Page 44

EMORY

T he girls are giggling over a photo when I walk into the school on Thursday night. We meet in the library, but no one’s here at this hour. We’re allowed to snack—nothing with crumbs, or Mr. Wilcox will have my head—and we can make as much noise as we want.

Which is good, because the group of teenagers ranges from fourteen to eighteen, and the register of their voices ranges from screeching to wailing.

Especially on a night like tonight, when they are clearly looking at something fun.

The six of them are gathered around Malika, the youngest member of our group.

“What’s going on?”

Malika screeches at my presence in the room. “We saw the photos.” She shoves her phone in its spangly case under my nose.

Harmony jumps off the desk and peers over my shoulder, shifting from foot to foot in her red high-tops.

She’s the oldest and the quietest and the one with an acceptance letter from Yale in hand.

I cried when she told me. In her admissions essay, she wrote about how our mathletes group changed her life.

“I didn’t get to see. Oh shit, look at his face. ”

I don’t chide her for the language, because the girls and I are more friends than anything and Harmony rarely curses.

His face is my husband’s. There was a feature in TMZ about our relationship. We’re selling it, I guess. Enough for there to be a headline saying Prince in Love .

I’ve seen most of the paparazzi photos in it, including the ones of us leaving the Valdez party. There was wild speculation about what sex acts we were going to participate in with the candle, and I really hope the girls haven’t seen that.

The photo they’re zooming in on is spectacular.

It’s from the night Aiden beat up Harrison.

He’s outside the bar with my brothers, leaning against his vintage cherry-red Ferrari, torso bare, pressing a wadded-up black t-shirt to his face.

His stomach is flexed, and even the grainy photo and the light of the streetlamps lovingly highlight his body.

“Look at his abs.” Rosh giggles.

I am. I swallow as I hand the phone back to Malika.

This is good. We’re selling the relationship.

We’re better than ever at faking it. It didn’t feel fake on the beach, though.

And it hasn’t really felt fake at breakfast this week, when he uses our time together to lounge against the counter, shirtless, pointing out pieces of news to me.

Wearing those fucking glasses that make me want to lick him and letting Dusty actually lick him.

It didn’t feel fake when Aiden texted me to demand what kinds of tea I liked, and it didn’t feel fake when I came home to ten brands of Earl Grey on the counter.

I clap my hands, and the girls sigh but put their phones down. “All right, we need to prep for the next meet. Stonington is a private school, and you know how good it feels to beat those kids.”

There’s a buzz in the room. Stonington is an all-boys school, and the girls might like boys, but they like beating them even more.

“Hey, Miss H,” Harmony asks from where she’s perched back on the desk. Her skinny ankles cross and uncross like she’s nervous.

“It’s Mrs. Prince now,” Malika says with a grin.

“Changing your name isn’t a requirement, girls.”

“Can I talk to you after?” Harmony looks anxious, and I barely control my reaction.

“Of course.”

After is eight p.m., when the girls are shuffling out, checking their phones, calling their parents and siblings for rides. Harmony doesn’t have a ride, though, so I tell her to get in the car with me, even though I’m not really supposed to be driving any of them anywhere.

“What’s going on?”

She fiddles with her seat belt as I start the car. “You know I’m seeing Josh, right?”

“Believe it or not, I’m not up on the high school gossip,” I say dryly. At her look, I smile. “But yes, I’d heard. He’s a nice kid.” He’s the only boy on mathletes, actually, but not in the spring, when he plays baseball.

“Please don’t tell my mom,” she whispers.

My stomach rolls. “Did something happen?”

“We slept together.” Her words come out in a rush, and when I glance over, she’s biting her lip.

“Okay,” I say slowly. “Well, Harmony, since you’re eighteen and so is Josh, that’s perfectly normal.

” I gave the older girls a mini sex-ed session on the way back from one of the meets last year.

Their parents don’t know, but I thought back to the horrible sex-ed classes I had in school and decided it was for the best.

“The condom broke,” she whispers. Her eyes are panicked.

“Oh, sweetie.” Something crumples in my chest at the fear in her expression.

“I don’t know what to do,” she says, her voice high and desperate. “My mom is going to kill me, and Plan B was so expensive, and I don’t want to take it alone.”

“When?” I ask, my words coming out harsher than I intend. Harmony’s mom is way too strict, so it’s no wonder she’s scared, but it’s not my place to butt in.

“Last night,” she whispers miserably.

I put my blinker on. “It’s effective within five days, though more effective within the first seventy-two hours,” I tell her. “You want it?” I look at her with my serious eyes so she knows I mean business. “You know what it does, right? You know it might make you feel like crap?”

“I don’t want a baby,” she says, her voice strengthening. “I want it.”

I turn right and head for the twenty-four-hour pharmacy one town over. “All right,” I say, my voice soothing, “We’ll get it. And then we’ll talk about whether Josh is using the right size condoms.”

“Miss H, please.” Her voice is strangled.

“I’m serious. And then you need to tell your mom.” I look at her, and she gives me a small smile.

She gives me a hug when I drop her off, and my whole chest inflates.

I love these girls. This is what matters.

Not being part of Aiden’s world or fitting in with his high-society friends.

The girls deserve more women as CEOs. They deserve to feel comfortable and safe and happy.

They deserve to have dreams bigger than mine, a path carved for them by the women who came before.

I need to keep my eye on what’s important.

And that means not seeing things that aren’t there with my very fake husband.