Lucky Liar

by Mallory Crowe

  “So what happened between you two? Did he cheat or something?”

  “Oh, loyalty is one of his core attributes. Just ask him. He’ll gladly tell you exactly how loyal he is.” She felt sick to her stomach about how loyal she once thought he was. About the life they were supposed to have together.

  “I don’t want to pressure you into sharing anything, but I’m going to remind you that your life is now intrinsically attached to mine. If I need to know something, you need to tell me.”

  Zoe stared out the window. This was too hard. How could she get through this without being completely honest with him? Hell, she hadn’t talked about her past in so long. What if she forgot how?

  She was quiet the rest of the way back. She couldn’t decide what to say to Wade, so she just didn’t say anything at all.

  Once he brought the car to a stop in front of the house, she would have to make some sort of decision fast. Not talk to Wade the rest of the night? Quickly spew out the truth and then run away? But when he opened the door for her, she utterly panicked and did the first thing she thought of. She kissed him.

  As her body crashed into his, Wade didn’t fight it. He wasn’t an idiot. He was well aware that Zoe was using this as a stall tactic. He could call her on it, or he could go with the flow and get her exactly where he wanted her.

  Underneath him.

  Zoe had come at him like a firestorm, and he was quick to try to tame the flames. The lovely Johnny had thrown out the idea that she’d slept around a lot, but her inexperience was evident with her full-on force. He was happy to be the first real man to show her the way….

  Wade set a hand in the curve of her waist, placed the other at the back of her neck, and he held her in place as he took over. It was a careful assault as he first teased her with his tongue before pressing his hips against hers, letting her feel exactly how much he wanted her.

  As she gasped in shock at the contact, he slid his tongue fully inside as his hand slipped lower, grabbing her ass and pulling her firmly against him.

  He kissed her firmly and deeply, leaning against her until she was up against the car. With the added leverage, there was so much more.

  Her hands tentatively rested on his shoulders, more for balance than anything else. God, he wanted her to have a reaction. He wanted her fingers to grab him, he wanted her toes to curl, he wanted her to scream his name.

  His hand moved lower to start tugging up her skirt, and she seemed to snap out of it. “Wait, what are we doing?”

  “I know what I want to do,” he whispered against her throat.

  She pushed at his shoulders and he knew he would have to step away. He squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his fists together to hold himself back as he took a step back.

  He should be happy. This was a hell of a step up from her flat-out refusal earlier today. To make this much progress in just a few hours would be considered a win at pretty much any other point in his life. But things with Zoe were different. He wouldn’t consider it a win until he was balls deep inside her, and he had a feeling it would take longer than anticipated to get sick of her.

  He let Zoe go into the house without him, needing a moment to get himself under control. He could handle this. It was just one attractive woman. He could handle a hot chick with his eyes closed and a hand tied behind his back. Hell, with both hands behind his back. Odd. Considering he and Zoe were married, he’d think that the stakes were lower. But somehow everything seemed more intense and more high stakes when she was around.

  Like the incident with Johnny. He’d been protective over women before, but Johnny had set him off in a wholly unique way. He lucked out that he’d been holding Zoe back, because if it hadn’t been for that, he probably would’ve gone after Johnny himself.

  He was so used to going after people where it really counted, their bank accounts. When was the last time he’d had the urge to actually hit somebody?

  Zoe was only around for one day and already he was totally off his game. That was kind of the opposite of what he’d been going for.

  He finally felt like the rush of heat had subsided enough that he could head into the house. He could hear Zoe in the kitchen, probably putting leftovers away. He was never one to back away from a challenge, so he strode right on into the kitchen.

  “I’m going to get ready for bed. Tomorrow I’ll try to talk to my mother again. Maybe I can talk some sense into her. And after that, we’re going off on our mystery honeymoon, right?”

  She wasn’t looking at him. Instead, she was pulling out Tupperware, putting it in the fridge, opening up every drawer as though looking for recycling.

  “Wade?” she said, still not looking his direction.

  “For fuck’s sake,” he muttered. “I want you to look at me when you’re talking to me.”

  Zoe turned around and immediately took a nervous gulp when she saw how close he was. “I thought we agreed that you wouldn’t do anything without my permission.”

  Wade inched farther and farther into her personal space. He was so close he could feel her heat against his body. As close as he could be without actually touching. “Then give me permission.” He lifted a hand and stopped just a hair away from touching her, running a finger down her cheek and over her neck. “Let me in, Zoe. Partners in every other way, so why not this one? You know you want it just as much as I do.”

  She blinked a few times and shook her head. “We’re not partners. We’re not even friends. You’re just using me, and I’m using you. We can’t go from something as selfish as that to a relationship, even if it is only casual.”

  “All right then, have it your way. I could’ve scratched your itch and now you’re just going to have to spend all night dreaming about me. Is that really better?”

  He left before she could answer. He knew that his dreams would be nothing but one long wet dream starring his dear wife, who he could barely touch. He couldn’t be the only one struggling with this. He had seen the way she’d look at him out of the corner of her eye or when she thought he wasn’t paying attention. He knew the signs of arousal well enough.

  But the fact was, tonight he wasn’t getting anywhere with Zoe, and his dreams would be his only relief and his torture at the same time. It was going to be a long night.

  Damn Wade Maxium. Damn him right to hell.

  Zoe turned over in bed once more, but she was no closer to falling asleep than she’d been a few hours ago when she first laid down. Wade had cursed her with his sexual threats, damn it. She only hoped he was having just as hard of a time falling asleep as she was.

  Who was she kidding? He’d probably taken care of himself with a few flicks of his wrist and was probably currently snoring like a happy little baby.

  She turned onto her stomach and forced her eyes to close as she buried her head in the pillow. Think non-sexy thoughts, she told herself. Think sheep. Sheep aren’t sexy. One sheep. Two sheep. Wade Maxium’s shirtless body. Damn it.

  She was twisting around to try lying on her side again when she heard the creaking of her door opening. Shooting up in bed and jerking around all at once, she saw Wade’s familiar silhouette in the door. “What are you doing?” she snapped at him.

  “Good. You’re awake. Pack up your things. We have to go back to the city.”

  “What?”

  “There’s a work emergency. We’re leaving here in ten minutes. Be ready.”

  Between the dreams that haunted her in her sleep and the fantasies that tormented her waking hours, she really was never going to get a moment’s peace with this man.

  Someone had messed up. Zoe was still in the dark about what exactly had happened, but that much was clear. Wade had been on his phone from the entire car ride to the airport and now for the first hour of the trip, biting off various expletives at the poor soul on the other line. Listening in to one half of the conversation made it hard to pick up details. From what she understood, the lucrative business deal he’d been planning for with the Chinese, theoretically his ma
in reason for marrying her, had fallen through.

  She pulled her sweatshirt tighter around her as she curled up on her side in her private plane seat. Even though it was seemingly made for napping, it wasn’t as comfortable as an actual bed. By now, the exhaustion was tugging at her, but she didn’t want to actually go to sleep. She wanted to keep listening to everything Wade was saying on the off chance something was important. He was obviously in a bad mood, and she didn’t want to have to ask him more than she had to.

  But soon enough her eavesdropping was over. He hung up the phone and let out a loud, annoyed groan. She waited for him to make another phone call, what he’d been doing all evening, but to her surprise, she felt the sudden shift in her row of seats. Her eyes popped open to reveal Wade was next to her and was reclining down to the same level she was at. He looked as handsome as ever, now just a few inches from her face, but stress lines around his eyes were more pronounced, and he was currently sporting bags under his eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” she said softly.

  He didn’t look at her, bringing a hand up to rub at his temples. “Don’t be. You didn’t do anything.”

  “Then I’m sorry I can’t do anything.”

  “It’s just business. These things happen all the time.”

  “They don’t happen all the time to me. I can still feel bad, right?”

  “Do you really think I want your pity?”

  “Don’t be such a drama queen. I’m offering my empathy, not my pity. And yes, I think everybody could use a little empathy.”

  “If you really want to make me feel better, I could think of a few things you can do with your mouth that don’t include pitying me.”

  And just like that, Zoe was wide-awake. “You’re kidding.”

  “Of course I’m kidding. I mean, if you went downtown, I wouldn’t complain. But no, I’m not actually asking you to. It was just a joke.”

  “Joking…. We’re making progress in our relationship.”

  “Well, I guess I’ll mark that down as a win,” he muttered.

  “Sometimes you just have to take the wins when you get them.”

  “Truth.” A long silence stretched between them, and Zoe wondered whether she should leave him alone and let him process. Then he said, “Do you want to know what happened?”

  “I don’t know. It’s not really any of my business, is it?”

  “My business is yours now. The Chinese deal I was working on fell through.”

  “Well, I figured that out.”

  “Hold on. You don’t know why it fell through yet.”

  “It’s because of me, isn’t it? They think you made a rash decision by marrying me, so now they don’t want to be in business with you?”

  He frowned and looked over at her. “No. It’s not about you, don’t worry. It was supposed to be a mutually beneficial deal. I would buy a bunch of their properties in China for reduced rates, and then when they came in to the US market, I could share a lot of our marketing data with them to make sure they succeeded. But apparently one of my people went ahead and gave them information first, probably selling it for millions. So now the deal’s off, and I have to figure out who went behind my back. I have to go straight to the office when we land. Is it okay if I have Thomas take you to the apartment?”

  It was so strange to hear him ask her. He was normally the kind to give orders instead of asking for her opinion. This whole incident must’ve really thrown him off. “Of course. Who is Thomas?”

  He groaned. “I forgot that you don’t know. Thomas is one of my assistants. He’s a good guy. He’ll get you settled.”

  One of his personal assistants. It would figure that he had more than one. “Do you want to talk about it?” she asked.

  “I didn’t marry you to be my therapist. I married you to look good on paper. Remember that.” He closed his eyes and readjusted himself.

  Zoe blinked a few times, surprised by the harsh words. She knew that he was just reacting to something shitty that happened to him, but he wasn’t wrong. She didn’t need to remember her place. She couldn’t let any accidental kisses, or meaningful conversation, make her forget where she truly stood with him. The only way she’d ever be able to keep her sanity in this would be if she made sure she never actually fell in love with him.

  A task that might be easier said than done.

  Thomas was nice enough. At least, he probably was. Zoe was trying her best not to say anything stupid in front of somebody so close to Wade, and the best way she could avoid saying something stupid was to not say anything at all. He seemed genuinely happy to meet her, but once the small talk died down in the back of the cab, they both sat in silence. She kept on fighting the urge to start a casual conversation. This was her husband’s employee. It wasn’t her responsibility to make sure he felt comfortable, but dammit, it was hard to be rude.

  When they finally reached Wade’s high-rise apartment building, Zoe looked up in awe. Thomas led the way past the doorman to an elevator and pushed the button for the fortieth floor. Zoe repeated the number in her mind, knowing she would have to remember that.

  What a thing to remember. What floor she lived on. She’d lived in a tiny ranch for so long that apartment living seemed almost alien to her. She supposed she lived in a dorm for a few years at college, but even that was so long ago now. Another life, basically.

  Once the doors opened, Thomas shot into informational mode. “So as you can see, the kitchen is right there.” He took long strides until he reached the stainless-steel and black modern style kitchen. “I bet there’s pretty much nothing to eat in here. I’ll get right on finding you a good grocery delivery service. If you look through the cabinets, I know there’s a state-of-the-art espresso maker if you want to use it in the morning. Also a juicer if you need it. If there are any other appliances that you need and you don’t have, just let me know and I’ll fix it.”

  Thomas seemed oddly unfazed about any of this. He didn’t ask any questions about where she’d met Wade, how long they’d been dating, or why she’d never been in the apartment. Wade had told him to, and he was doing it. She really believed he was a good assistant.

  Thomas seemed to be around the same age as Zoe, in his mid-to-late twenties. He was tall and slim, and wearing a blue-gray suit paired with a bright-green tie. His curly brown hair was shorn close to his head, and he had a clean-shaven jaw without even a hint of stubble. He obviously took great pride in his appearance. It made Zoe even more embarrassed that she was still in her pajamas and didn’t have a stitch of makeup on. Once again, she could only imagine what he thought about her, but he was good at keeping any judgments to himself.

  “If you come through here, there’s the sitting area. There’s an instruction booklet for the remote control in the top drawer of the entertainment center. You have any questions about it, call me and I’ll talk you through it.”

  “You know that much about how his entertainment system works?”

  “Information is power,” he said nonchalantly as he started going through the other rooms in the apartment.

  Knowledge was power. Wasn’t that how this whole crisis had started? Someone had stolen knowledge from Wade’s company? She looked a tad more skeptically at Thomas. Wade seemed to trust him implicitly, but what if that trust was misplaced?

  Thomas showed her the different guest bedrooms. She couldn’t even consider which would be hers before suddenly he was walking into the master and dropping off her luggage.

  “I think that concludes the tour. Did you want to see anything else? Would you like me to order you anything to eat?”

  “I think you’ve done enough. I really appreciate you taking time to help me.”

  “It’s literally my job. No problem at all.”

  “I don’t think your job is to assist Wade’s wife.”

  “My job is to assist Wade in anything he needs. Besides, I already like you better than the other one.”

  Zoe blinked in shock. “You just met me.” And in most
of that time, she’d barely said a word to him. Was Tara really that bad?

  “I don’t want to brag, but I have a good sense about people. I think you’re a good egg.”

  “All right. Since we’re being really open, I’ll admit that I barely know you but already your approval means way too much to me.”

  He gave her a warm, genuine smile. “You’re going to be fine. Wade likes you. I can tell.”

  Zoe had to let out a little laugh at that. “What gave it away? The wedding ring?”

  Thomas snorted and rubbed at the back of his neck. “You should’ve heard what he threatened me with if I didn’t get you to the apartment safe and sound. I know everyone else is going to be shocked about the marriage, but trust me. I’m not.”

  For the first time, Zoe felt her anxiety about the whole marriage sham start to fall away. Talking to her family had been one terrible obstacle, but in the back of her mind she’d been convinced that the second they told anybody in Wade’s circle about what happened, they’d laugh her right out of the building. Now she had her first real test by being alone with one of Wade’s employees, and the guy was practically convinced they were soul mates. Maybe this wouldn’t be as hard as she thought it would be. “It was a pleasure meeting you, Thomas. Hopefully I’ll be more put together for the next time.”

  “You’re married to Wade now. I have no doubt whatever you do will be fabulous. I have to drop something off in Wade’s office, and I’ll be heading back to work. You have a great day, Zoe.”

  She smiled at him. “You have a great day too.”

  When he left the master bedroom, he softly shut the door behind him. She debated whether she should follow him. After all, Wade just had information stolen from his company, and now she was letting Thomas run around unattended in his apartment. But the man had a key. He was obviously trusted enough on some level to come in. The doorman hadn’t even blinked as they walked by. She was pretty sure her duties as fake wife didn’t include sleuthing around and making accusations against people, especially people she liked. She would just have to make a mental note to tell Wade about Thomas’s little stop later.