Lie With Me

by Holloway, Taylor

  She shook her head. “Sorry.” Just as quickly as it had appeared, her anger vanished. “I know you two bond by being mean to each other. I’m just really tired. It’s been a long night.”

  Ward wrapped an arm around her waist affectionately and she snuggled into him. They were adorable. It was gross. And yeah, I was jealous.

  Victoria and I used to be like that.

  Ward was oblivious to my inner heartbreak. He was dealing with his own. “I know. It’s hard without Kate and Willie here.” His voice had turned wistful.

  Ward’s sister had managed the business side of the bar, as well as bartending and waitressing as needed. She’d opened up a business of her own and quit a few weeks ago. Willie, the bar’s founder and former owner had also retired recently. That left Ward to pick up all the slack, without two of his best friends. That was probably why Emma, a college professor, was pulling shifts to help in the first place.

  “At least we’ve got Wendy working nights for the rest of the week,” Emma said, nodding. “She’s getting the hang of everything pretty well.”

  “It’s in her blood,” Ward joked.

  “Speaking of things that are in Wendy’s blood, we need to get another EpiPen,” Emma said. “I gave the one we had to Rae’s coworker.”

  Ward nodded.

  “I’ll talk to Rae about it tomorrow if you want,” I suggested. “She mentioned she wants to pay you back. Something about billing it as a corporate expense?”

  “She’s one tough cookie,” Emma said approvingly. “I’m so glad she did the injection. Wendy explained how to do it, but I’m not sure I could have actually stuck somebody who was literally dying like she did. She stayed calm the whole time, too.”

  I could fully imagine Rae taking charge of a situation like that. I smiled at the thought. She was really something.

  “I know that look,” Ward said, interrupting my daydream. “You’ve got a little bit of a thing for her.” His tone was shocked. “Don’t you?”

  “Actually, I’ve got a huge thing for the pile of money her company is gonna give me, but close,” I replied with a grin. “See you two later.”

  I got out of there as fast as I could (without paying, as usual). The last thing I needed was Ward figuring me out before I had time to thoroughly strategize for myself and figure out what I was going to do with the whole Rae situation.

  Was she hot? God Yes. Did I like her? Sure. But she wasn’t Victoria.

  Yet somehow, and even though it made me feel guilty and bizarrely like I was being unfaithful to a woman who said she didn’t love me anymore, I still couldn’t stop thinking about Rae. My dreams that night were filled with confusing images of fierce, beautiful redheads. I wasn’t sure if it was Rae or Victoria’s name that was on my lips when I awoke. But for the first time in a long time, I was smiling.

  8

  Rae

  The color on the box said ‘true red’ and it wasn’t lying. I stared at myself in the mirror, astounded by how much a little change in color could change my looks.

  Bye bye demure strawberry blonde. Hello sexy fire engine red.

  “Do you like it?” Annie asked anxiously. She’d been kind enough to help me this morning. Her head was cocked to the side.

  “Yeah, I think I do?” I stared in the mirror like the woman reflected back might disappear any second. She was the sexier, more vivacious version of me.

  “Good. Because I absolutely love it.”

  We grinned at each other and then laughed like teenagers. Although Annie and Kyle were usually my coworkers, I was now temporarily their boss. What that meant for Annie and me, I didn’t know. We’d always been friends first and had grown pretty close over the years. There aren’t many women at Azure Group. We tended to stick together for safety. And happy hour commiseration.

  “So, what made you want to go sex bomb all of a sudden?” Annie asked.

  I shrugged. “I just felt like it was time for a change,” I lied.

  The funny thing was, even though I probably wouldn’t have had the guts to dye it without Lucas’ ‘encouragement’, I’d always been curious about what I’d look like with bright red hair. Truth be told, I wasn’t the biggest fan of my natural reddish blonde hair color. I thought it looked a bit dull and boring. This new color, in my humble opinion, was freakin’ awesome. I ran my fingers through the fiery strands excitedly and giggled.

  I loved my new hair.

  I also loved the fact that the Texas Secretary of State verified that my stock certificates were legit. This deal and this day were off to a good start. Hopefully this afternoon we could begin the more normal aspects of the acquisition process, including getting Kyle and Annie to work on the investigation. And maybe, I could figure out exactly what this whole ‘pretend girlfriend’ thing was going to require (besides the hair).

  When Annie and I met Kyle in the lobby at noon, his reaction to my new look was appropriately surprised and professionally complimentary. But it was nothing compared to the way Lucas reacted. He was literally openmouthed and mute when he saw me. His eyes widened appreciatively, and his pupils became huge. A few awkward moments passed at the door to his loft as he stared.

  “Lucas, these are my coworkers, Annie Washington and Kyle Chen.” I told him, trying to pull us back on track. Lucas snapped his mouth shut and ripped his gaze away from me with obvious effort to shake hands with them. “Annie is our technical specialist. She’ll be reviewing your algorithms and app infrastructure. Kyle is our financial analyst. He’ll be reviewing your financial statements, tax statements, et cetera.”

  We generally didn’t conduct our due diligence efforts within the homes of our targets’ CEO, but this was no ordinary acquisition. Lucas led us forward into his loft and pointed at what I assumed was his dining table. Arrayed before us were several laptops, a small server, and a number of stacked reams of paper.

  “Ok. Have at it,” Lucas said with a grin. “Everything’s right there.”

  Kyle and Annie exchanged a stunned look with one another. This was not usually how it went. This level of immediate transparency was unusual, to say the least. Usually our target companies would make us sit through at least two days of boring meetings before they ever let us near real information. Cliff liked to call the preliminary few meetings the ‘turd polishing’ stage. I preferred not to think about that visual, but I preferred skipping the advertising and grandstanding even more. This whole process would go so much more smoothly if all clients would just show us to the records and let us work.

  So, I shrugged when they turned to me in confusion. “At least we don’t have to go digging through file rooms this time, right?”

  Since we’d all spent our fair share of time in file rooms and drafty basements, they nodded with matching bemused smiles and got to work. Lucas and I were left standing awkwardly at the door. I could feel Lucas’ eyes on me, even before I turned to meet his gaze.

  “I’m going to be honest with you,” I told him after a few minutes of very stilted small talk. “But you just did about ninety percent of my job by putting everything out for us to work on. Usually I have to pry information out of executives like a guard at Guantanamo going for terrorist toenails.”

  He smirked but looked confused. “Well we signed a non-disclosure agreement, and you agreed not to take anything out of this room,” Lucas said, shrugging. “So why wouldn’t I show you what you came for?”

  “Beats me. I’ve never understood all the cagey weirdness either. I think most executives just don’t want us to see their dirty laundry.”

  “My dirty laundry is in the bedroom over there,” he said, pointing. “You can see it if you really want to. It’s not that exciting. I promise not to ask you to clean it or anything.”

  I smiled at his sarcasm. “That’s an extremely generous offer, but no thanks.”

  “Are you sure?” His voice had dropped a half-octave and was just above a whisper.

  “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were just trying to get
me into your bedroom.” I winked.

  Oops. Did I seriously just say that out loud?

  God, Lucas was easy to flirt with. It was so easy to forget that we were just business associates. I looked over in shock, but Lucas just laughed. Thankfully Kyle and Angela didn’t notice. Those two had gone straight into nerd heaven as soon as they sat down. It would be hours before either came up for air.

  “Do you want to go grab a cup of coffee downstairs while they work?” Lucas asked, accurately interpreting my glance at my coworkers for the worry it was. I did not want them figuring out my side arrangement with Lucas.

  I nodded. “Sure. We’ve got business of our own to discuss anyway.”

  One latte order later and we faced one another across a narrow booth.

  “I checked your stock certificates,” I told him. “They’re real.” My voice was matter of fact.

  He arched an eyebrow and hid a smile behind a sip of his espresso. “Yes, I know they are.”

  “Do you like my new hair?”

  I already knew he did, I was just fishing for compliments. Yes, I’m shallow sometimes. Sue me.

  “I liked it before too, but yes,” he replied. “I like it.” His eyes lingered on the long, red strands.

  “Do I look like her now?” I asked boldly. I just really needed to know. For some reason, it was important for me to know if I looked like his mysterious ex-girlfriend he was willing to go to such great lengths to get back.

  He stared at me for a moment and cocked his head to the side as he considered it. “Not really, no.” His voice was soft.

  I blinked. “Really?” I touched my hair, suddenly wondering if he thought I wasn’t attractive now or something. Or not as attractive as her. “I would have thought that’s why you wanted me to pretend to be your girlfriend.”

  He shook his head. “You’re beautiful, Rae,” he said, smiling mischievously at me. “I’m fairly sure you know that already, or you wouldn’t be asking.”

  “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” I replied. “I didn’t ask about that though, I asked if I looked like her.”

  “Victoria.” He said her name like each letter cost him. Like her name was a prayer.

  “I don’t look more like her now? Victoria? I thought that was why you wanted me to dye my hair…” I trailed off uncertainly.

  He shook his head again. “It’s not that. I mean, you both have red hair, but that’s about it.”

  “Wrong color?” I pushed. Maybe she was more auburn red than fire engine red or something.

  His smirk widened into a smile. “It’s really not about the hair color, Rae.”

  “I don’t understand.” I bet her nose was smaller than mine. I’d always thought my nose was a bit too big. And it had a little bump in it. I resisted the urge to touch it.

  He took another sip of espresso. “I don’t know that I understand either. It’s… it’s not an easy thing to explain. You and Victoria aren’t really the same. You don’t look the same, you don’t act the same. But on a certain level, you are the same. I guess it’s an attitude thing?” He shrugged.

  An attitude thing? I hoped that was good. He was looking at me like it was a good thing.

  “Will you tell me about her?”

  He blinked. “Why?”

  “Because I’m curious. And maybe it will be helpful to me when I’m pretending to be in love with you if I know what you like.” I smiled my most winning smile. “Maybe it will help her be jealous if I seem like a bad version of her, too.”

  Tell me, dammit. Tell me about this mysterious Victoria creature that’s got you so thoroughly under her spell.

  A humorless smile played across his features and vanished. “I’ll tell you about her some other time. There’s more important things to talk about right now.”

  I bit back my disappointment and curiosity. Why was Victoria so great? I wasn’t sure when I’d become jealous of her. It wasn’t really that I wanted Lucas so badly. He was hot, yes, but it wasn’t that. It was more about the way Lucas looked when talked about her. Like she was the only woman in the world. I was sure that no one had ever talked about me that way. The thought ate at me.

  “What do you want to talk about?” I asked, forcing myself to sound pleasant and not petulant. I’d find out about her eventually, whether he told me or not. I’ve got good investigative skills.

  “Our date tonight.”

  “What?”

  “Oh, do you already have plans?”

  “No, but—”

  He interrupted. “Do you have any dietary restrictions? Meat? Seafood?”

  My anger rose. “No, but Lucas, I would appreciate if you could keep in mind that I don’t appreciate being told that we’re going on a date. Even if it’s a fake date. At least do me the courtesy of asking first. I’ll do the best I can to fulfill my end of the bargain here, but I’ve still got feelings and I don’t take orders from you.”

  His full lips parted, and he sighed. “You’re right. I apologize.” He dragged a hand through his tousled hair. “I have less than no idea about what I’m doing here. You’re my first fake girlfriend.”

  I giggled, remembering something. “You’re not my first fake boyfriend.”

  His eyebrows rose high on his forehead. “I’m not?” He blinked. “Really?”

  I shook my head at him. “Nope. In eighth grade I pretended to date my friend Thomas because a mean girl in another class had a crush on him and he was scared she’d kill him if he turned her down. I was his protector.”

  “And did you save him from the mean girl?”

  “I sure did. She didn’t want to mess with me.” I was still proud of that, all these years later.

  “Well if we’re going back to middle school, I guess you aren’t technically my first fake girlfriend either,” Lucas told me. “I ‘dated’ a girl in sixth grade for two weeks before she broke up with me. She was going to a concert and was sure John Mayer would see her and fall in love with her. She didn’t want to be a cheater, you see, but she’d wanted some ‘experience’ before she met her true love. So, she was really doing me a favor when she called it off.”

  I smirked. “Oh definitely. Did she try to get back with you after the concert?”

  “Yeah. But by then I’d already moved on. To her best friend.”

  “Harsh.”

  “My middle school was a pretty cutthroat place romantically speaking,” Lucas told me.

  “Mine too.” Cutthroat was right. It was a blood bath. Children are cruel. Teenagers are worse.

  “I bet you broke a lot of hearts in high school.”

  “I was actually quite nerdy. But I still managed to do ok.” I had a few dates. One semiserious boyfriend. Nothing major. I was a late bloomer.

  “You? Nerdy? I don’t believe it.”

  I cringed. “Believe it. I wear contacts now, but I was a mess back then. I had braces, glasses, baby fat, an emo haircut, and an attitude the size of Texas.”

  “So, you were an ugly duckling?”

  “I don’t know if I was water fowl, but I was definitely foul tempered enough to send most boys running for the hills.”

  “Some guys like a challenge.” His grin said he was one of them.

  “Are you speaking from personal experience?”

  His sexy smirk was back. “Nowadays, yes. But dating in high school was not really a challenge for me.”

  “Self-confidence clearly isn’t much of a challenge for you either.” My voice was dry, but I liked a man who knew his worth. Lucas’ confidence was one of the things that attracted me most.

  “I played football in high school,” he explained. “I was the quarterback. I was popular.” He said it without pride or modesty. It was just a fact.

  I nodded. Even if he wasn’t brilliant and gorgeous, being a talented athlete would have put Lucas in the middle of the in-crowd. When you added up everything, he must have been the king of his school. “I see. So, were you going to ask me on a fake-date tonight or something?” I found th
at I was eager to return to the subject of spending more time with him.

  “Yes,” Lucas said with a smile. He cleared his throat and sat up straight. “Rae, will you go on a fake date with me tonight?”

  I fluttered my eyelashes at him. “Why yes. I’d be delighted to go on a fake date with you tonight, Lucas.”

  “So, on the technical front I’ve got good news and bad news,” Annie said to Kyle and I over lunch. “Which one do you want first?”

  I was busy picking all the jalapenos off of the hamburger on my plate. Why on earth would anyone want to ruin a perfectly good hamburger with gigantic chunks of spicy sadness? Texas was weird. I shrugged at Annie’s question. “The good news?”

  To be honest, I’d been hoping we could just eat lunch and not talk about work. But I could tell that both Annie and Kyle were brimming with new insights from their morning research. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to hear them, I did, it was just that I liked occasionally taking a break from work. But that wasn’t the Azure Group way.

  “The good news is that it looks like Stevenson gave us everything we need to perform a thorough audit of both his intellectual property and his basic code.”

  I smiled. “That is good news. I’ll never forget that auxiliary server room in Detroit.” That place still gave me nightmares. At the reference, Kyle shivered.

  “Me either. Those raccoons had a really good thing going,” Annie replied with a shake of her head. “You gotta hand it to them for resourcefulness. They made a mess, but it was nice and warm in their nest.”

  Flashbacks of many pairs of gleaming eyes peering out of dark cabinets pinged through me. Lucas’ fancy, tasteful loft was a hell of a lot better than that had been. Cliff had to get a rabies shot after that trip.

  “I still can’t believe we bought that piece of shit company,” Kyle added. “They were way over-leveraged.” His tone was disbelieving. Privately, I knew the reason we purchased the failing Detroit telecommunications company was because one of Azure Group’s executives was an investor and he didn’t want it to fail. I kept it to myself. There were a lot of not-so-great things that went on behind the scenes of Azure Group. Part of my job was to protect Kyle and Annie from it as much as I could, so they could actually do their jobs. Speaking of which…