Chapter 7 - Lucinda Tried to Call It a Mutual Mistake
Once the hotel footage surfaced, Lucinda finally agreed to meet.
Not with me alone.
Not with Preston alone.
She wanted both of us in the same room, perhaps because lies survive better when they can divide the people hearing them.
We met in Preston’s family attorney’s office.
Lucinda arrived beautifully dressed, hair perfect, makeup controlled, posture steady—every inch the woman trying to look like the only adult in a room full of unreasonable men.
Then she saw the printed security stills.
And some of the control slipped.
She tried tears first.
Then indignation.
Then the version of the truth she must have decided was safest:
“It was one mistake,” she said. “Sebastian was upset that night. He came onto me. I shouldn’t have gone with him, but I did. I was scared to tell Preston. Then I found out I was pregnant.”
I stared at her.
“You expect me to believe I seduced you while I could barely stand?”
Her chin lifted.
“You weren’t unconscious.”
“No,” I said coldly. “Just conveniently unwell.”
Preston leaned forward.
“You told me it was fake. Now it’s a mistake?”
She turned toward him instantly.
“I was panicking! Preston, I was terrified. I knew how this would look.”
“How what would look?” he snapped. “That you slept with another man while planning our wedding?”
Lucinda’s eyes flashed.
“You don’t understand the pressure I was under.”
But I did understand something now.
She was not denying being in the suite.
She was not denying the pregnancy timeline.
She was only trying to frame the encounter as mutual.
There was one problem with that.
At the gala, I had exchanged maybe four polite sentences with her all evening.
No flirting.
No private conversation.
No reason on earth to follow her upstairs.
And then Preston asked the question that cracked her story again.
“If it was one mistake,” he said, “why hide your prenatal record and Sebastian’s photo inside a vase on our wedding day?”
She had no answer ready.
For the first time, she looked small.
Not innocent.
Cornered.
That was when I knew this story was still uglier than the version she had just admitted.
Because guilty people confess in layers.
May you like
And Lucinda had only just reached the first one.
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