I shook my head as I pulled open the door. There was less light in the kitchen, and it was even darker when I made my way into the pantry.
I didn’t want to dare turning on the light, so I felt along the shelves. I pulled out several boxes, pulling them out one by one. Cereal. Cereal. Coffee filters.
I felt down to the lower shelf and pulled out the next cardboard box that felt like a good shape and lifted it out into the light.
Crackers. Bingo!
I opened the box and shoved several into my mouth, then moved back toward the fridge. I really hoped they had some—
I cracked the fridge door.
Oh hell, yeah. I pulled out the ginger ale.
Dinner of champions.
I was just opening the ginger ale when the room suddenly flooded with light.
“What exactly do you think you’re doing, lassie?”
I swung around so fast at the lilting Scottish voice, I almost spilled the ginger ale I’d just opened.
“Jesus, you scared the crap out of me!” I said when I saw the plump hausfrau.
She was glaring at me, arms crossed, in a frilly pink robe that I never would have pictured as her style.
“Keep your voice down,” she hissed, tugging the hemline toward her knees modestly. “Do you want to wake the whole house?”
Interesting. I’d always gotten the impression the woman hated me. Frankly, I was shocked she wasn’t already screaming at the top of her lungs about an escapee.
I should be more freaked out. There were things at stake. But after tonight, I don’t know, everything I’d been working so hard for…
“I don’t know what you think you’re getting away with, hussy, but you aren’t fooling anybody.”
She gestured at my crackers and ginger ale. “How far along are you?”
First, I was laughing—hussy? That was a new one! But then my brain caught up to the rest of her sentence and—
All the blood rushed out of my face. Oh Shit. I was gonna pass out. “What are you talking about?” I scoffed and tossed my hair.
She narrowed her eyes at me. “Don’t insult me, lassie. You’re pregnant, aren’t you? How’d you get around the doctor finding out at the initial exam? Don’t bother trying to deny it. I’ll have you peeing on a stick before night’s end! That is, if I don’t wake the whole house to tell them they’ve been taken in by a liar and disqualify you right here and now.”
I stood up taller and didn’t bother with the denials.
Fine. She’d found me out. “You wouldn’t dare. You care about Beau too much. That’s why you haven’t woken up the house already. Disqualifying me would disqualify him too. And you don’t want him to fail.”
Her eyes flashed with dislike, maybe even hatred. She was loyal to Beau and probably to all the boys who’d grown up in this place. I’d have to tread very carefully.
I held up my hands. “Look, I’m not looking to fuck anybody over.”
“Too late for that. You’ve put Beau in danger with your lies and manipulation. Now tell me how you got past the doctor.”
I rolled my eyes. “It wasn’t that hard. There were a lot of girls to intake that night. I knew you guys get access to all our medical records beforehand. I’d gone to a clinic and supposedly gotten the birth-control shot there, except I paid off that doctor not to actually give me the shot because I was already pregnant. Then I talked your doctor into not giving it to me twice because I already had it in the record. And he was already so busy, he just went along with it.”
Mrs. H’s face went dark. “And you knew Beau beforehand, so your being here was no coincidence at all.”
Fuck it. I might as well tell her. I leveled her with my stare and stood up straight.
“It’s his baby. He knocked me up the night we first had sex two months ago. That’s why I’m here. To make sure this baby gets all it’s owed. I refuse to let my child grow up like I did. This kid will have their father’s name and all that comes with it. They won’t be some disowned throwaway. They’ll be a Radcliffe.”
But Mrs. H was already shaking her head. “You’re a liar. I know my Beau well enough to know he’s careful. You got pregnant with some other man’s child, then saw an opportunity. Because that’s what you are, aren’t you? An opportunist?” She sneered at me. “I can smell your kind a mile away.”
I laughed a bitter chuckle and nodded. “Yeah. See, this kind of shit is exactly what I did not need when I realized I was preggers and who the father was when I googled his ass. I knew I’d face all this exact bullshit.”
“There’s no way you received an Invitation. You’re a liar and a cheat so don’t try to share some sob story with me.”