“It's you I love, the person, not your body!”
“And this is my fault too. I knew you weren't getting enough to eat and I did nothing about it. I'm the one who drove you to this!”
Owen sounded so very reasonable.
But this time I wasn't moved the way I'd been in my last life, because I understood now: a normal man who truly believed his fiancée would fight her corner, would haul her down to the police station and prove her innocence.
Not stand there muddying the water by confessing on my behalf.
This wasn't him helping me.
This was him nailing down the charge, building himself a tidy reason to walk out, handing my death a respectable excuse.
So I didn't follow Owen's lead.
I stepped back instead, my brow drawing tight.
“Owen, a minute ago you said you believed me. But the second this cook showed up, you swallowed every word, that I'd let a man have his way with me over a single dinner roll!”
“Yes, I train hard. Yes, I go to bed hungry most nights. But I'm not short on cash and I'm not short on groceries. If I were hungry, why wouldn't I just go buy food? Why would I ever go crawling to a cook?”
“You stood there swearing you didn't care about my past. But did you ever once ask me?”
“I like being clean. I don't want people pointing at me and calling me a whore!”
A laugh slipped out of me then before I could stop it.
“Anyone who didn't know better might think you love me. Anyone watching this would think you couldn't wait to pin the crime on me.”
“Don't tell me……”
I let my voice climb on purpose.
“Don't tell me you just enjoy playing the cuckold?”
The words landed.
The whole room broke into laughter, finally catching what I'd caught, that Owen's little speech had been all about moving himself, and it had buried me completely.
Naturally Max and Marilyn weren't about to watch their son take a smear like that.
Cursing, they charged at me to slap the words right out of my mouth.
But I hadn't earned the title of lead performer for nothing. A few effortless flips, a couple of dodges, and I sent both of them sprawling.
I yanked the flower from my hair and flicked it into Owen's face.
Then I pointed at where Max and Marilyn lay.
“See that? That's what you do when you actually believe in someone!”
“Owen, your kind of belief comes cheap. I'm not spending my married life getting smeared by you every single day, so this wedding, it's off.”
Owen was furious and frantic all at once.
He'd staged this whole scene to walk away with the halo of the good man, so that after I was dead and he married again, nobody could whisper behind his back. He hadn't counted on me staying calm, turning the tide in three or four sentences, and now turning it into a perfectly justified breakup of my own.
“Arlene, that's not what I meant.”
“I only didn't want things blowing up. I do believe you, I swear!”
“I'm certain this whole thing is a lie, that Sally's just jealous and trying to ruin you. If you want to prove yourself, I'll go to the hospital with you, get you examined, get it in writing!”
Sally didn't want me calling off the engagement either.
After all, if the wedding fell through, how was she supposed to take my place at the State Theater Company?
So she squeezed out tears too.
“The truth is, I was joking!”
“None of it's real. I only wanted to test whether Owen really loved you!”
“You've got so many admirers, what if there's gossip down the line? Wouldn't that be awful? I'm admitting it now, I lied, I'm sorry, just don't throw away a match this good because of me!”
As she spoke, she shot Zane a look, signaling him to hurry up and admit he'd lied too.
Zane Parsons didn't want to.
But he forced the word out anyway.
"That's—"
I didn't give him the chance to finish.
I looked around at the crowd, my face set.
"Yes. Zane had his way with me."
