Page 53 of Deadly Little Scandals

If I hadn’t known Lily, that wouldn’t have sounded like much of a secret, but she was, next to Aunt Olivia, the most type A person I’d ever met. Lily always had a plan. She had her whole life mapped out. Even when Walker had broken up with her, even when she’d been dealing with so much suppressed emotion that she’d taken to displaying other people’s hidden thoughts and darkest secrets on her own skin, she’d stillwantedthe same things.

To be the daughter Aunt Olivia wanted. To be the kind of granddaughter Lillian could take pride in. To be a credit to her family name.

Walker.

“That’s not good enough.” Victoria had remained silent through all of the other secrets. I couldn’t help wondering why she was speaking upnow.

“Victoria,” Nessa murmured. We’d been told up front that they weren’t going to demand our deepest and darkest. They were supposed to accept our secrets and move on.

“Fine,” Lily said. I pictured her punching the walls of that ruined house, but when she spoke again, her voice was calm and clear.

Too calm. Too clear.

“I don’t know what I want anymore,” she repeated. “Or who.”

harlotte adjusted the straps on her bathing suit. She knew she looked good. She told herself that she looked good.

“You’re perfect,” Liv told her. “Now hand me a damn pair of sunglasses before my skull actually splits in half.”

Charlotte had to go back to the car to find the sunglasses, but she did as she was bid.This was my idea,she told herself.My plan.

The boys were meeting them at Falling Springs.

Charlotte had jumped off the lower ledges before but never the highest one. She was not fool enough to believe that Liv would accept anything less today.

“Having second thoughts?” Julia asked from the back when Charlotte stuck her head into the car.

“Of course not,” Charlotte replied, judiciously avoiding looking at Julia, who was changing into her suit.

“No peeking,” Julia needled. “Then again, I’m not the Ames you want to see naked.”

Charlotte could feel herself blushing. She grabbed Liv’s sunglasses and shut the car door—she shut, not slammed it, because one did not let Julia know when she’d hit the mark.

It’s not about seeing Sterling—or touching him or having him touch me.Charlotte could feel a blush rising in her cheeks just thinking the words, and she thanked the Lord that she was fair enough that she could blame any pink tint to her skin on the punishing August sun.

“Thinking dirty thoughts?” Liv was every bit as perceptive as Julia, but most days, she was also twice as loyal and only half as mean. She plucked the sunglasses from Charlotte’s hand. “I’m just kidding, Char. You look fabulous. You are fabulous. Sterling won’t know what hit him. Drink?”

Charlotte was not sure if that was a question, an order, a suggestion, or a request. She went to grab the liquor, but stopped when she saw the boat pulling into the cove below. On a weekend day, Falling Springs was busy, but during the week?

They were the only ones here.

Charlotte’s eyes searched the boat. Sterling was driving, which only made sense, because it was his family’s boat.

He wasn’t the type to abdicate the wheel.

Charlotte smiled when he looked up at her—not too much, not too little.Just right.

Liv was right. She was perfect. And so was he.

“Who the hell is that?” Liv asked suddenly.

Belatedly, Charlotte finished assessing the occupants of the boat. J.D. was there, of course, and there was a third boy whom Charlotte assumed was the rough-around-the-edges Thomas Mason, who Julia had talked her brother into bringing along.

And sitting between them was a girl.

he Ballad of Lily Easterling and Walker Ames was supposed to be a love story for the ages. Or at least, that was what I’d been told.

That was what Lily had always seemed to believe.