“Yeah, and it looked like it was working because he thought it was working. It wasn’t. They removed him from the trial after they realized the results weren’t there. It had nothing to do with the money. In fact, I offered to pay for more treatments elsewhere. Hank said they wouldn’t help, but he did ask for a favor.”
I refused to accept this.
If Dad’s death had nothing to do with money, I wasn’t guilty. I didn’t play a hand in killing him. That meant, all this fixation on revenge over the past four years amounted to… nothing.
I downed that beer, too. “What’d he want from you?”
“He asked me to take care of his family, but I knew you wouldn’t let me.”
“No shit.” I crushed the can and added it to the stack. Looked better than the dead flowers soiling the other graves.
“I was your seed investor.”
My hand hovered above a new can. “My seed investor was a Saudi oil—”
“—prince named Zayn Al-Asnam.” His sly smirk begged to be punched. “I know. He’s a character from 1001 Arabian Nights. I had a cover story made, a shell company founded, the works.”
The windfall from insider trading on Winthrop Textiles stocks started Prescott Hotels, but Al-Asnam’s—Gideon’s—investment turned it into an empire.
Shit.
No part of my life went untouched by dirty money and devious lies.
I flicked lint off my joggers. “That means you know I had my own money going into this.”
“I know where it's from, too.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
Or turn me in?
“I admired Hank Prescott. I enjoyed his company, friendship, and sometimes, advice.” Gideon leaned forward and wiped a smudge off the gravestone.
I noticed that it appeared in far better condition than the rest of the ones in the cemetery. How often did he come here?
Gideon continued, “I regretted the way Virginia treated your family, but she needed to control the household. It gave her something to do outside of pestering Emery and scheming. I also know you stole the ledger the night of the cotillion.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I saw you burn it. If not for your dad, I still wouldn’t have turned you in because of what you did for my daughter. We all knew you hospitalized Able. He only pointed at Reed, since he knew hurting your brother would cut you deepest.”
To this day, my relationship with Reed had never recovered. Small Dick was smarter than I gave him credit for.
“How do you know I burned the ledger?” I thought of the charred remnants I’d locked in my safe before driving down here. Still viable evidence. Against the thief. Against me. “You were holed in the office with Eric Cartwright and Virginia. You couldn't have seen.”
“I saw the replay. I had hidden cameras installed in the mansion when I became suspicious of Virginia.”
The second profiting party Brandon Vu had mentioned.
“She was the one who embezzled,” I said, a statement. Not a question.
I pieced it together, mostly because I knew Dad would never befriend someone who'd hurt so many people.
“I figured it out too late.” Gideon's lament seemed genuine. “I stole the ledger from her and would’ve turned it over to the S.E.C., but you took it after I confirmed Balthazar and Cartwright’s involvements. Why’d you burn it?”
“Emery. She stood up for Reed and got you to negotiate his release.” I shook my head and raked a hand through my hair. Regret felt like a bullet to the skull. All this could have been prevented if I’d left the ledger where I’d found it. “She’s loyal as hell.”
Gideon hummed in agreement. “Why’d you take the ledger back from the fire?”
“I overheard you arguing in the office.”
“If Emery finds out, I will cut you off, Virginia, and I will sue you for everything you own, Cartwright,” Gideon had warned, his voice steady and threat real.
“Please,” Virginia scoffed, “she already knows. Why do you think I sent her to that shrink to set her straight?”
“I thought Emery knew about the embezzlement and kept it from my family,” I continued, “despite knowing we’d invested everything into your company.”
“That wasn’t what Virginia meant when she said Emery already knew.”
“What’d she mean?”
“Virginia needed money to leave me. I would’ve given her a divorce settlement to keep her out of our lives, but she’d signed a prenup. It made her uncertain. So, she embezzled from the company. First a little, but she got greedy.”
He toyed with his words, selecting them like you would a pet. With careful consideration. “I had plans to turn her in, but she had something over me. If I kept my mouth shut on her involvement in the scandal, said nothing about Eric or Balthazar, and left Eastridge, she’d keep her mouth shut.”
“They deserve to pay.”
“I can’t go after them. Not without Emery suffering.”
And then he explained the argument I'd overheard in the office.
He spilled his secret, telling me the one thing that could convince me to keep this from Emery.
I didn’t agree with lying to her, but I agreed she needed to find out from him.
She was a plot twist. A surprise. The curveball thrown at me near the end of the book. If I wanted to reach the happy fucking ending, I needed to embrace the twist and fight my way to the finish line.
I couldn’t keep secrets from her.
If I didn’t tell her, I would lose her.
But if I told her, I would hurt her.
So, when the man I’d spent four years seeking revenge from asked me to keep his secret, I agreed.
Even if it meant losing Emery.
“What if the only word people knew was thank you?” I asked from the floor of Nash’s penthouse.
I laid on the living room carpet, rolling around in four king-size comforters. Excessive, yes, but so plush. I imagined riding a unicorn through a wave of rainbows and cotton candy clouds compared to this.
Being sick is amazing.
My excuse for missing work the past four days ended yesterday, but I’d convinced my hot boss to call in sick for me. (Nash. Not Chantilly.)
The philophobia shirt rose up my stomach. I didn’t bother to lower it. Nash sat on the couch, wearing nothing but dark gray Nike joggers, scars on display for me to feast on.
Tipping my chin at the extra comforter, I summoned it with my eyes. In reality, Nash tossed it on me, adding to the pile of bliss.
He watched me turn myself into a human burrito, lips finally—fucking finally—turned up since his visit with Dad. “That’s two words.”
“Humor me.”
“Thank you would become meaningless.”
“Or everything would improve. Think of it this way—would you rather say you’re sorry for being late or you’re thankful someone waited for you? I’d rather be thankful than sorry.” I mimicked an explosion with my mouth. “Boom! Game changer. Perspective forever altered.”
He muttered something under his breath and gazed at me with hooded eyes. The joint cradled between two fingers came from Reed’s stash. He never lit it, but I often caught him toying with them.
“What’s with the weed, Seth Rogen?”
He discarded it in the plastic baggie and set another blanket on me. “Fucking hell. Twenty Questions again?”
I rested my chin on my knuckles. “Do you consider yourself sentimental, Nash?”
“Why?”
A hum vibrated the back of my throat. “It’s just that you're walking around with weed from the night I baltered for you, and you sent my Easy, Tiger shirt to the dry cleaner’s instead of donating it like I asked you to.”
Even though I wanted to keep the shirt, I always donated them. I needed all the good karma I could get. That included spreading magic words and helping people who need it. If I caved and kept the tee, I’d do it again and again.
Nash made the
choice for me.
“Emery?” He ran his fingers through his hair. Once, which I noticed he only did for me.
“Yes?”
“You ask too many questions.”
“Fine.” I lowered my head into the cloud of blankets. “Another comforter, my servant.”
His deliberately blank face drew a smile from me. He dropped another comforter on me.
I groaned into the clean laundry scent. “Remind me to never give up amazing blankets again.” Bye, bye, shitty quilt and your sleepless nights and endless holes. “Where did you get these?”
“Delilah had our supplier ship them over early.”
“Remind me to kiss her.”
He lowered himself beside me. “Or you can learn the way capitalism fucking works and reward the person who paid for them.”
I rolled onto him. The tips of our noses kissed, the faintest of touches.
Grinding myself against him, I whispered against his lips, “I hate capitalism. People exploit people, and there’s a reward for it.”
“Really?” Two hands dipped below my shirt and curved around my waist. “Seems like you’re good at it.” His fingertips brushed the undersides of my breasts. “Seems like you fucking love it.”
“Why did I avoid roommates my entire undergrad?” I traced my favorite scar, admiring the grooves. “This is amazing.”
“Roommates?” The pad of his thumb circled a nipple. “You’re not my fucking roommate, Tiger.”
“Yeah? What am I? Wait.” My nails dug into him as if it’d make him less likely to avoid the question. “Better question—do you think this is just lust?”
His jaw clenched, and I recognized the moment he withdrew from the conversation. From us. “You’re supposed to wait until you’re not sick to ask.”
“We made out yesterday, and the day before, and the day before.”
“Which probably means I’m sick, and now we have to wait until I’m not sick.”
I groaned and plopped onto my back. “What happened with my dad?” My eyes pleaded for another smile or, at the very least, a breadcrumb of what had transpired in Blithe Beach.
He avoided the question, a pro at this point. “They’re filling the pool tonight.”
I accepted the subject change with the reluctance of a starved toddler being fed something she hated. “No, thanks.”
“You have something against pools suddenly?”
“I'd rather christen it while it rains.”
“Of course, you would.”
I propped my head with my fist. “The end of the rain season is nearing.”
“I draw the pillow-talk line at discussing the fucking weather.”
“We haven’t fucked,” I drawled out the word, letting him know what I thought of our abstinence. “So technically, this isn’t pillow talk.”
He’d flipped the switch from scorching hot to lukewarm. It made no sense to me, and given the timing, intuition forced me to consider something had gone down between Dad and Nash. Whatever it was, I had to trust Nash wouldn’t keep something big from me.
We were beyond that.
“Let’s swim when it rains,” I suggested. “I want to be the first in the pool.”
Hopefully, on my birthday in two days.
Nash nodded his agreement and stood. He approached his desk, grabbed a box from the drawer, and handed it to me. “It’s the stuff for the phone screen.”
“Oh.”
I unraveled the package, doing my damnedest not to shake at his attention. So much pressure. The familiar steps came to me in an instant. I twisted the pentalobe screws, taped the display, and used the suction to remove the current screen.
Nash never moved his eyes from me during the process. When I finished, I handed him the phone, muttering magic words for good luck. He plugged it into the lightning cable. It took a few minutes, but thank Starless Skies, it turned on.
His fingers toyed with a few buttons. He opened the Photos app first. Pulling up a family album, his thumb raced down the screen until it came to a section of a picnic. He handed the phone to me.
I scrolled through. A lump bubbled in my throat with each passing picture. “Reed told me about the picnic. Your mom’s packed food rotted during the hot car ride.”
“We ended up splurging on fast food we couldn't afford.” Nash laid back on the comforters and watched me savor his memories. “Reed and I agreed to pretend we were okay. Ma and Dad pretended they were okay. A lot of fucking pretending going on.”
“I can’t tell. Everyone looks happy.”
“We were. Eventually. Fuck, I’m glad we had that day,” Nash said, but his eyes carried ghosts. The kind that looked real enough to touch. The kind that couldn’t be silenced by anything.
I returned his phone, telling him about the time Hank caught me talking to one of our neighbor’s cows. It struck me that this might have been the only time he’d truly talked about his dad since his death.
We stayed up all night, recalling our favorite memories of Hank.
By the time we fell asleep, I’d planted flowers in Nash’s graveyard of haunted memories.
Wilted ones, because those were me.
And he watered them with stormwater, because that was him.
“It’s my birthday. Ask me what I want.” Emery wiggled into her jeans, buttoning them.
Don’t ask me what Gideon said again.
Every time I skirted the subject or shrugged her off, I felt like a dickhead—or the liar her parents turned out to be.
I downed half my Gatorade and returned the bottle to the fridge. “You want me to ask you what you want for the day you, yourself, claim is meaningless?”
“I called birthdays a lie, said people aren’t special, and told you days of birth shouldn’t be celebrated, but I never said they’re meaningless.”
She tossed the lunch bag into the recycling bin and hid the note I’d written her in the Jana Sport when she thought I wasn't looking.
I always look, Tiger.
“Semantics.”
“Sure.” She tipped a shoulder up, giving me the stare you’d give a D-student when he claimed he earned an A. Sure, you did, Little Timothy. I believe you. “Maybe you should get your Insta Cart shopper to pick up some B12 vitamins with your next order. Your brain could use the boost.”
“A convenient memory, considering you're staring at me like you want something.”
“I often stare at you like I want something.” She lifted a brow, making it clear what that something was.
Not like I asked for these fucking blue balls.
I wanted her, craved every goddamn inch. But sex with Emery would only make things worse when—not if, but fucking when—she learned the lie I kept from her. Worse, if I saw her vulnerability and had sex with her anyway, I’d be just as bad as her shitty parents.
So, I turned down her advances.
Every. Goddamn. Time.
She waited for my answer. After it didn’t come, she collected a towel from the closet, stuffed it into the Jana Sport, and left.
Dramatic, this one.
Following her, I reached the elevator and stepped in beside her.
Neither of us spoke.
I wore a suit for a teleconference this morning with the landowners in Singapore. Meanwhile, Emery dressed in skinny jeans and an alexithymia shirt, which I’d Google’d as soon as I saw it.
Noun.
The inability to identify and express your feelings.
She was the loudest when she was quiet.
Emery selected the lobby button. “Do you miss your dad during your birthdays?”
I read between the lines, taking in the downcast eyes. Torment created grooves between her brows. I could have spilled the lie and eased her pain, but I didn’t.
She was glass, chipped all over, and I shattered her instead of mending the fractured pieces.
“Are your birthdays hard without your dad there?” she pressed.
I should have answered her, but I didn’t. Of cours
e, I wanted Dad here for my birthdays. I wanted him here every damn day. If only to yell at me for making poor decisions or turning into one of the corporate dickheads we used to make fun of, that’d be okay, too.
My answer didn’t matter. Sure, she wanted to know, but what she’d really asked was whether it was normal for her to miss her dad today.
“You can see Gideon.” I blocked the doors when they slid open. “You know where he is.”
Gideon had deluded himself into believing she’d cave and visit.
She wouldn’t.
It takes strength to want something and deny yourself the craving. And Emery Winthrop possessed a strength so great it broke her and pieced her together. Again and again. A diamond, toughening under pressure.
Something drastic would have to happen to bring her to his doorstep. I held that power—that lie.
Sisyphus, I reminded myself.
A liar and a cheat.
I’d come full-fucking-circle, and I wanted off the damn carousel. It reeked of piss and bad decisions.
“I can’t.” Her palms met my chest and shoved.
I didn’t fight it, listening to her footsteps echo.
The hotel resembled a scene from The Walking Dead. Moments before the zombies come, when everything is still empty. A rarity, given the quick pace of our construction.
The design crew had escaped for the weekend. Rain gushed down in heavy onslaughts, so none of the construction crew remained.
And of course, of fucking course, Emery swung the beach-front exit open with little concern for the tempest and walked straight into the storm. Wind whipped her hair. Her shirt drenched in an instant.
She peered up at the sky, undeterred by the liquid splattering her face. In this moment, I couldn’t see a single difference between her and the storm.
I tried and failed to get a read on her. She muttered a few words, my very own siren. About a minute later, two clouds parted, revealing the starless sky. Almost enough to make me believe in her magic. Not magic words, but her magic.
“I knew you’d show up for my birthday,” she whispered, talking to the sky as if it was her oldest friend. “This storm’s not bad, but you can do better.”
Devious Lies: A Cruel Crown Novel Page 40