It sounded great. I fired back an affirmative and by the time I was done cleaning up, a small stack of pancakes still remaining, I got another text from Maggie letting me know she was there. I buzzed her up and opened the door as soon as she knocked.
“Hey!” she said, strolling into the apartment like she didn’t have a care in the world. “Damn, I always forget how swanky this pad is.”
She dropped her stylish purse onto the couch and turned to me.
“Don’t get too comfortable,” I said. “This time next month I’ll be lucky if I’m not living in some basement apartment underneath a corner store.”
“Oh, don’t be so negative. You’ll be back up on your feet in no time.” Her eyes fell onto the stack of pancakes left over from breakfast. “Mind if I get in on those?”
“Go for it.”
She stepped over to the pancakes and speared herself a few with a fresh fork, dropped them onto a plate, and covered them with syrup. Once her meal was ready, she sat down at the table and tore into them like she hadn’t eaten in days.
“Damn,” she said, shaking her head. “These are so good!”
“Aren’t they though?” I said. “Caleb made them himself.”
Her eyes went wide. “You mean I’m eating food prepared by the great Caleb himself? I’m honored.”
“Yeah.” I took my coffee and sat down across from her. “He said they were a treat he liked to make for himself and his little brother when they were going through the foster system.”
“Aw, isn’t that sweet. But how do you know it’s the truth?”
Her words caught me off guard. “You think he might be lying?” I asked.
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I mean, you were the one who first brought up the idea, weren’t you?”
“I was.”
“And you’re not thinking that anymore?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I mean, some stuff about his life seems suspect. And the apartment thing, his vagueness about his work…and there’s the issue of his brother.”
She grinned. “Oh, so he does have a brother? You got any pictures?”
I laughed. “No, no pictures.”
“So, what’s the deal with him?”
“Well, Caleb said he was a businessman like him, just not as successful. But when he talks about him…I don’t know. It’s almost as if he talks about him like he’s some kid who can’t stop getting into trouble.”
“Well, that just gives my theory more weight.”
“What, that he’s lying about everything?”
“Maybe not everything. But…how do you feel about this guy? Honestly?”
God, what a question. “I mean…I’m kind of crazy about him.”
“Just that?”
“Maybe a little…sort of like I’m in…”
“Love?”
There was the word, the one I’d been dancing around. It felt so strange to hear, let alone to say.
“I don’t know! Maybe!”
Another smirk. “Look at you, babe. I think you very well might be in love with this guy.”
The thought made me queasy, like it was too much to consider. But the word sounded right—it was the only one that fit how I felt.
“And what if I am? Is that so bad?”
“It’s not bad at all!” She put down her fork and placed her hand on mine. “It’s the best thing ever, actually. There’s nothing more important in the world than love. It’s what makes life worth living.”
“Then why are you acting like I’m making a mistake?”
“It’s not a mistake. It’s just that…well, when you’re in love, you tend to overlook things that you might need to pay attention to. It’s not your fault—just what comes with the territory. And in this case, it does seem like there’s something more to Caleb than he’s letting on.”
“What are you saying, then? That I need to break up with him or something? It’s not like we’re even officially dating.”
“Of course I’m not saying that. Don’t break up with Caleb. But you need to be on guard. Don’t let your feelings for this guy cloud your judgment, as hard as that might be. You need to be ready to protect yourself. And he does too.”
I cocked my head to the side. “What does he need to protect himself from?”
“From me,” she said with a devilish smile. “Because if this dude does anything to hurt my friend, he’d better watch his back.”
I laughed. “Thanks, Mags.”
“Anytime.” She took a bite of her pancakes and considered something. “Now, let’s hear more about this brother…”
Chapter 14
Caleb
Walking home from Sierra’s place, I felt as if I were walking on a cloud. The sun seemed brighter, the air seemed sweeter, and even the people around me seemed friendlier than usual.
It was amazing. Over the course of my life as a conman, I’d gotten to know my fair share of beautiful women. But Sierra…she was different. I’d known it from the moment I’d laid eyes on her, and it only became more certain with each minute we spent together.
A thought occurred to me, forcing me to stop in my tracks. I stared ahead, off into space.
Was I…in love?
At first it sounded crazy. I’d only known the woman for a few days; didn’t something like that require more time? Months, years even?
I knew logically that not enough time had passed, but did that even matter? Wasn’t love something that you just knew, that you just felt?
The more I let the word settle in my mind, the more right it felt. But it was terrifying. So what if I was in love with her? There was still the issue of the life I led, the one I’d lied to her about over and over. There’d been some truth sprinkled in there, but I wasn’t the successful businessman that I’d led her to believe I was.
I was a two-bit conman, a guy who made a living scamming people out of money. And more than that, I’d had her and her family pegged as marks for my next big score. Regardless of how we felt about one another, it would be all over the second she found that out.
And she would find out.
What the hell was I supposed to do? Keep lying? What would she say when she noticed I wasn’t meeting with clients, that nearly everything I’d told her had been a lie? She’d surely be out of my life as quickly as she’d come into it—assuming she didn’t call the cops on me for my trouble.
For all my skill in scheming, there didn’t seem to be anything I could do, no way out of it. Either I lied and risked getting caught, or came clean and sent her packing.
Damn. So much for love making things simple. But then again, who said it did?
The buildings around me grew dingier and more run-down the closer I got to my place. Before too long, I turned the corner to my block. Out in front of my building was Billy. He grinned broadly as I approached.
“Yo, bro!” he called out, his voice booming and loud enough to carry down the street. “Get your ass over here!”
I shook my head. For a conman, he sure could be bad about not drawing attention to himself.
I half-jogged the rest of the way over to Billy, not wanting to risk him calling out to me again.
“About damn time,” he said, looking me up and down. “Been wondering how long you were gonna make me wait around for you.”
He flashed me another smile before giving me a playful jab to the arm.
“What’s the story?” I asked. “You get booted out of your place?”
He shook his head, his expression suggesting he’d been done an unthinkable injustice.
“Let’s get inside—I’ll tell you all about it.”
I opened the door and we hurried up the stairs to my place. When I threw open the door, the first thing I noticed was how shitty my place was compared to Sierra’s. Sure, her apartment wasn’t going to be hers for long, but the fact that she’d lived there meant she was accustomed to certain tastes.
It was another problem on top of all the others. Say I were to tell her the tr
uth, and say she was to accept me for who I was. Then what? I had a small nest egg in savings, but it wasn’t even close to what I’d need to keep her in the lifestyle she was used to.
I’d have to up my game and get started on some major, money-making cons.
Or I’d have to go straight.
Either one was rough—risk going to jail, or try my hand at a life that I’d never known before. What would I do?
“Damn,” said Billy, strolling in like he owned the joint. “No offense, but this place is kind of a shithole.”
“Didn’t get it to impress you, brother.”
He glanced at me over his shoulder, his eyebrows raised. “Someone’s testy.” He followed this up with a grin.
Billy was right—he’d hit a nerve and I wasn’t doing a good job of hiding it.
It was bizarre. I’d always prided myself on my ability to play it close to the chest, to never be frazzled, to be unflappable. But something about Sierra was making all that harder.
“It’s fine,” I said, pouring myself a cup of coffee and sticking it in the microwave. “Just getting tired of this dump.”
He grinned. “What, hanging out with a rich girl, and all of a sudden you’ve got expensive tastes?”
“Not that. Thinking about how long I want to do this, to live this way.”
The microwave chimed and I took out my coffee, sitting down at the small kitchen table and looking out the window. A whole city out there, and instead of thriving, I was barely surviving.
Billy poured himself a cup of coffee, heated it up, then sat down across from me.
“Anyway,” he said. “The place I was at.”
“Yeah, what happened?”
“I was over at Marlon’s place. The dude was wasted already, letting the entire day get away from him. I wanted to talk about running some scores, and he was all ‘man, didn’t you just get out of jail? Don’t you want to chill or something?’”
I had to hand it to Billy—as much as he couldn’t stay out of trouble, he was certainly ambitious. If only he could temper that ambition with some guile, direct it toward something productive. He could carve out a good life for himself, if he wanted.
He went on. “And I’m like, ‘no, time’s money and I need to get back on my feet as soon as possible.’ Anyway, he ignored me, throwing some stupid-ass party and inviting a ton of his friends over. So, I figured that there were probably some people there with more of a go-getter attitude, you know? I started going around, asking anyone if they had any leads on scores.”
“Are you serious?” I asked. “You were just asking people? So much for keeping a low profile.”
“Hey, you want to make money, you’ve got to make connections.”
He was right, but in our line of work, it was also a good way to put a target on your back. I imagined my brother as an actual businessman, putting his attitude to good use. What if Billy could manage to straighten himself out before he ended up in jail again? He was young and hungry—that could take him a long way in the actual working world.
“Anyway, Marlon got annoyed with this, I guess, and told me to chill out and relax. I told him money never sleeps, you know?”
“And let me guess—he didn’t take that well.”
“Nope. Told me that if I wasn’t going to shut up about working, then I needed to get packing the next morning. So that’s what I did. I got a good night’s sleep and came on over here.”
Also impressive. While other ex-cons would’ve gotten right into partying and boozing and causing trouble, Billy was ready to work. Too bad the kind of work he had in mind would likely end up with him back in jail before the month was out.
“I figured why the hell would I waste my time with those dumbasses when I could be working with my big bro on a real job?” He reached over the table, grabbed my wrist, and gave it a hearty shake. “We’re going to make some good-ass money on this chick of yours. You make any progress?”
I sure had, but not in the way he’d hoped. The only “progress” I’d made had been in falling harder and harder for Sierra. How the hell was I supposed to tell him that?
I wouldn’t. No way he’d understand. Hell, I barely understood what was going on with me.
Billy leaned against the chair, cracking his back and turning his attention to me, that scheming glimmer in his eyes that he always got when a big score was on his mind.
“Let’s hear it, bro. What’s the story with this chick?”
Maybe I couldn’t get into it entirely, but I could at least end the matter of whether or not we were going to scam her—or worse.
“It’s no good.”
“What? What the hell do you mean ‘no good’?”
“I mean just that. Her parents cut her off, so it’s not like we can live off daddy’s credit cards. She’s just as broke as we are.”
“But she’s not broke. Girls from rich families like that are never really broke. She might not be going on shopping sprees, but the moment she gets into trouble she’ll call up Daddy, start the waterworks, and have him bailing her out in no time.”
It was a fair enough assumption. But one of the things I liked most about Sierra was how she wasn’t that kind of woman. She was determined to make it on her own, and getting bailed out by her dad didn’t even seem like an option to her.
I decided to take a sterner approach. “Billy, it’s not going to happen. You want to find another mark, that’s your prerogative. But not her.”
He sat back, dumbfounded. “But…we weren’t talking about living off her dad’s credit cards. We were talking about a bigger score than that. We kidnap her and ransom her back. That’s money right there, bro.”
“Correction—you were talking about that. I’m not going to do it.”
The expression on Billy’s face was almost as if I’d started speaking to him in some alien language.
“What the hell’s going on here, dude? We’ve got the score of a lifetime lined up. It’s easy money, and we barely have to do a thing. I’ll get a place to keep her, and you bring her over. Then we tell her what’s up, and get her to have her dad pay. Bet we could get a couple million from her, easy.”
I leaned forward, narrowing my eyes.
“It’s not going to happen. Sierra’s off-limits.”
“This is insane. What the fuck’s gotten into you?”
“Too risky, too uncertain. We’re con artists, not kidnappers.”
“It’s called diversifying. Might not be our usual game, but if we pull it off, we can get out for good. Don’t you want that, Caleb?”
I did, but there was something else I wanted even more.
“No go,” I said, keeping a hard edge to my voice. “Not going to happen.”
He shook his head. “Shit. I don’t even know what to say, man.”
“Just say you’re good, and we can be done with the discussion.”
“But—”
“Say you’re good.”
Silence hung in the air, Billy clearly surprised with me speaking to him like that.
“Fine. Fine. We’re good. That what you wanted to hear?”
“That’s exactly what I wanted to hear.”
He stood up. “Well, if you’re not going to figure out our next score, I’m going to do it. Talk to you later, bro.”
He didn’t wait for me to respond before storming out of the apartment, slamming the door behind him.
When Billy was gone, I sat at the table, sipping my coffee slowly. As much as I hated to admit it, Billy had a point—we needed money, and we needed it soon. But however we got it, Sierra wouldn’t be a part.
Sierra. The more I thought about it, the more I began to realize I had two options. The first was to cut her out of my life. I wouldn’t ghost her—I cared about her too much for that—but I’d make it clear nothing could happen between the two of us. It would hurt like hell for the both of us, but the issue would be solved.
The other was to come clean, to tell her the truth. The idea was enough to make my st
omach turn. How would she take it? Hell, it would likely have the same outcome as simply ending it. No way she’d want to be with a man like me, knowing who I really was.
But it would be the right thing to do. And more importantly, it would represent the sort of change I needed to make to my life, to try to put my old self behind me.
Nothing else to be done. I took my phone out of my pocket and pulled up her number.
I was about to have the hardest conversation of my life.
Chapter 15
Sierra
Caleb’s text was a surprise, but a welcome one.
“Hey. I know we had plans for tomorrow, but how do you feel about meeting up tonight?”
It was unlike him. At least, unlike how he’d acted toward me so far. He’d gone from ignoring me for days to pushing our date up to that night.
Maggie had gone off to work, and I was back alone in my apartment. I held my phone in my hands, trying to come up with what to say. Of course I wanted to see him again, but I didn’t want to appear too eager.
“Sure! Seven still work?” I fired off the text and set my phone down.
“It does. See you then.”
And that was that. At first I was eager and excited, but the more I thought about it, the more I felt as though something was up. Why’d he want to move the date up? Was it because he excited to see me? Or was it because he had something he wanted to tell me, like that he didn’t think things were going to work between us?
My stomach twisted into knots. I couldn’t believe how stressed I was getting about it. I mean, it figured that the moment I realized how I felt about the guy is when he’d decide that nothing could happen between us. It made a certain kind of sick sense.
But I put all that out of my mind as best I could. I killed the next few hours cruising the internet for possible jobs and places to live.
A little before seven, my phone buzzed with another message from Caleb, this one letting me knew he was there. I hit the button on my intercom to let him come in, and spent the next few long minutes stressing about what the evening might hold.
Breaker - A Fake Boyfriend Romance (Criminal Passions Book 3) Page 10