We both crack up laughing.
The following Monday, I get a cash advance against the credit that I received from the credit card companies. I'm glad that I didn't make the appointment to meet up with them during the weekend because it actually took a little bit of time for the money to show up in my account.
By Wednesday, I have the envelope and money. I'm ready to put all this behind me.
33
Isabelle
On Thursday, before ten o'clock in the morning, I drive over to Barnes & Noble and park in the big parking lot up front. This is a place where I had spent many happy days during my high school career avoiding other kids and burying my head in books.
I remember how I used to think that I was so grown-up ordering lattes and walking around the store with my paper coffee cup. Now, I am going in to give some stranger thousands of dollars in cash that I don't have in order to pay off the last of my mother's gambling debt. This is probably the most adult thing that I have ever done and yet it hardly feels like that at all.
The store smells fresh and clean like always and I run my fingers over the hardcovers on the large circular table in the very front. Heading over to the café on the right, just on the other side of the magazines and various gift options, I order a latte and grab a seat by the window, facing the front doors.
I look down at my phone. It's a few minutes after ten. I keep glancing over at the front door, eagerly awaiting the person who will finally make all this go away. I put the envelope on the table next to me and hide it under a bridal magazine that I picked off the shelf.
I haven't looked at a bridal magazine in a long time. Now it feels like something that I will never go through. I had never really given getting married much thought when I was a kid but over the week with Tyler, I can’t help but go there. I thought that after all of this was over and we started our life together, maybe then we could make it official. I wonder about how he would ask me and I wonder about how I would react.
None of that has anything to do with the ring or big dress. I just want to be with him.
A guy in his fifties with a receding hairline and a polo shirt sits down across from me. He smiles and I'm surprised by how white and perfect his teeth are even though he reeks of cigarette smoke.
“Do you have it?” he asks.
“Who are you?”
“Do you have it?” he repeats himself, his voice growing impatient.
“Fine, who am I?” I demand to know.
I need to make sure that he's the right guy and I'm not just giving my money to some asshole making a pass at me.
“Amy Nesbit,” he says in a hushed tone. “She is your mom and she owes my boss eight thousand dollars, but you're here with ten to pay for the late fee.”
I fold the magazine up and show him the envelope. He looks a little bit past me, assessing the room and then reaches over, takes it, and slides it into the inside pocket of his jacket.
“Receipt?” I ask when he gets up.
“Excuse me?” he says, pivoting toward me.
“Are you going to give me any proof that you received the payment?” I ask.
My voice is hesitant, but I try to make it strong and authoritative. I don't know how any of this works, but I don't want to just give ten grand to a complete stranger even if he does know my mom's name.
Without missing a beat, the guy leans over to me and whispers into my ear, “Your receipt is that neither you nor your mother are dead. That should be enough.”
Cold sweat runs down my spine, but I let out a sigh of relief.
34
Isabelle
After I gather my thoughts and wander the stacks of the bookstore for a little bit, nursing a cup of tea, I return to work. Technically, I was supposed to be seeing a client at this time, but I redid my schedule so that I could meet with him in the afternoon.
Walking through the bookstore and running my fingers up and down the spines of the books, I slowly start to relax.
It's all over.
The guy made a threat, but we don't owe the debt anymore. My mom is finally free.
I am free.
Fifteen minutes later, I finally feel confident enough to get back to my car and to the office.
We don't have a secretary because we never have walk-ins. Trisha is the boss, but we have our personal information listed in various online resources on speech therapy and clients usually reach out to us individually.
She does some of the marketing and she gets most of the clients. Whatever overflow that she has, she assigns to us.
“Isabelle, can you come over here for a second?” Trisha asks when I walk past her office.
“What's up?” I peek my head in.
“Have a seat.”
She takes her attention away from the computer and spins around in her chair to face me. There's a large glass bowl of suckers that call to me but it doesn't feel like the right moment to grab one.
Trisha hesitates for a moment, so I decide to start the conversation.
“I think everything is going really well,” I say. “Mason is making a lot of progress. Trent is currently working on blowing bubbles. Last week he couldn’t do it at all, but then he kept working and working at it and his mom sent me this video.” I pull out my phone to show her.
“That's great,” she says, shaking her head. “That's not what I really want to talk about right now.”
I put my phone down and get an eerie feeling about what is about to happen.
“I don't think we are a good fit anymore, Isabelle,” Trisha says.
“What are you talking about?”
“You're a very good therapist, but you're not very good at marketing and finding new clients. I was letting that slip for a while, but it's just not going to work out anymore.”
My head starts to buzz and it becomes hard to hear her speaking.
“Is this about what happened with my trip? I told you. It's never going to happen again.”
“No, it's not about that. I understand. This is just something that I've been thinking about for a while. I've just done an evaluation of everyone working here and you are the one who has brought in the least amount of clients. As you know, we teach kids to speak. They get older, they get better, they learn. We all want that of course. Then they stop coming to us. That's why we have to keep finding new clients all the time. Last year, we made a goal to expand from this building to something bigger and have more therapists here, but again, that's not something that can happen if I don't have everyone pulling their weight.”
I want to say something else in protest, but I know that it's all in vain.
Maybe she's right.
Perhaps it's true what she’s saying. It just doesn't feel like that. This feels a lot more like it's personal, like she’s still not over me taking off.
“What if I were to take a pay cut? Have fewer hours? Anything while I find another job.”
“One more week is all I can do,” Trisha says.
I start to say something in response, but she just shakes her head and refuses to listen.
The door dings outside and I know that it's one of her clients. She looks at me and then looks at the door, silently ushering me out.
I walk down the hallway to the back office that I share with the others and collapse onto one of the chairs.
What the hell am I going to do now? I just took out an insane credit card balance. I owe over a hundred thousand dollars in student loans as well as a mortgage.
All of my savings are depleted and now I don't even have a job.
35
Tyler
ONE YEAR LATER
It rains in Seattle nine months out of the year. Standing in this penthouse on top of the skyscraper with wall-to-wall glass, I feel like I'm in a fishbowl.
This is the Elliott family boardroom where they conduct all their business. The patriarch, who is in his seventies, sits right across from me with his fifty-year-old wife to my side. One of his adult sons is right next to me
and the others stand brooding somewhere near the window.
No one in this room is happy that he is selling the Elliott Bay Marina and Hotel except for Mr. Thomas Elliott, and me. Even as I sign my name on one dotted line after another, his sons keep glaring at me, hoping that something happens to stop the carnage.
This marina complex has been in their family ever since Mr. Elliott opened it in 1959 and they have been the living life of luxury ever since. Mr. Elliott refuses to allow his sons to take over his legacy because he knows that they will run it into the ground.
Me, on the other hand? I am a reputable yacht broker with years of experience running various marinas all over the East Coast.
At least, that's what I am on paper.
“Now, that will do it, Mr. Beckett,” one of the lawyers from his side says when I sign the last of the paperwork. “You are now the proud owner of the Elliott Bay Marina and Hotel.”
I shake Mr. Elliott's hand and try to do the same with his wife, but she turns away from me in disgust. I expect even less courtesy from the sons so I don't even bother.
A photographer appears out of nowhere, snapping a picture of us and asking us to turn toward him and shake hands again.
“No,” I say, raising my hand up. “No pictures, please.”
Where did he come from? I want to kick him out, but at the same time I don’t want to draw more attention to myself.
“Mr. Beckett, please, we always take pictures to commemorate important family events,” Mr. Elliott says in his calm demeanor.
“I want you to know how much I appreciate this deal and that your legacy will be safe in my hands, but you have to understand, I'm a very private person. I really do not want to be photographed.”
This puts a stop to it. I don't make a scene, but I make the photographer back down.
“I really don't see why someone who looks like him would ever turn down a picture,” the older son says in a not very hushed tone.
Tempted to reply, I bite my tongue instead.
Mr. Elliott goes over to the drinks table and pours us two tumblers of the most expensive scotch that I have ever had.
“I know that you are going to make me proud, Oliver,” Mr. Elliott says, clinking his glass to mine.
We walk over to the window and look down at the marina below. Out in the distance, the Seattle Space Needle pierces the thick layer of clouds and glitters in the rain.
As the golden brown liquid runs down my throat, I think back to everything that I have gone through and how proud I should be of everything that I have accomplished.
Instead of feeling that, I feel regret. There's only one person who I want to share all of this with: Isabelle.
Yet, she's not here. She's the one who betrayed me and she's the one I can never have.
Thank you so much for reading THE PERFECT LIE!
I hope you are enjoying Tyler and Isabelle’s story. Can’t wait to find out what happens next? Their story continues in the next book.
1-click THE PERFECT LIFE now!
Everyone thinks I’m a murderer and after a while, it’s easier to just give in.
That’s what I learned in prison.
But what about now that I’m free?
I have outrun my past. I have a new life, a future.
But what about my old identity?
Isabelle thinks it’s worth fighting for. Isabelle thinks that I can get my sentence erased. But I know better.
Corruption runs deep. That’s why I got convicted in the first place.
I want to clear my name, but at what cost?
What more will I have to give up in order to get to the truth?
1-click THE PERFECT LIFE now!
Want to know more about Nicholas Crawford? He has his own COMPLETE series that readers call “dangerous and impossible to put down.”
Read TELL ME TO STOP now!
I owe him a debt. The kind money can’t repay.
He wants something else: me, for one year.
But I don’t even know who he is…
365 days and nights doing everything he wants…except that.
“I’m not going to sleep with you,” I say categorically.
He laughs.
“I’m going to make you a promise,” his eyes challenge mine. “Before our time is up, you’ll beg me for it.”
Read TELL ME TO STOP now!
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Also by Charlotte Byrd
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The Perfect Stranger Series
The Perfect Stranger
The Perfect Cover
The Perfect Lie
The Perfect Life
The Perfect Getaway
The Perfect Couple
All the Lies Series
All the Lies
All the Secrets
All the Doubts
All the Truths
All the Promises
All the Hopes
Tell me Series
Tell Me to Stop
Tell Me to Go
Tell Me to Stay
Tell Me to Run
Tell Me to Fight
Tell Me to Lie
Wedlocked Trilogy
Dangerous Engagement
Lethal Wedding
Fatal Wedding
Tangled Series
Tangled up in Ice
Tangled up in Pain
Tangled up in Lace
Tangled up in Hate
Tangled up in Love
Black Series
Black Edge
Black Rules
Black Bounds
Black Contract
Black Limit
Not into you Duet
Not into you
Still not into you
Lavish Trilogy
Lavish Lies
Lavish Betrayal
Lavish Obsession
Standalone Novels
Dressing Mr. Dalton
Debt
Offer
Unknown
About Charlotte Byrd
Charlotte Byrd is the bestselling author of romantic suspense novels. She has sold over 600,000 books and has been translated into five languages.
She lives near Palm Springs, California with her husband, son, and a toy Australian Shepherd. Charlotte is addicted to books and Netflix and she loves hot weather and crystal blue water.
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The Perfect Lie (The Perfect Stranger) Page 15