Little White Lies

by Lizzie Shane

  Pretty Boy winced. “Did she know?”

  “That he was gay or that he was sleeping with a Democrat?” Candy shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m not the person she would have told. When I moved to California, I didn’t exactly keep in touch.” Though she couldn’t even work up a decent imitation of guilt over that fact since Charlotte had never wanted to be her bestie either.

  “I take it your family is on the right side of the aisle.”

  “My father is a diplomat. He’ll tell you that party distinctions have no place in international politics, but my mother is a red state girl all the way. He married a deb for her social skills and got her politics as part of the package. Regina Montgomery Raines. Daughter of everyone’s favorite campaign donor Dalton Montgomery—”

  “Holy shit.”

  She grimaced. “I take it you’ve heard of my grandfather.”

  “They say he rigs elections.”

  “They say a lot of things.” She didn’t know the truth of the rumors. She only knew her grandfather as an intimidating force of a man, looming over everything. “The wedding’s at his estate so I’m sure he’ll grace us all with his presence. Just avoid all mention of politics, race, social rights or religion and I’m sure you’ll get along fine.”

  “Noted.” For the first time Pretty Boy was starting to look a little green—and she couldn’t blame him. Had she packed extra Tums?

  “My father’s useful if you need someone to run interference. He’s a born mediator. All about bringing people together. You’ll probably like him.” She grimaced again. “Everyone likes my father.”

  “Who’s your sister marrying this time?”

  “A bureaucrat from the State department. My father two-point-oh, from the sound of it, but I’m getting all my information from my mother and she’s not always the most reliable source. She’s a master of spin.”

  “You have other siblings too, right?”

  “My brothers. Scott, the oldest, was the focus of most of my mother’s desperate need for one of us to become President so he ran for office—and won, of course, because my mother would allow nothing less—but he lost re-election because court ordered rehab for doing coke with his interns looks bad on campaign posters. His wife might be there—for appearances—but they’ve been separated for nearly three years and their children spend most of the year with her in New York.”

  Ren nodded and she could see him filing it all away, just like background information on any client.

  “My younger brother Aiden…” She trailed off, remembering his strange late-night call.

  “The widower with the twins?”

  Candy nodded, pulled out of her preoccupation and considered how to describe Aiden. “He’s the best of us. A civil rights attorney. The one member of the Montgomery-Raines clan who somehow managed to escape unscathed.”

  “Nice to know I’m allowed to like your little brother.”

  Her mouth twisted in a parody of a smile. “You’ll probably like all of them. Their likability ratings are very high. Just like your average con men.”

  “So young and already so jaded.”

  I’ve been jaded since I was twelve. She swallowed the words—and everything they revealed. Light and easy. She could get through this if she just kept things light and easy.

  She forced a smile. “What can I say? I was weaned on politics.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Four and a half years ago…

  “To Elite Protection!”

  Ren added his voice to the drunken cheer. Christmas music thrummed through the walls from the dance floor, but in the room Max had rented it was quiet enough that they could hear one another speak without shouting—though Tank had already reached the point of drunkenness where he was shouting anyway. Candy laughed helplessly at some story the former lineman was telling about his glory days which had his wife rolling her eyes, and Ren froze with his drink halfway to his lips, watching her smile move across her face.

  God, she was gorgeous.

  “You’re a braver man than I am, Pretty Boy.”

  Ren looked up as Cross threw himself down beside him, slumped in his chair from seven or eight drinks too many.

  “How’s that?” he asked, restarting the arm lifting his own whiskey to his lips. He didn’t usually drink to excess and even though Max had arranged a car to take everyone home, he was still in full possession of his faculties tonight. Though the whiskey had loosened his muscles and smoothed away all the edges, leaving the world a softer, warmer place.

  “Candy scares the shit out of me,” Cross slurred cheerfully. “I mean, yes, God yes, that is a lot of hotness in one little package, but even if she couldn’t kick my ass, I’d fear for my life if I ever broke her heart because you know the entire company would happily beat you senseless for hurting her. I gotta hand it to you man, you’ve got balls.”

  “We aren’t together,” Ren corrected him.

  “No shit? Fuck. I just lost twenty bucks.”

  “Let that be a lesson to you. Don’t bet on my sex life.” Ren narrowed his eyes. “Who were you betting?”

  “Hmm?” Cross asked blearily.

  Ren started to repeat the question, then realized Cross’s gaze had wandered across the room where a trio of wanna-be starlets had snuck into the private room, thinking they’d found their way into some kind of VIP area.

  “If you aren’t with Candy, you wanna play wingman?” Cross asked, straightening himself up with the careful dignity of the overly inebriated. “I can stand next to you as that face draws every woman in a two-mile radius to your side.”

  Tank chose that moment to sweep his wife off her feet and carry her to the dance floor, leaving Candy laughing after them. Alone. Ren shook his head. “Nah, you go ahead. I’ve got a kamikaze mission waiting for me.”

  Cross snorted as Ren picked up his glass and crossed the room to Candy.

  *

  Present day…

  There was something Candy wasn’t telling him. A lot she wasn’t telling him, if he had to guess. Ren was pretty sure he’d just gotten the public version of her public-private family, even if she had given him the CliffsNotes of all their scandals. He wanted to push for the full story, but that would only send her into retreat. Still. He knew he wouldn’t be taking anything at face value when they landed at Reagan.

  And he’d already learned more about her background in the last hour than he’d ever dreamed of knowing.

  “What do they think of me?”

  She blinked at him. “What?”

  “You must have told them something about your husband. What do they think of this man who swept you off your feet and then never even picked up the phone to introduce himself? Do I remember our anniversary? Am I a workaholic? Do I drown kittens or save small children from burning buildings in my spare time?”

  He thought he detected a blush and her gaze locked on her empty peanut package. Candy was visibly uncomfortable with the topic of their marriage. Interesting. “I don’t talk about you much except when my mother goads me into it and then you’re just…I don’t know.” She shrugged. “You’re you.”

  “So I do remember our anniversary?”

  She rolled her eyes. “It’s never come up, but yes, I’m sure you would be the kind of husband who remembered anniversaries.”

  “I’m very thoughtful,” he said with exaggerated humility, making her lips twitch with a smile. At least she didn’t look nearly so panicked around the eyes anymore. “What kind of relationship do I have with your father?”

  Now she was definitely blushing. “I guess he would probably say that you’re friends.”

  “Really?” Definitely something there. Intriguing. “When do I get to see these infamous emails?” When she looked even more uneasy, he lifted one brow. “Shouldn’t I know what we’ve been saying to one another all these years?”

  Candy bit her lower lip—tugging his gaze down to the movement—and for a second he thought she was going to brush him off, leave him flying bl
ind, but then she mumbled, “Fine,” and bent down abruptly, tugging her tablet out of her carry-on and turning it on.

  He waited while she accessed the internet, concealing his impatience as she brought up “his” email account. It surprised him a little how greedy he was for another glimpse into this story she’d concocted.

  She tossed the tablet at him, unbuckling her seatbelt and rising in the same motion. “Knock yourself out.” She braced a hand on the back of his seat, stepping past his knees in the space afforded thanks to their first class seats, and moved quickly up the short aisle to the first class lavatory.

  He watched her walk away—always putting distance between them—and wondered exactly what he was going to find when he looked at these emails. What was he going to learn?

  He opened the folder, organizing them chronologically from oldest to newest, and began to read.

  *

  The emails had been a bad idea. Writing them in the first place. Stupid. So stupid. But she hadn’t been able to resist.

  Showing them to Ren was an even worse idea, but she hadn’t been able to think of a way around it. At least she didn’t have to sit there and watch him read them. She pressed down on the cold water lever, holding her fingers beneath the faucet until the tips were ice cold then pressing them against the back of her neck. She would hide in this lavatory, splashing her face with cool water until the flight attendant came to roust her out.

  Maybe she could stay here all the way to DC.

  Candy hadn’t felt so off balance in years. She’d built up a wonderful life for herself in California. She had a job she loved, an overpriced condo she could barely afford, and until recently she’d had a comfortable friends-with-benefits thing going with Pretty Boy to keep her warm at night. Life had been good.

  And yes, things with Pretty Boy had been more awkward since he started seeing Jessica, but she had it under control. She needed to be in control.

  But now she felt off-kilter. Like she couldn’t control anything and just had to go along for the ride. She braced her hands on the sink, reminding herself to breathe and wishing she hadn’t left her Tums at her seat.

  This was what happened when you lied. You lost control of the situation because you were busy spending all of your time protecting the lie and you lost your ability to adapt to the needs of the moment.

  In order to save the lie, she’d had to bring Pretty Boy home, letting him see behind all her masks, even as she was forced back into her oldest one. The mask she’d worn as little Candice Raines, political princess. Before everything changed.

  He was going to learn about Venezuela.

  Candy shook her head sharply, shaking the thought away. Her family didn’t talk about it. They wouldn’t talk about it. Even with her so-called husband.

  She could do this. She could manage the situation. She was good at that. Calm. Controlled. That was Candy, damn it. She wasn’t this basket case.

  She’d gone back to DC half a dozen times in the last decade and never felt this panic. It was Ren. The idea of him seeing through her that changed everything, but she could handle this. He wasn’t trying to delve into her inner psyche. He wasn’t even trying to get back together with her. He was dating Jessica. Playing house with her. And thank God for that. Candy didn’t think she could have done this if he’d been pushing for more. No. He was just doing her a favor. Being a pal.

  They’d keep things distant. Friendly.

  So what if at this very moment he was reading fake emails she’d written to her father outlining their domestic bliss? She’d been selling the marriage lie. That wasn’t what she really wanted. It had just been a stupid fantasy. A clichéd dream.

  “Ma’am?” A gentle tap at the lavatory door startled her out of her memories. “Ma’am, are you all right in there?”

  “I’m fine!” Candy scrambled for the door, her reprieve over. When she stepped out of the lavatory, another flight attendant—this one equally statuesque, but a decade older with deep mahogany skin and kind brown eyes—hovered near the door. “I was just feeling a little ill,” Candy said apologetically, spreading her hand over her abdomen.

  The flight attendant followed her gaze to her stomach and smiled knowingly. “Of course. Just let me know if there’s anything I can bring you which would help.”

  Candy smiled, smoothed her skirt—which was so damn conservative and tasteful her mother might as well have picked it out—and headed back to her seat where Ren was still reading emails.

  He looked up absently when she slipped past him, but his attention returned quickly to the tablet and she popped her headphones into her ears, turning to look out the window so she wouldn’t have to watch him read.

  There was nothing in them about Venezuela. Their family didn’t talk about it. Even if her life was cleanly broken into before and after by that day when she was twelve years old. Even if it was what had caused her obsession with security and led to her career at Elite Protection.

  No, the emails were all friendly chit-chat. Safe. But she still felt raw. Exposed. Because Pretty Boy was seeing the version of him she’d created as her husband.

  She couldn’t watch him read that stupid fantasy—the husband who adored her, who would do anything for her and never break her trust. The version of Ren in those emails was pure wish-fulfillment and she didn’t want to watch him realize that.

  She closed her eyes, trying to get some sleep. Normally, Candy was a big believer in vigilance, in knowing exactly what was coming for you, preparing for every contingency, but today she didn’t want to see.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Four and a half years ago…

  “How did you become a model anyway? Doesn’t exactly fit if you wanted to stay out of the public eye.”

  Candy slumped companionably on the loveseat beside Pretty Boy, her feet propped up on the small table in front of them as they watched the rest of the Elite Protection staff drunkenly gyrating on the dance floor. He sprawled at her side, one firm shoulder bumping up against hers, his long, muscular thighs rubbing against hers every time he shifted—which seemed to be often. He cradled a glass of whiskey in one hand, the same whiskey he’d been nursing for the past hour while she slowly peeled the label off a microbrew that was a little too hoppy for her taste.

  He shrugged, the movement warm against her shoulder, and lifted his glass for another tiny sip. “I sort of fell into it.” When she turned to look at him and arched a brow, he went on. “I was at a party.” He glanced around, as if checking to make sure no one else could hear them before adding, “One of my uncle’s parties.”

  The low-voiced qualifier spoke volumes. If entertainment gossip was anything to go by, Javi Tate had earned his sex, drugs, rock n’ roll reputation—especially the sex and drugs part. “How old were you?”

  “Sixteen. My grandfather had just died and my grandma stopped functioning. I was getting into trouble, so she sent me to LA to stay with Tio Javi for the summer—in her defense, I don’t think she had any idea what he was into back then.”

  Candy had seen his juvie record—typical rebel without a clue stuff—but she hadn’t put the timeline together to realize he must have been grieving at the time. “No one put together that you were Lore Tate’s kid?”

  “I’d already changed my name by then and I never looked like him.”

  Courtesy of his Chinese mother and half-Dominican, half-African-American father, Ren had probably never looked like anyone. He was uniquely beautiful.

  “Anyway, I was sixteen, high on anything I could get my hands on—which didn’t narrow it down much at Javi’s parties—and trying to impress some models who had come to party with the once-great rock god. One of the girls had just gotten a camera phone—they were brand new at the time and we were all amazed. We were just screwing around with the camera, taking a bunch of selfies—though no one called them that back then—and I gave one of the girls my number, hoping to get laid. The next day I got a call, but it wasn’t from the girl. It was her manager. She’
d posted some of the pics on her website—bragging about being at one of Javi’s parties—and the manager had seen me. He said my face could make us both rich. My uncle pretty much ignored me, my grandma wouldn’t let me touch my parents’ money until I was twenty-five—insisting I needed a normal life—but I didn’t want a normal life. I was young and stupid and I wanted to be famous on my own, so I emancipated and became Ren. Just Ren. Like I was Madonna or something.”

  “All that from a selfie.” Candy watched him for a long moment, something in her chest aching at how alone he must have felt, a teenage boy still grieving the man who’d raised him. He met her eyes and something stretched taut between them—something that freaked her out so much she twisted away suddenly, digging her phone out of her pocket, slapping on a forced smile. “Come on. I want a selfie of my own with the famous Ren.”

  He snorted at her demand, but obligingly bent his face next to hers, slinging one arm around her shoulders. She saw her mistake as soon as his warmth pressed even tighter against her side. For months now she’d been resisting this.

  Pretty Boy was entirely too pretty and as the only female in the Elite Protection offices, indeed a rare female in a male dominated industry, she needed to guard her professionalism and keep temptation at arm’s length—not hop on the back of its motorcycle and hang on tight.

  She’d steadfastly shut down his every attempt to lure her into after-hours drinks and refused to climb on the back of his motorcycle no matter how tempting the prospect was. Candy didn’t do relationships and the last thing she wanted was to run into last night’s one night stand at the office the next day. No, the work-life separation needed to remain intact.

  But as he leaned close, taking her phone from her, arguing that his arms were longer and stretching one out for the selfie, something hot and tight curled inside her. They smiled cheesily into the lens and it felt good. Right. Better than she could remember feeling in a long time.