First to Lie: An Enemies to Lovers Romance (Unraveled Book 1)

by Marie Johnston

  Why should I care again? If I wanted the ultimate revenge, I’d spill to my mom that Mara might play me for his money. Mara was already making a move to finish what she’d started with Sam with her silly lawsuit.

  I schooled my expression to one of professional calm before I spun around. “I learned everything I could about the new woman after Sam’s money.”

  “It wasn’t like that.”

  “How do you know?” I held my breath as if I waited for a damn good reason, one that would shine a clean light on Mara.

  My assistant hesitated a moment. “I don’t, but I knew Sam. He wasn’t romantically involved with anyone after his first heart attack.”

  Hopes crashed and I cursed myself. I curled my lip toward Franklin. “Did you hang out, chat about your hookups?”

  Franklin’s lips pursed. He shuffled the reports, arranged them neatly, and stuffed them into his briefcase. “I’ll find out everything I can about their claim and whether it’ll affect our timeline further.”

  Somehow Franklin brought out the worst in me like he was Sam’s conscience lingering on earth.

  “What was it?” My voice dropped low, not quite in apology. “What was it about her that captivated him?”

  Standing and holding his bag, Franklin seemed to correctly read into my question. “I wish I had an answer for you. I do know that when she leased the space for Arcadia, he was delighted.” His head inclined toward the monstrosity sitting in a corner of the office. “Perhaps it was just nostalgia. Have a good day, sir.”

  Left alone, I faced the pinball machine that had shown up after I’d shut down my dad’s offices. Likely Franklin’s doing.

  For two seconds, I saw myself as a little kid with mussed black hair repeatedly slamming the flippers and earning replay after replay. Bright blue eyes reflecting off the glass that covered an image of a DeLorean, a teenager, and a guy with wild gray hair. The game had been released the same year I had been born. I was surprised I wasn’t named Marty instead.

  Had the game even been played since the divorce? I had been in and out of Sam’s workplace, but after the way Sam had withdrawn from his role as a father, I had concentrated on learning the business.

  Stupid machine. I needed to get rid of it. Give it away, like my dad had tried giving all his other property away.

  Speaking of giving property away, I palmed my phone from my pocket and punched in a number.

  My executive assistant, Helen, answered, anticipating my question. “I’m a mile away. The car is a hybrid, but not top of the line. I made sure to keep the cost under fifty grand and not too flashy.”

  “Well done.”

  Going back to my window, I shoved my hands into my pockets. A few minutes later, Helen pulled into my reserved spot with a black, blah vehicle. Nothing about it screamed class or money and it was exactly what I’d need on my date. If I showed up with my Audi, I might not get the honest answers I wanted from Mara. Like how close she and her good friend Sam had been.

  I should be disgusted, not only at the thought of Mara and my dad but at the forty-year age difference between the two. But Sam was gone and Mara was almost like my last connection to the man—the man, not the corporate tycoon.

  My phone buzzed. Withdrawing it, I saw a text from Helen, giving me details on the movie I planned to take Mara to.

  A lawsuit. That greedy woman.

  The conundrum it created in my mind aggravated me. Was there someone in her life driving her to rob an old man and continue trying even after his heart had failed him? The Mara I’d taken to bed, with the sick mom and the tiny house, wasn’t the avaricious Arcadia owner who’d latched onto Sam.

  Even my mom had withdrawn her claws from Sam’s empire after the funeral. Because I had gotten everything and now she played the part of a doting mother, one she sucked at.

  A tap on the door yanked my attention away.

  “Come in.” I knew it was Helen. She was the only one with free access to the building and didn’t need to be buzzed up.

  The older woman breezed in, her cheeks flush with excitement. A car woman, I’d known to call her when I needed a normal car for my date. If I was inclined, I’d feel sorry for the car salesman. Helen drove a hard bargain and was tenacious as fuck.

  Just to hear the story, I made sure to ask. “You got a good deal, I presume.”

  I didn’t care. The cost of the car was pocket change.

  She chortled and flopped down in the chair Franklin had vacated. “The guy tried to talk to me like I was a little old lady.” Helen pinned me with an amused stare and patted her bun. “It’s the reason I don’t color my hair. Gray hair equals underestimation and I can eat ’em alive.”

  It wasn’t just the gray hair, but also the extra pounds she carried and the matronly way she dressed. Helen’s love of sweets often invaded my office and people stupidly assumed a few extra pounds meant fewer IQ points. She’d been jobless when she’d applied for her current position, having stayed home with her kids until they’d left for college. No CEO would hire her with her lack of experience, age, and “frumpy” appearance.

  Idiots. Helen’s no-nonsense attitude and razor-sharp intellect were obvious and a refreshing change from the interviewees who’d eyed me like hungry tigers, planning ways they could use me to move up in the business world.

  She pulled out her laptop. “Franklin asked if I could go over what’s going on with your plans in New York with you.”

  I chose the seat next to Helen. If Franklin had passed off the project to Helen…it was serious enough to take my mind off Mara.

  Chapter 8

  Mara

  My house came into view and I frowned.

  Was that Sam’s car sitting in front?

  Dammit, I knew I was running late, but combined with him being early, I groaned. Tonight was supposed to be fun and relaxing. Instead, he was waiting and I looked a hot mess.

  Pulling behind him, I paused as he unfolded his long frame from his vehicle.

  Fading evening sun glinted off his glossy hair and cast shadows over his hard features. After what we’d done together, I shouldn’t get nervous, but the predatory intensity of his gaze set my butterflies on fire. They burned up into ash and I gulped.

  He was walking to meet me but the flow of his movements was more like he was stalking me.

  Managing to gather my stuff before he opened my door, I smiled up at him. More fluttering in my belly. His expression said he planned to chew me up, spit me out, and gobble me back down.

  I grasped his outstretched hand and he pulled me out.

  “Sorry, I’m running late.” I’d been locking the door when Ephraim had called. My new lawyer.

  He cocked an arrogant eyebrow and crowded me close to the car. “You’re not late,” he murmured before dropping his head.

  My lips parted and met his. I was not in making-out condition. Frazzled, stressed, and dusty from a day of unpacking and relabeling inventory for clearance.

  Sam must not mind. His tongue coaxed mine out and if he carried it any further, I’d drop my purse and tote and climb him like I was King Kong and he was the Empire State Building.

  I flattened a hand on his chest and pushed myself back. His gaze sharpened, dipped down to my lips.

  How badly did I want to see that movie?

  If this thing between us had a chance, hiding for sex marathons wasn’t going to allow it to grow.

  And I really wanted something between us. Not because he was a fifteen out of ten on the hotness scale. Because I felt comfortable around him. None of my quirks gave him pause, he’d been helpful while Mom was sick, and I felt sexually free with him like I hadn’t felt in years, or ever.

  I hadn’t realized how important that was. It was a sign that my past didn’t rule me.

  I mentally sighed. Must also mean I should start filling out applications.

  He was still staring at me, waiting for me to make a move.

  “I need to get changed.”

  Stepping back, he
held up the hand he still clutched and twirled me. I released a giggle.

  “Look good to me.” He spun me back into him.

  Faded jeans and a Suicide Squad tee sounded like a little black dress in his voice.

  “I want fresh clothes. I worked hard for the money today.”

  “All right.” He released my hand and draped an arm around my shoulder as he steered me to the door. “Got any more of those leggings?”

  The grin that grew lifted the whole week of stress. “Pick your DC superhero.”

  He grimaced. “I’ve got bad news, Mara Jade. I was always more of a Marvel guy and I’ve already seen you in Iron Man.”

  I gasped dramatically and elbowed him playfully. “I don’t know if this thing between us will work.” Letting us into my place, I dropped my things by the door. “Lucky for you, I run a place where I have to be a well-rounded fangirl. I’ll be right back.”

  No looking back as I trotted to my room or I’d never leave the house. I swung the bedroom door shut and unsnapped my pants.

  The door didn’t latch and I glanced back. Sam towered in my doorway, his expression even more severe than earlier. My breath hitched.

  “Go ahead.” His guttural tone liquefied me. “Drop your pants.”

  “The movie?” It was all I could think of saying.

  “We have forty-five minutes. Drop your pants and crawl back on the bed.” He reached for his wallet and withdrew a square packet.

  Sucking in my lower lip, more with excitement than trepidation, I shucked my pants off, taking my panties at the same time. Doing as he ordered, I scooted back onto the mattress.

  He freed himself from his black jeans, doing nothing more than lifting his polo out of the way, unsnapping his pants, and shoving them and his underwear under his shaft.

  The condom was rolled on within seconds and he pushed my legs apart. I fell back.

  He slid a finger through my crease. “You’re wet for me.”

  No answer. My voice didn’t work. His cock replaced his finger and he shoved inside. I cried out as he groaned and dropped his head.

  “Been too long,” he said between gritted teeth.

  He took full control, backed out, and thrust again, harder. My hands flew to his shoulders, splaying against the soft fabric covering hard muscle.

  His pace increased until he pounded me. Circling my clit with his thumb, his hips pistoned until I gasped with the rising climax. He went faster. The seams of his jeans cut into my thighs, his shirt tickling my abdomen.

  My hands twisted into his polo, my back arching upon my surrender.

  A snarl of emotion left him as he growled out his orgasm, grinding together with mine.

  Raw sex. Fast and hard. I’d never experienced anything like it, but with Sam, I’d had a lot of firsts.

  Pulling out, he stepped back and headed for the door without looking back. “Now, I’ll wait where you told me to.”

  The door was pulled closed behind him and I was left with a delicious ache in my body but a thread of confusion blooming in my heart.

  Wes

  I braced my hands on Mara’s bathroom counter. I’d stripped off the condom and locked my dick back up where it belonged. My heart raced, had been since my skin had touched Mara while helping her out of her car.

  Two minutes and I couldn’t keep away from her. Who could blame me? Her T-shirt was a solid size too small. Did customers notice how it molded around her breasts? As good as a marquis. The way her hips rolled as she walked to her bedroom. I’d been half-hard in anticipation of Mara’s body all day, but the reality of her was too much for my sex drive.

  My plan wasn’t going to work if I fell under her spell. Soon, I’d be signing over building after building to her just to keep her in my bed.

  Shooting myself a disgusted look in the mirror, I exited the bathroom and shut the door so I didn’t have to listen to the constant drip of the sink. Reclining against her front door, I waited.

  Her house was seriously cramped. How was she affording a team of lawyers? Didn’t she have her mom’s hospital bills? We’d texted all week and her mom had gone back to the nursing home Monday. What about that bill?

  I’d have Franklin look into how much a month at Golden Meadows cost. In fact, I’d have Franklin—no. Helen. She would comb through Mara’s history with ruthless precision as soon as I said the word. Helen was more territorial of me than my mother. Maybe it was job security for my executive assistant, but I didn’t often question it.

  Having someone give a shit about me personally was refreshing.

  Was that why Mara crawled under my skin, sent blood screaming toward my cock with her smile and fresh scent?

  She blew out of the bedroom, her sex-flushed cheeks sending another flow of blood to my privates.

  “What’s that scent you wear?” I blurted. God, maybe I should go home until I had my thinking straight. Ending my day with the PR mess in New York didn’t help.

  “Just washed?” she drawled.

  “You don’t wear perfume?”

  She chuckled. “It’s called dollar-store fabric softener.” Her smile faded when she caught my expression. “Are you okay?”

  “Bad day at work.”

  “Ah. I get it.”

  After I settled her into my new car, I climbed in. She was looking around the interior. “Geez, this thing is immaculate. And it still has that new car smell.”

  “I’ve had it for a while.” I may have fudged and put my other car’s plates on this one to make it look that way. I didn’t want to explain a new car and didn’t want her to reveal her greedy side so soon. Well, I did, that was the whole point of dating her, but maybe after the movie. It’d been a long time since I’d done something as normal as going to a movie. Here’s to hoping I didn’t get pulled over for anything. “How’s closing your place going?”

  I drove to the theater and let Mara go on about learning how to shut down a business.

  “The best part of the week was when one of my loyal customers offered to represent me pro bono on the incomplete contract my friend Sam left behind.”

  I had to mentally scream at myself to not stomp on the brake. Pro bono? She’d conned one of her customers enough to represent her for free?

  What had she done for him to manage that?

  I almost snarled.

  “Sam, are you sure you’re okay?”

  I forced a smile. “Sorry, my attitude’s stuck at work, but not my attention. Keep going.”

  The little crinkle in her forehead was too cute for words. I redoubled my efforts to remain emotionally distant. She’d bamboozled my dad and her customers, and I hadn’t figured out what she wanted out of him.

  “I had to put up a notice that my store’s closing in five weeks, barely over a month. They were upset, understandably so. I mean, we’re like a small family. Chris offered to contact an old friend on the city commission.”

  A proprietary swell rose. “Who’s Chris?”

  “My full-time employee. My only employee, really. He left his career for something more mellow. Best thing that ever happened to my store. Anyway, Ephraim overheard—he’s a customer—and they started talking. I turned him down at first. I don’t think there’s a chance, but…” She shrugged and flashed me a mischievous smile. “There’s nothing wrong with being a pain in Wesley Robson’s ass.”

  I ground my molars together. PITA, all right. My lawyers would fall over laughing at the thought of pro bono work.

  “That’s a stroke of luck,” I said instead.

  Her smile faded. “I’ve been fortunate to be surrounded by decent people these last few years.”

  And before that? She could be attempting to tug at my heartstrings, to build my curiosity in her. Working on the fragile-woman-needing-protection angle.

  To be honest, I had a hard time seeing a fragile woman who needed to be cared for. Mara was ambitious and independent.

  She didn’t elaborate on her past. This would’ve been the perfect time to dive into a
sob story, but she remained mum.

  I could still get my own information out of her. “What’s their plan?”

  She waved her hand. “I don’t know all the legal wording. Mostly Sam’s intention to sell the place to me was a transaction involving Robson Industries. It wasn’t finalized, but there may be some loopholes because it was the company or at least a way to delay the stupidity. I don’t know. I keep thinking I could talk some sense into Sam’s son and this might give me time, or bring him out of the mysterious meetings he’s always in when I call.”

  That it might do. “A dollar. How do the other tenants in the mall feel?”

  The movie theater was a block away and I was finally getting some answers.

  “I don’t know that they’d care as long as it was run the same. I wasn’t planning on kicking them out so I could sell it. I just wanted to keep Arcadia open.”

  I parked but made no move to get out. “An old man sells a young woman prime realty for a dollar and you don’t think they’d mind?”

  It’d taken a lot of effort to keep the scorn out of my voice.

  She frowned at me. “It’s not like Sam and I were anything more than friends, so I don’t really care what they’d think.”

  Nothing more than friends. A helluva favor my dad had been doing a friend.

  A delicate eyebrow cocked. “Are we going inside?”

  I softened my features, but they didn’t match my roiling emotions. “It’s a Marvel movie. Are you really in a rush?”

  Her laughter delighted me when I should be seething. “Trust me. Any loyalties are suspended when it comes to blockbuster movies.”

  I walked with her into the theater. Flashes of my childhood bombarded my mind as soon as the popcorn aroma swamped me. Every weekend, Sam would take me to the movies, and not just to escape my mother. It was our bonding time. Legit time together and an activity we both loved. If there wasn’t a new movie out, we went to an old one. Sam had even looked into purchasing a theater or even building a new one.

  Then my mom had struck. Whether it was jealousy or pure manipulation, she’d made sure to be caught en flagrante with Sam’s realtor. As a kid, I had blamed the other man for the marriage’s demise, but as an adult, I recognized my mother’s machinations. No man was stupid enough to drop trou and get head in his most lucrative client’s office.