Lie to Me (12 page)

And she offered me a job. Like, to keep me out of trouble. To try to be a good influence on my life. She helped out with Dill when I finally got custody. In a very real way, Shantha stepped in and saved me, all over again.

So, when I come here, now,
that
is what I’ve trained myself to think about. I think about Shantha coming into my life, I think about Shantha showing me just endless patience and compassion, I think about this being the first place I learned how to have fun again, because of her. I don’t think about that night. I don’t think about Dylan, even though I still won’t use that bathroom.

And even though this is one of the reasons I don’t really date. It was already hard enough for me to feel safe in the world after Marcus left, and then Dylan happened. I haven’t felt truly safe since.

And I haven’t really been able to feel that way about a guy since Marcus, anyway, even though I’ve tried. I haven’t even wanted anyone until Marcus came back, because the only man I’ve ever really wanted is him. Which is why I’m so off balance, and Shantha is so excited to see me with a guy, and why I’m inevitably thinking about the night some asshole tried to rape me.

That’s why Marcus being here messes me up so much. It’s like two worlds colliding all over again. Marcus reminds me of how bad things got after he left, and of what almost happened here. And while I don’t blame him for it, but I can’t help feeling angry.

Or maybe I’m just looking for reasons to be mad at him. More reasons, I mean.

My head is all over the place right now.

“So what’s your idea?” Marcus says walking back over to me. He flips a chair off of one of the tables and straddling it in one smooth motion.

I stare at him.

“You think I’m going to tell you?” I say.

“Come on, I won’t spill,” he says, grinning. “I promise.”

He thinks I’m teasing. Somehow that’s more insulting than an actual insult, like he doesn’t take me or my feelings seriously. I take all that anger I’ve been stewing on the whole walk over here—or maybe I take all five years’ worth—and hone it down into one phrase.

“And what exactly is a promise from you worth, Marcus?”

I swear I can feel the temperature in the room drop. Shantha backs off without a word, finding something to do in the office with the door cracked open. Marcus meets my eyes, unflinching. He’s taken his jacket off, and now he folds those thick, corded arms over the back of the chair and leans forward, his expression serious.

“Lie to me, Lo, and tell me it’s a lot,” he says.

The second time. That’s the second time he’s said that to me. Knowing what it means. Knowing why I used to ask him to do that. There’s a crackling feeling around me while I stare at him, like the charge between us just doubled and it’s inexorably drawing me to him, even while I’m furious with him. That phrase did what it was supposed to: it reminded me of us, of everything, of the intimacy we will always have. Of those private moments I shared with him that I can never take back. Of how I want to tell him about the bad things that happened to me when he wasn’t here, how I want him to comfort me.

It reminds me that I love him and makes me hate him even more.

“Stop saying that,” I whisper. “You don’t get to say that to me anymore.”

Marcus stands up suddenly, toppling the chair. He doesn’t come closer, though I can see him struggling. Part of me wants him to come closer.

“The hell I don’t,” he says.

“It’s so shitty of you,” I say. “Why would you do that? Why would you make me think about all that? Why would you make me think about how I used to need you? Is it just to humiliate me?”

“No,” he says, angry. “It’s because maybe now I need something from you.”

We both seem surprised at that.

Marcus Roma, needing something from me?

His mind works faster than mine, gets there before I figure out how pissed off I am. He says, “Wait, Lo. I’m not saying you owe me anything. I’m saying I need you. There’s a difference.”

That shuts me up. And melts me.

I mean, actually melts me. I lean on a table for support, unable to take my eyes off him, feeling my knees turn to jelly. Five years ago this wouldn’t have been such an affecting statement. Five years ago I helped Marcus after his own father died, when we were already so close that we hardly had to speak to communicate, when I took it for granted that we needed each other. But then he left, and he left without telling me. Without saying goodbye.

This whole time I’ve been thinking how could someone who did that have loved me? How could someone who threw me away have ever needed me?

And here he is, the only man I’ve ever dreamed about, this gorgeous, perfect man, the only person who stood by me through the worst days of my life, telling me he needs me. And I can’t take my eyes from his face. He is beautiful; he has always been beautiful, with that golden skin, that strong jaw, soft lips. But now he’s beautiful because he looks…

Oh God, he looks like he’s hurting. Strong, but hurting. If there’s any guy who could take a punch at his weakest, it’s Marcus Roma. But I don’t want to hit him while he’s down.

I just want to touch him. I want to go up to him, touch his face, find a way to make this all better for both of us. Find a way to erase the last five years, for both of us.

And I hate that I feel that way.

It’s exhausting.

“Marcus…” I say, sitting down.

“We have a deal,” he says quickly. Like he thinks I’m going to renege.

“We have a deal,” I repeat. I just don’t know how I’m going to survive it.

I’m worried about what he’ll say next. If it will be the thing that finally cuts down my remaining defenses, that wears down my sense of danger, that gets through to me, and I’ll just be bare to him. Too weak to hold off what I know isn’t good for me. He won’t even have earned it. He’ll just have won forgiveness by attrition.

But I’m saved by a phone call.

Marcus doesn’t immediately look away. He’s still staring at me like he might never look away, and if it were anyone else it would unnerve me. Finally, his phone starts on the second cycle of the ring and fishes it out of his pocket, saying to me, “I’m sorry, it’s work.”

Meaning Alex Wolfe.

I take the opportunity to escape. I don’t even say anything; I just head toward Shantha’s office, shelter from the storm that is Marcus and all the memories that come with him. I almost get away.

“Lo, you working tonight?” he calls out after me.

I force myself to turn around and look at him one last time. I can handle that much.

“Nope,” I say.

He smiles, brightening the room. “Good,” he says, covering the phone with one hand. “I’ll pick you up for a morning workout.”

I swallow as I watch him walk out of the bar. Right. A morning workout. Just like old times.

Never mind that I am not nearly in the kind of shape that I was in five years ago. Suddenly that matters. Like it’s all I have left to fight with—showing Marcus that I still have the heart to kick his ass in a workout. Of course, that’s ridiculous. It’s just because I need something, anything to defend myself with against the onslaught of emotion, lust, and pain that is Marcus Roma.

I stagger into Shantha’s office, where she’s not even pretending to go over invoices so much as watching through her cracked office door. We both hear the front door open and close, and as soon as it does, Shantha shouts:

“That’s
the
Marcus? Holy shit! Why didn’t you tell me?”

I wince. “Yeah. I know. I really don’t even want to talk about it.”

Shantha drops her reading glasses down the bridge of her nose and looks up at me like I know I’m being unreasonable.

“Not an option,” she says.

“Fine,” I sigh. “I will tell you all about this train wreck right after I tell you how we’re going to save this bar and my house from those freaking developers.”

chapter 8

MARCUS

I know what the call is about as soon as I see who’s calling me. The last thing I want to do is leave Lo, but I can see she’s got whiplash or fatigue or something just from being around me for a little while, and I don’t want to push her too hard too fast.

So a phone call from Alex Wolfe it is.

I leave the bar, trying to keep myself under control, but I’m pissed off as soon as I pick up. And he knows why.

“What the fuck, Alex?” I bark into the phone, storming down Bedford Avenue. I don’t even know where I’m going, I just need to walk.

“Brison said you were in a bad mood.”

“This isn’t a bad mood. This is me reacting to a threat.”

“No one’s made any threats, Marcus.”

He is one condescending son of a bitch. But I know it won’t do any good to argue, to try to make him admit what he’s doing. The only thing that gets through to Alex Wolfe is consequences.

“Wrong, Alex,” I say, stopping where I stand like a rock in the stream of pedestrians. I want to make sure he hears this clearly. “I’m making a threat. You do not mess with her, do you understand? No one messes with her. No one.”

“Don’t raise your voice to me,” he says. I can hear him frown over the phone, and it almost makes me laugh.

“I’m not fucking joking, Alex.”

“I can hear that,” he says. “But I’m not seeing any progress, Marcus. We need her house. And approval from the zoning board will depend to some extent on whether the community objects. You know that.”

And bribes. It will also depend on how many bribes he can spread around. Short of a public relations nightmare, he’s not going to have a problem and we both know it.

“This is non-negotiable,” I say. “This is a hard line. I don’t want anyone messing with, approaching, or hassling Harlow Chase, and that includes Brison. And no goddamned dirty tricks, or I swear to God…”

“All right, all right.” He sighs over the phone. “You’ve made your point, you don’t have to get so upset. You know if you have concerns about things like this you only have to call. And I’d prefer that you and Brison try to get along for the sake of the business, at least.”

I close my eyes and breathe. I should feel bad for Brison Wolfe. It would be hard to grow up an only son with only a sister who is totally uninterested in the business and then find out you suddenly had competition for the top spot. But Brison is just like his father, and I don’t give a damn if I make him cry crocodile tears.

No. What really bothers me is how important it is to me that Alex Wolfe has put me next in line. That it still means so damn much to me that someone like him would believe in me. I’m still haunted by the fact that my dad didn’t.

“You know, Marcus,” Alex says. “You will have to make tough decisions if you are to head up the business. Keep that in mind.”

Asshole.

I know he’s an asshole. And he’s the only real father I’ve ever had.

I hang up and start the walk back to my shiny hotel, brand new, right on the waterfront. I tell myself what I always tell myself: when Alex gives me a bigger slice of the pie, I can start to change how we do business. I’ll have more control. I’ll be able to protect people like Harlow.

The thing is, I need to protect Harlow now.

Man, I did not plan ahead. This one time, I did not plan ahead. I got one look at Harlow’s face by the bridge and it became clear to me that all my previous plans were ashes. I don’t even have a plan to win her back, to make it all right, without telling her the truth about why I left the way I did.

If I told her, she’d go ballistic. And Alex Wolfe would destroy her and Dill.

So that’s right out. But how the hell do you show someone you always loved them, you always had them on your mind, if you can’t tell them the reasons why you left?

It’s while I’m staring at the clock by the side of my hotel bed, counting down the minutes until I can see Harlow again, that it comes to me.

***

I get a few hours sleep. Enough. I’m so bright-eyed and freaking bushytailed at the idea of working out with Lo again that I might as well have gotten the full eight. I end up jogging over to her house from the hotel in the murky gray light, smiling the whole way.

Walking up those stairs to ring her bell is a trip. She was always waiting for me back in high school, didn’t want to wake anyone up. And then when she was living with the Mankowskis, well, that was more of a sneaking sort of situation for a while.

I don’t know why this feels momentous, but it does. I ring and go back to wait for her on the sidewalk, bouncing up and down on my calves, happy as hell.

I have to remember she’ll probably be pissed to see me. But I don’t care. I'll take whatever time with her I can get.

She opens the door, wearing those tiny running shorts I remember, her hair tied back and her expression grim, like she’s going to fight me the whole way. And then something amazing happens.

After her parents died, it was bad. It was bad for a long time. I did anything I could just to try to keep her going, and one of the first things I did was get her back out to train with me in the mornings. She wasn’t sleeping much anyway, so it was at least something better to do. And just to mix it up, we started going to McCarren Park to run sprints on that track they have.

So this one morning, gray just like this one, we go over there, and the high school track team was setting up a bunch of hurdles. Or they were going to, because the hurdles were all just bunched together kind of close together right in the middle of the green. Lo sees them there and she just takes off in a sprint headed for that first hurdle.

You gotta understand, she had been so quiet those first few months. She didn’t talk much to anyone but me. I could barely get her to eat, to work out with me, to go to school. She did all that stuff only when I asked her to. She was like a shadow of a person. And then all of a sudden she’s in a dead sprint for a hurdle?

It took me by surprise, I will admit.

I wasn’t the only one watching her, either. Bunch of sleepy track and field kids were just as confused.

So Lo tries to jump that first hurdle at an angle, kind of lengthwise, so she misses the rest of them, since they were all kind of bunched together. Don’t ask me why. I doubt she even knew why. But she tried to clear that hurdle at a weird angle, and she clipped it.