Chapter 7

The room goes dead silent.

Mrs. Ashford coughs into her napkin. "And you are…?"

"Nora's best friend. Since we were kids."

"And this is true?"

Tessa nods, slow and reluctant, like every word is being pulled out of her.

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Sinclair. I know you love her no matter what. But Bryce has a right to know."

I take a long sip of tea. Set the cup down carefully.

"Go on. Tell us."

She bows her head like a saint and begins.

"Nora and I grew up on the same block. Back then she had a wonderful family—loving parents, a little brother, a little sister. She was the oldest—"

"Hang on." I raise a finger.

"You're telling me Nora had a wonderful childhood in that house?"

Tessa twists her fingers together and nods.

"According to my investigators, my daughter was beaten regularly. She was told she was 'picked up off the street.' From age eight she was doing all the housework and raising the younger kids. She was hit for looking at people wrong. That tattoo on her chest? It's covering a cigarette burn."

My hand shakes around the teacup.

Every detail I just dropped shreds her credibility. Tessa's not a childhood friend, she's just a stranger reading from a script.

Tessa scrambles. "No—the Walkers were really nice—"

"Nice people don't burn children with cigarettes."

Tessa trembles in place. She has nothing.

I cross my legs. "Please. Continue."

She swallows. Pushes forward.

"Nora was always wild. Never listened. Couldn't focus in school—you saw her SAT scores. I begged her to at least finish high school. But she insisted on dropping out of school and moving in with some grease monkey from the auto shop—"

The Ashfords are stone-faced now.

Only Bryce is smiling.

Tessa's shoulder twitches.

“Since then, Nora had been living with that man. I even heard that she wanted to marry him. So this marriage alliance wouldn’t be fair to Nora—or to Bryce. We wouldn’t want to break three hearts at once, would we?”

I hear her out, then I stand and politely walk the Ashfords to the door.

---

Nora comes home an hour later to find me and Ethan on one couch, Tessa standing across from us. Silent as a tomb.

"Uh. What's going on?"

Tessa bursts into tears the second she sees her. "Nora, I messed up. I said something I shouldn't have."

"What'd you do?"

"Your mom was arranging an engagement with Bryce Ashford. I panicked because I know you have a boyfriend. I told them. They got upset and left."

Nora spins on me. "Mom. You said you wouldn't get in the middle of my life."

"I don't know who Bryce Whatever is. If you want him, you marry him. I'm not."