’m Mike the MLB player with the model girlfriend? Well, actually, that’s my brother. I’m Theodore, tech guy, and that model, she’s myfiancée.’

‘Was. Shewas.’ I step toward her and make to touch her arm but she snatches her body away from me. I hold up my hands in apology. ‘Fleur and I are done, I promise you that. And the guy she slept with was my best friend. He just isn’t a ball player; he’s my business partner.’

‘Your business partner?’ She scoffs. ‘That’s why I was giving you advice about getting out of the partnership. That’s why you fell out?’

‘Yes.’

She rubs her temples angrily, as if she can’t process everything that’s going on. I don’t blame her.

‘I’m mortified, Ted. Humiliated.’ She sniffs, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. ‘When I lived here, I was never the girl who got the guy. I was never popular. People couldn’t really believe that I even had a boyfriend, let alone a clever one, who went to an Ivy-League college and could still hold court in a room.

‘So when Andrew cheated, I figured every one of those people, if they knew the truth, would think,Yeah, that fits, she could never have kept him happy.’ She shakes her head, worrying her lip as she does. ‘I thought, if I brought another guy here with me, I’d show people I can be the girl who gets the guy, just a different guy. And that happened to be you.

‘But I fell for it, Ted. I fell for this incredible guy. Funny, smart and self-assured. Only to find out that he was faking all of it, not just our relationship.

‘Now I’m more humiliated than ever. Because somewhere along the line, I stopped caring about replacing Andrew. I believed the lie.

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