The Decoy Girlfriend(23)
The ambient street noise peters away to a low hum. All Freya can focus on is the sheer horror of coming face-to-face with her mirror image.
This can’t be happening. She mentally repeats it a few more times, but yes, it is. Fuck.
How did Mandi find her on the exact morning she’d sworn off being Mandi forever?
The actress smiles. “I think this conversation is better had in private, don’t you?”
Freya blinks. She’s smiling at me. Why is she smiling?
Mandi should be furious, ranting and raving about punishment and how Freya won’t get away with this, how it’s totally beyond her how anyone could think for a second—for a millisecond!—that Freya is anything more than a discount Mandi.
Freya hovers on the edge of the sidewalk. “You want me to get in?”
“Yes. I just want to talk. What happens after that is up to you.”
Freya’s pedicured toes curl into her sandals. The words sound ominous, threatening even.
It’s Mandi’s smile that throws her. It speaks volumes; that by some eerie stroke of bad luck, everything has worked out according to plan. It’s a Cheshire grin if Freya’s ever seen one.
I’m not falling for her friendly charm. There’s no way it’s not a trap. She may not be shouting about jail time, but she doesn’t have to. It’s there in the subtext.
“How did you even find me?” asks Freya.
“Tagged Instagram post.”
It clicks at once: the woman from the boutique. Guess she got her selfie after all.
Nervously, Freya rubs her lips together. Fuck. Big mistake with this matte lipstick.
She can tell from Mandi’s wince that it’s probably already feathered outside her lip line. There’s nothing about this day that’s anything short of woefully horrific, so why not add one more thing to the list?
It’s painfully obvious to Freya how dissimilar the two actually are. Mandi would never mess up her lipstick, never show how nervous she is, no matter how caught off guard she might be. Must be nice to be that poised.
But Mandi Roy has had enough of waiting. She leans over and pushes the passenger door open, arching one perfectly plucked eyebrow. “What’s it going to be, ‘Mandi’?”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Freya doesn’t get a lot out of Mandi on the drive to the actress’s apartment. They spend most of the journey in silence, without even the radio to break the tension. It’s on the tip of Freya’s tongue to apologize, but what would be the point? Mandi would think it’s only because Freya got caught. She wouldn’t believe a word out of Freya’s mouth.
Under California penal code, are Freya’s crimes a felony or a misdemeanor? Does it violate her book contract’s morality clause? Should she shamefacedly loop her agent in? Alma’s probably going to drop her—after this, there’s no way Freya isn’t her worst client.
Yikes. The fact that’s even a question running through her head right now . . .
Freya bunches her knees together, coils into herself, and tries not to wonder how badly she’d be injured if she threw open the car door right now and flung herself out into the street.
Mandi glances over as though she senses Freya’s skittishness. “We’re still a few minutes away. You should check #Raft on Twitter.”
Freya taps her phone screen awake. She doesn’t even need to type anything into the search bar—the hashtag is already trending. She gasps when she sees the first image that pops up and the accompanying caption, guilt stirring in her gut.
Freya wanted to be in the news again, yes, but definitely not like this.
She and her friends had all FaceTimed for an hour last night, still a little buzzed and shaken after the close call in the club. Too close, everyone had agreed.
None of them knew then how the story would break this morning, that Taft would be called a cheater when it was really Freya who was the fake. For such a heartthrob actor, he’s got a great reputation in the media. But now he’s the one getting the blowback for something he didn’t even do.
Guilt curdles in Freya’s empty belly. I’ve messed up more lives than just my own.
“Mandi, I had no idea,” she says, throat dry and words sticking in shame. “I didn’t know these pictures went viral. I’m so, so sorry. I tried to put it right this morning, but I know it’s not enough. If you need me to publicly come clean, tell everyone that your relationship isn’t in trouble, that it wasn’t you last night—”
“Are you kidding me?” Some of Mandi’s composure breaks. “That’s the last thing I want.”
Parsing that confusing declaration is giving Freya a headache, and she doesn’t think she has the right to ask Mandi a question. It’s only 10:00 a.m., and her friends are probably still fast asleep in their swanky hotel room. She consoles herself with the thought that when her friends wake up, they’ll check Twitter and see the headlines. Just like with a messy revision or a sticky plot point, they’ll help her get through this.
The trip passes in silence until they arrive at Mandi’s building, at which point Mandi, whose silence has had Freya catastrophizing the whole ride, deigns to tell Freya how they’re going to get past her doorman without him seeing double.
Mandi scrounges in the big beach bag behind Freya’s seat. “Here, you’ll need this.”