Crown of Lies

by Pepper Winters

  His eyes dropped to my throat. Pain arrowed through him, followed by rage. “Where is your necklace?”

  I jolted.

  “Tell me, Elle. The sapphire star I bought you. The one I spent hours deliberating over. The one I bought because the blue matched your eyes and the star symbolized how much you mean to me?” His fists shook. “Where is it?”

  I looked at the beige carpet. “I lost it.”

  The lie turned to paste on my tongue, but it was better than the truth. Better for him to blame me than to think of his gift in the possession of heartless thieves who meant me harm.

  “For God’s sake, Noelle.” He shook his head, tiredness etching his eyes. “Not only were you irresponsible with yourself but with your gift, too. If you planned on using tonight as a demonstration that you were capable of spending some time alone away from the company, consider it a failure.” His voice deepened with authority. “Until you can prove you are still the considerate daughter I raised, I don’t want you leaving this house without David, do you hear me?”

  My tears turned to anger. Heat smoked through me to argue back. To tell him just how suffocated I felt, how lonely, how lost. But I’d already hurt him tonight, and now, he’d hurt me.

  We were even.

  I smiled tight, hiding everything. We both had more to say but wouldn’t verbalize. He was disappointed in me. I was frustrated by him.

  It was best to go to bed before we uttered things we couldn’t take back.

  “Goodnight, Dad.” I moved around him and left the living room. “I’m sorry about the necklace.”

  As I climbed the sweeping staircase to my room on the third floor, my mind returned to the man who tasted like chocolate and had hands that could touch so sweetly but also cause such violence.

  I would never forget him.

  And tomorrow, I would do what I could to help him.

  Because he’d helped me, and in some crazy way, he’d claimed my young, naïve heart.

  I would get him free.

  No matter how impossible that task would be.

  Chapter Eleven

  THREE YEARS LATER

  “DON’T FORGET, YOU have that dinner meeting with your father, Mr. Robson, and his son tonight at the Weeping Willow.” Fleur smiled, hoisting another armful of contracts and financial portfolios.

  I removed my reading glasses and took the folders from her. The heavy thud as I placed them on my desk ricocheted through me. “Yes, I remember.”

  And I want nothing to do with it.

  For the past year, my father had used every business meeting with his right-hand man, Steve Robson, to try to set me up with his son. He thought I couldn’t see through his tricks, but the way he kept finding excuses for us to be around each other wasn’t subtle.

  “Anything else, Ms. Charlston?”

  “No, thank you. Please don’t put any calls through. I have too much work to finish.”

  “Of course.” Turning in her pretty purple dress, Fleur left my office. Her wardrobe was smart but flirty, reminding me that outside the thick glass windows existed sun and heat and summer.

  I hadn’t been away from an air-conditioned building for more than a few minutes at a time for months. If I wasn’t being driven from office to office, I was in store warehouses or shop-fronts or doing my best to catch up on sleep, that for some reason, had become elusive for the past three years.

  Ever since my one night of freedom, sleep had evaded me. Dreams never came. Nightmares visited often. The damn guilt because I wasn’t able to help him eroded me day by day.

  You said you wouldn’t think about him anymore.

  I said that every morning.

  And by every lunchtime, I failed.

  The best I’d been able to do was realize how stupidly idealistic I’d been. My dad, bless his heart, had helped show me that it wasn’t Nameless who I thought I’d fallen in love with that night but the idea of love.

  No one could fall for a stranger in a few hours. Especially a girl who’d been attacked and molested and then corralled into breaking and entering a national treasure. My nerves and adrenaline would’ve heightened every experience, making it so much more than what it was.

  I’d read into things. I’d imagined the heat behind the kisses and painted a perfect romance, when really, all there’d been was a dirty boy and a baseball field.

  That’s all.

  I recognized myself for what I was.

  I was young, fanciful, and Dad was entirely right that work took precedent over a silly infatuation.

  He was nothing to me.

  Just a man from my past who took my first kiss.

  Got it, stupid heart?

  I sank heavily into my chair. My elbows stabbed into the desk as I rested my head in my hands. Even now, with all my pep talks and conclusions, I still felt guilty for not doing more.

  That’s why I think about him.

  Not because I still believed we were meant to be, or the craziness between us was serendipitous, but because I’d failed and left him alone in a prison that no doubt took whatever good was left in him and spat him out cold, cynical, and cruel.

  I hadn’t lived up to my oath.

  A life for a life.

  He’d saved me.

  And I haven’t saved him.

  For months, I’d tried to track him down. I’d called the police stations, the county jails, even a few lawyers who worked pro bono to see if they’d been given his case.

  But nothing.

  I had no name and only a vague description—hampered by his beard, the night, and his hoodie.

  The picture in my mind was of mystery and infatuation rather than a crystal image helpful for sketch artists or explanations.

  It was as if he never existed.

  But I knew he did because I still thought about the sapphire star necklace, and every time I snuck a piece of chocolate, Nameless exploded into my mind. I should get over it. It was one night. A nineteen-year-old’s stupid crush.

  I was more mature now.

  Overworked and completely wrung out. Sage was getting older, but she still came with me to the office every day, still purred on my lap when sums and figures made my head spin, and still cuddled with me in bed when loneliness for a life I’d never have overtook me.

  Two years ago, when my father had had a heart attack, I gave up my adolescent immaturity and no longer resented my role. The doctors said he would get better, but he should step down from being the boss.

  The Last Will and Testament I’d signed came into full effect, and he placed me as the sole controller with the majority share of our stocks and the final say on all decisions.

  To say I was scary to men of my own age when I was just an heiress was one thing, but to date now I was a conglomerate commander was utterly impossible.

  Dad believed in love.

  I didn’t.

  Not because I didn’t want it but because my life’s work had stolen that possibility from me. I had to accept that I had no time for romance, no patience for dating, and no prospects at partnership other than business expansion.

  I was so lucky compared to most.

  Love is a small price to pay.

  I lived and breathed for my company, and on the rare evenings I had off, Dad was determined to play matchmaker with me and Greg—Steve’s son.

  It didn’t matter that I had no interest in Greg.

  I didn’t care he was only three years older than I was and held a bachelor’s in business from Yale. He was dry and humorless and the exact opposite of Steve, who’d been in my life from the start with his quirky nicknames and jokes when I started running Belle Elle.

  He was my uncle in every way apart from blood.

  Greg was the unwanted cousin who I wished was related to me so I had a legitimate reason for denying his advances.

  Sage nudged my ankles, meowing softly beneath the desk where she hung out in her basket full of blankets and stuffed mice.

  “Yeah, yeah. I know he’s only looki
ng out for me.”

  Dad wanted me to marry and find a partner to help run Belle Elle with. He’d met Mom when he was twenty, and it’d been love at first sight. He couldn’t understand why I was still so very, very single at twenty-two.

  It obviously didn’t cross his mind that I was a powerful woman in a still sexist world where men—even if they didn’t come out and admit it—were emasculated by a woman with a bigger salary than them.

  My thoughts remained tangled as I diligently worked through the reports on our Hong Kong division before Fleur knocked on my office door, wrenching through my concentration.

  “It’s six p.m. You need to leave in thirty minutes.”

  “Wow, really? I thought it was two p.m. only five minutes ago.”

  She giggled, her long brown braid jiggling over her shoulder. “Like you always do when you get in the zone—you lost time.” She waltzed in with a dry-cleaners bag covering a black dress.

  Placing it on the arm of my rolled leather couch, she said, “I don’t know why you don’t let me bring you something more fun and vibrant from the shop floor. I have a sneaking suspicion you’d look great in green.” She held up her hands to make a frame around my face. “A rich emerald. Or perhaps a deep sapphire like that star you keep sketching when you’re on the phone with suppliers.”

  I waved her away. “Black is fine.”

  “Black is all you ever wear.”

  “Black is business and no-nonsense.”

  “But life isn’t.” She smiled sadly. “Life is fun and chaos.” Backing toward the exit, she added, “You should remember that sometime....” She left before I could fire her—not that I ever would because without her and Sage, I would have no one I could actually talk to who wasn’t my father.

  I glared at the black dress.

  I wouldn’t lie and say wearing another color wouldn’t be fun, but I didn’t have time for fun or shopping or fashion. I did the work so other people could do those things while leaving their money in our cash registers.

  Sighing, I rubbed the back of my neck, saved my progress, and closed my laptop.

  Sage slunk around my ankles, knowing the routine and that work was over for the day. “We’re not going home, I’m afraid.”

  Her little face pouted, her whiskers drooping from her tiny nose. Picking the silver cat from the floor, I placed her on my desk as I stood to prepare for this sham of a date.

  I kissed her soft head. “Don’t look at me like that. At least you get to snooze in the car. I actually have to talk to the jerk.”

  She stuck her tongue out, coughing with a hairball.

  “Yes, exactly. I feel like vomiting, too.” Heading to the couch to collect the dreaded dress, I murmured, “The sooner this dinner is over, the sooner I can go home and forget.”

  And try to dream.

  Of being nineteen again and kissing a man with no name.

  Chapter Twelve

  THE RESTAURANT WAS packed as usual.

  Friday night was the night every high-powered suit liked to be seen at the Weeping Willow. The eatery had opened four years ago, and in that time, it had created a name of fine dining, utmost decadence, and a gin bar with more selections than any other in New York. They prided themselves on expensive, exclusive liquors. And even had a bottle of gin valued at ten thousand dollars a shot.

  Ridiculous.

  “Ah, there you are!” Dad stood as I approached the reserved table at the back. The booth glittered in deep turquoise while a chandelier representing the branches of a willow tree wept over the circular table.

  “Hi, Dad.” I kissed his cheek, happy to see he had color on his face and a twinkle in his eye. Even though the doctors had told him he had to take it easy, he didn’t. He still pulled long hours in his office across the hall from mine. And he stressed himself out by overthinking my future and lack of family if he suddenly died.

  He was a lot of things my father but three words to describe him was a cuddly teddy bear. He had a habit of ignoring practicalities in order for happiness to rule.

  “You look lovely.” He grabbed my hand, forcing me to spin.

  The black dress whirled around my kneecaps while the spaghetti straps clung for dear life to my shoulders. The bodice hugged nicely, but overall, it was a simple style in a simple color.

  It was one of Belle Elle’s biggest sellers—not because of how well it was made but because it was the perfect backdrop to show off accessories. Gauzy scarfs looked great with the spaghetti straps, necklaces earned prime real estate, and even big earrings polished it to runway class rather than high street clone.

  Tonight, the only accessorizing I’d attempted was a dark blue shawl and a lick of eye shadow with thicker mascara. My blonde hair hung down to my tailbone. All my energy was spent on the company, not on myself, and I didn’t particularly care if it showed.

  I swallowed a groan as Greg stood up and kissed both my cheeks. His hand landed on my elbow, slightly clammy and annoyingly clingy. “You look gorgeous, Noelle.”

  I hate when he calls me that.

  I hadn’t been Noelle for decades.

  I was Elle of Belle Elle.

  The queen of retail.

  I forced a smile. “Thank you. You don’t look bad yourself.” I nodded in approval at his black slacks and one size too big for him dinner jacket. The lapels were embossed with velvet. On any other man, it would probably look distinguished and sexy. But on him...kill me now.

  Not that he was ugly—far from it. Greg had great dark blond hair, chiseled features, and a trim physique. What lurked beneath his looks was what turned me off. There was no...connection. No spitfire or chocolate smoke. And sometimes, just sometimes, I sensed a darkness in him that had nothing to do with me constantly turning down his requests for a date.

  He had a coldness that made me wary even to be alone with him in public.

  Most of the time, I chalked up my over imagination to the slight trauma from being dragged into the alley all those years ago.

  I had to stop reading into things and imagining the worst.

  I looked around Greg to his father, Steve. “Hiya.”

  Steve didn’t bother unwinding from the booth but blew me an air kiss. His hair had turned white over the years, but his sense of humor never dried up. “You look as pretty as that Barbie doll you used to love before Sage came along.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Did you just call me a Barbie? In public?”

  He shrugged. “Hey, it’s not derogatory. Just saying you have a tiny waist, nice boobs, and blonde hair.” He ran a hand over his casual gray blazer. “Look at me, I’m the perfect Ken—or at least, I was a few years ago.”

  I laughed, forcing myself to relax even though Greg still hadn’t let go of my arm.

  My father saved me by tugging me to his side and pushing me into the booth. I went willingly, trapped between Steve and Dad, facing Greg across the table.

  Something rubbed my ankle.

  My eyes shot to Greg’s green ones. Turned out, I wasn’t far enough away to prevent him playing footsies. I kept the same smile I used on assholes in the boardroom plastered to my face, even though I wanted to stab his face with the steak knife.

  “So, Elle, you working hard tomorrow?” Greg grinned conspicuously as his foot stomped on my toes. “Want to go see a movie or something?”

  The waiter brought our drinks—the joy of being known and regulars at this place. The server placed neat whiskey in front of my father and Steve, a gin and tonic for Greg, and a virgin daiquiri for me.

  Just as I’d never been free since the night I met Nameless, I’d never been drunk. Not that liquor didn’t appeal to me but the fact that each day I started work before the sun rolled out of its soft cloudy bed, I had no time for a hangover.

  One day, a few pieces of the laces keeping me straight and narrow would snap, and then I’d derail and cause untold pain to my father by being stupidly irresponsible. I would drink to excess, sleep with a stranger, and call in sick for a solid week.
>
  But that day was not today.

  “I work hard all the time, Greg.” I batted my eyelashes sweetly. “I’m afraid I never have time to do things like go to the movies.”

  “What about a walk?”

  “That too.”

  “Carriage ride through Central Park?”

  My smile faltered, remembering the arrest and subsequent disappearance of the man in Central Park. “Definitely too busy for that.”

  Dad coughed. “Now, Elle. You’re making it sound like I’m a slave driver.”

  I laughed softly. “Not you, Dad. The company.”

  His face fell, trying to read my reluctance. I wouldn’t tell him that most of the time, I used work as my alibi to avoid dates because the only man who asked me out was Greg, and that was only because he thought he knew me because our fathers were old friends.

  Not to mention, if he married me, he would get the empire that he’d been raised with thanks to Steve’s involvement. I couldn’t begrudge his desire to control something that had been such a big part of his life.

  But I could prevent it from happening.

  Steve laughed, toasting me with his whiskey. “Here’s to a workaholic who happens to be so damn good at her job.”

  I didn’t know if I wanted to toast to that, but I did, clinking my glass with his.

  The waiter appeared to take our meal order as the menu changed weekly. Before I could glance at the new specials, my father slid from the booth and mumbled he’d be right back. An itch started right in my heart. I rubbed my chest as love for the gray-haired man in his immaculate three-piece suit washed over me.

  Where is he going?

  I knew I’d hurt him with refusing Greg’s advances, but I didn’t mean to rib him with how much I worked.

  That wasn’t fair.

  Greg interrupted my melancholy by ordering loudly. “I’ll have the venison. Rare.”

  Steve pursed his lips before saying, “Make that two.” He placed the heavy flocked menu onto the table, eyeing me expectantly. “You, Elle? I know your father will have the chicken or fish—on account of his heart—but you?”

  I quickly scanned the list. I had no appetite, and my thoughts were across the room in the private gin bar to the side where my father had vanished. “I’ll have...um, the salmon, please.”