Tell Me No Lies (Bright Lights, Dark Secrets Collection Book 4)

by Nolon King

  “And that’s why you’re suggesting that we keep her.”

  “As long as she stays sober, you won’t want to lose her. Jess Lindley is an asset to what you’re trying to build.”

  “What was your mood? What was it that she was so excellent at reading?”

  “She reminded me of an old ex-girlfriend,” he admitted, and it seemed to come with relief. “Someone I still think about every once in a while. She was like that … uninhibited. In control, unless I wanted to be. Great at reading my mood. That was sort of her super power, too.”

  “So an ex-girlfriend? Not your wife?” I smiled. “No shame in that. We all have fantasies. I’m just trying to understand.”

  “And my wife, of course. But more in the early days of our relationship. We’ve been married for twelve years, we have two kids. It’s just … different than it used to be. You know how it is.”

  “Of course.”

  For you.

  I knew how it was for a lot of people. But Dominic still made me wet with a look. We each had our extracurriculars; with a stable of willing stars and starlets we would be silly not to indulge, but things were still a smoldering constant between us. Regular married people were so depressing.

  “What was something she did that deeply pleased you? Something that isn’t in the write-up.”

  Ryan knew the answer, and his red cheeks were proof. He looked down and then away.

  “It’s okay,” I prompted. “Just tell me one thing, and then we’ll be done.”

  He took a breath and held my eyes. “She thanked me. Before we did it, she bent over, looked over her shoulder, and then whispered in the sexiest possible voice, Thank you for fucking me, I know how good this is going to feel.”

  “Wow. That’s hot.”

  “Yeah. It was.”

  “Okay, last question.”

  “You said that your last question was the last question.”

  “This is a follow-up question. Was there anything that would have improved your experience with Jess, or made her better in some definitive way?”

  Ryan looked far away as he thought, taking a moment to answer.

  He could take all the time that he needed. This was important.

  “I don’t know how to say this exactly …”

  “I’m sure you’ll find a way.”

  “I’m married … and I think that bothered her.”

  “Did she say that it bothered her?”

  He shook his head. “No. But you paid me to read her, right? Because that’s what I do. Well, it bothered her that I was married.”

  “Why did you tell her you were married?”

  “I didn’t, but I left my ring on, and I did that because ninety percent of your clientele, at least to start, is going to be married. That’s an area to navigate, not just with Jess, but with every one of your girls.”

  “That’s an excellent answer, Ryan. Thank you. I’ll look over the rest of the report with Dominic, then we’ll determine the best way to go forward.”

  “Of course.” He nodded toward the cabanas. “Do you mind if I use the restroom?”

  “Be my guest.”

  I waited until Ryan was out of sight, then I tapped the tablet glass and made Dominic appear.

  “You’re still sold on this guy?” he said, a second after I could see him. “I mean, a hundred percent?”

  “I am. Why aren’t you?”

  “He hesitates, and I know that’s one of the things that you like about him, but it strikes me as maybe too much. I’m not sure that he has enough faith in us to see the big picture, to understand what we’re trying to do.”

  “You can’t expect that to happen overnight.”

  “I don’t. But ultimately, this is about changing culture on a global scale. We can’t run an operation like Rosebud. They were fast and loose and putting everyone involved at risk. The girls and the clients.”

  “We’ve talked this into the ground, Dominic. We agree.”

  “Not about Ryan.”

  He was right. We rarely disagreed, and it was always like splinters in my skin when we did. But he was wrong about Ryan, I was certain.

  “Ryan is the one who helped us to exploit the gaps, he’s the number-one reason that we were able to take Rosebud down. We could end up running some second-tier operation like the one guy Bennett was telling us about.”

  “Hence, Blush.”

  “Exactly, but we have to do it the right way. And Ryan is a part of that. He’s important to the launch, if not downright essential. He’s what’s going to keep us from making mistakes we can’t afford to make. Trust me on this, Dominic.”

  “You know I don’t trust anyone else in the world as much.”

  “I do. So hear me on this. And do it now, he’s coming.”

  “You have all my faith,” he said, a second before I turned the tablet to black.

  Ryan sat across from me once again.

  “Thank you for all of your candor,” I said. “I know that wasn’t easy.”

  He shrugged. “It was more than fair. You and Dominic have been good to me.”

  “We want to keep being good to you, if you’ll let us. Do you realize how much I trust you, Ryan?”

  He looked unsure, but curious. “I guess.”

  “You signed an NDA before taking the job, but that’s just paperwork. Trust goes much deeper than that. Working with Ambrose put you close to something extraordinary, didn’t it?”

  Ryan nodded.

  “In some ways that was the best time of your life, right? Being a part of something remarkable? Helping to build something substantial from nothing?”

  Ryan nodded again.

  “And there’s a part of you that’s afraid that time is behind you forever, that you’ll never be a part of something that important again.”

  I could tell from his expression that I’d guessed right. I’m not too bad at reading people, either.

  “That’s why you got into this in the first place, isn’t it? To help people.”

  “Of course,” he replied.

  I made my final offer.

  He asked for a little time to think it over, but I already knew exactly what he’d decide.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Wednesday Afternoon …

  NATALIE

  Ryan surprised me by coming home early.

  The children were still in school and I was in the bedroom, getting ready for a client. I heard him a second before he appeared in the reflection behind me, and I couldn’t help jumping.

  I turned around and could immediately see that something was wrong.

  I wondered what it was, but didn’t want to care.

  He collapsed into me with heaving sighs.

  Ryan wasn’t crying, but I couldn’t help but feel like he recently had been. Stress seemed to be seeping out of his pores.

  Maybe he got in a fight with one of his little girlfriends, broke up with Jess Lindley, or lost a nonexistent promotion at his imaginary job.

  Whatever it was, I doubted it had anything to do with me.

  Ryan gave me a deep hug, heart to heart, like he used to.

  Time to put some of the acting ability I’ve been learning on the job to good use. If I could pretend to like Frank for an hour, I could pretend to still love my husband for a couple more days.

  “Are you okay, sweetie?” I asked, petting the back of his head. “I’m surprised to see you home so early.”

  He pulled away. “The job finished early. I’m just glad to be home.”

  I bet you are.

  Then Ryan lost some of his daze and seemed to really see me. He must have been really out of it to miss that I was nearly naked. Either that, or was just one hundred percent taking me for granted.

  I was wearing lingerie at two in the afternoon on a day when he was supposed to be out of town. I was fucked if I didn’t fuck him, make Ryan think that he’d spoiled his surprise.

  “You look amazing.”

  “Thank you,” I said, looking coy,
lightly licking my lips. “I wanted to be ready for you when you came home.” My voice fell to a whisper, sex a suggestion between every syllable. “I was practicing.”

  I could already feel his arousal.

  These days I kept mine at a constant hum.

  “What were you practicing?” His words came out a little too fast.

  I looked in the mirror and then down at my body. “Looking like a present so that you’ll want to unwrap me. Do you want to unwrap me?”

  Now he looked almost comical, his tongue practically wagging out of his mouth like a cartoon character.

  “Yes.”

  “Then what are you waiting for? I’ve been thinking about you all day …” I took a step closer and found his hands. “… waiting for you to come home so that I can fuck you.”

  He started panting as he reached for me.

  Every bone in my body wanted to hate him, but in that moment, I couldn’t. I’m not sure if it was because somewhere deep inside I couldn’t help but still love him, or because I was getting so much experience lately in separating my emotions from the sex.

  And the sex was hot. Scorching. Blazing enough that I didn’t think of Bennett and our first night together until halfway through the encounter with my husband.

  “Take off your shirt,” I ordered him.

  I lowered the straps on both sides of my teddy until my tits were fully exposed and Ryan was staring at them like he hadn’t in years.

  “You look beautiful.”

  “Shut up,” I said, surprising us both.

  I peeled off my panties and ran a finger idly over the blushing swell between my legs. “I got waxed, and I’ve been dying for you to see it. What do you think?”

  Ryan looked gobsmacked.

  “I can’t stop touching myself.” And then I showed him.

  “Jesus.”

  “If you’d be so kind as to take your pants off, I’d like to put your cock in my mouth.”

  The sex was hard and fast and filled with more passion than our bed had seen since the mattress was new. Ryan was mesmerized. This wasn’t the wife that he had grown accustomed to.

  Taken for granted. Lied to. Betrayed.

  Revealed his most disloyal, unfaithful, adulteress self to.

  This Natalie was confident, adventurous, playful. Neither his eyes nor his body could seem to believe it.

  But then, something unexpected.

  At first, Ryan was all smiles, stealing glances at my freshly waxed snapper, and then his face was suddenly full of something that I couldn’t understand and didn’t want to see. Something that made the moment a little too real.

  Guilt. His pain was obvious. I’d seen flashes of the same self-loathing on the faces of clients. I didn’t want to figure out where it came from, or even how to take it away, because fuck Ryan and his infinite lies. But I knew enough to get through this moment, and help him to finish — if I was reading the look in his eyes right, he was going to need it.

  This is what I was good at, maybe even best at, even though I hadn’t been doing it long.

  It’s what I did each day now, figuring out exactly what a client needed. Strip them of their pants and strip them of their pain.

  In that moment Ryan was no longer my husband. He was a client, no different or better than any other.

  I was a filthy, dirty whore, doing the job I was paid for.

  And as I finished him off with that in my mind, Ryan seemed to like it that way.

  “That was amazing,” he said, clearly wanting to luxuriate in the afterglow.

  But I didn’t. I had another client waiting.

  I hopped out of bed, walked over to the closet, and began to get dressed.

  “Come back,” he said.

  “I have plans.”

  “You have plans? I thought you were waiting for me to come home.”

  “I was. But you came home and we had a good time. Now I can go out with the girls.”

  “Haven’t you been going out with them a lot? Stay with me.” Ryan patted the mattress, and I hated him again. For making me feel guilty about doing what I had to do to protect myself, when he was the one who’d put me in danger.

  “Sorry,” I said, forcing a smile as I tugged a pair of low-rise jeans up over my ass, wondering how I could get my sluttier getup into some sort of go bag and out of the house without Ryan seeing it.

  “It’s hard, being cooped up all the time while you’re gone. But this is great for us both. We’ve already connected—” I glanced at the wet spot to remind him “—and now I can have a little fun with the girls while you bond with the kids.”

  “Okay,” he said, sounding defeated.

  I confess that I enjoyed that he was taking it as a rejection. It made seeing him at Cameo with Jess and Olivia sting a little less.

  He picked up the remote from his nightstand and aimed it at the TV, no longer paying attention to me.

  Good, I thought, crouching in the closet, stuffing clean lingerie and fuck-me pumps into a bag.

  Ryan was scrolling through the channels, still distracted.

  I looked at myself in the mirror, wanting to laugh at what now looked like a costume. I remembered Olivia mocking my mom clothes, and how much that made me want to change. But now I was like Superman, dressing as Clark Kent, pretending to be less super than I was.

  I walked from the closet to bedroom door, set my bag on the hallway floor, then returned to our bed and kissed Ryan goodbye. He was no longer scrolling, having settled on something he wanted to watch. The Emerald Escape, starring Bennett Cole, because of course.

  “I fucking love that guy,” Ryan said, smiling at the TV. Then he turned to me with big eyes that looked full of remorse and added, “But I love you more.”

  “I love you too,” I said, then kissed him like I meant it, but I was thinking about how Bennett had fucked me in the bathroom at Cameo and abandoned me. Somehow, that made it hotter. I can’t explain why.

  As I headed out the door, I wondered if I’d always been messed up, or if the job was making me that way.

  Either way, I didn’t know what I could do about it.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Saturday Evening …

  There was a constant aching like an echo inside me.

  I desperately missed Alec and Lena, but with Ryan home, I couldn’t stand being around the house. Part of it was that I didn’t want to be anywhere near him. But another part of me wanted a confrontation, wanted Ryan to ask where the hell I was going. So I could finally say some of the things I’d been carrying around since that awful night when Olivia walked back into our lives.

  I’d taken five appointments in between when he came home early and this morning. Yet my husband hadn’t questioned a single one of my domestic escapes. He sprawled in our bed all day, watching movies. Every time I asked him when he was going back to work, always casually, and never nagging of course, he would say something like:

  I’m not sure. Ambrose will let me know when he needs me.

  They’re reshuffling some things, but this is going to be good for us.

  I’m on break until Conquest gets their next contract. Isn’t that great? We can spend more time together!

  A few years too late, asshole.

  Now it was Saturday night. Not only had I been gone all afternoon, thanks to a series of unexpected events (Victor texted me the wrong time by an hour, the client wanted extra time and was a generous tipper, but he was also messy and I needed time to shower, but since his wife was coming into the hotel any minute, I had to book a room on another floor just to clean myself) I was much later than I promised I would be.

  But I opened the door and no one seemed to notice.

  I usually came home to a chorus of greetings, especially lately.

  Maybe Ryan and the kids were playing. That thought should have made me happy, but it was almost impossible to have any positive thoughts about him, even when I wanted to.

  Then it hit me. The scent. Downright sumptuous, and coming from t
he kitchen. I couldn’t remember the last time Ryan had cooked. The last couple nights he’d had takeout delivered — pizza, then Chinese. I’d figured tonight would be burgers from Sloppy’s, still one of his favorites.

  He used to come in and eat there when I was on shift, back in the days when he was pursuing me behind Olivia’s back.

  I heard happy laughter coming from the kitchen. So hurried into the living room — and froze.

  This couldn’t be good.

  Olivia sat at the table coloring with Lena. Behind them I could see Alec helping Ryan with dinner in the kitchen.

  What the ever-loving fuck?

  Had she told Ryan? Or a better question, what she had told him? Because she had to have told him something.

  I wondered if life as I knew it was over.

  But then I realized that life as I knew it had been over for a while.

  “Hi everyone!” I said, announcing my presence, my heart full of thunder and lightning.

  Ryan looked over from the kitchen, definitely a deer in headlights.

  Olivia smiled, looking smugger than a sommelier.

  Ryan tousled Alec’s hair and whispered something in his ear, probably about keeping the stirring going, then he trotted out into the living room, grinning wide with a smile full of lies.

  “Look who I ran into earlier today! Can you believe it? After twelve years? I insisted that she come over for dinner.”

  What a deceitful cocksucker of man. I saw Ryan run into Olivia after twelve years, just a few days ago.

  “Hi Natalie!” Olivia said, still holding her sommelier’s smile.

  I wanted to kill her. Kill him. Bury them both in my backyard, and do yoga on top of their graves.

  “Olivia!” I rushed over to greet her. “How long has it been?”

  It might be hard to believe, but the next hour and a half was worse than fucking Frank. I would have rather curled into a ball and let him beat off on me. That would have been better than pretending that I wasn’t dying inside, watching Olivia laughing with my husband, turning around to smile and wink and shrug and show me in every possible way that she was the queen and I was a pawn in a game that she planned to keep playing until I surrendered in full.