Liars and Liaisons by Sav R. Miller

16

Despair isn’ta feeling I’m overly familiar with.

When I was growing up, my mother would go out of her way to cheer me up if I was ever sad, and even though we skirted the poverty line—at best—most of my childhood, I found that I was content with life.

I suppose that’s the thing about contentment—you’ll tolerate anything if you don’t know better.

Until this very moment, I thought I knew what an orgasm felt like. Thought sexting with Nate while one-handing it with my vibrator was as good as it got. It never occurred to me that penetration might feel different—and even more so when coached by a seasoned professional.

Not that Nate was inexperienced by any means. He just also wasn’t terribly concerned with my desire to wait.

Since I obliterated any sense of boundaries with Grayson the night we met, the restraint I’ve practiced my whole life is absent. And, as it turns out, content is not the correct word to describe my sex life.

Content isn’t even in the same universe as whatever the hell just happened here.

Magic. That’s what this was.

Coming alive at the mere sound of another’s voice. The images he painted in my mind, as if tapping into some dark, secret place that I hadn’t known existed.

Or rather, I had known it existed. I just hadn’t been sure how to get inside.

My face burns like the surface of the sun as I come crashing back to earth. Awareness seeps into my pores like a medicated serum, and as the euphoria from my orgasm subsides, shame and sadness follow close behind. The realization of what just happened sinks in, and as I withdraw my fingers from my pussy, I note that no memories were triggered.

Only a profound hollowness exists where my hand just was.

New ones were made though. I suppose that’s something—even if the man responsible is a monster in his own right.

Even if his glassy emerald eyes glow as they bore into mine. Like he really enjoyed what I just let him witness.

“Don’t get shy on me now,” he says after a moment, blinking away the twinkling awe in his irises. “You can’t come for me and then act like there’s still a wall between us.”

A part of me is tempted to ask what changed between last night and this morning. Why he disappeared without a trace less than twelve hours ago, but he came in today. But I don’t.

I’m not sure I want to know.

“It’s not a wall; it’s a mountain. A tall, human-shaped one that looks a lot like you.”

Grayson doesn’t respond. Instead, he pushes off the edges of the tub and stands up. I avert my gaze since I’m eye-level with his dick and don’t really want to know if what just happened affected him at all.

I’m not sure I could handle the disappointment if it didn’t.

He gets out and walks to the sink across the room, scooping a white terry-cloth towel from the counter and tossing it in my direction. Meanwhile, he just leans back against the cabinetry, dripping all over the floor.

“What’s the deal with you and my brother anyway?”

I get out and quickly wrap the towel around myself, ignoring the heat striking my face when he refuses to look away.

“Unlike you and me, there’s no deal.”

“You just… like him?” Bewilderment etches between his brows.

I tuck the towel beneath my armpits and cross my arms over my chest. “Why is that such a difficult concept for you to grasp? Nate’s attractive, smart, sophisticated—”

Grayson snorts. “I’m all of those things.”

“And kind.” I walk to the sink and wipe condensation from the mirror. “He’d never push my boundaries or ask for more than I was willing to give.”

He comes up behind me, imposing as he towers over my reflection. I’m a little surprised to see he has one at all.

A droplet of water falls from his hair onto my shoulder. I swallow a shiver.

“I didn’t see you complaining when you came like you were discovering religion.”

“I’m not complaining. Just observing the differences.”

“No, you’d never complain, would you? You’re satisfied with your lot in life.” One of his fingers trails down my spine. “I think I’m nicer than you give me credit for.”

I don’t reply, meeting his gaze in the mirror.

“I could have just taken what I wanted a few minutes ago.” That finger leaves my skin, and I once again feel an odd sense of emptiness. “Could have devoured you without asking first. Made you come on my fingers and tongue, forcing you to admit that there’s something between us.”

My breath falters. “That’s, like, the bare minimum. It doesn’t make you a nice, decent person.”

“Perhaps,” he whispers. “But do you really want nice and polite? Someone who will take you to dinner, hold doors open, and make you feel listened to even though he’s probably imagining being anywhere else while you drone on about your family back home?”

His lips are hot on my ear as he bends down. “Or do you want the red-hot passion you felt a few moments ago? The thrill and excitement of something new, something uncharted? Nice guys do finish last, Little Echo, and where you’re concerned, I wouldn’t give a shit if Nathaniel no longer got to finish at all. You deserve more than nice. More than him.”

Denial steals the words from my tongue, and all I can do is watch as he steps away from me, something sinister glinting in his eyes, like the emerald has cracked and is in need of repair.

A part of me wants to ask who that might be—him? Surely, he knows that would be a terrible idea. Nate would pitch a fit, his family wouldn’t approve, and I’d be out of a job. No, what just happened in the tub—that’s as far as this can ever go.

I might not have gotten my memories back, but I can’t risk a repeat.

When he walks to the door, he doesn’t stop to shoot me one last glance or offer any parting words. He just leaves me alone in the bathroom, and it’s only moments before the walls seem to groan with their own loneliness.

Later though, they’re practically gleaming with something else. Something almost foreign in this mansion—at least since I’ve been here.

It cascades down the halls and out to the garden I’ve started, just past the patio and long before the overgrown sunflower fields. Soft at first, and then it builds into a brutally beautiful cadence that feels like a smooth, sensual caress over my skin.

Music.

* * *

Days later,the music still echoes through the halls. Almost as if it’d been here the entire time and there were never any ghostly noises lurking in the foundation.

I’m sitting in one of the estate’s two gourmet kitchens, alone with Micah, ignoring the dozen text messages on my phone from my father asking where the next check is.

He says it’s urgent, but I haven’t been able to bring myself to ask Grayson for more. Not after what happened in the tub and certainly not now that he’s been playing.

It would be terrible to be the reason the house grew quiet again.

“I don’t want to question it.” Micah sits at the counter, peeling a russet potato and dropping the skin in a plastic bucket. “Grayson has a habit of shutting down when his creative process is disturbed.”

Resting my chin in my hand, I watch her silently for a few moments. She moves through each of her tasks quickly, even when they’re clearly busywork assignments. Truth be told, I’m not exactly sure what her purpose is here. Willow is clearly the lead housekeeper, the only one Grayson seems to trust inside of his study and bedroom. Janus and Arsen rotate shifts as leads for the security detail, most of whom are nameless guards stationed at various exits in the estate.

Micah is the only one who seems to have as much reason to be here as me. I can’t help wondering if she has also been visited in the tub by our gracious, delusional employer.

“How long have you known Grayson?” I lean over the counter, scooping some of the potato skins into a pile before she can drop them in the garbage.

She pauses, pursing her lips. “A few years, I guess. Met him through my sister.”

“Your sister?”

“Yeah.” Her eyelids become hooded. “She was his student… his favorite student. Some people said she was the most talented singer and musician he’d ever encountered, which was why he agreed to mentor her. She had the it factor or something like that. I’ve only been working for him since he went on sabbatical though.”

I take a second to try and picture Grayson as a mentor, and the only image that plays—on a loop in my head for days now—is of him sitting before me, coaching me to an orgasm. A shiver skates along my spine, like a phantom’s hand, and I chase the memory away.

When I look at her though, something steers me away from asking more about her sister. Something I’ve seen in Cora’s gaze when someone brings up her brother or in my father’s face the one and only time I asked about Kal.

So, even though I’m curious as to what happened between Grayson and Micah’s sister, I don’t ask. Don’t feel it’s my place to know.

“Why did you start working here?” I say instead.

She gives me a guarded look, and I lift one shoulder.

“I just mean … you’re young. Isn’t there anywhere else you’d rather be?”

Her hands still on a large russet. Sadness bubbles up in those bright blue eyes as she stares off into the distance, worlds away from me for several long minutes. Finally, she shakes her head, as if forcing herself to return from the place she traveled.

“I could ask the same of you,” she says. “You’re young, and you’re nice.”

That word again. When I said it to Grayson, it felt necessary. Like some sort of barrier between us. Now hearing Micah use it to reference me, it’s starting to grate on my nerves.

Which is ridiculous, because I am nice. Or at least, I’m supposed to be.

Maybe that’s why I want to stay away from Grayson in the first place.

“Why would someone like you agree to be Grayson James’s plaything?”

“I’m not his… plaything.” I push at the skins, piling them high. “He said he wanted someone to keep an eye on him, basically. A maid-slash-nanny.” My head tilts. “Is he in some sort of danger?”

Micah frowns, digging at an eye with the tip of the peeler. “To himself? Absolutely. The man’s a volatile powder keg, waiting to explode. All about perfectionism and control, even outside of the realm of music. Did you know I’m not even allowed to go anywhere on estate grounds without Willow?”

“Because you have a tendency to get your fingerprints on everything. Besides, Willow isn’t allowed to go without you, either. I’m nothing if not a fair dictator.” The walking, talking powder keg enters the kitchen, fastening the cuffs of a dark green button-down. He doesn’t glance my way, only shoots Micah a withering look. “Do you enjoy talking poorly about me to guests, Miss Scott?”

“Oh, now, Violet’s a guest?”

I do my best not to take offense at that.

He levels her with a dark, unblinking stare. “She is whatever I say she is.”

The words are uttered with a sharpened edge, though it doesn’t feel directed toward me. If anything, I’m practically invisible to them.

Tender discomfort vibrates in my stomach, and I swing my legs off the barstool, landing on the tiles with a thump. Grabbing the hem of my T-shirt, I shove the discarded potato peels into it and carry them outside to the soil I’ve spent the last few days prepping.

“There are landscaping companies who do this sort of thing, you know.” A rock skips past me, kicked by the tip of his shoe. “I’m not sure why you’ve taken it upon yourself to resurrect the terrain of this property.”

Maybe if I bring enough life to the estate, the ghosts lingering in the halls will have no choice but to flee.

I don’t say that though. Don’t even turn toward the voice, instead focusing on the compost bin at the patio’s edge. It’s green with giant sunflowers painted on the sides—something Cora’s friend Lenny sent when I asked for ideas on how to brighten this place up. If he won’t let me travel to town, I’ll just ask the people I know to arrange deliveries and hope having this address is enough to keep them at bay.

“Do you even know what I’m doing?” I ask.

“Composting. Enhancing the soil for whatever fucking plant you’re about to plague my home with.”

“People pay to have flowers planted in their yards. I think you might be one of the few sorry sacks who seems against adding a little beauty to his life.”

Brown loafers creep in at the corner of my vision. He crouches down, grabbing a handful of the skins and tossing it to the middle of the bin.

“Flowers are a seasonal beauty,” he says. “I prefer those with permanence.”

Unlike me, his nonpermanent guest.

A hollow chasm spreads wide in my chest, but I ignore it. “There are flowers that bloom year-round—”

“And yet they do nothing for me. I am not moved by flowers, Violet.”

“What does move you then?”

He doesn’t respond at first, and something in the silence makes me turn my head. When I do, he’s standing above me, shadows glinting in his emerald irises. A hand extends toward me, and he cocks a brow in silent request.

Sighing, I brush my hands on my jeans and get to my feet without taking his hand. He rolls his eyes but turns on his heel anyway, stalking off toward the barn. I think he’s going to turn into it, but instead, he just peeks in at a few of the goats and veers off toward the lake.

I haven’t ventured this far on the property yet, and doing so now feels sort of like getting a guided tour, though my guide doesn’t speak. He just leads without turning his head to make sure I’m following.

I’m not entirely sure why I am. The closer we get to the lake, the heavier the dread becomes. It weighs on my shoulders like armor made of concrete, and I don’t know how to take it off.

Not even the resurgence of music has wiped it away, as if my body is keenly aware of the unnatural presence living in the James estate. Something angry, seeking vengeance, has made its home in the foundation. Something watching, even now.

My gaze cuts to Grayson to see if he feels it. If the monster in him is at all affected by the evil in the world or if they’re simply two sides of the same dangerous coin.

Maybe it isn’t fair to think of the man that way, especially considering the amount of money he paid me just to sit around his estate and keep him company. It’s just that the manipulation is difficult to look past.

Up close, the lake is much larger than it seems from inside the estate windows. It stretches up like a mouth on the opposite end, the edges disappearing beyond the horizon, among the trees and endless mountaintops. The shore at our feet starts shallow and gradually gets deeper, darker—the way people often reveal themselves in waves. So, you step in and think you’re safe, but the farther you go, the worse it becomes.

“Is this where you’re planning to murder me?”

A muscle in his sharp jaw jumps, and he pauses just before the toes of his shoes touch the water. “Keep asking me that, and I’ll start to think you have a death wish.”

Micah’s words about him being a danger to himself echo in my mind, like the lost syllables of a hymn drifting up to the heavens.

“I don’t think I’m the one we should be concerned with in that department.”

“Take off your clothes.”

He says it so abruptly that I’m certain I didn’t hear him correctly.

“Pardon?”

His green eyes point straight ahead, shimmering like the algae-laden surface of a lake in the sunlight. “I said, take off your clothes.”

My gaze shoots to the estate, a small speck against the Berkshire canvas, through a plethora of trees. A cool breeze carries through the branches, sending a spray of goose bumps over my arms, down my back. It brings a sudden chill with it, and I take a step away from Grayson, if only to see if distance will bring back any warmth.

I could run, I suppose. There’s a fifty-fifty chance I’d make it—his legs are long, but so are mine, and it’s clear from his posture that he isn’t expecting a struggle.

“Don’t,” he says, and I frown, my brows knitting together at how easily he seems to read me.

“Don’t disrobe? Okay, I won’t.”

“No,” he says, slowly turning like a predator zeroing in on its next kill. “Don’t take off, thinking you can outrun me. You can’t. I know these grounds like the back of my hand, and I am bigger, stronger, faster. If you make me chase you, I will catch you.”

There’s a dark threat in that promise. It makes the hairs on my neck stand up straight, alarm coursing through me.

“And if I catch you,” he says, stepping closer, gaze burning hot, “I keep you. Forever. Think very carefully about what you want your future to look like, Little Echo, because I’m the one with the power to make it so. Either take off your clothes and earn your next paycheck or don’t. Run. You’ll find very quickly how dangerous I can actually be.”