“Good-bye, Mr. Sternham.”
He laughed as I shut my door on him and began backing away.
Money laundering? The only reason I knew what that was, was because I had watched this episode of CSI in which this man was taking drug money and funneling it through his company, trying to make it legitimate. But no way would my dad be caught up in some mess like that. My dad had always been on the up-and-up.
I couldn’t help but wonder where Mr. Sternham was getting his information. Maybe the person who had lied on me was now lying on my dad. I spun out of the school parking lot. This was getting out of hand. Someone was trying to play with me, and Maya Morgan didn’t get down like that. They’d picked the wrong one, because I wasn’t going down without a fight. But first, I needed to clear up this mess with my dad.
Chapter 18
The silence in our house was driving me crazy, but still, I couldn’t pull myself up from the kitchen table. I might not be able to find out who was behind the lies about me—yet—but I could get some answers from my father, if he ever got home.
After what seemed like another hour of waiting, I heard the lock turn in the door, and my parents finally walked in. My mom and dad were laughing and all hugged up. They were dressed up in after five attire, probably coming from one of their many charity events.
“Maya, it’s eleven o’clock at night. What are you doing still up?” my dad asked when he noticed me.
“I’ve been waiting on you.”
“For what?”
“I need to talk to you.”
“About what, sweetie?” my mom said.
Suddenly, I wished I had waited until my mom had gone to sleep. I didn’t need her fussing at me about bringing some mess like this to my dad. But it was too late.
“What’s going on? Is everything all right?” my dad asked. He walked over and stroked my hair. “You’re not having any problems with that show, are you?”
“No, it’s not that.” I sighed heavily, then looked at my mom, then back at him. “Some reporter showed up after school today, trying to talk to me.”
My mother frowned. “A reporter? From where?”
I paused, then stared directly at my father so I could see his reaction. “The tabloid magazine, the National Enquirer. He wanted to know if I knew anything about you laundering money. I mean, I can’t believe that someone would think . . .”
The looks on my parents’ faces stopped me cold. My mother began taking short, deep breaths like she was about to hyperventilate.
“Mom?”
She covered her mouth and ran from the room.
I jumped up from my seat. “Dad, what is going on? This reporter isn’t telling the truth, is he? You’re not caught up in any shady stuff, are you?”
My dad began pacing back and forth.
“Dad, tell me what’s going on?”
I was getting scared now. The last thing I needed was my family’s being caught up in some kind of criminal activity.
He blew a deep breath and pointed to my chair. “Have a seat, Maya.”
I didn’t move. “Dad, tell me that you’re not doing anything wrong.”
He grabbed my hands and squeezed them reassuringly. “Honey, I’m not. But, apparently, someone at the executive offices was. And they’re trying to tie it to me.”
“They? Who are they?”
“The FBI.”
“Oh my God,” I said, falling back in my seat. My friend Erica’s dad had been arrested in some kind of pyramid scheme. Her family lost everything. Both of her parents were arrested, and she had to go live with relatives in Indiana. “Are you going to jail?” I asked, horrified.“You can’t go to jail. My life would be ruined if you go to jail.”
My dad actually laughed. “Your life would be ruined?”
“Do you know how embarrassing that would be?”
He smiled as he brushed my hair again. “Maya, I’m not going to embarrass you. We’re fighting this.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this?” I cried. Never in a million years had I thought that reporter was telling the truth.
“Well, we didn’t think this concerned you.”
“If my dad is about to go to jail, it concerns me.”
“Your dad isn’t going to jail, because your dad didn’t do anything wrong.” He lifted my chin. “Sweetheart, I have a top-notch team of attorneys, and they are going to prove that I did nothing wrong.”
I plopped my head down on the table. “Oh my God. My dad is a thug,” I wailed.
He chuckled again. I didn’t see how he found humor in any of this. “Your dad is not a thug. Your dad is still the same Harvard Business School graduate and CEO of Morgan Enterprises. I’m not about to jeopardize my company or my family by getting involved in any illegal activities.”
Serious tears were streaming down my cheeks now. “They sent Martha Stewart to jail. T.I. and Snoop went to jail, too. They all are rich and had top-notch attorneys.”
“I’m not any of those people. I didn’t do anything wrong, except trust someone I shouldn’t have trusted. But I promise, sweetie, everything is going to be okay.”
“Okay, fine.” I sniffed and wiped my tears.
He rubbed my head. “Don’t you worry your pretty little head about this. It will all be taken care of.”
It had better. The People’s Choice Awards was coming up, and the last thing I needed was to have my name associated with any criminal activities. It was bad enough that my name was being sullied with this J. Love story. Having this hit the news would just send me over the edge.
Chapter 19
I groaned as I walked into the classroom. This is exactly why I didn’t want to come to this stupid winter party planning meeting. But our school had some kind of bogus rule that every student had to put in two hours of service, and I’d been putting mine off, and if I wanted my service points, I didn’t have any other choice.
But watching the way Shay and Evian were snarling at me, I thought I would’ve been better off just taking my F.
“Hey, Evian. Hey, Shay,” Sheridan said.
“Hey, Sheridan,” both of them said, not bothering to look my way.
Oh, screw that. I was already on the edge, and I wasn’t going to let their catty ways get to me. I’d been stressed over my dad all night. Tamara had told me the National Enquirer wouldn’t print a retraction like I had hoped on the J. Love story. So, if I had to deal with any attitudes today, I just might snap. That’s why I forced a smile and said, “Hello, girls.”
They both slowly turned their heads my way, then looked back at Sheridan.
“Why is she speaking to us?” Shay asked.
When I was a little girl, my grandmother used to always say you get more flies with sugar, so I kept being nice.
“I’m speaking because that’s the thing you do when you walk into a room with people. You say hello.”
“Is she still talking to us?” Shay said.
I finally lost my smile. “Look—”
“Come on, guys,” Sheridan said, jumping in. “It’s time we squash this.”
Shay raised an eyebrow at her. Evian rolled her eyes. I massaged my temple.
“Come on, guys,” she protested. “We all were good friends.”
“No, you were good friends with her,” Shay said, folding her arms across her chest.
“Well, we all were at least cool,” Sheridan corrected. “We run in the same clique.”
“Oh, not anymore,” Shay said. “Your girl is too large to hang with us anymore.”
“Yeah,” Evian echoed. “She’s too good to hang with us, I guess.”
I started to just get up and walk out, but I was tired of the tude, so I said, “Look, I don’t know what you guys expected or wanted me to do. I’m sorry if it seems like I stabbed you all in the back. I wasn’t trying to do that.”
Both of them seemed a little shocked. Probably because they knew Maya Morgan didn’t normally apologize.
I turned to Evian. “Evian, you’re here.
You’re not behind bars; you’re not being investigated. If I had wanted to get you in trouble, I could’ve easily given your name in the story. I didn’t put you anywhere in it.”
“Yeah, but you messed with my business.”
“Come on, you had told me yourself that you were tired of doing that.” Evian’s uncle had actually been the brains behind the little escort ring, but Evian had been in charge of getting and managing the girls from high school. I’d run the story on my show, but I hadn’t mentioned names.
Evian paused, then said,“That’s beside the point. Plus, you don’t know the drama you created with my uncle.” She looked at me pointedly. “And you don’t know how I saved your behind.”
That made my heart skip. Rumor had it that Evian’s family was attached to the Mafia. She would never confirm that, but I didn’t want to mess around, so I said, “Thank you for that.”
“I don’t care about her apologies,” Shay said. “You sold us out for your own little fame, after you were the one talking that mess about us being a team and sticking together, when we were going through negotiations that I didn’t even want to do.”
Out of everyone, Shay was the angriest with me. We had been up for contract renewals for our reality show, Miami Divas. I had convinced everyone to fight for more money and perks. Shay hadn’t wanted to do that, because it’s not like any of us needed the money. But I had tried to tell them it was the principle of it all. But instead of meeting our demands, the network had canceled the show and offered me my own. I don’t know what I was supposed to do, but I did the only thing that made sense; I took the offer and said “deuces” to my team. So, quiet as it’s kept, I understood Shay’s anger. But she needed to get over it, because it is what it is.
“I didn’t sell you guys out. When they came to offer me a show, they said they just wanted me. What was I supposed to say, ‘Oh, no, I’m not going to take it because of my friends’?” I said.
Evian and Shay glared at me. “No, it’s the foul way you did it,” Shay said. “That’s what I have a problem with.”
“And Bali was our boy, and your actions caused him to be shipped away,” Evian added.
Out of everything that went down, that bothered me the most. I really liked Bali and hated that his father had found out he was even remotely connected to the Bling Ring, a group of teens who were breaking into and vandalizing celebrity homes. He’d shipped Bali back to Cuba so fast it was crazy. I’d hoped Bali would return, but so far, no one had heard from him.
“I wasn’t trying to get anyone in trouble,” I said.
“I’d hate to see what you did if you tried.” Shay turned up her lips. Evian seemed to soften, but Shay looked like she wasn’t trying to hear anything I had to say.
A silence hung in the air for a minute, then Sheridan said, “So are we good?”
Evian and I nodded. Shay flicked us off and picked up the agenda that was sitting in the middle of the oval table.
“What are we supposed to be doing?” Shay said. “I don’t want to do this whack winter dance planning anyway.”
“Yeah, we’re supposed to just show up and look fabulous,” Evian said.
“I heard Nicole say we’re waiting on one more person,” Sheridan said as we took seats at the table with Evian and Shay.
We all sat around for a minute waiting for the committee chair, Nicole, to come in. Finally, a smile crossed Shay’s face. “So, you and Bryce aren’t together anymore?” she asked me.
“Noooo,” I said slowly, wondering where she was going with that. “And?”
“So, you don’t care about him kickin’ it with someone else.” She shrugged nonchalantly, but I could tell she was taking great pride in this.
“Kickin’ it with who? Callie? I couldn’t care less about that little homely thing.”
“Oh, I’m not talking about Callie.” Shay smirked.
“Well, who then?” I looked at Sheridan.
“Don’t look at me,” she said. “I’m not thinking about Bryce.”
“Oh, it ain’t Sheridan either.” Shay laughed. “But it is someone else you know. Your number one fan.”
“Who?”
Evian and Shay looked at each other and giggled. “Who else wants to be like you so bad that she transferred to your school, dyed her hair jet-black to match yours, and now she’s trying to take your man.”
“Jayla?” It was my turn to laugh. “First of all, she didn’t transfer because of me, and, secondly, Bryce wouldn’t mess with someone like her. And even if he did, it wouldn’t matter, because he isn’t my man. I’ve moved on to bigger and better things.”
“Oh, yeah, like J. Love,” Evian said with a slick smile.
“Oh, wait, is he still with you?” Shay was trying to play dumb, but I could tell she knew the whole story. Those stupid girls who were filming us posted it on Facebook; it went viral, and everyone at school had seen us getting turned away from the party. “Because after you sold him out to the tabloids, and couldn’t get into his party, I heard he dumped you.”
“You guys, stop,” Sheridan said.
“Why? She can dish it, but she can’t take it?” Shay stood and started gathering her stuff. “Whatever. You guys can sit here and kiss and make up and sing “Kumbaya,” but Maya is foul.” She looked me up and down. “And I for one ain’t gon’ forget it.” She turned to Evian. “Tell Nicole I’ll make up my points at the next meeting.”
I let her go. Shay was the least of my concerns. Was there any truth to what she had been saying? And if there was, could I even get mad? By the time Jayla had transferred here, I had already broken up with Bryce. And yeah, she had seen the little exchange in English class several days ago, but if she hadn’t known about Bryce and me, she might not have even been aware that we used to be an item. Even still, it burned my heart to think of her being with him. I wasn’t about to let Bryce know I cared, but I was definitely about to get some answers from Jayla.
Chapter 20
I looked up just as Jayla came bouncing over to my lunch table, where Sheridan and I were finishing up our lunches. I hadn’t really paid attention to her before, but Evian was right. Her hair, which used to be dark brown, was now the same dark shade as mine. Her layered cut was real close to mine, and that baby-doll T-shirt, the boyfriend jacket, and those skinny jeans looked like something straight out of my closet. Could she really be trying to imitate me?
“Hey, Maya,” Jayla said. Her usual giddy smile had returned. “Sorry about the other day. I was PMSing, so I wasn’t in a good mood. I shouldn’t have taken that out on you.” The difference in her attitude was like night and day.
My first instinct was to go off about Bryce, but something stopped me. I needed to remember the source of this information.
“It’s cool,” I said dryly.
“Are you sure? Because you seem like something’s wrong,” she said, losing her smile and just standing in front of my lunch table like Debbie Dumbo.
I just side-eyed her until she sat down. She looked back and forth between Sheridan and me. “Is something wrong?” She stared at me for a minute. “Are you mad at me for the way I acted?”
I dropped my fork and leaned back. “Do I have a reason to be mad?”
“I apologized for acting funky.”
“I’m not trippin’ over that.”
“Then, what’s wrong? If this is about the tweet I sent out this morning, I sent it to you for approval.”
I usually tweeted my own stuff, but every now and then, she’d tweet for me. But she made sure to get my approval on everything before she sent it out.
“This isn’t about some tweet,” Sheridan snapped. “This is about her man.”
“J. Love?”
“You know doggone well who her boyfriend was,” Sheridan snapped.
Jayla looked at Sheridan, then back at me. “Maya, I have no idea what she’s talking about,” Jayla finally said.
I picked my fork back up and began toying with my salad. “A little birdie told m
e that you were pushing up on Bryce.”
“Bryce, the football player, Bryce?”
“You know exactly who she’s talking about,” Sheridan snapped.
“Yeah, I saw that little exchange in English class the other day, but I didn’t know what that was about. And he’s in my sixth-period class. He’s my lab partner.”
“Oh, how convenient,” Sheridan said.
Jayla still had a confused look on her face.
“Maya, what is going on? You’re dating Bryce?”
“Dated, as in past tense,” I said.
“Don’t act like you don’t know.” Sheridan rolled her eyes. “You know everything there is to know about Maya. You probably know her bra size.”
Jayla turned toward me, ignoring Sheridan. “I didn’t know, but honestly, I’m not trying to talk to Bryce,” she protested. Her eyes were wide, like she was appalled at the idea. “Who told you that?”
“Don’t worry about who told us.”
“Sheridan,” I said, “let me handle this. Weren’t you about to go to class?”
Sheridan groaned. “Really, Maya? You’re not gonna believe her, are you?”
I glanced across the cafeteria and caught Shay smiling as she watched me.
“Let me deal with this,” I repeated to Sheridan.
Sheridan stood, snatched her tray up, and shook her head like I was pitiful.
As soon as she walked away, Jayla turned back to me. “Maya, I am so serious. I’m not trying to talk to Bryce, and I didn’t know that you guys were together.”
“Was he flirting with you?”
“He wasn’t even flirting with me. Mr. Pittman put him as my lab partner. Bryce was just being nice.”
I looked back over at Shay, who was now giggling with Evian.
Jayla’s eyes began watering up. “Maya, you’ve got to believe me. I would never do you like that.”
I sighed. I couldn’t believe that I’d let that trick, Shay, trick me. “Nah, it’s cool. It’s not like Bryce and I are even together. My bad.” I smiled. “So, what’s been going on?”
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