Page 72 of Exposed

“If you say so.” She turned to the paparazzi sitting at the table next to ours and snapped her fingers at him.

He picked up his camera and took a photo.

“What are you doing, Poppy?” I asked.

“I need to make sure everyone knows thatIdumpedyou.”

“And how are you going to…”

She threw the contents of her wine glass right in my face.

What the fuck?!

“You slept with my cousin?!” she shouted for the whole restaurant to hear.

“Poppy, sit down,” I hissed.

“No, I won’t sit down, you slut! The two of you belong together.”

I tried to wipe the wine out of my eyes.

“Burn in hell, you cheating asshole!” She grabbed the second glass of wine and threw that in my face too.

I couldn’t see anything but the flash of a camera. I sighed.

“Of all the people in New York,” she yelled, “you had to cheat on me with my own dear cousin?!”

I was pretty sure the whole restaurant got the gist of what she was trying to accomplish here. “Would you stop yelling now?”

She leaned forward to whisper in my ear. “See you at the next family get-together, hot stuff.” She bit down on my earlobe.

I scooted my chair away from her. “Cut it out, Poppy.”

“Whore!” She slapped me hard across the face, winked at me, and then stormed out of the restaurant.

I didn’t love anything about the weird shit she was saying about family get-togethers. But she’d signed the contract. That was all that mattered. Scarlett was safe. And I was free.

***

“What happened to you?” James asked as he opened the door.

“I finally figured out how to get out of that mess with Poppy.”

“By pretending to die?”

I looked down at the red wine all over my shirt and laughed. I guess it did look a little like blood. “No, blackmail and a binding contract. This was the result of the break up scene for the tabloids. All that matters is Scarlett is safe.”

“Thanks, man,” James said. “For handling that. But are you out of your fake engagement too?”

I nodded. “It’s all in the past. And no problem, I kind of owed you.”

“Can there be balloons?” I heard Penny’s voice flitting into the foyer.

What was she doing here? I walked into their great room. Penny, Rob, and Mason were all seated around the coffee table talking.

“I hope you don’t mind, I brought in the calvary,” James said and plopped down next to Penny.

She lifted up her notebook. “Oh, we should play music from when we were all in high school.”

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