Page 11 of Pretend Girl (The Lucky Girls 4)

“You’ve been through heartbreak, child. A lot of it. I see a woman, living in the shadows.” Rachels eyes widen a little. I try not to show I ridiculous this is. Everyone will describe the difficulties in their path as shadows, every one of us has been through some kind of heartbreak. Again, Madame Dorota isn’t saying anything she can’t generalize with at least three-quarters of the world’s population.

“But, no more!” Madame Dorota cries out. “With the man you have at your side, you will live long and prosperous.” She points at me, and it takes a moment for me to figure out what’s happening.

“Oh, no,” Rachel says, shaking her head. “He’s not my—”

“Love and light and success,” Madame Dorota says, holding her arms out wide and throwing her head back. “Andbabies!”

When I look at Rachel, her cheeks are flushed pink with embarrassment. This woman is a joke.

“I’m done here,” I say and stand. “If you have any idea what you’re talking about—”

“Do not tell!” Dorota cries out again. “I find answers here.” She taps her ball again and looks into it, frowning. “You are sad man, Mr. Blake. Sad man, with much pain. Wounds heal, but scars remain.”

I turn to storm off, but Emma taps my hand with hers and I sit down again. Damn it, I can’t make a scene. Not with everyone present at the event and not with Jackass Evans waiting to write an article about who I truly am. I can just see the headlines now.

Business Mogul Laughs in the Face of Charity.This is for a good cause. This is for a good cause.

This is for a good cause.

When I glance at Rachel again, her eyes are on me and I can’t tell what she’s thinking.

“Be careful, Mr. Blake,” Madame Dorota says in a low voice. “If you run with your eyes closed, you do not know if you run away from danger… or toward it.”

A shiver runs down my spine. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about—she doesn’t knowme.She only knows what the papers say about me.

“Thank you for your advice,” I say. I want to cut this session short. I’m uncomfortable. Her show is exaggerated and she’s already made a mistake—Rachel and I aren’t together.

“Heed my warning; without forgiveness, you will become what you abhor, and history will repeat itself.”

I stare at her. “What?”

“You know what I say, Mr. Blake. It is not by our choices but our actions that we are defined.”

I suddenly feel sick to my stomach. The way Madame Dorota looks at me makes me think she knows exactly who I am and where I come from—she knows my secrets.

“She completes you,” Madame Dorota says with a smile, looking at Rachel, who only blushes harder. She doesn’t try to correct the woman again.

I stand. I’ve had enough of this. It’s too close to what’s real, and I can’t listen to another word.

“Let’s go,” I say.

Emma stands, too, and then Rachel and Evans follow. When I leave, I don’t look back. Not to see Madame Dorota, and not to see Rachel. I want to get out of here, to go back home to the house of cards I so carefully constructed around myself.

“You’re upset,” Emma says when we’re in my car, and I speed through the quiet streets of the city.

“I’m not.”

“It’s going to be okay, Blake,” Emma says again.

“She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”

Emma glances at me, her eyes dark in the interior of the car as it lights up at intervals when we pass streetlights.

“Doesn’t she?” she asks.

Chapter 4

Rachel

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