Liars and Liaisons by Sav R. Miller

5

“I just don’t understandwhy you won’t come home.”

Dirt embeds beneath my fingernails as my hands curl into the fresh soil. A crick has started to form in the valley between my right shoulder and neck from where I’m cradling my cell phone. Cora’s dog, Laurel—a forty-pound black-and-white pit mix—lies on his stomach a few feet away, watching me with his head on his paws and judgment in his big brown eyes.

Chlorine from the in-ground pool a few feet away fills the air, and I inhale it slowly.

The irony of my mother’s sentiment isn’t lost on me as I desecrate the flower beds outside of the South House, the mansion on the southernmost point of Aplana Island, where Cora lives with her boyfriend.

A year and a half ago, it was me uttering similar confusion to my cousin, who left home to look for her long-lost brother. At the time, I didn’t understand why she couldn’t let the authorities do their job—if I’ve learned anything since leaving North Carolina with nothing but my license and some dollar bills to my name, it’s that they’ll find you if they really want you.

Especially if you owe them something.

I guess that was the problem with her brother, Lucian, though. He didn’t have anything they wanted.

Hearing my mother lament my absence causes a suture to unstitch itself in my heart. The thread loosens one spool at a time, until I’m sitting back on my heels and holding my hand over the organ, praying to a god I haven’t believed in, in years that she’ll stop asking me to come back.

I can’t go home. No matter how badly my body aches to.

Not just because my estranged half-brother would follow, the way he’s followed me around my entire life. My mother still doesn’t even know about him, and I certainly don’t want those worlds colliding anytime soon.

There are other reasons. Ones I can’t confide in her even though keeping secrets feels like suffering from a flesh-eating virus. Each lie that slips from my tongue burns on its dismount, and I hate myself a little bit all over again.

“I’ll come home soon, Mom,” I tell her.

It’s the same song and dance I’ve fed her now for years. She doesn’t even call me out on it anymore, and for some reason, that fills me with an unfathomable sadness. A lonely, dull pang echoing in the recesses of my soul.

“I know, dear,” she says, like she really believes it. Her Southern drawl makes my chest feel empty. “We just miss you, is all. I’m stuck here with the boys and your father, and all they want to do is argue about business at the body shop, or they fight over which local basketball team is heading to state tournaments. It’s boring. No one wants to plant flowers with me or sit at the table while I bake and read the engagement announcements in the paper. They don’t even let me half-break HIPAA laws by oversharing about my ER shifts anymore.”

A single tear drips down my cheek, but I don’t notice it until it splatters against the dirt. I’ve betrayed her so much.

“Jace and Alec never could appreciate a good trauma story. Remember the guy who came in with the flashlight stuck up his ass?”

“And he kept insisting he didn’t know how it happened? Oh, yes. I have nightmares about that one still.”

Her laughter fills the line, and I can’t stop a smile from forming on my lips.

“Is Dad back from Kalamata yet?”

She sighs, and I hear the shuffling of newspapers. I can imagine her leaning back in a dining room chair, glancing out the bay window at our little vegetable garden. “He gets in tonight, I think. Want me to have him call you?”

“No.” I say it too quickly—the silence that ensues is a beat too long. Clearing my throat, I withdraw my hands from the soil and wipe them on my flare-legged black pants. “I mean, let him settle in first. You know how he is after a long flight.”

Besides, I add silently, I’ve already heard from him.

Laurel scrambles to his feet as I push to mine, dragging my palms over my black T-shirt. A thrift find, like everything else I own, because not only is shopping secondhand better for the environment, but it’s also all I can afford.

No one wants to hire a girl without a permanent address, even when you have an in with the mayor. Not that I would accept a job here—not after my brother lured me to his bar years ago and tried to just hand me money.

For some reason, I can’t make myself take things I haven’t earned. Even when there’s a surplus, and no rules binding me to taxable income.

“You’re okay though?” my mother continues. “I noticed the forums say you and that boy—”

“Oh God, can we not talk about him?”

I ditch my flower bed and head into Alistair’s giant house with its vaulted ceilings and luxury furniture. Inside, the stone floors have hints of royal blue in them, and there are similarly colored accents throughout the house—hand towels, lamps, even the piano at the foot of the winding grand staircase—that remind me exclusively of Cora.

A testament to how much she is loved here.

“You have to stop reading gossip blogs,” I tell my mom.

“Well, how else am I supposed to know what’s going on with you and Cora? You two could be dead in a ditch somewhere, and her mother and I would never know.”

Kal would definitely contact our father to inform him of my death, but I can’t mention that to her. Even with the knowledge, guilt sloshes around the base of my throat, clogging my airways with its toxicity.

“We’re fine, Mom. Really.” It’s not a complete lie. Cora’s doing great. And I’m… here. Despite everything. Still planting flowers and expecting the sunshine to wash my worries away. “What about you? Alec and Jace? I want to hear how things are with you guys.”

The soft pitter-patter of nails on the floor echoes down the hall as Laurel heads for his food dish in the kitchen, and I take the stairs two at a time. The last door on the left is the guest room I’ve been occupying, and I slip in quickly, breathing heavily as my mom launches into local youth group drama—something about people of certain income levels being excluded from a fish fry—but I stop listening the second I close the door behind me.

Because I’m no longer alone. Not even remotely.

Grayson James lounges on the queen-size four-poster bed pushed against the far wall, clad in a white dress shirt. It’s opened to the fourth button, revealing a flash of tanned flesh I’m already overly familiar with. His brown cigar pants are bunched up from the way he’s sprawled out, like a king posing for a portrait, and I can’t help noticing how large he is compared to everything in the room.

Not even in size necessarily, but in presence. Grayson’s entire existence becomes a hindrance to anyone it brushes up against, even if just for a moment.

Or one mistaken night.

I swallow, hitting the End Call button on my phone with my thumb. It’s been about week since I saw him last, and yet that same burning tether from when we kissed seems to ignite in the air between us, setting my body aflame. A distant part of me wonders if all those stories about your first are actually true even if you didn’t know him well enough to get attached.

Even if you don’t remember any of it.

I’ve tried triggering the sensation of him on top of me, inside me, moving and pushing and thrusting, but my hand can’t come close to what I imagine the ecstasy to be like. Or hope it’s like anyway. I guess once you’ve had a taste of something real, replicas don’t compare.

“I’m a man of my word,” Grayson says after a moment, flipping through an outdated Birds & Blooms spread.

One of my brows arches. “I must have missed the part where you promised to break into my room and put your dirty shoes all over my comforter.”

His feet are hanging off the bed, but still. Who knows what he was doing before I came in?

How did he even get in when Alistair’s house is fully outfitted with top-of-the-line security?

“On the contrary, Little Echo. I don’t mean to imply that I am indebted to you for a transaction. In fact, it’s you who owes me.”

“It’s barely been a week—”

“And yet I’ve grown impatient all the same.” Slamming the magazine shut, he tosses it onto the sunflower-print bedspread and finally slides those monstrous green eyes my way.

My stomach flips in protest. “What do you want from me?”

It’s the same question I asked at the hotel, and I’m not sure I’ll get an answer this time. For several moments, we just stare at each other in complete silence, and I wonder if he’s waiting for me to ask something else.

Maybe he only understands music? It’s its own language after all, and supposedly, Grayson James is a master of the art.

I open my mouth to say something, and he slides off the bed, stalking toward me with the same unhurried gait I recognize from the hotel. Lazy and controlled, as if he had all the time in the world.

His gaze is slant and cold as he approaches, reaching up with one hand to brush the hair from my shoulder. It takes every ounce of willpower I have to suppress the shiver that tickles the base of my spine.

“The better question is,” he says darkly, circling me like I’m prey he’s laid an inescapable trap for. “What don’t I want?”

Suddenly, every ounce of moisture dries up in my mouth. My tongue sticks in place, not allowing me to speak.

A pulse kicks up between my legs, and I clench my jaw until my muscles scream for me to let up.

“As you might be aware, I have two brothers. To say we don’t get along is… putting it rather mildly. Actually, I don’t get along with anyone in my family, save for my mother and nephew, and even then, our relationships are strained. Most people think I’m selfish and rude and that I ran off to the mountains to spite them all.”

“You’re saying otherwise?”

“I’m saying there’s more to it than they would ever admit.”

He stops behind me, so close that I can feel his warmth seeping into my pores, and I can’t help wondering if that’s what it felt like—being consumed from the outside and devoured slowly on the inside.

“What?” I force out. “What more is there?”

“That’s a story for another day.” I feel his fingers, light as a feather, graze my jaw. “The point is, my family has a very rigid idea of how I should act. What I should be doing. They want me to continue living as I have in the past and not hiding from society in the mountains.”

“Maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing. You’re rich and talented. Doesn’t seem like a bad life to me.”

“Money isn’t the solution to all problems.”

“That’s something only people who have money say.”

His finger leaves my skin, and he comes back around in front of me. Standing so close that I note that he’s much taller than I realized—I’m five-seven, and even now, he has at least four inches on me. Maybe more.

It makes me feel crowded, but not necessarily in a bad way.

In a new, exciting way, like he did the night of the gala behind that mask. His gaze zeroes in on mine, sucking my attention in like he can’t imagine it focusing anywhere else.

“Do you need money, Violet?”

I need money like the Pope needs God, but I don’t admit it.

Can’t think straight when he utters my name like it’s a dirty word—the dirtiest word, and he’s savoring its flavor.

Heat floods my face, and I look down for a second, trying to erase the red trail I’m certain it leaves on my skin.

“Whatever you desire,” he rasps, his voice barely audible in the bedroom, “I can provide. There are no limits.”

I can’t stop staring at his mouth. Can’t stop the violent sense of shame that accompanies the sudden surge of tight arousal spiraling in my chest.

“What if I just want you to leave me alone?”

A smirk slices across his handsome face. “If that wasn’t a dirty little lie, perhaps I would.”

With every fiber of my being, I will myself not to focus too much on the word dirty. Try not to acknowledge what it does to my heart rate. “Five grand?”

“Done.” He doesn’t even blink. “I can have it wired to your bank account this afternoon.”

“I don’t have a bank account.” My gaze falls to his mouth again, then to his chin below. The gentle brush of stubble sweeping over it, hiding any imperfections beneath. “A check would be better.”

The logical part of me is screaming not to negotiate with a terrorist. It’s clear Grayson James is off his rocker and that he’s got family issues deeper than anyone knows.

I realize I’m putting my relationship with Nate in jeopardy, but then again, maybe it would be good for him to see me fraternizing with his brother. Maybe then he’d comprehend his loss, and jealousy would spur him back into my arms. Then, I’d be able to fix my life and stop thinking about Grayson entirely.

I might not be able to get my first time back, but if I don’t remember it, maybe it doesn’t really count.

Grayson’s index finger hooks under my chin, tilting my head back so I’m forced to meet his cold, unnerving stare. Just like that night at the gala.

He reaches into his front pants pocket, sliding a ballpoint pen and a worn leather wallet out. Flipping it open, he removes his hand from me to balance the book, then takes the pen and jots something down.

“You just carry a checkbook around? That’s such an old man thing to do.”

The click of the pen makes my muscles seize up to the point of pain, and he ignores my comment. My shoulders tense, and I shift, trying to relieve them.

A small tearing sound echoes between us, and I jolt with it. Grayson reaches down, taking my wrist between his long fingers, and presses a slip of paper into my palm.

He seems annoyed, and it’s almost enough to prompt me to pull away. But there’s something else hidden in those eyes. Something… almost desperate.

I glance down.

It’s a check.

For five thousand dollars.

Some people might reject this much money. I’m not stupid. This is pocket change to him and life-altering for me.

But I am suspicious. “I still don’t understand though. What exactly do you want, Grayson? What do you get out of this?”

His throat bobs with a swallow I feel in my stomach. The smirk grows, and so does my apprehension.

“You.”