Chapter 10:

🍙 🍙 🍙 🍙 🍙

At eight o’clock sharp, Phoebe opened the door to room 101.

I know this because I was watching. Conrad and I were in bed at home, my phone propped between us, the hotel’s security feed streaming in grainy real-time. Not my proudest moment, but I wasn’t aiming for proud.

Phoebe walked in expecting Vaughn — alone. What she found was Vaughn, shirtless, tangled in hotel sheets, on top of another woman. For a second, she stood perfectly still in the doorway, backlit by the hallway light, and I could see her running the calculations: the room number had come from Freya’s phone, which meant this had been a setup, and the woman underneath him was…

Darcy.

The self-control lasted about three seconds. Phoebe told herself it didn’t matter, that Vaughn would come back home, that this was just a hotel, that she was the house. She must have told herself all of it in those three seconds, because when she finally moved, it wasn’t toward Vaughn. She went straight for Darcy.

“I considered you my friend, and you shamelessly get with my man!”

Darcy, pinned under the covers but far from intimidated, didn’t flinch. She looked at Phoebe with an expression I recognized — the particular defiance of someone who’s been waiting for permission to stop being nice.

“If you can do it, then so can I.”

Phoebe lunged.

I leaned closer to the screen, absorbing every detail, when Conrad reached over and plucked the phone from my hands.

“Don’t go overboard.”

“I’m not going overboard. I’m observing.”

𝗜ո𝘁𝘦𝘯𝗌е 𝗋𝗼mаո𝘤e on 𝗴𝘢𝗹no𝘷е𝗅s.с𝗈𝘮
“You’re gloating.”

“I’m observing with enthusiasm.” I reached for the phone; he held it out of range. “Give it back.”

“No.”

I pouted. I don’t pout often — it requires a specific surrender of dignity that I generally avoid — but desperate times. Conrad’s mouth twitched, which meant it was working.

“You should control your brother better,” I said, shifting tactics. “If this gets leaked tonight, tomorrow your father’s company stock will drop again.”

Conrad considered this. The mischief in his expression was subtle, barely there, a slight lift at the corners of his mouth, a brightness in his eyes that most people would never notice.

“And how do you suggest I control him?”

“What if your dad cuts his allowance?”

Within a week, Vaughn’s allowance was halved. When he traced the cut back to Phoebe’s hotel scandal, the scolding she received was loud enough to carry through walls. He took her designer handbags — four of them, collected over months of careful manipulation — and gave them to someone else. Darcy’s friendship was gone. Vaughn’s patience was gone. Phoebe, for once, had nothing left to weaponize.

It kept her quiet. Not forever, but long enough.

* * *

Conrad wanted the wedding immediately. I wanted to wait.

“The dresses don’t look good on me right now,” I told him, which was both true and beside the point. The real reason was simpler: I wanted to feel like myself when I walked down the aisle, not like a woman smuggling a watermelon under silk.

“You’re beautiful,” he insisted.

“I’m enormous.”

“Beautifully enormous.”

“That’s not the compliment you think it is.”

He kept insisting, sending me photos of maternity wedding dresses, forwarding florist portfolios, casually mentioning that he’d booked a venue “just in case.” The man ran an international corporation but couldn’t take no for an answer about a party date.

“Let’s wait until I get my figure back. The wedding can come whenever — I’m not going anywhere,” I said, final.

He relented. Reluctantly. With the energy of a dog being told to drop a bone.

With the pregnancy progressing, Conrad relocated the entire company to the country. The logistics were staggering — hundreds of employees, office leases, supply chains — but he handled it with the same efficiency he applied to everything. He was busier than I’d ever seen him, working sixteen-hour days, but he never missed a prenatal appointment. Not one.

At the five-month checkup, the ultrasound technician paused. Moved the wand. Paused again.

“Mr. Hadley, Mrs. Hadley — congratulations. It’s twins.”

Conrad’s face did something I’d never seen before. His professional composure cracked right down the middle, and underneath it was pure, uncomplicated joy. He grabbed my hand, then the technician’s hand, then mine again.

“Did you hear that, sweetheart? Twins!”

I smiled, one hand resting on my belly, and felt two separate futures pressing against my palm. Then a thought surfaced, cold and practical, and the smile faded.

“Let’s not tell your parents about the twins yet. Let’s keep it a secret.”

Conrad’s excitement dimmed. He read my face, followed the logic, and arrived at the same place I had. The inheritance. Vaughn. The look I’d seen on his brother’s face the last time Winston had cut his funding: not anger, but calculation.

He nodded. We kept it between us.

.

.

.