We aren’t together.
We will never be together.
She’s with Waylon.
And I’m—well, my situation is complicated.
And yet, I can’t not touch her. I can’t not have her. It’s always been this way with us. Even when she was in love with my best friend. Even when she finally set her eyes on me, we both knew that we could never be.
We just never speak the reasons out loud. The reasons would all be lies anyway. That’s the one thing we share—lies.
We both grew up lying to survive, and it’s stayed with us.
“What are you doing with Waylon Brown?” I ask.
She tilts her head as she looks up at me, her long throat revealed to me, and if I dip my head lower, I can see her glorious tits staring up at me. But it’s her pulse in her neck that has my attention. I can see how fast her heart is racing.
Liesel wasn’t scared of the man who held a gun to her head. She’s scared of me. She knows I’m no longer on her side—and she knows I’m far more dangerous than Fitz was. I could harm her, kill her.
“He’s rich and good looking, why wouldn’t I be with him?” she answers back, tilting her head all the way back as I dip her over the ledge, knowing the danger makes her conflicted between desire and terrified. It also gives me the view of her elated face, and of course, I take the moment to run both my hand and eyes down the front of her dress. Her skin melts like hot silk beneath my fingers.
“Liar. You don’t care about money. Or good looks.”
I pull her back up, whipping her hard into my body. The movement takes her breath away.
“Power then?” she says it like a question.
I shake my head. That’s a lie too. Everything the woman says is a lie. I haven’t figured out what she’s doing with that man yet, but I will.
I just have to read between the lines, do some investigating. There is always a reason with Liesel, and it’s never the obvious. She would never let herself fall in love. Even though she doesn’t supply love as an answer, I know that’s not why she’s with him.
“I didn’t think you owned a tux,” she says, her eyes suffocating my body with her stare.
“I don’t.”
She rolls her eyes, calling out my lie, before her eyes flick to the dead man on the floor, and suddenly she’s sober.
“Why did you want him dead?” I ask, even though I already know the answer. I found the security video of her reading the blackmail, the threat against her family.
“Stop asking questions you already know the answer to.”
She pushes away until she’s no longer in my arms.
My arms hang at my side like dead weights, no longer having a purpose.
“I’ll wire you the money I owe,” she says, still staring at Fitz.
“I already told you, I don’t want your money.”
Liesel finally looks at me, her face unreadable. But I know she’s scheming, trying to come up with a way to hurt me.
Just like I’m conniving ways to hurt her.
“You’ll take care of the body?” she asks, already knowing I will. This isn’t the first time I’ve killed a man. I work in security for the Black family, a crime family who rules the seas. I’ve disposed of plenty of bodies and killed more times than most people make new acquaintances.
I walk over to the body. There’s a reason I didn’t shoot him. I don’t want to haul a body down the stairs.
“Stan