Crowne of Lies

by Reiss, CD

  “Sorry about him. He’s a predator, so hide if you see him again.”

  “Noted.”

  “You look…” Gorgeous. Radiant. Stunning. “You look nice.”

  “So do you.” She slid her hand under my jacket’s silk lapel for a moment.

  “He’s right. Your name suits you. Star.”

  “Just one of many in the sky.” She shrugged.

  “The dress,” I said, trying not to stare at the way her breasts were pushed above the edge of it.

  “My father made it for my mother,” she whispered. “Princess Sikhanyiso wore a similar one to her brother’s wedding.”

  “I’m sure you look better in it.”

  “Sure.” She didn’t believe me, because we were fake, but I was being completely honest.

  “Why are your eyes darting around? Are you waiting for the cops to pick you up?”

  “Bianca. She’ll be here, and I don’t want her to see me wearing this. I didn’t ask.”

  “You mean you stole it?”

  “My name’s on the label,” she snarled, then smiled. “But yes.”

  Even though a stolen dress had the potential to complicate the evening, I laughed. Who wouldn’t be delighted at a crime so in character, so justified, and so aesthetically pleasing all at the same time?

  I offered her my arm. “Come with me, star.”

  She smiled and jabbed me with her elbow.

  Leading her across the room, I nodded to people I knew, and some I didn’t, avoiding all attempts at a conversation until we reached an archway with a velvet rope in front of it. I tilted the pole to let Ella through, turned a corner behind a floating wall of bookcases, then led her up the sweeping stairs that weren’t connected to the glass walls, giving the sense we were climbing air.

  “How big is this house?” she whispered as if we were in a church.

  “Not as big as Byron’s original plan.” I laid my hand on the small of her back to guide her and realized she was taller than usual. I looked down at her heels. “How are you in those shoes?”

  “These?” She kicked one up. I could have used the heel as a chopstick. “They’re vintage Papillion. I could walk a mile in them.” The shoe clapped down, and I guided her to a roped off stairway with two guards in front. “Where are we going?”

  “After the cocktail hour, family and friends are coming to this side.” The guards recognized me and opened the rope without saying a word. “She won’t find you.”

  We walked up to the rooftop together, where the view surrounded us on all sides, unbroken by glass corners or limited by a ceiling.

  “Wow.”

  She wasn’t reacting to a welcome separation from her tormentors, but the lights set up to draw pictures on the surface of the clouds.

  “My parents,” I said. “My mother’s glad to be near us. And anything that makes Mom happy makes Dad happy.”

  She looked away from the sky, and me, to the musicians setting up. The rooftop we called the Tower was bustling as the caterers got ready for the VIP guests.

  “My parents were like that. Dad let Mom run the business any way she wanted because it made her happy, and any success she had doing it made him happy. It was like a loop.”

  “My mother got a Master’s in English literature and never did anything with it so she could support my father full time. Perfect marriage.”

  “Of course.” She nodded as if it pleased her to know we were incompatible.

  “Here.” I laid my hand on the curve of her back again, feeling that overwhelmingly satisfying sense of control, and led her to a little table overlooking the pool of webbed bridges with the circular conversation pods. I held out her chair. When she sat, the silver gown pooled over the sides as if it had melted over her body.

  “Mister Crowne,” Maurice, the head of the catering company, said as I sat. “Can I get you something?”

  “I’ll have a Macallan. Rocks,” I said, then turned to Ella. “Anything for you?”

  She bit her lips back, then said, “Sprite with a little of that red stuff on top?”

  “I’ll have that sent right over,” Maurice said, turning on his heel and disappearing.

  “It’s a party,” I said. “You don’t have to drink Shirley Temples.”

  “I don’t want to get fuzzy. We have to keep our story straight.”

  “Right.” I spread my legs to opposite sides of the chair and leaned over the table to get near enough to speak with definitive, emotionless force. “Here’s the deal. You and I are soul mates. You make me a better person, and I make you stronger.”

  I put my hands over hers. My mouth hit the gas pedal before my brain put the next thought into gear.

  “I’m the only one who fucks you right.” A part of me wanted to take it back, but her lips parted and her eyes opened just enough to shrink my common sense into silence. “The first time I fucked you was in my garage. You pulled in. I had dinner reservations, but we didn’t make it out of my house. I took you on the hood of my Maserati.”

  “You have a Maserati?”

  “I do now. I made you come so hard every part of your body shook and you wept in my arms.”

  Her throat rippled when she swallowed, and though she was looking right at me, I knew she was looking into the place in her mind where my words had created a picture.

  “Mr. Crowne,” Maurice said from above us, “your drinks.”

  Ella pulled her hands from under mine so he had room to place her drink. The layer of syrup curled into the bubbling soda like fingers exploring their way to the bottom. He left the scotch with its single, perfectly clear ice cube in front of me and disappeared.

  Ella placed her fingertip on the edge of the glass and ran it along a half circle. “That was quite a third date.”

  Behind her, in the warmly lit foyer, people were coming up the stairs. Family first, Mom and Dad, arm in arm. Liam and his son. Byron had Garrett over his free shoulder.

  “First date,” I said. “It lasted three days.”

  Byron passed the baby over to Olivia and came toward us.

  “What are your parents going to think of me?”

  I stood and held my hand out for Ella, who let me help her up. “That it was love and it all happened so fast, we’re already married.”

  “Logan,” Byron said when he was in earshot, “I thought you’d disappeared.”

  “Just getting away from your cologne,” I said, shaking his hand. “It smells like spit up and diapers.”

  Byron smiled and faced Ella. “Don’t let him fool you. He’s turned out to be a real baby whisperer. Garrett refuses to cry when this guy’s in the room. Shuts off like a faucet.”

  “That’s kind of shocking.”

  “Byron,” I said, “I’d like you to meet Ella Papillion.”

  She held out her right hand and they shook.

  “Nice to meet you. Can I get you two a drink?”

  “I’m fine,” Ella said, reaching for her Shirley Temple. “I’m good.” She held it up with her left hand, exposing the enormous fuck you on her finger.

  Byron raised an eyebrow, then turned to me. “Logan. Anything for you?”

  “I’m fine, I—”

  “Oh, honey!” my mother cried, pushing past Byron with hands shaky from early stage Parkinson’s to kiss me. “Your father was looking for you.” She went right to Ella. “I’m Doreen Crowne.”

  “Ella Papillion.” Their shake took four hands. Mom wasn’t going to miss the ring. “So nice to meet you.”

  Then Dad was there, with my brother Liam and Uncle Rodney. Ella managed the introductions gracefully, laughing at the good-natured teasing we flung around. She and I stood close together, not knowing how much pretending was required until Lyric saw the ring.

  “Oh my God, Logan,” Lyric cried in a mixture of ecstasy and sisterly annoyance. “Is this it?”

  “Is what it?”

  She took Ella’s left hand and held it up. “Duh.”

  “Lyric,” Dad said in a soothing
tone, as if reminding a child to use her inside voice before addressing Ella. “There was this rumor that Logan bought a ring. Not that ring.”

  Ella looked at me and tilted her head toward my family, lips tight because it was my job to break the news.

  “She added two and two and got five again,” Byron said while Ella’s eyes were locked on mine.

  “At least he’d get married before he had a baby,” Lyric retorted.

  “Okay, boomer,” Byron shot back even though my sister was in her twenties.

  “Geriatric memeing gives me sadz.”

  This was going to devolve into a cage match right in front of Ella, who—up until lunch—was trapped by a stepfamily whose cruelty wasn’t as good-natured.

  “It’s a lovely ring,” my mother said.

  Dad was starting to separate from the pack to talk to Maurice. Guests were coming up the stairs and soon it would be too late to tell the people who mattered most.

  I took Ella’s hand. She squeezed.

  “I have an announcement,” I said. “Dad! Come on. Let Maurice do his job.”

  A few more words passed between them before Ted Crowne gave me his attention.

  “This isn’t my party. I didn’t want to steal my Mom and Dad’s thunder, but I’m impatient and…” I looked at Ella. “Someone very important to me thinks it’s wrong to keep secrets.” I turned back to my family. “So we’re about to be very rude, and tell you all, during this party for my parents’ move back to LA, that this beautiful woman let me marry her.” I put my arm around my wife and pulled her close.

  “What the fuck?” Lyric cried.

  “How long—” Olivia was interrupted by Garrett putting his finger up her nose.

  “Holy—” Lyric was beside herself.

  Byron took my hand, then pulled me into a hug. By the time he let go, the Crownes had turned into a swarm of hugs, kisses, and congratulations. Dad asked why I was keeping her a secret, and I said it happened really fast. Mom asked where we met, and Ella said Wildwood while I accepted two flutes of champagne from Uncle Rodney.

  Ella took the glass from me, we clicked them together, and I did what was necessary to convince my family we were real.

  I kissed her.

  12

  ELLA

  My quickened heartbeat started with the spanking text, sped up when Logan told me we’d fucked on the hood of his car, but when he gave me a champagne-flavored kiss, my feet left the ground. Surrounded by the elation of his family, filled with the helium of happiness, and grounded by his constant touch, I became a joyful liar. Forgetting I had to keep my story straight, I drank champagne, toasted to our future, and smiled so hard and so long my face hurt.

  Leaning over the Plexiglas wall around the upper patio, I pointed at the floor below, where a hundred people danced in the center of a huge blue pool.

  “Let’s dance!” I cried, pulling Logan downstairs.

  I’d forgotten why we were upstairs in the first place, and either Logan forgot as well, or he believed my signal that it didn’t matter anymore.

  Before we even got to the dance floor, I saw Bianca in a gown of jewel-colored silk ribbons my father designed. Mom had been frustrated by the cost of it, but every season, Dad got to do one outrageous, beautiful thing. Now my stepmother, the knockoff queen, was wearing it.

  She was laughing with Jean-Claude and Val Luke, batting her lashes like a milkmaid, turning flirtatiously, until her eyes landed on me. “Son of a—”

  “Ella.” Logan said with concern.

  “No.” Connected to her by the insult of her wearing that dress, I threaded through the crowd.

  The details of the ribbons were clearer now that I was close. The gold thread and interior seam finishing. My parents had argued over each element while I did homework at the cutting table. They spoke their own language. They were as passionate about their work as they were about each other.

  Bianca couldn’t defile my childhood happiness. I wouldn’t allow it.

  “Well, hello, Estella,” Bianca said. “So surprised to see you here.”

  “What are you wearing?” I hissed.

  “What are you wearing?” Bianca clenched the matching clutch, which had streams of feathered ribbon fringe on the bottom. “Wasn’t that in my closet?”

  Stolen. It was stolen and it was my right to steal it.

  “It’s got my name on it.” My drink was in my right hand, so I jabbed my finger in her direction with my left.

  “What do you have there?” She was looking at my ring, then at Logan and me.

  “Oh, this?” I said. “Well, Logan and I—”

  She’d pulled me into a hug before I could finish. “This is wonderful! You didn’t tell me you were involved!”

  There wasn’t an ounce of suspicion in her voice, but she was a great actress.

  “We didn’t tell anyone,” Logan said.

  “You must call me Mother from now on.”

  “I will.”

  “Oh, my God, you’re Mrs. Crowne!”

  “Not quite, I—”

  “I’m so, so happy! Jean-Claude!”

  The designer had been distracted by another guest, but Bianca pulled his shoulder.

  “Look!” She pointed at my ring, and I plastered on a smile to show him.

  He congratulated me and kissed both my cheeks.

  “So, that’s how you got invited,” he said with a little laugh.

  I wanted to slap him for every shitty way he’d undermined me since the day we met. “And how did you get invited? Plus-oneing I guess?”

  “Hey,” Logan said into my ear, “let’s dance.”

  “But—” The rest was lost in his insistent tug toward the open space, where he put his arms around my waist and held me close.

  “Breathe,” he said. “Just take it easy. Be nice to my stepmother-in-law.”

  “I’m sorry. That was childish.”

  “Eyes on the prize.” He spun me out and pulled me back into him. “Just follow me.”

  “I don’t dance.”

  “I knew that.” He dipped me, and I followed. “From the fall dance at school.”

  “Did you?”

  He yanked me up. “That’s the official story.”

  His parents were talking quietly by the rooftop railing. Doreen frowned, watching us.

  “I don’t think your mother’s convinced.”

  He glanced up at them, then back at me. “Let’s fix that.”

  When he leaned down to kiss me, I put my hands flat on his chest.

  Logan wasn’t my type. He had things I needed now, but nothing I wanted for the future. I’d die of boredom with him, and I was clearly not what he had in mind when he imagined a happy marriage. But some things needed to be said out loud.

  “Wait,” I said. “We have to get divorced at some point, and…” I paused to organize my thoughts and failed. “There’s a lot of kissing and… it’s necessary. I understand. But the thing is…” I stopped myself, meeting the cool blue of his eyes. “I don’t want you to get confused.”

  “About what?”

  “We’re getting divorced.”

  Anyone who heard his laughter without hearing what we were talking about would have thought he was delighted with the woman he loved. “Yes, Estella. We’re getting divorced.”

  “No feelings,” I said. “Right?”

  “None whatsoever.”

  “Okay. Kiss me.”

  It must have been the champagne and the music. Definitely the way his arms held me so tightly, rocking back and forth with the rhythm.

  No feelings, sure. But Logan kissed like he meant it, and the champagne fizzed inside me, bubbles popping up from the base of my spine, shaking long dormant nerves awake. His hands stayed in an appropriate position, but all I wanted was to feel them stroke lower, deeper, where I shuddered with desire.

  “Stop,” I said, pulling away.

  “You all right?”

  “Fine, just… I need a second.”

  “Y
ou’re flushed.” He brushed the backs of his fingers along my cheek. “That’s how I know you want to fuck. Make a note.” He spun me away and rolled me back.

  “How do I know when you want to?”

  “You’re in the room.”

  I laughed. It was such an act. So fake. So over the top, yet when he guided me in the dance with a smile on his face, I let myself live it. For one dance, then two, we were at our most convincing, acting as if there wasn’t another soul for miles. He looked at me as if he wasn’t faking it, and when he kissed me, I kissed him back as if it was all real.

  The music stopped as another round of trays came around.

  “Are you hungry?” he asked, running his lips along my neck. “There’s a room with dinner somewhere.”

  “We should mingle. I don’t want to make a bad impression.”

  He looked away, then back at me with a heat I didn’t expect. “If they could see what was in my head, they’d be impressed.”

  “What’s in your head?”

  “Getting my hand under your dress and finding out if you’re wet.”

  “Logan,” I scolded in a hiss. “We just said—”

  “We said no feelings.” He took me by the chin. “If I took you right now, fucked you raw, gave you a dozen orgasms and came deep inside you, it would mean nothing to me.”

  My panties were soaked through. “Me neither.”

  He looked over my shoulder as if he needed a moment to think, then found my hand and squeezed it. “Come.”

  He pulled me off the dance floor.

  “Where are we going?”

  We went down a stairway we hadn’t before, past a security guard, and into a closed hallway with double doors at the end. He pushed me into a wall with a kiss that wasn’t like the others. It was thoughtless, reckless, uncontrolled. It was a cyclone of desire I was already caught in, spinning upward, limp-willed with the force of it, because it was my whirlwind too.

  “Let me get inside you,” he growled, lifting fistfuls of silver fabric until he could get his hands under my skirt. “Let me take you.”

  Reaching from behind, he pressed his hand against the dampness of my underwear.

  I gasped. “No feelings. It means nothing.”

  “Just fucking.” With his free hand, he shifted a shoulder strap down my arm. “And a little sucking.”