Chapter Five: Her Lover Is Back!

Lily started to unpack the moment Christopher walked out of the bedroom. She was still shaken by his last words, but Lily convinced herself that she would have to step up her game of impersonating.

“I cannot afford to mess this up. Joe’s life is at stake here, not just mine,” Lily reminded herself as she opened the boxes of clothes. 

“Why does she dress like a whore?” Lily asked no one in particular as she looked at the endless tons of revealing dresses. She was yet to take off her wedding dress, but thinking about wearing any of these made Lily’s skin crawl.

“Do not think much about this, Lily,” Lily gave herself the pep talk. “They are just clothes, and you can handle it,” she told herself.

Just then, she heard a knock on the door. 

“Come in,” Lily said without thinking. She knew it couldn’t be Christopher Bridger; he was too arrogant and prideful to knock in his own home.

Maggie, the housekeeper entered. “Hi ma’am, I just thought that you might need some help unpacking,” she told Lily.

Lily wanted to politely turn down the woman’s offer, but on a second thought, she changed her mind. “Yeah, I do need some help,” Lily said.

The woman entered the room and began to help Lily unpack.

“So what is Christopher like?” Lily asked, and she tried to make the question come off as carefree as possible.

Maggie became confused. “Excuse me?” 

“Oh, um,” Lily was literally caught! “I mean, personally. You would know more about him than I do, right?” Maggie was still confused, so to make Lily look less incriminating, she whispered conspiratorially to Maggie, “You know I travelled a lot, so I barely had time to get to know him,” Lily said.

She sounded different in her own ears, but it worked, because Maggie fell for it. She must have really sounded like Ashley Grander.

“He is a good employer,” Maggie said stiffly and left it at that.

Lily sensed that Maggie was being reserved and conservative with her, but she decided not to push further. It was best not to overdo anything so that she would not be caught red-handed.

“Are there any specific outfit you would be taking for your honeymoon, or would you be shopping for new clothes?” Maggie asked respectfully.

Lily did not like how Maggie seemed stiff and aloof around her, but then again, she was Ashley to them, and maybe Ashley wasn’t exactly a friendly person to people lower than her social status.

“Honeymoon?” Lily was surprised.

“Yes, Mr. Bridger did say that you both would be leaving for your honeymoon in a couple of hours,” Maggie said, looking at Lily in a puzzled manner. 

Lily realized that once again, she must have acted out of character. “Good God, please help me not to shoot myself in the leg,” Lily groaned inwardly. This was way harder than she ever anticipated, but then again, she never thought that she would have to impersonate anyone in her life.

“Yes, yes, I know that. I am sorry, it’s just that I have had so much to drink and my mind is all muddled up,” Lily said with a silly chuckle.

Maggie opened her eyes in horror. “Excuse me?” 

For the life of her, Lily could not understand what she must have said that was out of line again. “What?” 

“Did you just say you are sorry?” Maggie asked cautiously.

Damn, another slip!

Lily then realized that she would really need to be extremely cautious and intentional about playing Ashley’s character in the lives of people who might have known her. She needed to understand that the personality of a girl born into wealth and luxury was not the same with hers.

“Maybe I would need to take a full course on acting like a rich spoilt and mannerless girl,” Lily murmured.

“Excuse me?” Maggie did not seem to catch Lily’s words which was good for Lily, because she had not intended for Maggie to hear her.

Lily decided that having Maggie around would mean having to cover up slip ups, and she could hardly deal with that right now.

“Um, I think I might need to get some rest before we set out for our honeymoon, so you may leave,” Lily tried to dismiss her.

“Sure, ma’am,” Maggie curtsied and left the room without protesting it.

“Oh gosh, now I can finally have some peace,” Lily groaned. 

Christopher hadn’t mentioned any honeymoon, but Lily decided that it would be wise to pack up a box of clothes just in case Maggie was right. Lily selected the ones that had any semblance to decency and shoved them into a smaller box.

She heard the sound of a ringing phone as she zipped up the box. At first, Lily was confused, but then it clicked that it was Ashley’s phone that Emily handed to her that was ringing. Picking a dead girl’s call felt cringe to Lily, but since no one knew Ashley was dead, she could not ignore the call.

The caller’s ID showed Hedge. Lily picked up the call.

“Hello?” Lily said.

“Hello, Mrs. Bridger. Congratulations on your wedding, finally,” the sound of a male voice filtered into Lily’s ears.

“Thank you…” No, that did not sound like Ashley Grander at all. “Yeah, thanks!” Lily said enthusiastically, trying to fit into Ashley’s shoes.

“But you didn’t invite me, though,” he said with a hint of mischievousness in his voice.

Lily became speechless.

Then he laughed throatily. “I was kidding. I know you certainly cannot invite your secret lover to your wedding party,” he said.

Lily staggered into the bed. So Ashley had a secret lover! Lily thought of ending the call, but that might not be the right thing to do.

“Yeah, so now you can stop calling my phone,” Lily said with a firm tone mixed. It was better she got rid of this Hedger guy now or never.

“That’s not possible, love. We had a deal.” He threatened.

“Then I have called it off,” Lily said even though he voice was beginning to shake.

Hedge laughed dangerously. “Ash, you know me too well to play games with me. You owe me money from the rich dude’s wallet, and of course, our endless romantic relationship,” Hedge reminded Lily.

Lily’s eyeballs almost came out of their sockets in horror. “Hell no!” she yelled into the phone.

“Check your phone, and tell me if you would like to cross me,” Hedge said and ended the call.

Lily struggled to operate Ashley’s iPhone, but she eventually got hold of Hedge’s message to Ashley. It was a sex video of Ashley and Hedge, followed by a threatening message.

“Go back on our agreement and your fancy husband gets to see the video.”