Page 51 of Twisting Beauty

“Why?”

“What is she hiding?”

My lungs seized painfully and a cold sweat slid down my spine beneath my blouse.

Somehow, Aoife had found out everything. And she was about to drag out all my lies by the throat for all of Ravenwood to see.

Nuala.

She was the only one who knew. The realization slid like a blade between my ribs. She’d betrayed me. The confession I had pressed into her hands yesterday still felt warm, and already she had turned it into a weapon. Fuck, it had barely been two days.

I gripped the doorframe until my nails bit into the wood and tried to remind myself to calm down. Panic was as good as confession if anyone saw it on my face.

I could still spin this. Deny it. Paint this as mere retaliation for destroying Aoife’s bag.

Aoife’s eyes gleamed in the mirror, every word dripping like honey-laced venom. “Rua was up the duff. They sent her away to ‘take care’ of the baby without anyone knowing, the little slut.”

“Whaaaaat?”

“Get the fuck out!”

The air cracked with gasps, high-pitched and scandalized, as mascara clattered back into makeup bags. Ciara slapped a hand over her mouth, her overlined eyes wide with wicked delight, while Emer wheezed through her lip gloss.

I had barely felt the weak wash of relief that Nuala had not been the culprit before rage crashed through me hard enough to make my hands shake.

I wanted to punch Aoife right in her perfectly painted mouth. God. That was all I needed. Rumors.

Emer choked on her laugh. “Is that why Daddy Lorcan’s gone full psycho?”

Aoife shrieked. “Ew, as if Lorcan is the father.”

Ciara wrinkled her nose. “Isn’t that incest?”

Emer shrugged. “They’re not blood related though.”

Ciara fanned herself with a compact. “Stepsiblings… that’s kinda hot.”

Aoife rolled her eyes and stole the mascara wand from Emer’s hand. “Puhlease. She might be obsessed with Lorcan, but there’s no way he’d touch her with a ten-foot pole.”

That one stung more than the pregnancy rumor ever could. It didn’t matter what was true in a place like this. What mattered was what people believed.

Rua wanted Lorcan. Lorcan would never want her back.

Rua… I… was a punchline.

“I don’t know, Aoife,” Emer said as she pulled out a brush for her pin-straight dark hair. “Something’s definitely changed between them since she got back.”

Aoife fluttered her lashes, smirking at herself in the mirror. “Trust me. I have it on good authority Lorcan’s riding someone, but it’s not her.”

The words sliced through me with humiliating precision. Riding someone. My mind betrayed me at once, furnishing images I did not want, Lorcan’s hand wrapped around another girl’s throat, his mouth against hers, his body pinning hers down while she took whatever he gave her and thanked him for it.

Jealousy hit so fast and so hard it felt like a blow, and I hated myself for it.

Emer squealed, clutching Ciara’s arm like they’d just been handed front-row tickets to a scandal. “Oh my God, is it Sara?”

Ciara gasped, her voice breathless with thrill. “No, wait, what about Double-Dee? Tell me it’s not her. I’d die!”

“Gross.” Emer shuddered. “No way. He’s not that desperate.”