Page 25 of The Fiancée Farce
“It’s a business arrangement, Lucy,” she said instead. “Nothing more. Don’t read into it.”
So she found Tansy intriguing. Big whoop. There was a difference betweentemptingandtempted. Gemma wasn’t looking for love, and Tansy Adams wasn’t about to—to sway Gemma’s resolve. No, she had her eye on the prize. If Lucy couldn’t see that it wasn’t aboutfeelings, that it was about saving VDP, Gemma didn’t know what to tell her that she hadn’t already said.
“Who says I’m reading into anything?” Lucy continued to flip through the file. “All I’m saying is that maybe you ought to know who you’re getting into bed with.”
Gemma choked on her coffee. “I’m not getting into bed with—”
“Jesus, Gemma.” Lucy rolled her eyes. “It’s a saying. Who you’re getting into business with. Is that better?”
Someonewoke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning, and it wasn’t Gemma.
“I don’t know what her credit score’s supposed to tell me, but—”
“I’m not talking about her credit score.”
“No offense, but could you cut to the chase and tell me what youaretalking about?”
“I know people.”
“Because that doesn’t sound shady as shit,” Gemma muttered.
“You aren’t the only one who grew up here. I have friends who went to Montlake Prep. Friends who graduated with yourfiancée.” Lucy’s lips curled distastefully around the word.
“I just told you about my engagement last night.” Gemma stared at her. “How the hell did you manage to talk to one of these so-called friends of yours in twelve hours?”
Most of those hours being the dead of night.
“Fourteen hours,” Lucy retorted, crossing her arms. “Not all of us sleep until noon, Gem. If you want to run VDP, you’re going to have to start setting an alarm.”
“Gee, any other words of wisdom you’d like to impart?” Gemma snapped, her tolerance for condescension about as great as her patience for ultimatums. Which was to say, nonexistent.
Gemma had been up half the night, her usual insomnia keeping her awake. She’d tried everything—reading, listening to Sleep Stories on the Calm app, even counting goddamn sheep. Finally,finallyshe’d fallen asleep around four, only to wake up tangled in her sheets, sweating and panting and thinking about Tansy Fucking Adams.
Her lips, her hair, that kiss. Her taste was branded into Gemma’sbrain. She was A-okay during the day, but her dreams were a different story entirely. In her dreams, Tansy Adams plagued her.
A flicker of contrition crossed Lucy’s face. “I’ve barely slept, okay? I texted a friend last night and they called me this morning. I don’t like being the bearer of—”
“Just spit it out.” Gemma scrubbed a hand over her face and sighed. “Please.”
She didn’t need a drumroll; she just wanted the truth.
“Tansy and Tucker were involved.”
Bullshit. “Involvedhow?”
Lucy dropped her eyes to the floor. “Tansy was crazy about him. Like,Tucker and Tansy Foreverdoodled in hearts along the margins of her notes, shrine to him in her locker, followed him around like a puppy dogcrazy. He thought it was cute, thought she was sweet. Until she got a little too obsessed and he pumped the brakes. Apparently she couldn’t handle it and the school administration had to get involved.”
“Tucker’s an asshole,” Gemma bit out, clinging to what she knew as truth in a sea of uncertainty.
Lucy held up her hands. “No one’s saying he isn’t. Just that maybe your fiancée’s motives aren’t as pure as you think.”
Gemma thought back to the night they’d met. As tipsy as she’d been, she still remembered Tucker’s disproportionate reaction to their engagement and the way Tansy had demurred when Gemma had asked how they knew each other.
Was it possible Tansy had an ulterior motive? That perhaps she was trying to settle some old score with Tucker? With the Van Dalens, maybe? That she lumped Gemma in with them? The fingers of her left hand curled into a fist, nails biting into her palm. The idea of being played, of being nothing more than a pawn in someone’s game, made her want to hit something.
And the idea of being grouped with the rest of the Van Dalens, of being reduced to her surname, made her want to scream.
She settled for setting her coffee cup down with a little more gusto than strictly necessary. “I never claimed her motives were pure.”
