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“You don’t think it was—it couldn’t have been—” She stopped.
    Gillian shook her head so emphatically her hair swung. “No. No way. Not Rashid. They broke up in the middle of December, before vacation started.”
    “What difference does a week or two make?”
    “A big difference if you’re talking about the heir to the Lion Throne. Look at it this way.” Gillian pointed her fork at Shani. “If there was even a breath of suspicion it was Rashid’s, his parents would have sent the entire Yasiri Secret Service to extract the truth by any means necessary, two months ago.”
    Shani sat back and let her breath out. “You’re right. If they could send their agents to hunt me down in Scotland about a viral video, they’d for sure send them here about a baby.”
    “Not to mention Vanessa would make sure she had her hands well and truly on the Star of the Desert,” I pointed out. “The girl does like her bling.”
    “That’s a high price to pay,” Brett said quietly. “Even for—”
    The door opened and Vanessa walked in. I tried not to look. I really did. But as she took her plate of risotto and walked over to the juice bar to get a drink, it seemed like every eye in the dining room was fixed on her.
    Or more precisely, on her stomach.
    From the back, she looked the same as any of us. Plaid skirt, white blouse, blue cardigan. But were her feet in their Prada flats planted further apart than usual? Had her walk changed? When did a person’s hips start spreading? I tried to remember whether they’d covered that in freshman Life Sciences.
    When she turned with her plate held protectively close to her stomach, her profile told it all. Even the cardigan couldn’t hide the little bump or the fact that she’d had to switch to a skirt with an elastic waistband, like the ones Emily wore.
    I bet that galled her.
    Five months pregnant. Wow.
    “I can’t believe I didn’t see it before,” I breathed. “I mean, Apple Bottoms are one thing. But this?”
    “I can’t either, with your obsession with her,” Gillian said.
    “I’m not obsessed,” I protested for about the sixty-fifth time in two years. “It’s just self-preservation.”
    Carrying her plate and her iced smoothie, Vanessa strolled toward the table in the window. Her body looked relaxed and her eyelids drooped in their usual “I’m bored out of my skull” expression. You had to hand it to her. If it had been me in that predicament—which it wouldn’t be, considering the promise I made to God—I’m sure I would have been slinking around, hoping no one would look at me. Or I’d have paid someone to collect a tray and bring it to my room. Or better yet, I’d have chosen to be home-schooled.
    I’m sure she knew the news was out. But other people’s opinions had never been important to her before. Why should things be different now?
    DeLayne Geary put her plate down on the table in the window, with her back to the sun. Before Vanessa could reach it herself, Christine Powell, Rory Stapleton, and three other people who had been hanging out with that group lately materialized with their trays and sat down. Vanessa walked over, skewered DeLayne with her gaze, and waited.
    And waited.
    “Excuse me, D. You know that’s my seat.”
    DeLayne glanced at Christine as the buzz of chatter at the tables around them dropped a couple of notches. People tuned into the drama as avidly as if it were a reality show. “There’s no room here for skanks.”
    The words dropped like a stone and silence spread out in rings of shock and breathless anticipation.
    Vanessa didn’t even blink. “In that case, I’ll ask Christine and Rory to move. I know what the two of you were up to in the boys’ shower after soccer practice.”
    Ewww. Don’t make me look at that image. As Carly would say, it makes my eyes bleed.
    “At least I wasn’t stupid enough to get knocked up,” Christine retorted, her mouth curled with scorn.
    “We don’t hang out with stupid