The Devil Wears Black(41)
“I really, really like her,” Clementine continued, not winning any tact points this evening. “It is nice of her to make me pancakes. I hope I see her in the clinic again soon.”
Amber snapped her head up like a guard dog who’d just heard a twig crunching under a boot. “In the clinic?”
“Yeah. When I went to get my shots. I wanted to say hello, but you were talking on the phone and said there was no time, remember?” Clementine glanced at her in confusion, and something very dark and very cold uncurled inside my chest. I bet Amber hadn’t been paying attention to what Clementine said at the time. “I saw her when I went to the doctor to get my shots. Maddie hugged my doctor. She hugged him hard. For a long time. Like couples in movies do. It was so disgusting.” Booger Face shivered, shaking her head with disgust.
The room was so quiet I could hear my own heartbeat. All eyes slowly slid in my direction. I had nothing to say. Nothing other than WHY WAS MADISON HUGGING THE ASSHOLE WITH THE TIE AND TIGHTS LONG AND HARD LIKE COUPLES IN MOVIES DO?
Hugging led to other things, and all those things assaulted my brain in a collage of Mad and Dr. Tights going at it like bunnies in front of a pediatric clinic. Him grabbing the back of her neck roughly, thrusting his tongue into her mouth. I took a sip of my water, concentrating on not tossing the table and everything on it through the floor-to-ceiling window. I wanted to do something radical and violent and shocking but knew it wasn’t going to help my case.
I didn’t trust myself to speak. To think.
“Is that so, sweetheart?” Julian poured more water into my glass, his voice like a snake’s hiss. “What’s your pediatrician’s name again?”
“Dr. Goodman,” Clementine purred, stupidly delighted to be acknowledged by her father. “He has the best ties, Dad. Of cartoons and Disney characters. And he lets me pinch him when he gives me shots. I like him, even though he hugged Maddie so hard there was no space between their bodies. Then he kissed her cheek. Yuck.”
I was going to commit murder. I was sure of it.
Amber’s eyes were clinging to my face, but it was Katie who asked brokenly, “Chase? I mean . . . is this true?”
I had two options. Making Booger Face look like a liar—which she wasn’t—or chalking this up to her wild nine-year-old imagination. There was also a third option, of admitting it to be true and coming clean. But that meant letting Julian win. Three years ago, I’d have bowed out of this gracefully.
Today, though, it was war.
“Maybe you saw someone who looks like her, Booger.” I ran my hand through Clementine’s braid.
She stared at me, serious as a heart attack, scowling. “No, I didn’t. She wore the same green dress with the little avocados she did in the Hamptons. I told Mommy I want a dress like that, and she said she would rather set herself on fire than have me wear it.”
Fuck my life in the ass. I’d chosen the most recognizable woman in New York to play my doting fake fiancée. Everyone was watching our exchange intently. My father, especially, looked pale and extra frail. He knotted his fingers together, tapping his index fingers to his lips contemplatively.
I gave Julian a meaningful stare.
He waved his fingers at me dismissively. He didn’t fucking care.
Mad chose that exact moment to make her grand return with a big smile, oven mitts, and a plate stacked with a mountain of steaming pancakes. She slid the plate in Clementine’s direction, drenching the pancakes in enough maple syrup to drown a hamster. “There you go, sweets.”
“Maddie.” Julian almost sprawled in his seat, he was so smug. “Clementine just shared something very interesting with us. She said she saw you hugging her pediatrician, Dr. Goodman, this week, and that he kissed your cheek. Is this true?” He elevated an eyebrow, feigning surprise.
“Chase says she must’ve seen wrong.” Amber jumped on the shit wagon, recovering quickly from her failure to feed her own child. “But I know my daughter, and she is extremely observant.”
Madison’s eyes darted to me. I held her gaze. I wasn’t sure what I was asking her, but I knew if she was going to refuse it, there was a good chance I’d set the world on fire.
Tick.
Tock.
Tick.
Tock.
Since when were clocks so goddamn loud? I waited for her to say something. Anything. How the tables had turned. Six months ago, Madison Goldbloom would bend over backward to make me happy (quite literally—we’d tried that position twice). Now, I was at her mercy.
Her lips parted, and the room sucked in a collective breath.
“Oh, Dr. Goodman!” she exclaimed with her big Maddie smile, but I could see right through it. The self-disgust laced with panic swimming in her big brown eyes. “Clemmy, you definitely saw me! Dr. Goodman and I are old friends. He is practicing for a half marathon. I just dropped by with some baked goods because I was in the area visiting a friend.”
Of course. A friend. A friend. Why hadn’t I thought of that?
Because the only women you talk to who are not blood related to you end up in your bed. You wouldn’t recognize friendship with the fairer sex if it kneed you in the nuts.
Clementine seemed to be appeased by that, smiling her partly toothless grin at Madison like she’d hung the stars and moon for her.
Julian, however, wasn’t impressed by this bullshit. He looked between Mad and me, arching an eyebrow. He was about to say something I 100 percent didn’t want to hear, his mouth falling open, when a loud bang snapped everyone out of the drama. My gaze darted to the head of the table.