Page 58 of Pretty Lies & Ugly Truths

No—I refuse to believe that. I meant what I said before she walked out. If she runs, I will find her.

She is mine, and I don’t plan on letting her go—ever. Until she tells me directly to fuck off, I don’t plan on leaving, and even then, I’m not sure I could walk away completely. I will spend what’s left of my miserable little life working to earn back her trust, her forgiveness.

Jayce drops onto the sofa beside me. I didn’t even hear him come in.

“How did it go?” I ask him, knowing he must have just come from taking Maggie home. He shrugs. “I don’t know. Shedidn’t say anything to me.”

“She got home okay, though?”

“Yeah. I stayed and made sure she got inside before I left.”

“Thanks.” I hang my head in my hands, pulling at my hair. This is all wrong. I should’ve been the one to take her home. I should be there with her now. I hate the thought of her in that empty apartment, dealing with all this alone.

“So…you gonna tell me what happened? Although I think I can guess,” he says, staring pointedly at the mask still clutched in my hand.

“Yeah. You probably could.” I throw it down on the table, angry with myself for being so stupid. “I must have left it sitting out, and she found it when she was in here using the bathroom.”

“And since you had me drive her home, I’m assuming she didn’t take it well.”

“No,” I answer, massaging my temples. “I will say, she took the part about my past a lot better than I thought she would, but she was furious I didn’t tell her the truth.”

“Can you blame her?”

I shake my head.

No. I can’t. If I lose her, I know I’ll have no one to blame but myself.

“Well, it looked like things were beginning to wind down. I’m going to get back out there, but let me know if there’s anything I can do.” He claps me on the shoulder before walking out the office, leaving me alone once again with my thoughts.

There was a point in my life when that was all Iwanted: to be alone. I was resigned to the fact that I was destined to live out my days by myself, never believing I was deserving of the kind of happiness someone like Maggie could give me, but now, the thought of going back to that empty house without her makes me sick to my stomach.

Not wanting to be around anyone else right now, I pick up my suit jacket from the arm of the sofa and quietly slip out the back door.

I’m almost to my car when my phone rings. I fumble around, trying to fish it out of my pocket, thinking it might be her, but my heart deflates when I see it’s Beckham.

“Hello.”

“Hey man. I know it’s late, but I got someinterestinginformation, and I thought you’d want to know as soon as possible.”

Dread sours my empty stomach like spoiled milk. Something in his tone tells me I’m not going to like whatever he has to say.

“I’m not gonna lie, it took a lot of digging, but I was finally able to figure out who Maggie’s birth mom is, and we were right. She did use an alias on the adoption records. Her real name is actually Cara White, and as it turns out, Cara and Maggie’s adoptive mother, Jane, know each other.”

“And?” I say, pausing with my hand on the door handle. I don’t see the big deal here. I assumed that they would have had to know one another somehow. Maggiesaid herself that she’d interacted with her birth mom on several occasions. I’m sure Jane knew this.

“Apparently, they both grew up in the same foster home until Jane turned eighteen, leaving a thirteen-year-old Cara behind.”

I’ll admit, that is a little interesting, but I still don’t see how it’s relevant.

“Now this is where it gets a bit fuzzy. It looks like Cara bounced around from home to home, each one worse than the other, until she aged out at eighteen, when she basically disappears.”

Finally opening my car door, I sink down into the plush leather and connect him to my hands free.

“Can you please get to the point?” I snip.

It has been a long night, and my patience has worn thin. He doesn’t speak for so long, I glance at my phone to make sure he didn’t hang up.

“The point,” he grits out, “is she was completely off grid for almost three years until one day, she mysteriously turns up in Boston, where I found an employment record as a barista at a coffee shop in Dorchester.”

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