Page 39 of The Lies I've Told
I looked back down at the sleeping baby in my arms. “She’s perfect Molly, truly.”
I heard the smile in her voice as she replied, “Yes, she is.”
When I turned to my sister in that moment, it was like seeing her for the first time. Something in her had changed.
She’d become a mother.
And, even though I’d made fun of her slippers and rolled my eyes at her silly robe, the light and love that radiated from within her, it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.
“You okay, sis?” Molly asked, a genuine look of concern on her face.
I pried my face away from Ruby. “Yeah, why?”
Her eyebrow rose in disbelief. “Well, for one, I’ve never heard you ramble like that. Ever. And two, the fact that you were able to drop everything just like that to babysit the inn. Care to explain?”
I pressed my lips together as I avoided her gaze. “I have been known to ramble from time to time,” I said, thinking back to lunch with a certain Brit. “And I told you, I had vacation time saved up. Lots of it.”
Another lie.
Unfortunately, lies were easier to tell when you were on the phone, and your sister wasn’t staring you down.
“Try again,” she said, her face deadpanned. “And, if you don’t tell me the truth, I’m taking away the baby.”
I looked down at Ruby, my face scrunched in agony. “Okay fine, but that’s just dirty, using my niece to get me to talk, only minutes after I’ve met her.”
“Still waiting,” she said, not even messing around.
“I’m getting there!” I said sternly. Well, as sternly as one could be while whispering to avoid waking a sleeping baby. “I lost my job.”
“You what?”
“You heard me. I lost my job,” I reiterated as Ruby began to fuss in my arms, making me instantly panic.
A sleeping baby was one thing. A needy, crying baby was another.
“Give her to me, and start talking,” she said, handling Ruby like a damn pro.
If I didn’t know better, I would have sworn my sister had done this whole parenting thing before. I watched in awe as she cradled that tiny little newborn in one hand and disconnected her bra with the other. Within seconds, Ruby was latched and feeding like a champ.
“Wow. Is it always that easy?”
“What? Breastfeeding? No,” she explained. “Every woman is different. Every baby is different. It’s always a mixed bag. Thankfully, everything has worked out pretty well so far, and the hospital had an amazing staff to support me. But enough of that. Stop stalling. Your job?”
“Right. Well, the gist is, I had a job, and now, I don’t.”
“Millie,” she nearly growled.
“Fine,” I growled back. “I was up for a major promotion, and then someone sent an email around to the entire company that had some pretty incriminating information about me. And…well, instead of being fired, I resigned.”
Her eyes widened. “What kind of incriminating evidence?”
I tried to look away, but her tractor-beam gaze caught me first. “That I slept with my boss,” I said, sort of slurring it all together.
“You slept with your boss?”
Of course she’d understand my mumbled speech.
“Yes, okay? I am a horrible person. I’m the office slut who let her emotions get the best of her and slept with her boss.”
