Savage Little Lies by Eden O’Neill

Chapter Eleven

Sloane

I ended up signing Ares’s little contract, and I told myself it had nothing to do with sticking it to Dorian. I told myself it had nothing to do at all with Dorian, and I was going to look out for myself for once. I could definitely use the help in regards to graduating, and what I did or didn’t do had nothing to do with him.

I told myself these things.

Honestly, Ares’s project was an inconvenience. My brother was still sick, but at least, it’d get me out the house and not worrying about him. Bru all but pushed me out the door when I told him about it.

Anyway, after I did sign it, Ares’s text told me to meet at his house that evening, and I nearly regretted committing to him. The last time I’d been at this house, things had been fucked up as hell with his little lingerie prank, but then, I remembered he’d made my ass sign a contract and NDA.

He’d been serious about it.

Apparently, this guy was Van Gogh and believed his art held true value. As an artist myself, I believed this for everyone. Anyone who made art should have a sense of protection of it.

But it was Ares’s arrogance that truly got me. The guy was a tool and a half, and because he was, I couldn’t help but be more than curious about a few things. One was what kind of project was so massive he, of all people, felt the need to ask for help.

The other surrounded him asking me in the first place.

He didn’t believe me about the Dorian thing, just like the rest of Legacy, and he’d truly have to need help with something to ask an enemy. We’d been enemies even before.

He really must need help, and I could only sum it up to that. I also wondered if he’d told Dorian, but like he’d said, his relationship with his friends had nothing to do with me.

I cringed thinking about that, but forced myself to put that away. I needed to stay focused and just get this shit done with Ares.

I’d really forgotten about the size of this place.

The football player’s home was simply huge, surrounded by fencing, and the white columns on the home matched. His place reminded me of those old Southern estates down in Louisiana or North Carolina. It was quaint and lovely and the exact opposite of the bad boy I’d crossed one too many times for my liking.

Ares did have gates like the Reeds, but they were open, and I let myself inside. I followed the driveway up to the front of the house.

The driveway itself was wraparound, and I started to park before he came outside in a pair of paint-splattered coveralls and a tank. The tank was basically another scrap of a shirt, and I was honest to God surprised he didn’t come out here shirtless. This guy was constantly feeling himself.

He waved a hand.

“We’re going to the garage,” he said, and that made sense. If we were painting and getting messy, we probably shouldn’t be doing that in his nice house. I’d been in there, and it was immaculate.

He walked beside my car as I rolled toward a garage that held five or so cars. He had it open and told me to park in one of the empty spots. I noticed his Hummer there with the silver wolf scrolled on the front of the hood. The work obviously reflected his namesake.

I got out of my car, wearing my own set of work clothes. Funny enough, I wore a pair of paint-splattered bibs too, but my T-shirt beneath definitely left me more clothed than the Wolf himself.

Ares noticed my attire as I got out of my ride. His eyes narrowed with a shake of his head.

“What? No booty shorts today,” he quipped, and I rolled my eyes. He always claimed I liked to get attention, so I wasn’t surprised about the jab. The fucker had even called me a bimbo when I’d first met him. He clearly believed there wasn’t anything up there in my head and made snap judgments about me.

“Let’s get one thing straight.” I strode right up to him. He turned and was right in my face, and though he was tall, I was too. I only had to stare up at him a little to make eye contact. I cut a hand across my neck. “No insults. No bullshit. I’m here to help you. Not to have you call me names.” I shouldered him out of the way. “Now come on, bitch. Where’s the canvas?”

I expected an instant retort from my arch enemy, so imagine my surprise when it didn’t come. In fact, he was only smirking when I turned around.

He cuffed his arms. “Bitch, huh?” He approached. “So the no-insult thing apparently doesn’t go both ways?”

“The contract didn’t state otherwise.” I smirked now. “Believe me, I read it.”

That thing had me doing everything just short of signing over my unborn child. I couldn’t talk about Fight Club, and my life would become Fight Club. He had me basically living and breathing this project until it was concluded.

But that didn’t mean we wouldn’t be establishing some boundaries from the jump.

Ares’s eyes darkened as he loomed largely over me. “Well, it does go both ways. You’re working with me, so I’ll get some goddamn respect from you…”

“Same goes for me.” I got in his face. “Got it, Mallick?”

The smirk returned.

“Sure,” he said, but I noticed that wasn’t a yes. That was probably as close as I’d get from him. “And before we do this, I got some additional rules.”

“Depends. Were those in the contract?”

I swear to God, I got a little bit of a growl from him at that, and his eye twitched a little. But surprising again, he didn’t check me on this. He wanted to and I saw that, but he didn’t.

Instead, he took a slow breath, the grimace etched on his face like a dark tattoo.

“This is my project,” he established. “Therefore, I call the terms.” He put a finger in my face. “Rule number one is I’m in charge. You do what I say, and you take my direction. This won’t work if you’re going rogue and acting up.”

He saw me as a child obviously, but what his bougie ass didn’t know was I was just as much of a serious artist as he clearly felt he was.

“Well, that’s a given.” I shrugged. “What else?”

“You don’t go in my house.” His expression was serious. “Our project’s out here. You stay out here.”

“Bathroom?”

He directed a finger toward a door in the garage. “Leads to the guesthouse. There’s a bathroom in here. Cooler for water. I even got fucking snacks. Basically, you have zero reasons to go inside my house.”

For someone who had raging parties during which people stayed over, he was pretty territorial about his space.

Maybe that’d been different before. Different with me. I hadn’t betrayed his friend then.

Ares was clearly hung up on this, and I was completely over trying to prove my innocence to him. He was a fucking asshole, and I was only here because he needed me.

His jaw clenched. “Understood?”

“Yeah.”

He nodded. “Good.” He waved a hand. “Now, follow me. I’ll show you what we’re doing.”

That’d be a breath of fresh air. I wouldn’t have to talk to him anymore. Once we got going, I could do my part while he did his. I could blast my music in my earbuds, and we could stay on our own sides of whatever this project was.

We headed over to the cars, one away from the rest on the far side of the garage. He had it under a tarp and pulled the thing off, unveiling an old muscle car. Painted white, the thing reminded me of my dad’s Chevelle, except it was brand new.

Ares balled up the tarp. “We’re starting here.”

“Um, what?”

He jutted a chin toward the pretty ride. The thing was a pearl white, immaculate. He tapped a hand on the front. “We’re going to paint the car. This is the canvas.”

My mouth parted as he walked behind it, pulling another tarp. This one had been over a plain canvas that was about the size of the actual wall. Actually, the canvas itself traveled the entire length of the car.

“And this too,” he said, my eyes flashing. He laughed. “Intimidated yet?”

Getting there.

I guess now I know why he needed the help.

“We’re going to paint the car,” he continued. He put a hand out. “Then blend it into the canvas behind it. It’ll create an interesting perspective and be perfect for my design school applications. It’ll show I’m multifaceted.”

I’ll say.

“What are we painting on them?” This actually sounded fun, real fun.

Ares dropped the tarp, then I followed him over to a sketchpad he had on the back of the car’s trunk. The ride was completely sweet and easily a hundred-thousand-dollar car.

The fact that we were going to be painting on it was something else, and opening his sketchpad, Ares showed me what we were going to do.

I couldn’t have been more shocked. He’d told me he did geometric work.

But he’d never said he did constellations.

The pages were filled with them, gorgeous and reminded me so much of my galaxy work it gave me chills. It was like the opposite of what I did. He was all hard lines and tough edges, and I was exploded chaos.

But it worked together. It definitely did.

Ares studied me. “What do you think?”

“Did you just do these?”

“I’d been working on it, but after seeing what you do, I realized your work fit into mine. I’ve always done constellations.”

Crazy that he’d always been into that, the stars. I obviously focused on that.

His eyebrows narrowed. “Anyway, I was able to finish it up this morning.” He pointed to the paper. “I figured your stuff would go behind it. You do a little of you, and I do a little of me. It’ll be a learning process, and you’ll have to keep up…”

I rolled my eyes.

He laughed. “We’ll both learn, and I’m not going to bullshit. This is going to be time-consuming. I’m going to need your one hundred percent.”

I admit, I wasn’t dreading this now. It really could be fun.

He waited patiently beside me, but he fidgeted. His hands slid into his pockets. “So this is your chance. The contract says you can leave after our initial session after seeing the game plan.”

It did, and that was the only part of it that I thought was fair. I could bow out if I thought things would be too much.

“This actually sounds like fun,” I said, and his eyes twitched. I chuckled. “I don’t back down from a challenge, Mallick. And like you said, what we both do will work well together.”

“You’ll have to sketch your part.” He frowned. “I’ll have to approve it.”

It was like he was trying to convince me out of this, and maybe he was. It couldn’t have been easy asking for my help. Especially since he didn’t trust me.

That only made me want to say yes more.

“Well, then, maybe we should get started,” I said, his eyes only growing in width. “After all, you do have a deadline.”

“I do.” He put the sketchpad on the car. “I mean it, Sloane. I’m not going to drag your ass.”

I knew he did. I nodded, but then leaned forward. “I’m not going to drag your ass. So let’s get this going.”

He stayed in the middle of the garage when I walked around him. I got my bag out of my car, my own sketchpad and pencils in there. I was completely serious about this.

I guess he saw that when I came back with them, and nodding, he gathered his pad.

“We can sketch in the guesthouse,” he said, then led the way. This would be an interesting pairing. But considering everything with my brother and, well, everything else, it might be just what I needed. I wanted a distraction.

And all this work would definitely be it.