Page 38 of Handsome Devil

“No lies detected. And look, I’m still no man’s peace…” Dylan caught the two cocktail straws between her scarlet-painted lips, sucking on her Salvador Dalí concoction. “But for him, I’ll sign a congeniality accord.”

Tate is going to be a terrible father, I thought grimly. Nothing like my own dad. Not, of course, that we were ever going to have children.

I promised myself I’d be as disagreeable as possible to ensure he’d want to get rid of me.

“Anyway, you were saying?” Dylan turned her attention back to me. “What’s your SOS situation?”

I wiped my sweaty palms over my dress. “Yes, well, I know it’s a bit shocking but—”

“Gia!” Dylan coughed out her cocktail. “Oh my…what thefuck?”

She pointed at the TV. I whipped my head to the screen above our heads, confused.

“Holy shit!” Cal slapped her mouth. “I’m about to have a heart attack.”

My blood froze in my veins.

Tate did it again.

He beat me to it.

On the screen played a commercial featuring one of Hollywood’s most desirable it girls, all flawless makeup and designer clothes.

She congratulated the third richest man in the world—Tatum Blackthorn—on his engagement to Gia Bennett. The ad was for a preppy jewelry store.

“Choose elegance. Choose decadence. Choose timeless perfection. Choose Citoyenne. After all.” Claire Larsen sashayed felinely along row upon row of glittering jewelry, wearing a table napkin I supposed could pass as a white dress. “Tate Blackthorn, the smartest man in the world, bought his fiancée a ring here.”

A doctored picture of Tate and me sitting together with my hand resting on his lap filled the screen. It was a mash-up between a picture of me smiling at an event while sitting next to my father and a picture of Tate from Cal and Row’s wedding.

He photoshopped a picture of you together, looking happy and loved up, my mind screamed.This is how you end up as an episode in one of Cal’s true crime podcasts as a woman who got chopped up to pieces and was found inside her husband’s fridge.

This was a level of toxic I didn’t even want to explore.

Every set of eyes turned their attention to me.

Larsen concluded the Super Bowl ad with the words, “Citoyenne Jewelry: because if the future Mrs. Blackthorn wears it, so should you.”

Deadly silence engulfed the restaurant. Both Cal and Dylan stared at me with their mouths hanging open.

Dylan was the first to recover from Tate’s…Tateness.

“I’m just… I…” Her jaw went slack. She closed it. It went slack again. “Youhatehim.”

Cal looked like she was about to cry. “Is this…what you wanted to tell us?”

I inclined my head, my heart sinking all the way to the bottom of my stomach.

“Tell us it’s a joke, G.” Cal cupped her mouth.

I shook my head, holding back my tears. “It’s the truth.”

“And this…you agreed to this?” Dylan swallowed. Her eyes shone.

I nodded slowly. “I agreed.”

“But…why?”

“It’s complicated, but…yeah.” I bit my lower lip. “It’s true.”