The Charade: A Billionaire/Fake Relationship Romance (Eden Falls Academy)
The Charade: Chapter 13

‘DO you want a tour of the place before we get all dressed up for the party?’ Cambrielle turned to look at Elyse and me.

‘Um, of course,’ Elyse said. ‘That would be awesome.’

‘How about we start upstairs so you can leave your backpacks in my room?’ Cambrielle suggested.

‘Sounds good to me.’ From the size of the house, I had a feeling the tour might take a while and my backpack was already heavy with all the things I’d packed in it.

‘How about I catch you guys after the tour?’ Nash asked as Cambrielle started leading Elyse and me up the stairs. ‘The guys said they were going to start their basketball game around four, so I’m gonna join them.’

‘Sure,’ Cambrielle said with a shrug. ‘I can take it from here.’

Nash, who was already wearing gym shorts and a T-shirt, disappeared around the corner and the three of us girls went upstairs.

‘So, this is where all of our bedrooms are,’ Cambrielle said at the top of the stairs. ‘My parents’ suite is that way.’ She pointed to the left toward large, white double doors that were closed. ‘And mine and my brothers’ rooms are this way.’ She led us to the right, down a long hall where gigantic family photos hung on the wall space that was separated every so often with a door.

I glanced at the family portraits, curious what the rest of the Hastings family looked like. The first portrait we came to looked like it must have been taken fairly recently based on the fact that Nash, Cambrielle, and Carter all looked pretty similar to what they looked like now. The photo had been taken outside, with a beautiful purple and pink sky behind them. And despite what Nash had said about them wearing loungewear to dinner, the boys were all dressed in designer suits while Cambrielle and her mother—a beautiful woman with dark-brown hair, green eyes, tan skin, and an hourglass shape similar to Cambrielle’s—wore designer gowns.

‘Is that your older brother?’ I asked Cambrielle, pointing to the guy in the photo beside Carter whom I hadn’t seen before. He had darker hair than his brothers—closer to the same color as Mrs. Hastings and Cambrielle’s hair. And instead of the bright blue eyes that the younger three siblings must have gotten from Mr. Hastings—a tall man with light blond hair and aqua-blue eyes himself—the older boy’s eyes were brown.

‘Yeah, that’s Ian,’ she said. ‘He just graduated from Yale last spring.’

If he’d recently graduated from college, then he must be at least four or five years older than us.

Did that mean Mr. Hastings had already been married to Mrs. Hastings when he’d had his relationship with Carter’s mom in Guatemala? Because that probably would have caused a lot of drama if she hadn’t known about the affair and Mr. Hastings suddenly came home from a later trip with an eight-year-old he’d fathered.

Cambrielle must have seen the confusion on my face because she said, ‘Ian is from my mom’s first marriage. She and Dad met when he was, like, five.’

‘So Nash is your only full-blooded sibling?’ Elyse asked, as if trying to piece everything together.

‘Technically, yes,’ Cambrielle said. ‘But we don’t call each other half siblings or anything like that. We’re just brother and sister. And even though my mom isn’t Carter’s biological mom, and my dad isn’t Ian’s biological dad, they still just call them Mom and Dad.’

‘That’s cool,’ I said.

I studied the family in the photo for a moment longer, interested in the family dynamic that they had. I knew a photo was just a snapshot of one moment in time, but in this one at least, they seemed like they were a happy family. And from the few interactions I’d had with Carter, Nash, and Cambrielle so far at school, they seemed like they were each other’s best friends.

I loved that Elyse and I were so close, and that we shared a special bond with our mother. But as someone who’d always dreamed of what it would be like to have a bigger family with a dad and maybe another sibling or two, I couldn’t help but feel envious of this picture-perfect family in front of me. As I studied the way Mr. Hastings had his arm around his wife and the other around Cambrielle, the longing for a father figure burned stronger in my chest than usual.

But like I did every time I came across a big family, I pushed the longing away because it didn’t do any good to wish for something that I’d never have.

My mom might not have told Elyse and me very much about our bio father, but she had said that we were better off without him, so I just had to trust that she was right.

‘Anyway, this is my room,’ Cambrielle said, moving away from the portrait of her family and to a door on the opposite side of the hall. ‘You can just put your things in here.’

She led us into a gorgeous bedroom with pale pink walls and tall windows surrounded by long, shimmery gold curtains.

‘Your bedroom is amazing,’ Elyse commented, setting her backpack on the floor just inside the door.

‘Thanks,’ Cambrielle said as she ushered us farther in. ‘My mom let me redecorate it this summer, so I’m glad you like it.’

”Like it’ would be an understatement,’ I said as I took in the queen-sized four-poster bed with white-and-gold bedding and so many throw pillows that it would probably take at least ten minutes to make the bed. ‘This is, like, my dream room.’

‘Really?’ Cambrielle asked.

‘Yeah, mine too,’ Elyse added.

‘Well, thanks.’ Cambrielle smiled, genuinely happy that we liked her interior design. ‘It was fun to put together.’

I noticed that while there was a nightstand on either side of the bed, a super cute, comfy-looking chair in one corner, and even a gas fireplace beside the chair, there was no dresser.

‘Do you not have a dresser?’ I asked.

A half-smile slipped onto Cambrielle’s lips and she walked toward a door that led to what must be a closet. ‘I keep all my clothes in here,’ she said.

Only when she opened the door, it wasn’t a closet but a bathroom with a huge mirror, a nice big soaker tub, a shower, and a little toilet room off to the side.

Dang, her bathroom was the size of Elyse’s and my bedroom at home.

‘The closet is just through here.’ Cambrielle walked toward a door next to the vanity, but then she stopped, grabbing what looked like an Old Spice deodorant and a blue toothbrush from off the countertop and quickly shoving them into a drawer.

‘Sorry about that.’ She glanced back to Elyse and me with flushed cheeks. ‘I forgot to put those away earlier.’ She cleared her throat. ‘Anyway, this is my closet.’

I briefly wondered why she seemed embarrassed that we’d see she preferred Old Spice to Secret deodorant, but my attention was instantly drawn away from that thought when she opened the door to her closet and turned on the light to reveal the most gorgeous space I’d ever seen.

The ceiling was painted pink to match the color of her room, with white crown molding. There were white built-in cabinets with open shelving on top with racks upon racks of blouses and designer jeans that could have come straight from one of my mom’s fashion shows.

There were shelves of designer shoes. Shelves of jewelry and bags. Several racks of cocktail dresses and evening gowns. Fancy coats. Beautiful hats.

Hiding off to the side in the back corner, I spotted a rack of our school-approved uniforms.

And as I took in what just might be the most magical room in the whole world, I realized that with a fashion sense and a closet like this, wearing the school’s uniforms every day must be even more painful for Cambrielle than it was for me.

‘I know it’s kind of a lot,’ Cambrielle said, noticing the look of awe on our faces. ‘But, um, if you ever need to borrow anything, I’m your girl.’ She gestured at the haute couture around her. ‘I know the school doesn’t provide much space for clothes, so I’m totally happy to let you borrow anything you like.’

I looked at Cambrielle. She was probably barely five feet, so I doubted much of what she had in here would even fit us and our five-foot-nine frames. But it was super sweet of her to offer, so I said, ‘I may take you up on that some time because this is amazing. Even our mom would be jealous.’

A little while later, Cambrielle continued the tour by showing us the rest of the second floor. While Elyse was drooling over the movie collection in the theater room, I decided that I might need to take a bathroom break before we continued since there was still a lot of the house to see. ‘Do you have a guest bathroom up here that I can use?’

‘Oh, sure.’ Cambrielle looked away from what she was showing Elyse. ‘It’s just down that hall. Three doors down and on the left.’

‘Thanks.’

I hurried down the hall in the direction she’d pointed and after counting three doors, I opened what I assumed was a bathroom.

Only, I didn’t see a bathroom at all.

Instead, the door opened to a bedroom about the same size as Cambrielle’s. Rather than pink walls and gold curtains, the room had a much more masculine vibe with lots of blues, whites, and grays. The focal point of the room was a king-sized bed with a gray, modern-style headboard. And behind the bed was a wall painted to look like the night sky with various constellations that covered the entire space and all across the ceiling.

I was tempted to step inside for a moment to see if I could figure out whether the room belonged to Nash or Carter, when suddenly, a bare-chested Carter walked out from what could be his bathroom with a gray T-shirt in his hand.