Devious Lies: A Standalone Enemies-to-Lovers Romance

A motor had gone off in my stomach.

At least, it sounded like it.

A symphony of growls rumbled again, detonating a chain reaction of head turns on the public bus. I wanted to care, but another long day of scouring an art gallery for a Sisyphus statue left me too drained.

I found two statues today at the same gallery. Both possessed the anguish Nash required and the boulder on top of Sisyphus’ shoulders, but whereas one depicted defeat, the other depicted success.

My legs had carried my way to an empty corridor as soon as I’d seen the last one, aware I should have reserved the defeated Sisyphus after the hell Nash had unleashed upon me, but knowing I wouldn’t.

I hid in the shadows until I collected myself, surprised by how much the statue had affected me. Autopilot led me to the curator. I requested a five-week hold on the statue. Waterboarding couldn’t get me to remember my walk to the bus stop, climbing the steps, or taking a seat. Even now, I remained affected by the sheer art.

The bus careened to another stop. I let my body sway with the movement. The four-year-old in the lavender tee peppered with yellow hearts barreled into my body like a bumper car. She readjusted herself into the bright blue plastic chair beside me, dredged a granola bar from her yellow Snow White backpack, and offered it to me.

“Your stomach is loud.” She wagged the bar in front of my face with pudgy fingers. It resembled a dog’s tail whipping back and forth. “It’s my favorite kind.”

This is what your life has become, Emery. Twenty-two years of fine etiquette, prep schools, and higher education has led you to the pity and charity of a four-year-old wearing her shirt backward.

“Thanks, sweetheart.”

“Lexi.”

“Thanks, Lexi.” I accepted the granola bar but slid it back into her backpack along with one of the plaid teddy bears I had stitched for Stella.

Relief inched its way across my body. I leaned back, finally free from Nash’s Sisyphus task. The past two weeks had been spent traveling from art gallery to art gallery, searching for a statue that fit Nash’s description.

This trip placed me too close to Blithe Beach, where Dad lived. Visiting him tempted me, but I didn’t cave.

I would never.

Still, I yearned like I shouldn’t and pretended I didn’t, because above all else, I was a talented liar. The email from Virginia idled in my inbox, unread for the past six hours. The alert taunted me each time I checked my phone for messages from Ben.

Hunger pains continued their relentless assault. I watched the girl share the granola bar with her mother. I pretended I was back in elementary school. Reed once tattled to Nash that Virginia never gave me lunch money or packed me food.

Lunches give pretty girls spare tires until they’re no longer pretty, she’d say. Don’t you want to be pretty, Emery?

Nash stopped by our table every day with the brown lunch sacks Betty packed him. He never said anything as he gave up his lunch for me, but he always scratched out the I-love-you notes Betty left him, scrawled something ridiculous on the back, and tucked them back inside the bags.

If multi-player dreaming existed, whose dreams would you play in? Yours or Reed’s?

NASH

Ma bought an eighteen-pack of socks yesterday. Dad said he didn’t know why anyone needed eighteen pairs of identical socks. I told him they reincarnated into Tupperware lids every time Ma lost one.

(Then, I asked myself why we have more lids than containers. I know you stole them to paint stories on. Give me one to gift Ma for Mother’s Day, and we’ll call it even.)

NASH

Do you ever get more excited about being uninvited somewhere than invited? Like, if Virginia ever asked you to go to a charity gala with a hundred of her closest enemies then uninvited you, wouldn’t you be celebrating that shit with a fuck ton of alcohol juice pouches?

NASH

People get surgery to change the body they were born into, but what if we could change our personalities? If some surgeon walked up to you and said, “I can operate on your brain. Recovery time is about the same as a tonsillectomy, and it’s totally safe,” would you?

No offense, dude, but I’d give Virginia a personality transplant—along with new batteries for her heart. Think she’ll let Ma take a break after her tonsil removal? Yeah, me neither.

NASH

I saw a cat and his owner playing with a laser yesterday. Think about that shit. Lasers used to be this huge fucking scientific breakthrough, and now some dumbass cat lover in a designer knit beanie is using one to drive his cat nuts. If I invented the Tide Pod and had to watch someone swallow it, I’d probably haunt them from the grave.

NASH

Saw some douche jackass turd berate a worker at McDonald’s the other day. Could you imagine if Virginia had to work a year at McDonald’s? She’d either be more insane or more tolerable. Now that’s a thought.

NASH

I never answered Nash’s questions. He never asked me to. But I kept the notes, tucked inside my box in my nightstand at the Winthrop Estate. I hoped whoever bought the house hadn’t tossed my things.

The idea of my memories lying in a dumpster frayed my heart. I hadn’t realized it back then, but small moments matter most. Millions of raindrops dance together to form a storm, but a single drop is just a tear.

Lonely.

Tiny.

Insignificant.

I couldn’t watch Lexi eat her granola without wanting to snatch it and swallow it whole, so I opened Virginia’s email as a distraction.

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Subject: 4th of July Brunch

Emery,

Allow me to prelude this email by informing you your response is unwanted. I am writing to remind you of the details for the Fourth of July brunch. We’ll be celebrating at the country club at ten in the morning. Be on time.

Able Cartwright is dining with us. Remember him? He is lovely, that boy. Last week, he started up at his father’s law firm while he continues with his Juris Doctorate. The talent in that family is remarkable. I am sure you would agree if only you’d consider a date with sweet Able.

I will be at brunch, accompanied by your Uncle Balthazar. Unfortunately, Eric Cartwright has left for the South of France with his wife, but every other important Eastridge family is attending. Please, do not embarrass me with your dramatics.

I strongly urge you not to wear that horrible dress with the dead flowers. If you would like, I can have a wonderful Oscar De La Renta dress shipped to your dorm room by sunrise. My team of stylists are mobile and can get your hair back to the shiny blonde halo in under an hour.

Allow me to remind you I control whether or not your trust fund is dispensed to you in a timely manner—or dispensed at all. That said, I expect you to be on your best behavior. Don’t be late for tee time.

Sincerely,

Virginia, Chairwoman

Eastridge Junior Society

My head fell against the window with a thud. Virginia still didn’t know I had graduated, and she thought I lived in the overpriced dorms. That alone made me want to wear the dress she hated, not to mention the trust fund threat.

With Dad off the grid, Virginia controlled my trust fund payments. Meaning, unless I obeyed every single demand of hers, I wouldn’t see a dime of it. I wouldn’t blow through the trust fund money if I had access, but at the very least, I would donate most of it, pay off Wilton University and my Clifton University student loans, and spend just enough to keep myself fed and sheltered.

Each time I visited the soup kitchen, I felt like I had taken a meal away from someone who needed it more. But the scholarship fund hung over my head. A parrot who haunted me with the same line.

Squawk! It’s the right thing to do.

Squawk! It’s the right thing to do.

Squawk! It’s the right thing to do.

It would be over soon. One more year, and Demi graduated. I would survive another year of this.

Lola waved at me when I heaved the Jana Sport over my shoulder and bounded down the bus stairs at the next stop. It let off in front of the soup kitchen, a little earlier than I had planned. I tried to avoid peak hours because hungry families came in crowds and caused food shortages.

The crowd lived up to the rumors, filling every table in the cafeteria-style hall. I spotted a familiar flash of color and took a spot in line near Maggie and her kids. She allowed the couple in front of me to cut in line.

I plucked a tray and plate from the rack and slid it down the buffet. Another notch in the conveyor belt.

“Is it always this crowded during peak hours?” I held out the plate to a volunteer.

She dropped a quarter-slice of buttered toast in the middle.

“Always.” Maggie helped Stella lift her plate while Harlan waved his around like a flag. “Come to think of it, I’ve never seen you during a dinner rush. First time?”

My nod tussled my hair until it covered the atelophobia printed on my tee. “I try to avoid them, but I had a long day at work and needed sustenance.”

“You’re in luck. It’s turkey today, and they would have run out if you came any later. Plus, the guy serving it is some serious eye candy.” Maggie slid her tray down and covered Stella’s ears. “I actually think the dinner rushes have been more crowded since he started volunteering because every woman wants an extra side of meat with their protein if you catch my drift.”

I craned my neck to see this guy, but the line that snaked around the meat station extinguished any hope of catching him. “Is he nice?”

“He’s not very talkative, but the kids love him, Stella especially.” She held out her plate for my favorite cheap carbs—canned creamed corn and mashed potatoes. “He’s nice to everyone when he does talk, though. It’s infectious, like the world waits for him to smile before it can work again.”

“So, he’s a nice guy.” It came out harsher than I’d intended. Bitter didn’t suit me, but neither did hunger, a fucked-up boss, or North Carolina. I helped Maggie offer Stella and Harlan’s plates before holding up my own. “Doesn’t sound like my type.”

Maggie laughed at my sly grin, hip-checking me. We moved down the line at a snail’s pace. By the time we reached the meat station, my food had grown cold, yet my heart grew colder at the sight of Nash carving a turkey before delivering a generous portion onto a kid’s plate like the Food Network’s answer to plummeting ratings.

He wore his signature button-down, though the sleeves had been rolled up until the edges of his penance tattoo peeked out. The one I wanted to bite down. To hurt him like he hurt me. His presence consumed more space than his body, and for once, he didn’t look ten seconds from killing someone.

Either way, I wouldn’t take my chances. My heel inched back, desperate to help me flee before he caught sight of me, but I stumbled into the person behind me.

The noise drew his attention. His eyes landed on me with a precision that scraped goosebumps from my arms. An inquisition in his eyes I couldn’t escape. The First through Sixth Crusades compiled in one defeating glare.

I was a Matryoshka doll. He kept peeling at my shells, and I wanted to stop him before he reached the center and realized nothing existed inside of me but air and things that vanished.

One.

Two.

Three seconds was how long it took for him to sneer at me, then turn back to the kid he had been serving as if he didn’t know me.

“That was odd,” Maggie whispered before Stella skipped in front of Nash, taking the kid’s place. “I’ve never seen him do that. You don’t know him, do you?”

“No.” I couldn’t muster up the guilt that usually accompanied my lies. “Never met him in my life.”

“Hmm…” A hint of a smile ghosted her lips. She watched Harlan tell Nash about the dog he’d witnessed peeing all over someone’s leg this morning. Humanity suited Nash, but so would a trash bag. “I think he’s hotter when he looks angry. I swear, I have goosebumps all over my body.”

Me, too.

That was the worst part.

I always had goosebumps around Nash. I didn’t know when that had started, but I needed it to end. For starters, he had seen me naked three times and hadn’t wanted me any of them.

Nash had turned me down so many times, I had no clue why I still craved him like an addict. He boasted the personality of a rabid dog in heat. And if that wasn’t enough, he was probably getting head in the back of a crowded movie theater around the time I learned to brush my teeth.

“Hi, Nash!” Stella reached a hand out toward Nash, wiggling her fingers. “Where’s my toy?!”

“Stella!” Maggie clutched onto her shoulder and crouched down. “You can’t demand things from people like that!” She glanced at Nash, an apology in her baby blues. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know where she learned that.”

“But Mommy!” Stella swung side to side, flicking her attention between Nash and Maggie. “Nash says if I want something, I have to demand it. I don’t want to be a little britch about things.”

“Bitch,” Nash corrected, and I wondered if he was born without any tact or if it had abandoned him after his first birthday. “Not britch.”

“Oh,” Maggie breathed out, her nosed bunched up like she had caught a whiff of something bad. “One—we don’t curse. At all. Ever. Two—that is not true. We don’t demand things from people. If it’s a reasonable request, we ask politely or we don’t ask at all. Three,” she shifted her focus on Nash, “that’s all on you, Nash. I rescind my apology. In fact, I think I might expect one.”

Nash smiled at Maggie.

Actually smiled at her.

As in, that nice thing civilized humans did.

Something I refused to call jealousy lashed at my throat, making it difficult to breathe.

Stop, Emery. You don’t own him. You don’t even like him, and he definitely doesn’t like you.

As Nash smiled at Maggie, I decided I didn’t like his smile.

I liked his scowl.

His sneer.

His scars.

Even his indifference.

I liked his ugliness.

The slash of his words.

The pain infiltrating his bloodstream.

I liked the parts no one else but me could see, because against all odds, I had fleeced secrets out of him, and now they were mine, too.

I’ve seen your scars. I’d taste them if you’d let me.

But there Nash was, displaying a human emotion for Maggie without looking human.

He looked like a god, descending upon Earth.

An angel seconds before becoming a demon.

I wanted to scratch my fingers down his face until he lost that smile, then rip his shirt open, point at the constellations of raised skin, and shout, “There! That’s the real Nash. Scarred, and broken, and permanently damaged, and definitely not smiling at a woman who deserves a smile from every man.”

I also realized I had completely lost my mind, because Nash Prescott gave Freddy Kruger a run for his money in the terrorizing department. He had also made it clear how little he wanted me when he’d walked away.

Nash carved up the rest of the massive turkey and distributed all but one tiny sliver between Maggie, Harlan, and Stella. “Just saying it how it is, Mags.”

Mags.

I was going to vomit. Maybe Nash did inspire my gag reflex.

“You are so bad.” Maggie shook her head before squishing the three plates onto her tray. “Thank you for the extra portions.”

Nash snapped his gloves off, reached into his back pocket, pulled out a crudely wrapped present, and offered it to a squealing Stella. She hopped up and down, doing a happy dance I wished I could enjoy.

“What about me?!” Harlan edged forward on the tips of his toes to get closer to Nash. A rocking chair near its tipping point. Five little fingers gripped onto the edge of the sticky buffet countertop.

“I’ve got the good stuff for you, Harlan.” Nash pulled out my wallet, sifted through a bunch of bills (not mine on account of me being broke), and plopped ten hundred-dollar bills onto Harlan’s tiny outstretched palm. “Buy whatever you want and give the rest to your mom, so you don’t lose it. Alright?”

That money wasn’t for Harlan.

It was for her.

For Mags.

Morosis.

Solivagant.

Drapetomania.

Magic words that fizzled and died on my tongue.

“Sweet!” Harlan jiggled the bills a little before sliding them into his mom’s purse. “Thank you!”

“Nash…” Maggie’s voice dipped, her cheeks turning a shade of scarlet I marveled at. “It’s too much.”

“It’s for the kids. Don’t worry about it, Mags.” Nash slid the wallet back into his back pocket. Civility. Who would have thought he possessed it? “In fact, I don’t want to hear any more about it. There’s a line.”

“Yeah, okay.” She nibbled on her bottom lip, peered up at him beneath a curtain of long lashes, then glanced at me. “Will you sit with us, Emery? We’ll save you a seat. I’m gonna grab a table before they’re all taken and the kids run wild around here.”

“Yeah,” I promised, reminding myself I was not the person who hated another woman out of jealousy.

Mags.

Maggie left me alone with Nash, the silence enough to undo me. I stared at him. He stared at me. The woman beside me tapped her foot and coughed a few times, probably pissed off about her cold food.

Nash broke the silence first. “Those ten minutes of adulting really took their toll on you. You are a mess.”

“Excuse me?”

He ticked a finger, not bothering to keep his voice down. “You snuck into my parents’ house and fucked the wrong brother.” My face flamed, but I was shocked into silence. He spoke so loud. “You turned down a full ride to Duke with no valid reasons.”

Another finger.

“Do you understand how worried my mom and Reed would be if they saw you right now? Or do you simply not care about anyone but yourself? You look like you’ve spent the past century starving, and newsflash—it’s not hot, so you can stop now, Anorexia Barbie. That model has been discontinued. Virginia isn’t here to monitor your mouth. Act like an adult. Eat a fucking cheeseburger or ten.”

Three fingers.

“On top of being mouthy, you lie to your boss constantly.”

Four fingers.

“You took a job at Prescott Hotels that could go to someone who needs the money.”

Five fingers.

He ran out of fingers on the hand, but he kept going. Ruthless. “You are so starved for attention that you broke into my penthouse for a shower. You are untrustworthy. A Trojan horse determined to raze my empire to the ground. And now, like a silver-spooned, selfish princess, you are stealing a meal that could feed someone who actually needs it. I’d ask you why, but it would require caring enough to hear your excuse.”

If murder was legal, he’d probably strangle me right here. In front of everyone. Or maybe slice me open and hang me upside down to bleed out. He seemed like the type to take pleasure in slow torture.

And still, he had more to say. “I can’t even fathom how entitled you must feel that you—”

I cut him off, dipping my voice low, because unlike him, I understood civility, “I don’t recall signing up for this TED Talk. For your information, my trust fund gradually pays me. I get one million dollars a year until I turn thirty-one. Then I get two-hundred and fifty-six million dollars in a lump sum.”

He picked up that sad sliver of turkey with his bare hand—the same ungloved hand that touched the filthy money he gave Harlan—and tossed it onto my plate. Half of it landed on the counter, absorbing those germs. The other half landed on the mashed potatoes and gravy, splattering my shirt.

“How sad,” he bit out, no fucks given. “Only one million dollars. I feel so bad for you, sweetheart. Allow me to make a donation to the Billionaire Heiress Charity Foundation. I’ll address it to your nine-figure trust fund. Be sure to spare a few cents to someone who needs it more—literally anyone else in the world.”

Fumes trapped themselves inside my head. The type of anger that gripped my throat and shook the cords until I couldn’t speak a word. I swallowed the frustration and counted down from ten.

“You didn’t let me finish, asshole. Virginia is holding it above my head, blackmailing me every ten seconds and changing the stipulations of my trust.”

My hands shook. I clenched them together and hid them under the counter, because showing him he rattled me was absolutely not an option.

I didn’t care if money had always been a sore subject for him.

I didn’t care that his parents struggled to put food on the table.

I didn’t care that he hated overprivileged Eastridgers who possessed no gratitude for the security their wealth afforded them.

I didn’t care that poverty, my dad, and lack of healthcare killed Nash’s dad.

I wasn’t thinking of that.

I thought of my pride.

Of wasted nights spent tossing and turning over his touch.

Of the delicious lash his words formed against my skin.

Of the way he treated me like I was less than human for being a Winthrop.

Of the way I used to worship him only to be disappointed when he turned out to be a villain.

Of the way I still craved him.

Nash consumed me like the heart of a storm. I was trapped outside with no shelter, forced to endure the relentless battering with no control over when it would stop.

I didn’t choose my parents, but I could choose whether or not to bite my tongue, and I sure as hell would not.

Nash’s tone was tighter than a coiled wire. “Last I checked, you have two parents, and your excuses are less entertaining than an episode of Keeping Up with the Kardashians.”

“I haven’t talked to my dad in four years.”

This made him pause.

For all of two seconds.

Then his face hardened like he didn’t believe me, and he finally, finally lowered his voice. It made his words sound like a hiss. “And I pay you over forty grand. I understand that’s nothing to a spoiled princess who has lived in a gilded castle all her life, but do you have one responsible bone in your body?”

“Yeah. This one.” I flipped him off, waving my middle finger in front of his face. I raised my voice, so everyone could hear, “And for the record, it’s bigger than your dick and feels better, too.”

I pivoted, clutching onto my mustard-colored tray like it was my lifeline. My tongue hurt from biting it, coated in blood and frustration. So many eyes stared at me, but I had never been the type to be humiliated by mass judgment.

No, only hazel eyes and a whip-fast tongue snuck under my skin and unsettled me.

When I glanced down at my food, it felt pathetic.

I felt pathetic.

The turkey taunted me.

It looked dry.

Shriveled.

Lonely.

My spirit animal wasn’t even a chihuahua named Muchacha anymore.

It was a dirty, sad slice of turkey that I still intended to eat because I was hungry and desperate and two heartbeats away from calling it quits and running to Virginia with outstretched palms and a leash for her to handle.

But Nash was right about one thing.

I was a princess, and I had traded in my ballgowns for battlefields.

He had started the battle, but I would win the war.