First to Lie: An Enemies to Lovers Romance (Unraveled Book 1)

by Marie Johnston

  He hustled me inside and my eyes widened at the sophisticated cabin. What style would my old friend have called this? Business mogul contemporary?

  A man in a pilot’s uniform shut us into the plane and my chest squeezed in a burst of claustrophobia. He avoided looking at them as he disappeared into the cockpit.

  Wes settled me into a puffy leather chair, and as I stared around me, not sure if I should be thrilled, or scared, or both, he buckled me in. Somehow, I heard the click over my pounding heart. Wes sat next to me and buckled himself in.

  I craned my neck over the seats. There was no one else on the flight. This plane and the way it screamed make it rain fit the image of Wes’s headshot, the one Ephraim had shown me. Modern, upscale. I could imagine him in a suit by a designer I couldn’t afford to hear the name of, relaxed in a chair, swirling a glass of the Macallan he’d ordered the night we’d met.

  The Wes I pictured in this plane, looming in that office tower by Arcadia, was not the Wes I’d come to know, the Wes I thought I’d known.

  A man’s voice filled the cabin from a hidden speaker. “Sir, prepare for takeoff.”

  Wes leaned over. “I promised to cover all the safety measures with you in order to fly with minimal crew.”

  “What’s going on?” A tendril of unease snaked through me. A man who was pretending to be another man was stealing me away at night on a private jet.

  Mothers everywhere probably felt like it was too absurd to warn their daughters about situations like this.

  “Sam?”

  He did a double-take at the tremor in my voice and asked in an incredulous tone, “You’re not scared, are you?”

  “You have a private jet?”

  His expression shut down. “Business is good.” He shrugged, his tone flat. “What can I say?”

  I squeezed my eyes shut. I was so in over my head. He’d grown up manipulating people. What had I been thinking when I’d thought to fool him? Confronting him as soon as O found out was what I should’ve done. Hindsight shows the target on a fool’s ass, old Sam had always said.

  “I’ll save the real surprise for when we’re in the air.”

  My fingers curled to unhook my seatbelt as panic threatened to set in. “Take me back.”

  The plane lurched forward and I gripped my seat, white-knuckling it through taxiing. His hand landed on top of mine.

  “Relax.” His voice was surprisingly soft. “I have some business in New York, but I had something really important to talk with you about. Two birds, one stone, and all that.”

  As the plane sped up and the roar of the engine grew louder, I gulped, not wanting to be one of the birds he was dealing with.

  He held my hand all through takeoff until the cabin light dinged that it was safe to move around.

  He unbuckled himself and stood. “Lemme show you around.”

  I got to my feet and discovered my knees were wobbly. I didn’t fear Wes. He might be a monster in business, but while this situation and how he was acting sent warning flares up left and right, he would never physically hurt me. Seduce me, yes. Fly me to a strange city… We were flying to New York? I had to work in the morning. Could I use my cell phone to call Chris and see if he could open?

  “If you have to use the facilities, it’s that door there.”

  I spotted the narrow lavatory door.

  He swirled his hand where he stood by a glossy wooden table surrounded by four plush chairs. “This is my meeting room. Where we sit during takeoff and landing or when we want to ignore each other.”

  “We?”

  “My staff.” His piercing blue eyes pinned me in place. “If you want a drink, we have a fully stocked wet bar.”

  A glass of something strong sounded appealing.

  I forced my feet to move. “I need to use the restroom.”

  Shuffling past him, I kept my gaze riveted to the red-carpeted floor with each step instead of on him.

  “You don’t look well. There’s a bedroom beyond the toilet, if you need to lay down—after we talk.”

  I closed my eyes and paused briefly. Wes Robson had a private bedroom in his private plane. How charming. Was it an exclusive club of women that got to be in it?

  Why did it break my heart to think of him dallying with others in this plane?

  The lavatory made my bathroom look gloriously spacious. I leaned on the pristine sink counter, all two inches of it, and stared at my reflection.

  What was Wes up to? What had changed for him to surprise me? How much more could he do to me other than take my livelihood away?

  I took a fortifying breath and unlatched the door.

  “I didn’t think you were ever coming out.” He took a step toward me, the familiar heat in his gaze. “Do you feel like lying down?”

  “No,” I said abruptly. No matter what he was up to, I’d turn to putty as soon as he touched me.

  He stepped back, calm mask back in place. “Okay. So…have a seat.”

  I chose a plush chair on the opposite side of the table from him. He took a seat.

  We watched each other, like poker players not knowing what the other’s hand held.

  I glanced out the window. Nothing but black sky. “How long is the flight?”

  “About two more hours.”

  “Then New York, huh?”

  “Excited?”

  “I have no money, no luggage. And I work in the morning.” I ran my hands up and down what had to be leather armrests. When he didn’t reply, I struggled to find a neutral topic. “How was your day?”

  A haughty lift of a brow. “Informative. And yours?”

  “Fine. I had a nice visit with my mom.”

  His right eye twitched. “How is Wendy?”

  “She’s well. I haven’t told her I’m losing the store. Stress isn’t good for her.”

  Another near wince. Could I appeal to his sensitivities?

  “Why don’t you open another store again?”

  “Money. Not all of us have it.”

  “But you do.”

  “Pardon?”

  He reached down to a briefcase and withdrew a folder. “You have, in fact, over a million dollars.”

  I quit stroking the chair. He’d said his day was informative. Now I knew why. And this was how he wanted to talk about it, by mixing me in with New York business.

  “What’s this about, Wes?”

  “It’s about—” His steel gaze glared at me as it dawned on him what name I’d used. He reclined, a mask of calm in place. “I guess I don’t need to introduce myself. You continue to be full of surprises.”

  My hands twisted on my lap. “I didn’t know who you were until last Saturday when you visited the store. One of the guys recognized you and enlightened me as to who my new boyfriend was.”

  “Boyfriend?” His voice filled with derision. “Were we exclusive?”

  Ouch. Like a rabbit punch to the sternum.

  “I was,” I said in a ragged whisper.

  His only tell was the muscle jumping in his jaw. “And you happily played along.”

  “I wanted to show you how normal people lived since you seem to think I did something so atrocious.”

  Rage clouded his features. “Do normal people stop at cemeteries with their new boyfriends? That was dirty, Mara.”

  I swallowed. He was correct, it’d been a desperate move and one that probably had torn him apart.

  “Sam was my friend and I miss him. I thought you’d finally see how much he meant to me and that I wasn’t using him.”

  “You seduced him.”

  “I did not. And I resent that because I have breasts, you think I’d use them to get what I want in life. Do you do that when you’re working? Have sex to get a contract?”

  His expression turned incredulous. Well, there was that about him. His work ethic didn’t cross the line even if he did in other ways.

  “Sam and I were friends.”

  He barked out a laugh. “I have a good friend and at no time have I
ever thought to offer him any of my properties or holdings for a mere dollar.”

  The tension drained out of me. He didn’t believe me and countered with arrogant confidence every point I made. So, this was the real Wes. The man people faced in the boardroom. The guy a whole neighborhood in New York despised.

  “Is your friend on the brink of losing his home and the care his mother needs?”

  “He works for a living.”

  I recoiled like I’d been slapped. “I work hard for what I have.”

  He flung a sheet of paper across the table. “Except for the cool million that was given to you.”

  I scooted to the edge of my chair to double-check the paper. “My trust? Is that what you’re talking about?”

  “Who’s William Kostopoulos?”

  I stood up and threw the sheet back at him. He flinched but the paper only fluttered to the floor. “My grandfather.”

  The cabin wasn’t large, but I had a good five steps to pace in anger.

  “Your mom was never married. He’s not a Baranski.”

  I planted my hands on my hips and faced him, leaning forward. “Have your people do a better job. My mom took her stepdad’s name. My grandparents divorced when she was a baby. My grandma remarried and they moved out of Greece. Grandpa Kostopoulos died when I was young, but he distributed his wealth to all his grandkids, me, and the ones from his second wife. I told you I had a soft spot for Greece. Arcadia? Get it? As for the money, I used some to open the store and the rest is going to pay for Mom’s treatments and nursing home care.”

  His only reaction was the slight narrowing of his eyes. My grandparents’ story didn’t move him? My use of the money? Good grief, the real Wes was intimidating. And heartless.

  “Cornering me in this plane was despicable.”

  He didn’t stand but leaned forward in his chair. “Me? Between you and Sam, I don’t know who makes me more sick.”

  Not even a raised voice and here I was quivering from hurt and anger.

  “Sam loved you. And I didn’t seem to make you sick all those times we had sex.”

  He lifted a shoulder. “Occupational hazard.”

  I blew out an exaggerated puff of air. My heart seized like a vice had tightened around it with the stark realization he in no way cared for me. At all.

  “Explain why an old man latches onto a woman in her early twenties.”

  “He had no children that spoke to him and I had no father.”

  “Still with the ‘just friends’ story?” He reached back into that damn case and extracted two more papers.

  He had more on me. My heart hammered and dread rose. Please, no.

  “What about Dr. Jake Johannsen? Were you two just friends? His wife—excuse me, ex-wife—didn’t think so.”

  My face grew cold as the blood drained from it. He went there. Took my nightmare and used it against me.

  “Jake was a sexual predator.”

  “Was that why you fucked him for a better grade?”

  Hot tears rolled down my face. “Did you see the rest of my grades? As and Bs. Did you ask yourself why I was suddenly failing? Because I certainly didn’t understand. And maybe I would’ve thought about it if my mom hadn’t been so sick and if I hadn’t been making myself sick trying to care for her.”

  Wes settled back and crossed one leg over the other and clasped his hands in front of his stomach.

  At least he was willing to listen.

  “I couldn’t afford more school. I didn’t know about my grandfather’s trust because I was still twenty-one and I wasn’t supposed to get it until I turned twenty-two. Mom didn’t tell me partly because she didn’t believe it herself and partly because she knew I’d use the money for her.”

  I paced. Tears dripped onto my shirt. “Then Jake was all ‘let’s talk in my office’ and he was so understanding. I poured my heart out to him. He didn’t wear a wedding ring, you know. No pictures around the office.”

  I didn’t quit moving. Wouldn’t look at Wes. I hadn’t told anyone but my therapist what had happened.

  “I didn’t plan to sleep with him. I wasn’t interested. Then May rolled around and I was sitting five points below a D. ‘D for degree’, right? I was so desperate. He listened to me, kept telling me it’d be okay. And I let my guard down and he made his move. I said no, but he said he wanted to help, and I was smart enough to know I wouldn’t pass if I didn’t have sex with him.”

  I shoved my bangs out of my face. “He was a handful of years older than me so I didn’t think it’d hurt anyone else. Then he kept wanting it, and there were only two more weeks of school. I just had to make it two more weeks and I’d be done and get the passing grade.” All those emotions rolled back. Humiliation, stupidity, the shame. Turned out I still hated myself for it. “But he had a wife and she found out what his late hours meant and she gunned for me hard. I couldn’t blame her.”

  Drawing in a ragged breath, I faced Wes, who hadn’t moved. “I’m certain he tampered with my grade, and I even made the accusation, but the wife had more pull than I did. I didn’t graduate and was looking for a job when we got news of the money from my grandfather.”

  “Convenient explanations, all of them.” His lip curled in disgust.

  Her temper snapped. “What do you want, Wes?” I shouted and abruptly lowered my volume. “I’m not the villain. I had a successful and generous grandfather and a piece of shit professor. Sam had no friends. All he had were memories of his time with you.”

  “Yet he spent all his time with you.”

  “So. What,” I spat.

  “Do you know how much that strip mall is worth?”

  I flung my hands out. “I don’t give a shit.”

  “Tens of millions.”

  Much of my anger drained. “Bullshit. It’s a run-down, old building.”

  “Look what it’s surrounded by. I quoted list price. It would’ve assessed at much more. You were going to fleece Sam for millions. Oh, I’m sorry. Twenty-nine million, nine hundred ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred, and ninety-nine dollars.”

  “He wanted to help me because he knew you wouldn’t,” I hissed. “You’re too much like your mother.”

  Wes shot out of his chair. “I am nothing like her.”

  He glared at me and stalked around the table. I backed up and with startling clarity realized it wasn’t because I was scared, but because the real Wes was more potent than watered-down Wes.

  “I’m sure Sam told you a lot in your time together.” His tone was ice.

  “He did. Because that’s what friends do. Unlike you, he supported me.”

  “It’s what men around you seem to do. Support you a whole lot.”

  I reared back. “You’re talking about my grandfather.”

  Now Wes’s hands were planted on his hips and he towered over me. “I’ll have to verify who he was to you.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Regardless, your track record with a professor doesn’t shine a positive light on your relationship with Sam.”

  “I was taken advantage of.” I bit out each word.

  “So you decided to do the same to an old man? You’re a millionaire and it wasn’t good enough for you.”

  “Are you serious? How far do you think a million will go if my mom lives ten years? Twenty years?” I choked back a sob because I doubted her mom would make it that long. “And let’s see, factor in at least two hospital stays each year, plus her medication? I’ll be lucky if that money lasts a decade.”

  Wes’s attention was zeroed on me, but for once, he seemed to consider my explanation.

  I swiped at my eyes. “I’m glad you met my mom because you probably wouldn’t even believe I have one.”

  His right eye twitched.

  “Oh my god. You didn’t believe I had a sick mom?” I blinked. I pulled my shoulders back and straightened. “And after we started dating? Has nothing I’ve done convinced you that I’m not a leech?”

  Like that, the hardness snapped
back into his gaze and he cocked his head. “You mean when you were willing to sleep with me hours after we met?”

  “You were the same, only you were lying about who you were. Again, is it worse because I have boobs?”

  His livid gaze dropped to my chest. Right eye twitch. “What I witnessed, dating you, was a woman who whined about her store being shut down, but did nothing to secure work in the entire forty-five days I gave you.”

  “A month and a half to replace my sole revenue stream that took years to build?” I threw my hands up. “How generous of you, Wes. And as for going out and getting a job, do you know how much anxiety I have at the thought of being coerced by another person? I’ve been looking for women-led companies, but that doesn’t guarantee my supervisor won’t be a man. I couldn’t even partner with Chris on a new location.”

  Wes had a does not compute look to him.

  “Yes, Wes. A man offered to help me and I turned him down. And as for why you didn’t see me applying for jobs, it’s because you were trying to get into my bed every time we were together.”

  That snapped him into a defensive posture. “There were no arguments from you. And I have no doubt that you would’ve been digging into my wallet eventually.”

  With one hand on my hip, I pinched the bridge of my nose with the other. There was no getting through to him. Not after he’d dated the real me and still thought I was a shallow freeloader.

  “What was all this about?” I dropped my hand to look at him. “Why surprise me with a trip to New York and not reveal your lurid findings at my place?”

  His jaw worked and I wondered if he even knew the answer. “Because I had to come here for work and I wasn’t going to sit and let you plot while I was gone. You’re running out of time.”

  “I’m aware.”

  “Despite how even more men are willing to help you otherwise.”

  “More men? Are you talking about Ephraim? Then I guess you’re right. He offered and I took him up on it. No sex involved, FYI. The city council,” I wasn’t going to shine a light on Chris though Wes could probably guess who was behind it, “well, that’s a woman, and you pissed her off all on your own. In fact, Ephraim’s not so much helping me but going after a greedy, emotionless, conscienceless corporate tycoon who doesn’t give a damn about anyone without enough zeroes behind their name.”