Love & Lies

by Jessica Wood

  As his heart rate gradually slowed and his breathing returned to normal, Liam rested his head exhaustedly against her stomach like a pillow.

  “More than I ever thought possible,” Liam whispered as she stroked his hair, which was damp with perspiration. “I truly love you.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Gemma’s final week with Liam had a magical quality. Euphoric with their newfound love for each other, the couple made love in every room of the mansion, in every position they could think of. Nothing was off limits, except, of course, for Liam’s office.

  “We already christened that room,” Liam said, as Gemma tried to coax him into unlocking the door by unbuttoning her dress right there in the hallway. Liam however could not be swayed, saying, “I keep all the financial documents for your business loan in there. If they get ruined now, I might not be able to put them back together in time. This is our last night together, so let’s pick a different room and just enjoy ourselves.”

  “It doesn’t have to be our last night,” Gemma reminded him. “I’ve told you, there is nothing I can ever learn about you that would cause me to stop loving you. You just have to trust me. Can’t we talk about this?” she pleaded. All her previous attempts to get him to open up had been rejected, but she felt she had to try one last time.

  “There’s nothing to talk about,” he said firmly. “You held up to your end of our bargain and stayed with me for a month, now that time has ended. Tomorrow morning my limo driver will take you home. You can keep all the clothes and jewelry I bought for you. I’ll have a courier deliver the loan documents directly to your father’s office, give my stock broker the green light to purchase controlling interest in the company as a safeguard, and you’ll never have to worry about the Adams Corporation being in trouble ever again.”

  “Is that all this was to you, a business deal?” Gemma asked, with tears brimming in her eyes as her heart broke from his coldness. She strode angrily down the hallway to the private suite he had offered to her the first night she arrived at the mansion. Throwing open the door, she whipped around to face him with a fiery glare.

  “Perhaps I should have stayed in here after all if you were so intent on keeping a brick wall around your heart,” she lashed out. “How can you say you love me if you won’t let me know the real you?”

  “It’s because I love you,” Liam said, barely containing his own tears as he chased after her.

  She ran into the suite still decorated in pinks and cherry wood furniture. He caught up to her and swept her into his strong arms.

  “I love you more than I ever thought possible,” he whispered as he gazed deeply into her eyes with a look of unmistakable passion. “You have healed the heart I thought would always be broken and made me reexamine my life and all the bad I’ve done. That’s why I have to let you go tomorrow. I’m not who you think I am and I fear the real me would repulse you. I want us to end like this, with the look of love in your eyes and the feel of your warm and sensuous body making love to me as my parting memory of you. If you stay any longer, you won’t like who I really am and this perfect time will be destroyed. To lose this look of love in your eyes would destroy me again and I couldn’t endure that right now.”

  Liam waited in breathless silence while Gemma processed his words, wondering what she would say or do now. To his surprise, she didn’t utter a word but simply led him by the hand across the large suite to the king sized bed at its center. She kissed him tenderly on the lips, so soft and sweetly, it was like her lips were rose petals melting in the rain. Then she knelt before him and began to strip away his clothing. Inch by inch she covered his flesh with gentle kisses as it was slowly exposed, running her fingers through the hair on his chest, squeezing his round ass, and finally ending with her favorite organ of all, his engorged manhood.

  When she put her lips upon it, it was if she was making love to him simply with her mouth and tongue. Liam gripped the bedpost of the bed to keep his balance as she took him in passionately until he came deeply in her throat while she gulped hungrily. When he had finished, she licked him clean, savoring every drop of his essence.

  “That was incredible,” Liam sighed, collapsing on the bed with a light headed feeling of complete and utter satisfaction. “I just want to tell you…”

  “—Shhh,” Gemma said as she put her finger to her lips. “I don’t need to know your secrets. You love me and that’s all I need to know. Your generosity has saved me from all my financial problems. Now, let me give you a night to remember.”

  While Liam lay on the bed, Gemma performed a sensuous striptease for him, removing her clothing slowly, piece by piece, while her body moved to music she alone could hear. When at last she was naked, she climbed onto the bed beside him and began to stroke herself.

  “I don’t know if I’m ready to make love again just yet,” Liam said with an embarrassed flush, but Gemma closed her eyes, threw back her head and continued to finger herself erotically.

  “Mmmm,” she moaned, ignoring his comment, “I’m going to show you how I masturbate, so when you’re far apart from me, all you have to do is picture me making myself come and it will be like we are doing it together.”

  Liam stared in awe as Gemma used one hand to massage her clitoris while the other hand fingered her deep wet pussy, moving in and out of herself slowly at first, then gaining in speed and intensity. Before long, she was writhing on the bed, moaning and gasping as beads of perspiration glistened on her flesh. To Liam’s surprise, watching her masturbate had given him the resilience to become aroused again and his erection rose to a salute. He stroked himself with his hand as he watched Gemma orgasm with abandonment beside him.

  When she finally opened her eyes, she saw that he was hard. With a glint of desire in her eyes, she removed her hands from herself and put them on his cock. Liam groaned with pleasure at the feel of her soft hands, sticky with her own juices, stroking him to full hardness. Then she mounted him at the waist, enveloping his erection with her warm folds that were already dripping with arousal.

  As she rode passionately atop of him, her breasts bounced sensuously in front of his face. Unable to resist them, he took her luscious breast into his hands, covering them with kisses, squeezing them, pinching her nipples, and suckling them with his mouth. The stimulation spurred Gemma to even greater arousal, and she thrust upon him with even greater enthusiasm.

  Before long they were both climaxing as one, screaming and gasping with the throes of the most incredible rapture either of them had ever felt. What they were doing together may have been a sin to some, but it had saved them both and when their lovemaking was finally over, they fell asleep wrapped in each other’s arms with blissful smiles on their faces.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Liam made sure he was up and out of the bedroom long before Gemma woke up the next morning. It had been an incredible month and much more emotional than he had ever expected. He knew that if he had to say goodbye to her, his resolve might waver and he would crumble at her feet, begging her to stay. It might hurt them both to be denied a final goodbye, but he knew it was better in the long run.

  Locked away in his office, he watched from his window above as his personal chauffeur loaded her things into the trunk of the limousine. She hugged several of the staff members goodbye that she had gotten to know during her stay, including the chef, Stephan, and her own personal maid, Jennifer. Then she turned and faced the window of his office and blew him a simple kiss goodbye.

  He gasped at being spotted and stepped back from the window before remembering that his office windows were tinted and there was no way she could have seen him. But somehow, she must have still known he was watching. With tears stinging his eyes, he blew a single kiss at her in return, even though he knew she wouldn’t see it.

  After the car had driven out of sight and he knew with certainty that Gemma was gone, he returned to his desk. The documents for the business loan had already been picked up by his courier and would be sitting on Gemma’s of
fice desk when she got to work later that morning. He could already picture her face as she signed them.

  Smiling to himself, he unlocked his secured cabinet and reached for his favorite file.

  To his surprise, it was gone. Where was his confidential file on Gemma?, he wondered in shock. He searched the office frantically before remembering that he had been looking at it when the courier knocked on his door that morning.

  Liam’s face turned pale as it all came back to him.

  Hearing a knock on the door, he had tucked the file underneath the pile of loan documents to hide it, thinking at the time that it might be Gemma coming to say goodbye. When he opened the door, he simply handed the courier the loan documents and must have accidentally given the courier his confidential file on Gemma, too.

  “Fuck!” he exclaimed out loud as the gravity of what this meant hit him. This could ruin everything. He sunk in his chair, his mind working overtime to think of way to diffuse the situation.

  Suddenly, it came to him. He just hoped it would work or all his years of planning would be ruined.

  ***

  “What’s this?” Gemma asked with a smile as she entered the lobby of the Adams Corporation Headquarters for the first time in a month.

  “We wanted to welcome you back,” her mother, Sara Adams exclaimed as she applauded with over a dozen other employees looking on as the balloons and streamers fell from the basket that had been poised above the front door.

  Her father, Harry Adams hugged her. “Congratulations on saving the company. You’re a hero to every employee we have, and most especially to your mother and me. We worked our entire lives to create this company and sunk every dollar we had into it. We thought we would lose everything. Thanks to you, we won’t. You saved us all.”

  Gemma blushed under all the attention and praise. “Okay, well I haven’t saved it yet. I still have to sign the loan papers.”

  “They arrived by courier an hour ago, Miss Adams,” Kim, her long time assistant said after giving her a welcoming hug, “I set them on your desk.”

  After a round a hugs with her parents and the staff, Gemma was relieved to retreat to the quiet sanctuary of her office. It had been a wonderful month long vacation, but it felt great to be back where she belonged. This was where she felt competent, capable, and confident.

  Smiling, she opened the envelope from the courier. She examined all the loan documents, which seemed to be in proper order.

  To her surprise, she noticed an additional file marked confidential behind all the loan documents. Curious, Gemma opened the file and began to read. At first, she was confused by what she saw. But as she kept turning pages, her face turned pale and her hands began to tremble.

  Liam Taylor had tried to warn her. He really wasn’t who he said he was.

  According to the records in the file, his real name was Ben Liamsworth, and he’d hired a private investigator to study her for months, maybe years. There were pictures of her walking down the street, working in her office, shopping at the supermarket, and even in the privacy of her own home. One of them very clearly showed her getting out of the shower and another of her stripping naked for bed.

  Gemma dropped the photos, feeling shocked and utterly violated. She clutched her stomach, fighting off nausea and paced her office angrily. The man she thought she loved was really a stalker who had been violating her privacy for who knows how long. Should she call the police? Should she get a restraining order?

  One thing was certain. There was no way she could accept a loan from him now. If she did, she would forever be indebted to a psycho. The other thing she knew without a doubt was that she was never going to see that disgusting liar ever again.

  Suddenly, Gemma stopped pacing and sunk slowly and silently into her chair. He had been right about her. He had warned her that if she ever found out who he really was, she would turn on him and he would lose her love forever. Maybe that’s why he had chosen to tell her like this—to send it with the courier—so he wouldn’t have to witness the pain of seeing her reaction.

  Gemma felt sick in a whole new way as she realized that Liam Taylor, or Ben Liamsworth, hadn’t betrayed her. She was the one turning against him. She had promised him that there was nothing he could do to lose her love But apparently, she’d been wrong.

  Gemma suddenly had a lot of choices to make. Would she accept the loan from an obviously disturbed man or let her family’s business be lost? Would she be able to forgive him for what he had done and continue to love him like she had before? The weight of the world was suddenly on her shoulders once more.

  “Miss Adams?” Just then, her assistant’s voice came on the intercom.

  “Yes, Kim?”

  “There is a Ben Liamsworth on hold for you on line one.”

  Looking at the thick file of personal photos taken of her and the in-depth reports accompanying them, Gemma made up her mind.

  ***

  Ben clutched the phone, waiting for Gemma to pick up the line. He desperately needed her to believe the story he’d come up with, or everything would be ruined. He waited for a long time before he finally realized she wasn’t going to take his call.

  With sweaty palms, he placed the receiver back on the cradle. It was going to take a lot more work to do what needed to be done now. But that wouldn’t matter. He wasn’t about to give up after all these years of planning. He was just going to have to get a lot more creative.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Gemma searched her surroundings carefully, making sure he was nowhere in sight. She walked briskly across the parking lot, with her high-heels clacking against the pavement. A wide brimmed hat shadowed her face and the plain brown dress she wore was designed to help her blend into the crowd without attracting too much attention. Her long chestnut hair had been tied in a braid that fell down the middle of her back.As she reached the offices of the Adams Corporation, her family’s business, she suddenly felt a pair of eyes watching her and whipped her head around.

  Of course, there was no one there, and once again, she felt like a fool. She just couldn’t help it. Ever since she discovered that the man she loved, Liam Taylor, had been secretly spying on her and taking photos without her knowledge, she constantly felt like she was being watched. He had an entire folder full of pictures of her, including photos of her at home naked. The more she thought about it, the more she hated him for it.

  And that wasn’t even the worst thing Liam had done, Gemma thought bitterly as she walked briskly through the lobby without so much as a hello to any of her coworkers. The son-of-a-bitch had lied to her about who he really was. She couldn’t believe that the entire month they lived together, even as she gave her body and her love to him every night, he let her believe his name was Liam Taylor, when it was really Ben Liamsworth.

  Discovering the truth put into question everything else she knew. Why had he really invited her to stay with him in his mansion for thirty days? Should she still accept the loan he was giving her to save her family business from bankruptcy? Why had he spied on her? And the most penetrating question of all: Did he really love her?

  Gemma reached her office after brushing rudely past her assistant Kim, and locked the door behind her. She knew she was being paranoid, but she just couldn’t help it. She felt like Liam was watching her around every corner. She breathed deeply, trying to unwind, and stretched her neck until it popped, releasing the tension in her pinched nerves. It was physically draining to be so stressed all the time, not to mention emotionally exhausting.

  Her best friend Lori had said to her the other day, “You look like you could use a good fuck.”

  “Too bad I’m not speaking to the man who used to do that for me” Gemma had joked with a rueful smile, but there was too much truth in the statement to laugh.

  She realized that the most awful thing about Liam’s—or Ben’s—betrayal was how much she missed him. No man had ever made her body feel the way that he did. Her skin still tingled with sexual arousal whenever she thought
of him. She hated her body for still wanting him after this discovery. But when she dreamed about him at night, she would awaken to find her panties soaked with the juices of her arousal and her nipples hard and aching to be touched. Sometimes she could still taste the delicious saltiness of his skin or smell the masculine scent of his cologne. But the dream would quickly fade and she would find herself alone in her apartment, missing him.

  That wasn’t the worst part, though. Even more than the sexual pleasure he gave her, Ben had made her feel special like no other man ever had. When she was with him, she felt interesting, intelligent, beautiful, powerful, and incredibly sexy. That was what she missed most of all—the way he made her feel like the only woman in the world. It was the way he had looked at her with such love and desire. No one had ever looked at her that way, and she could gaze back into his eyes forever.

  Before she had received that confidential file of documents about her, Gemma had been sure that Ben loved her. It was why it was so difficult to figure out why he hadn’t told her who he really was and why he felt the need to spy on her in secret.

  For a moment, she considered taking the business loan he had given her and shredding it. Why should she take one dime from that bastard? But one look at her parents rejoicing over the thought that their business had been saved, however, put everything in perspective for her and she couldn’t do it. Why should her parents suffer just because their daughter was foolish enough to fall in love with a liar? Love was love, but business was business.