Little White Lies

by Lizzie Shane

  Candy spoke before her mother could broach whatever Machiavellian scheme she was cooking up. “We should probably unpack and freshen up. It was a long flight.”

  “Before you see your father?” her mother asked in wounded tones. The my-daughter-is-a-thoughtless-wretch voice. “He’s been so looking forward to meeting your husband after all these years.”

  Candy sighed. As heavenly as a shower and a few minutes to fortify her defenses sounded, it was just going to have to wait. “Where is he?”

  “In the small study,” her mother replied. She ushered them out the door, beaming her familiar smile of victory. “He’ll be so thrilled to see you two. I know he has a lot to say to you, Ren.”

  Candy cringed. Oh, joy.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Four and a half years ago…

  Her back slammed against the door of the single-stall bathroom as Ren threw the lock and Candy gasped, breaking the kiss. She’d been turned on before, but she’d never felt this. This insane pounding pulse in her blood that drowned out all logical thought and screamed that she would burst into flames if she couldn’t have him right now. Had they remembered to lock the door? Did she even care?

  Pretty Boy’s hands were on her ass, hitching her higher so they lined up just right. She forgot sometimes how tall he was, how strong. But now his mouth was on her throat and his strength was surrounding her and oh dear God she was going to die if she couldn’t feel him on her skin. Then his palms brushed beneath her shirt and she shuddered.

  “This can’t be a thing,” she gasped with her last remaining brain cells. “I don’t screw around at work.”

  “I know,” he promised, the words a throaty vow, then his mouth claimed hers and the last remnants of rational thought burned away beneath the heat of him. She lost time, sliding into feeling instead, his hands everywhere, until he broke the kiss with a muttered curse. “I love these jeans, but how the fuck do you get them off?”

  She laughed, the sound jagged and desperate, and wrenched at the tight denim, shimmying the clinging fabric down her legs until she could kick them off. They tangled around one ankle, but Pretty Boy somehow managed to yank them free as he lifted her again, pinning her to the wall. He’d taken the time to free himself and slide on a condom and now there was nothing stopping them. He slid in deep and her eyes rolled back. “Oh, fuck, Ren.”

  He braced an arm against the wall next to her head, his biceps close enough to lick—so she did and he grunted, gripping her thigh to change her angle, his rhythm making her insane, the low rasp of his voice chanting her name in her ear until his movements went ragged and uneven and she couldn’t even care because she was at the center of a supernova and nothing in the world could touch her. She was light and fire and heat—a flame so bright it burned away everything but feeling and the feel of the man in her arms.

  *

  Present day…

  Ren had always figured the father cleaning his gun as an intimidation tactic as he met his daughter’s significant other was an urban legend. He certainly hadn’t expected to follow Candy into what must be the small study to find her father oiling up a hunting rifle. Thomas Raines stood when he saw them, holding the stock of the rifle in one hand.

  “Candice! There you are. And this must be the man who never asked for my baby girl’s hand in marriage.”

  Ren extended his hand, ignoring the rifle. “Ambassador Raines, it’s a pleasure to finally meet you, sir. In my defense, I did email to ask for your blessing—” Thank God he’d briefed himself on those emails.

  “After the fact. Via email.”

  “Dad—” Candy began to intervene on his behalf, but Ren placed a hand on her arm. Her father would never respect him if he didn’t defend his own case on this.

  “I know that isn’t the way you would have liked to see things done, but, with all due respect, sir, it was Candy’s decision to make. Your blessing would have been welcome, but once I’d convinced her to marry me, I didn’t want to chance anything going wrong and making her change her mind before I got her down the aisle. I couldn’t risk you telling me to take a hike and talking her out of it.”

  Raines cracked a smile and set the rifle on the desk—he had to know he hadn’t been particularly intimidating even while he was holding it. He had such a nice, friendly face it would have been shocking for him to pull a Cheney. “I guess we all do rash things in the name of love. And since you’ve made her so happy these last four years, I can hardly complain now. But I do have to insist that we sit down for that brandy and have a real talk—face to face for a change. Man to man.”

  “Dad. Is that really necessary?” Candy looked between them, visibly uneasy with the idea.

  “Don’t worry, babe.” Ren smoothed his hand down her arm to tangle his fingers with hers. “I’ve got this. Why don’t you go recharge after the flight and I’ll find you when we’re done here?”

  She glared at him—and he was almost comforted by the look because for the first time since they’d walked into this showplace she wasn’t performing Stepford Candy. She was pissed at him and letting it show.

  He almost bent down and kissed the angry purse of her lips.

  “Let the menfolk have a talk, Candice—”

  At her father’s words, she went brittle again, though the irritation still flashed in her eyes. “Don’t stay too long,” she demanded. “And remember you can always text me if he starts grilling you.”

  She thought he was going to trip up and give away the game. He understood her nerves, but Ren was a pro. He knew his business. And he’d read every single one of those emails. Twice.

  He hadn’t known what to expect in the emails she’d been so reluctant to let him read. He’d read at first looking for insights into her father, but there was little beyond the basic get-to-know-you chit-chat. No, what he’d really learned was how Candy saw him.

  She’d always acted like he was her disposable lover. Yes, they were friends and yes, she relied on him more than she allowed herself to rely on anyone else, and of course, Candy paid attention to details because details were her life, but he’d never thought about how well she knew him until he was reading emails he’d supposedly written and they all felt like something he would have said. There were a lot of things he had said in those emails.

  And in every single one they were blissfully, happily married.

  Was that what she wanted after all? She’d been pulling him in and pushing him away for years until he’d finally realized she was never going to wake up wanting the white picket fence, but what if she’d wanted it all along and he’d been too dim to notice? What if the emails weren’t the shiny happy version of their life she was painting for her parents, but rather the dream she was painting for herself?

  Did she know how much they revealed? Was that why she hadn’t wanted him to read them? Could she see the way they’d given away her desire for a closer relationship with her father—even if it was only through bi-monthly emails?

  They’d given him hope. Hope that there might be a future for the two of them.

  But first they had to con her parents for a little while longer.

  “I think I can survive your father. We’re old friends.” He leaned down, dropping a light kiss on her lips, pulling back before she could react. “Go rest. I’ll see you soon.”

  Candy shot him one more look that was clearly meant to be significant—some kind of warning he couldn’t interpret—and then clicked softly out of the room on her kitten heels. She wouldn’t like being excluded from the conversation, but her father was old fashioned and he obviously wanted to grill Ren without interference.

  Thomas Raines moved back behind his desk, reaching once again for his gun as he nodded Ren to the chair opposite. “So. Ren. Tell me about yourself.”

  He smiled. “Well, for starters, I’m not intimidated by rifles since I act as a bullet shield for celebrities for a living, but I appreciate the effort.”

  Thomas laughed and set down the gun to pour the brandy. “I
think I’m going to like you, Ren Xiao. Candy needs someone who isn’t easy to intimidate.”

  “That she does. Luckily, I don’t scare easy.”

  Thomas smiled and handed over a glass of amber liquid. “No. I don’t suppose you do. I haven’t heard much about your family…” He left the sentence open, silently inviting Ren to fill in the blanks.

  “My parents died in a car accident when I was very young. My grandparents raised me after that. They were very grounded and family-oriented and tried to raise me to be the same way. I didn’t always listen—especially during my teen years—but I learned a lot from them.”

  “Where are they now?”

  “They both passed away before I was twenty.”

  “Any other family?”

  “I have an uncle, but we aren’t close. Other than that, it’s just me and Candy. She’s my family now. And you can rest assured, sir, that I would never do anything to hurt her. I will always take care of her.” He sipped his brandy—more from courtesy than because he liked the taste. “She’s my best friend.”

  All of which was true.

  Ren was proud of himself that he’d managed to skirt the truth without outright lying—though he didn’t want to think of how her father would react when he found out they’d been lying about the wedding.

  Hopefully he wouldn’t have the rifle close at hand.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Four and a half years ago…

  So. That hadn’t been planned.

  Ren held Candy pinned against the door—trying to find his breath and his scattered brain cells.

  Best goddamn fifteen minutes of his life, but not exactly how he’d pictured kicking off his relationship with Candy. Not that he was complaining. Ren was so satisfied at the moment he didn’t think he’d be in a state to complain about anything for, oh, about fifteen or twenty years.

  She unlocked her legs from his waist and Ren let her gently slide down until her feet touched the floor. Her bare feet. She’d kicked off her heels along with her jeans and he glanced around now, wincing when he realized he’d pretty much flung her jeans inside-out on the questionably-clean floor of a club bathroom.

  He bent to retrieve them—at least her panties had escaped a floor landing, caught in one leg of her jeans. Candy snatched them from his fingers and began yanking on her clothing, with a speed that indicated the sanitary aspects of the bathroom floor were the furthest thing from her mind. Ren turned to dispose of the condom and she spoke to his back.

  “This can’t happen again.”

  “Whoa.” He spun back, still fastening his jeans. “What?”

  Her eyes were glassy, almost panicked. “You agreed!”

  “That we couldn’t fuck around at work.” At least that’s what he thought he’d agreed to. Things were a little fuzzy in the middle there. She could have asked him to skydive naked and he probably would have agreed at that moment.

  “You knew what I meant!” Definitely panicked.

  Shit. He’d thought they were on the same page. All night she’d been flirting with him, smiling at him. He liked her. This wasn’t supposed to be just sex. “Did you really think I was capable of having The Talk mid-coitus?”

  “Well, I can’t get involved with someone at work. This can’t happen again.”

  “Why not?”

  “It isn’t professional!” She winced at the shrillness of her own voice and closed her eyes, groaning. “Oh God. I just screwed a coworker. In a bathroom.”

  Okay, damage control. She was freaking out. He just needed to make sure she didn’t walk away regretting this. As long as she didn’t hate him, he might still have a shot after she calmed down. “Is it still sleeping with a coworker if we aren’t technically at work?”

  She shot him an are-you-kidding-me look. Admittedly, it hadn’t been his best argument, but blood flow was slow to return to his brain.

  “I don’t want it to happen again. Okay? That’s all there is to it.”

  “Candy…” But she’d already bolted out the door, leaving him zipping up his pants, and by the time he got back to the party, she was gone.

  *

  Present day…

  The west carriage house—i.e. the guest quarters above the left garage—was outfitted with all the luxury of a five-star hotel. The en suite bath featured a claw-foot soaking tub as well as a shower that could easily fit a family of five. There was a small sitting area where one gabled window thrust out toward the driveway and a walk-in closet where her grandfather’s frighteningly efficient staff had already hung their clothes—but none of that was what made her uneasy.

  No, what made it impossible to stop pacing the room and had her chomping on Tums nonstop was the bed. The massive, plush, California king piled high with decorative pillows. It was tempting in the extreme to throw herself down onto all that softness—except for the fact that Ren would be sharing it with her.

  Her stomach took another somersaulting dive toward her toes and Candy popped another chalky tablet into her mouth. She pivoted sharply, pacing toward the window and craning her neck toward the main house—as if she’d be able to see through several centuries of stone and glass to where her father was interrogating Ren even now.

  This had been a terrible idea. She shouldn’t have brought him. They would never be able to pull this off. Her father would figure it out. Or her mother’s internal lie detector would start twitching and that would be all she wrote.

  She’d figured they could fake their way through, filling in the gaps for one another, but it hadn’t occurred to her that they’d be separated—or so quickly. She’d been nauseated ever since he’d left her sight.

  If it had just been the wedding, they might have gotten away with it, but a whole week of nothing but family time? Impossible. Pretty Boy would slip up. She would slip up. For all she knew, he already had. She watched the driveway, half expecting to see him flung out the front door.

  But instead she heard a soft click and his voice behind her as he entered their suite. “Looking for something?”

  “Watching to see if my father drove you out at the end of his shotgun.” She turned to face him and her tension must have shown on her face because Pretty Boy’s teasing smile instantly softened into concern.

  “Hey. Don’t tell me you were worried.” He crossed the room to her, taking her hands, setting aside her pack of Tums, and warming her freezing fingers between his palms. “I’m good at soft cover work. Not as good as you, but I have less practice with disguises.” He hunched down so they were eye to eye. “Relax. We’ve got this.”

  He dropped her hands, lifting his own to massage away the tension in her shoulders and Candy jumped like he’d tried to electrocute her, backing away quickly until she could use one of the sitting area chairs as a shield.

  “It’s not that I don’t have faith in your abilities,” she explained. “It’s this whole situation. I know I’ve been lying to them for years, but it never felt real until you were here and I was introducing you as my husband. It feels like everything just suddenly spun out of control and it’s all my fault, but there’s nothing I can do to stop it.”

  “It’s never too late to tell the truth,” he offered, his tone carefully devoid of judgment.

  “Maybe I should,” she agreed. “Maybe that’s for the best.” Safest. Her gaze drifted back to the bed. That massive, oh-so-inviting bed.

  It wasn’t like she hadn’t slept with Pretty Boy before. Frequently, even. But this was different. She felt exposed here. There was something exponentially more intimate about being with him here. He was seeing beneath her masks. Behind her many disguises. She couldn’t sleep with him this weekend. Not when the walls she’d built around herself were already riddled with cracks.

  Not that he would try anything.

  Jessica. She needed to keep remembering Jessica. He was taken. That little kiss in her father’s study, the way he took care of her by chafing her hands, the shoulder massage—all of it. It was friendly. Or just for show. He was in
love with someone else. Someone who cooked him dinner. Candy had never cooked an edible meal in her life.

  “Candy…”

  He’d rounded the chair and gently brushed her upper arm. She forced herself not to shy away. To be normal with him. If she could just keep him from noticing that all her defenses were down, she could keep him at arm’s length.

  “Everything’s going to be fine.” His hand slid down her arm until he caught her hand, his thumb gently rubbing over her wrist. “For what it’s worth, I like your parents.”

  She jerked her hand away, circling the chair away from him. “Don’t say that.”

  “Why not? I know you have a complicated relationship with them, but they seem… nice. Normal. I was expecting horns and cloven feet from your description.”

  “Just because you don’t see them doesn’t mean they aren’t there. They’re experts at manipulating people. Trust me. Don’t let them suck you in. Before you know it you’ll be agreeing to whatever they want. I bet my mother is somewhere trying to figure out how she can use you for political gain as we speak. We’re all tools to her. Devices to be used to advance the good of The Family.”

  “Maybe she just wants you to be happy. Maybe she’s just trying to be involved in your life because she loves you.”

  “Maybe you don’t know what you’re talking about,” she snapped. “They aren’t your parents, Ren.”

  His expression closed off, and Candy groaned under a familiar wash of guilt. She was getting better and better at being a hateful bitch, it seemed. Less than two hours at her grandfather’s house and look what she’d become.

  “I’m sorry,” she murmured, calmer. “That was uncalled for. They bring out the worst in me.” When he just looked at her, she huffed out a frustrated breath. “Okay, maybe it’s not them. Maybe it’s me. Maybe I’m just the worst version of myself here.” And he was seeing her like this. Which was the last thing she wanted.