Black Lies (22 page)

“I love you like this.” His mouth against pillows, muffled slightly. I kept my eyes closed, my mouth curving into a smile.

“Like what?”

“Naked. Satisfied. Nothing on, nothing to make me feel inferior.”

That opened my eyes. I turned my head, tilted it up to him. “Inferior? Why would you feel that way?”

“We live in different worlds, Lana. Don’t insult me by ignoring that fact.”

I kept quiet. Felt the soft trail of his hand over my back that apologized for the tone in his voice. “But you’re here now.”

“Yeah. I couldn’t even tell you where I’ve been. Everything…” he grew quiet. “Everything fades unless I’m with you.”

It should have been a compliment. Instead, it felt more like a prison sentence. A statement of fact. I didn’t respond.

“I wish my mom could have met you.”

I forgot, for a moment, to breathe. Waited to see what would follow. Which path this conversation would take.

“She was so beautiful. Hair like yours—curly. Never in control. She used to chase me around the house and it would bounce, like a third person in the room.” His voice dropped, as if he had fallen asleep, and I strained for more. When he next spoke, I could barely hear him.

“I can’t really remember my father. I was eight when they were killed. A drunk driver, some country-club asshole on a Sunday afternoon ran headfirst into their car. He lived, they didn’t.” The hand on my back had grown hard.

Silence.

“I’m so sorry, Lee.” I didn’t know what else to say.

He ignored the sentiment. Continued speaking like the words were bottled up and needed an escape, his voice tight and quick, each syllable dipped in anxiety. “I didn’t have any other family. Got put in the foster care system. I had eight different homes by the time I turned eighteen. Three of the homes were okay, five…” I heard the sound his throat made when he swallowed. The hand at my back was gone and I rolled over. I rested my head on his shoulder and wrapped my arm around his chest. Wound a leg through his, until every part of my body was linked with his. Gave him comfort in the only way I knew. “Five… were bad. I disappeared when I turned eighteen. Got a few thousand bucks from the state and took off.” His hand returned. Drew a line down my spine. “You and I… we’ve lived different lives. I’ve never been taken care of. Have never had enough to take
care
of another person, much less spoil a woman like you. My entire life has been about survival. Fighting to get where I am. To get to the point where I will be good enough for someone else.”

I said nothing. Just laid there, wrapped in his arms. Felt the moment when he stopped waiting for a response and fell asleep, his hands going limp and heavy against my skin.

It was a wonderful story. Poetic in its portrayal of his life. Endearing. The creation of this tortured, confused man before me. Perfectly explained his desperation for love, mixed with a side of I’llNeverBeGoodEnough.

Too bad it was all a lie. I laid in his arms and wondered how many women he had told it to.

Brant

In some ways we are so close to everything, to a life in which one starts and the other finishes, a joining so complete that we are one. In other ways…

We are a world apart.

Lies. Lies are keeping us apart. I started this relationship with one lie, a part of my past that I have locked away and hoped she would never find out about. She started this relationship clean and innocent, and has piled on the lies since then.

I want to rid us of all of the lies, wipe our slate clean with one confession session. But I am terrified to tell her my secret. And I am terrified to hear her tell me hers. I know it, but I don’t want it spoken, don’t want it any truer than what I already know.

I just want to know why. Why does she cheat on me? What do I not provide for her? What part of me is not good enough? Why, when her love for me burns bright enough to singe… does she sneak off with a stranger? My biggest fear is that she loves him. My biggest fear is that he has wormed his way into her heart.

I love her too much to share her. I hate him with a vengeance that turns my blood white.

I’ve had her followed. Met with a private investigator and had him spend a month tailing her. But she was too smart, his report revealing that she has spent time with only one man: me. Now, I have Jillian watching her. Tasked with finding out anything and everything about the man who holds the love of my life in his hands.

I am an intelligent man. I have been called calculating. But I am not cold; I am not unfeeling. My love burns as bright as hers, as does my possession. But my anger, my emotion, doesn’t simmer on the surface. It hides, in wait, for the moment when it needs to erupt.

“You won’t marry me.”

“Is that a question or a statement?”

“It’s the beginning of a question.”

“So… finish it.”

“I would, if you’d stop talking long enough to let me.”

I looked up from the pile of fruit before me, my hands on an orange that would have to be good enough, nothing else in the pile soft. I grinned at Brant. “So talk.”

He tossed a mango my way, weaving through the roadside stands until he was closer to me. “You won’t marry me… but why aren’t we living together?”

Yes, why Layana? I searched my brain for an acceptable answer, other than Lee. Pretty sure Lee wouldn’t agree to fucking my brains out on Brant’s bed. Then again… I had my downtown condo, the one that Molly and Marcus didn’t break in properly. It deserved a good round of fuckery. “Maybe,” I finally said, moving to the side, in front of the limes, Brant’s hand pulling at the back of my sweater, moving cashmere in a way that shouldn’t be moved.

“Maybe?” He wrapped an arm around me. Nipped at the back of my neck before staring down at me with a somber expression. “Maybe is your answer to my proposals.”

“It’s a good answer.” I smiled up at him. Raised onto my tiptoes and kissed his lips.

“It’s a horrible answer,” he grumbled, pulling me back when I tried to turn away. “Do you love me?”

I stopped. Set my basket down and wrapped my hands around his waist. Looked up into his face, the face that I loved more than life itself. “Of course I love you. Don’t ever doubt that.”

He leaned forward. Brushed my lips so softly I closed my eyes. Needed more. “Then move in with me,” he whispered. “Be my illegitimate girlfriend.”

“That wouldn’t be proper,” I said against his mouth.

“Then marry me,” he said, giving me a strong kiss and pulling off. Glancing around us with an exaggerated expression. “Do you want me to do it? Kneel down right here?” He patted his pockets, pretended to fish for a ring I knew damn well was in his office safe.

“No!” I cried. “For God’s sake, no. I will move in with you,” I promised, wrapping my arms around his neck and stealing one last kiss.

“You promised?”

“I promise.” Then I shrieked, his hands swooping me up, our basket tipping over, fruit rolling to all ends of the aisle. “Brant, what are you doing?”

“House-hunting.” He hugged me to his chest, deftly moving through the crowd, my head craning for our basket.

“What about the fruit?”

“I’ll buy you a house with an orchard,” he promised, setting me gently down on the ground next to his car, his hand opening the door and holding it open for me.

“Now?” I asked dumbly, stepping up into the cab, watching his face as he shut the door and moved around to the driver’s side.

“Now.”

“I thought I’d just move into your house.” House was really the wrong word for it. Mansion. Fifty thousand square feet of space he barely used. A basement lab he had spent ten million dollars outfitting. He couldn’t move. Wasn’t possible.

“It’s
my
house. I want
our
house. A place to build our future. A place you pick out.” He shifted into gear and tossed his phone into my lap. “Call Jill. Find out which realtor I should use, then get them on the phone.”

Our house. I dialed Jillian and wondered how well this would go over with Lee. Maybe I was making a mistake.

I bought my first house a week after my twenty-fifth birthday. Had a budget of three million dollars. Went crazy and spent four. Looked at twelve different homes before coming to the difficult decision of choosing one. With Brant, I expected even more of a production. It turned out to be ridiculously simple.

In my prior, paltry price range, I’d had to make decisions. Did I want the outdoor kitchen or the sun porch? The indoor theatre or a library? An oceanfront office or spare bedroom?

In Brant’s price range, every house had everything. And there were only three to choose from. The realtor offered a limo, but we drove Brant’s Aston Martin, winding toward the coast, the homes fifteen miles apart. Everything we could ever want for thirty million dollars.

It was an easy decision. The first one was a palace of ostentatious details, hand-painted ceilings, and heavy velvet drapes. It screamed old wrinkly money, and came complete with maids’ quarters and an entire floor dedicated to formal rooms we would never use. It did have a ballroom, a huge expanse I envisioned using in a variety of ways, the foremost being a skating rink for our future children. But the consensus, a look shot between Brant and I upon our exit, was that it was a no.

Windere was the second property, an estate high on the cliff, owned at one point in time by the Kennedys. It had four gated acres, nine bedrooms, tennis courts and an elevator that carried us the 42 stories down to the beach. It also came with a two-bedroom beach house, at the base of the elevator, a twelve hundred square foot gem with an attached spa and second pool. It had privacy, needed a staff of at least eight, and was a good half hour from Palo Alto, but it was comfortable. Modern. Us. It also had a six-thousand square foot basement. We were sold.

“This is it.” Brant clapped the realtor, a small woman with a large overbite, on the back. “Good work.”

“I have one more property to show you… in Santa Cruz… it’s a beautiful house…” Her voice faltered, and she looked to me for help.

“This one’s perfect,” I echoed Brant’s opinion. Looped my arm through his and beamed up at him.

“Draw up the contract.” He slid an arm around my shoulder, leaned down and kissed my mouth. “I love you,” he murmured, the realtor stepping away to give us privacy.

“I love you too.”

“First steps, right?”

I grinned. “First steps. Baby steps.”

He growled against my mouth. “Don’t say baby. I’m already wanting to see you pregnant, kids running through this house.”

The light in my heart faded slightly, and I pushed myself up, stealing a kiss before the emotion hit my eyes. “Let’s get one last look at our future home.”

“What’s going on?”

I looked up from my place on the floor, mid-wrap of a picture frame. Lee stood in the doorway, hands out in confusion. He looked around the empty living room, half the furniture removed last week and sent out for consignment. I leaned back. “Frank?”

A moment later, a shaved head stuck its way into the room. “Yes ma’am?”

“Can you round up the guys? Take them to lunch? I need some privacy.”

“Sure.” He nodded a hello to Lee and exited the room.

I hopped up, setting down the frame, and brushed myself off. “Hey babe.”

“What’s going on?” he repeated.

“I’m moving. I tried to call you. Been trying to call you. You should get voicemail.”

He looked around like he didn’t understand the concept, taking a few steps into the kitchen before returning. “Almost everything’s gone. When are you leaving?”

“Friday.”

“So, where’s your new place?”

“Not far.” I stepped forward, wrapping my hands around his body, my body flush with his, his reaction immediate.

He looked down, leaned over and pressed a kiss on my mouth. “Show it to me.”

“Now?”

He shrugged. “Sure. You look like you could use a break.”

I looked around, at my house full of half-packed boxes. A house that Frank and his team could handle. “Okay. Let me grab my keys.”

We took the Defender, Lee’s hands familiar on the wheel. I was tempted to give him the vehicle, his love of it apparent every time he sat behind the wheel. Maybe later. Now it would only cause a fight. Questions from Brant. Too much confusion, too much rocking of the boat.

A silent drive, the only words coming when I’d point out turns, give directions. I snuck glances at Lee as we drove down manicured streets, a world away from his part of town. His eyes moved constantly, his expression brooding. I knew this Lee. This was the insecure Lee. The one who grew hostile and irritable at my general life of luxury. The one who hated Brant with a fervor that scared me. Maybe today was the wrong day to show him the house.

“I’m starving.” I reached over, looped my hand through his. “Want to grab lunch first?”

“I’m not hungry.” He pulled his hand free. Down shifted. “Doesn’t your new place have food?”

I looked out the window. Swallowed my response. This was going to be a disaster.