Wicked Ever After (Wicked & Devoted 2)

Ouch. Still, Brea refused to rise to the bait.

“I said no comment. Now please move.” She nudged the annoying reporters aside and slid into her car, then drove off with a sigh.

But matters were hardly better at the salon.

When she arrived, she slipped in through the back, only to find twenty people crammed into the salon’s little waiting area at the front, some familiar, most not.

Rayleigh met her with wide eyes and a long-suffering sigh. “I’m glad you’re here, honey, but are you sure you want to be?”

“Do you need me to leave?” The reporters would disappear if she did.

“No,” the salon owner assured. “Just pointing out today might be tough.”

“I’m not letting rabble like them mess with my life. I’ve got a full day of clients, and I intend to keep my appointments.” She hesitated. “Unless they’ve cancelled.”

“No one has. If anything, strangers have called asking if you have any availability this week.” Her boss dropped her voice to a whisper. “And last Friday, your mysterious man friend made an appointment with you for tonight.”

Brea had seen that. Pierce had probably intended to confront her before he’d gotten impatient and hunted her down at Cutter’s.

When she’d seen his appointment on the books, she’d been somewhere between annoyed and worried as hell. Now, it was all she could do not to cry at the thought Pierce wouldn’t be coming through those doors tonight. He might never come around again.

“You can cancel that. He’s gone. If there’s someone on the waiting list, maybe Joy could call whoever’s first to see if they want that six o’clock?”

Rayleigh frowned in concern and hustled her firmly behind the partition dividing them from the foyer. “What do you mean gone?”

Brea didn’t dare answer honestly. For all she knew, Rayleigh was the reason the world knew she was expecting. She didn’t want to think her own boss would sell her out…but it wasn’t impossible.

“Absent. No longer here. Not someone I’ll be seeing today.”

“Honey, that man loves you. He—”

“He hates Cutter, whom I’m still marrying. I won’t be in the middle of their vendetta anymore.” It wasn’t a total lie…but it was definitely misdirection. “I’m putting him out of my head, the same way I’m sure he’s put me out of his.”

At least she hoped he was focused on Montilla and not spending any of his energy worrying about her.

“All right.” Rayleigh didn’t look like she believed a word, but she didn’t argue anymore. “I’ll have Joy call the first person on the list. Your ten a.m. isn’t here yet. Do you want to take this time to make a statement to the press? If you do, it’s possible these folks will leave.”

Brea didn’t want to…but she understood Rayleigh’s point. “I’ll make a brief one.”

With that, Brea stopped into the back room, tucked her purse away, applied a tinted lip balm, then took a deep breath. She had to be convincing. Her life—and her baby’s—might depend on it.

The moment she walked around the partition, she saw the crowd had grown in the last few minutes. Rayleigh was trying to shoo and wrangle them out the door. Most simply ignored her and shouted questions.

Brea grabbed the step stool Joy kept behind the counter so that all five-feet-nothing of her could reach the top shelf of the products they sold, climbed on the top rung, and cleared her throat.

Instantly, the room fell silent. “I’m Brea Bell and I’ll be making this one and only statement. I won’t be taking any questions afterward, so please listen carefully. As you know, Cutter Bryant is my fiancé. We’ve already discussed his recent time in California protecting Shealyn West. I know the story beyond the salacious gossip and I’m satisfied with his explanation. We will be pressing forward with our wedding. We hope you understand our desire for privacy as we look forward to our future. That’s all.”

En masse, the reporters started shouting questions—all prying, indelicate, and as titillatingly phrased as possible. Brea ignored them when her first appointment of the day squeezed through the door with a confused frown. “What’s going on here?”

Brea glared at the tabloid press with disdain. “Nothing important, Marcie. Go on back and we’ll talk about what you’d like to do with your hair.”

The forty-something woman nodded, then inched through the throng before finally making her way behind the partition to the empty salon.

Satisfied that her client was no worse for the wear, she addressed the press again. “If you don’t have an appointment today, you’ll need to wait outside. If anyone is unwilling to do that, we’ll be forced to call the sheriff.”

Then Brea stepped off the stool, folded it up, propped it back in the corner, and disappeared behind the partition.

Thankfully, most of the rest of the day was far less dramatic. After the press camped outside, clients came and went, most offering her a smile, a sympathetic ear, or an encouraging pep talk. They expressed excitement that she and Cutter were finally getting married and having a baby. Some even asked if they could help.