While she talks, I spot an angle.
“Things with Alex and me are still very complicated, Shelby. I know that he lied to me and cheated, but I can't have him finding out about Liam. I sent you this research just for you to read. Not for you to pass it on. Do you understand?”
This seems to convince her.
“You really should not get together with Alex again,” she says quietly.
“I'm not,” I say, “but everything happened very quickly. I have made a mistake sleeping with Liam. It should have never happened. I'm going to work more on the story and do more research to find out everything. For now, can you just promise to keep it between us?”
I hold my breath and wait for her answer.
Finally, she agrees.
33
Liam
I don't think that I should've told her what I told her, but she was finally willing to meet with me and I couldn’t stop myself. Emma and I don't know each other very well and things in our lives are very complicated, but the connection that we made was real.
It is the first real thing that I have experienced in a long time and I'm desperately trying to hold onto it.
I could have made up another reason for all of those names. I could have lied to cover up all of those other lies.
Instead, I decided to trust her.
I don't know if she's trustworthy.
Most journalists aren't.
They are only after one thing and once they have a good story, they will burn all their bridges to get the opportunity to print it.
Emma is different, isn't she?
First of all, she works for a magazine and not a newspaper. They have more leeway. Second of all, the magazine isn't particularly interested in hard news.
So why would they care about my story?
I hope they don't.
When Emma excuses herself to go to the bathroom, I hope that I didn't make a mistake.
At the same time, part of me suspects that what I just told her, she already knows.
I made a barrage of mistakes. When I ran into Alex, I agreed to come to his engagement party. Alex is the only person who knows my real name. I talked to his ex-fiancéé and later I slept with her.
I stop myself in that train of thought. I know that she's not going back to him. What I don't know is how she feels about me.
We still haven't talked about D. B. Carter. I still haven't told her the extent of my uncle's empire and the extent to which I had betrayed him.
She doesn't know any of these details and I'm not really sure if I should go into them.
Right before I came here to this meeting, I did a brief search on Liam Linville on Google.
The article by Samantha Lind came up and I figured that this is the one that Emma found. Everything in that article is true and I added a little bit to what I told her to elaborate on the story.
There is still so much that she does not know and that I should probably not tell her.
It's hard to describe what it's like to live a new life. I've been given this identity, a new name, a new location, and a new biography.
But I'm not an actor.
This is a lot more complicated than pretending to be someone for a day.
I have to pretend to be Peter Schmidt for the rest of my life.
An actor immerses himself or herself so deeply within a world that they basically embody the character. Other people around them say that they become difficult to deal with and impossible to live with.
The point is to be so authentic that you stop pretending and simply melt into someone else.
This is called method acting and those who practice this, do it for a month or two at the most. I have to do this for the rest of my life.
That's why I started writing.
It was something that I've always wanted to do and when I make up these other worlds and these other people, I finally feel like I'm not spending every minute of every day in a cage.
I finally feel free.
Emma comes back when they take our plates away and sits down across from me.
Her hair falls softly in her face and she puts her elbows on the table, holding her hands in front of her.
“Is everything okay?” I ask.
“Yes,” she says, but I'm not sure if I believe her.
There's something different about her. It's hard to pinpoint exactly what it is, but she seems almost… Rattled.
She was upset by my lies only a little bit before and now, she seems almost sorry for me.
“Tell me about D. B. Carter,” she says quietly.
I look from her intertwined fingers up to the curve of her neck, pausing briefly at her lips, and eventually meeting her eyes.
“Why did you make up that you were this writer?” she asks. “Why did you lie to me about that?”
These questions hit me like a sack of bricks in the face. I sit back against the back of the chair and tilt my head slightly to the side, looking at her in disbelief.
“This is what you really think?”
“Of course. Do you think I'm an idiot?”
I shake my head and think to myself that I’m the idiot.
What the hell am I doing here? I can’t trust this woman. I don't know anything about her.
I'm putting everything on the line and she doesn’t even believe me.
I open my wallet and stand up. I toss four twenties on the table and start to walk away.
“What are you doing?” Emma rushes after me. “Where are you going?”
She finally catches up to me near the entrance and tugs on my arm, pulling me into the hallway leading to the bathrooms.
“I need to go,” I say, pulling my hand away from hers.
“Why? What did I say?”
I swallow hard. I should explain, but I'm so insulted by the fact that she thinks that I would be the kind of person who would make up being this writer that I can't even bother to bring myself to say a word.
“You clearly think that I'm someone that I could never be,” I finally say.
“I don't know what you mean,” she whispers.
“You think that I am someone who would make up something like that. I mean, why? Why would someone do that?”
“For ego. Because they secretly want to be a writer and can't. There are millions of reasons why people pretend to be someone famous. To catfish a girl and get her to bed?”
I shake my head again.
“No, I can't believe that I was this wrong about you,” I say quietly. “I have to go.”
34
Liam
I walk away from her because I realize that she doesn't know anything about me.
If she thinks that I'm capable of lying about being a famous author just to stroke my own ego, she doesn't know me at all.
She catches up with me again outside of the restaurant. She grabs my hand and again I pull myself away from her.
Coming here was a mistake.
“Wait, stop,” Emma says. “Talk to me.”
“Talk to you about what?”
“Who are you?”
“You already know.”
“Are you D. B. Carter?”
I look down at my phone. Without saying another word, I open the pages app and scroll through all of my novels.
I don't have to do this.
I don't owe her anything.
I just don't want her thinking that I'm capable of being this deceptive.
I click on a document with a novel from a few releases ago and turn the phone toward her.
She scrolls through and her face falls.
She hands me back the phone and I open another one and another one and another one.
I keep doing this until she tells me to stop.
“Okay, I understand,” she says, throwing her hands up.
“I have to go,” I say quietly.
Again, she follows me.
“I believe you, okay? What else do you want me to say?”
“It's not about that,” I say.
"I shouldn’t have lied to you, but I only did that to protect myself and that's why I'm going to walk away now.”
“Please don't,” she says.
Her voice is small and meek.
I make a move to walk away from her, but something pulls me back.
The truth is that I love her.
I haven't told her this and I probably can't, but this is true. I haven’t loved anyone in a really long time and that's why I said and did all those things.
She looks up at me with her big hazel eyes and I lean over to her.
It feels like there's a magnet pulling us closer to one another. I want to pull away, but the gravitational pull is too strong.
Suddenly, my lips are on top of hers.
Her mouth feels small and soft. When our tongues touch, a chill runs up my spine. I cradle her head with my hands and kiss her again and again.
She kisses me back with equal ferocity.
“I'm sorry about everything,” she says, pulling away for a moment.
“Don't be,” I say, kissing her again.
I shouldn’t be doing this and she probably shouldn't be doing this either, but when our fingers intertwine with our palms pressed against each other, it feels like the rightest thing in the world.
My phone vibrates in my pocket, pulling me out of this trance. I remember that I have my appointment with Alex and I can't miss it.
“I have to go,” I say.
“We have so much more to talk about,” she says.
“I know and we will, but Alex doesn't have any other time today and I really need to get this done.”
“You’re really putting your money in with him… Despite everything?”
“Why, do you think I shouldn't?”
“No, that's not what I'm saying,” she says, thinking about it for a moment. “He's really good at what he does and I think your money will be safe there.”
“I'll call you afterward,” I say.
“You promise?”
I nod and give her one last kiss before walking away.
I shouldn’t have kissed her and I shouldn’t have promised to call her, but as I walk up to Alex's office, I can't help but lick my lips.
She is the first woman that has made me feel this excited about life again.
Maybe everything that I have been through has been worth it? I don't know.
When I walk into Alex's office, he gives me a warm hug and an embrace. His office is bright and spacious. He immediately goes to the liquor cabinet to pour us drinks.
I'm tempted to say no, but I can see how eager he is about it so I bite my tongue.
“So, how are you? How's everything going?” Alex asks.
“Fine, everything is good,” I say.
I don't know the extent to which Emma has confided in him, but he doesn't seem like he knows very much at all.
I decide that this is not the time to bring it up.
“So, are you still thinking about investing the two million?” Alex asks.
I nod. “Are your returns as good as everyone says they are?”
“Of course, nothing is guaranteed. The market can be unpredictable and you should never invest with anyone who will give you a guaranteed ten percent return. As far as our hedge fund goes, yes. We have a history of producing an average of about eight to nine percent for our clients.”
“Good, that's safe. I like that.”
I keep expecting Alex to bring up Emma, but he doesn't.
We go through all the paperwork and he explains about all of the different investment vehicles that they offer and then discusses the various risks associated with each one.
I decide to go on the safer side and invest a large portion in bonds and only devote about thirty percent to tech companies.
I'm pleased with the fact that he isn't interested in investing in volatile and unpredictable ones, but instead focuses the bulk of investment on giants like Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Apple.
We talk a lot about investing and I ask him a slew of questions that I have come up with ever since I started doing research into this. He has quick answers and thorough explanations for all of my concerns.
I appreciate that. What also strikes me as interesting is that he doesn't go out of his way to throw fairy dust in my eyes. He's careful to warn me about the risks and he doesn't make any extensive or grandiose promises.
This is exactly what I'm looking for in a hedge fund and an investment manager. I want them to be aggressive, but not such a risk taker that I stand to lose everything.
When I agree and we finish our drinks, the office manager shows up with a folder of paperwork.
When she turns around to leave, someone else comes in.
“I want my money back, Alex. All of it,” he says sternly.
“Jackson, what are you… I'm in a meeting right now. You have to make an appointment.” Jackson's tall, broad shouldered, and dark-haired. He exudes confidence and yet there is a darkness to him that is difficult to describe.
“Mr. Ludlow.” The office manager starts to say, but he cuts her off.
“Alex, I need my million dollars back. You promised it to me on the phone. He said that I could take my money out at any time. There was no cap or limitation. Well, I want it out now.”
“I'm in the middle of a meeting right now. Can you just wait until we're done here?”
Suddenly, Jackson turns to me.
He extends his hand and says, “I'm Jackson Ludlow. This asshole took one million dollars of my money and said that he was going to invest it in risk-averse investment vehicles. I've been trying to get it out and get him to answer my calls for two months now.”
I nod.
“I just wanted to give you a heads up since I see that you have the intake paperwork right there.”
“Listen, can you stop harassing my client?” Alex asks. “I have your money. I was going to send you a check today.”
“Yeah, right,” Jackson says sarcastically.
“I was,” Alex says.
Finally, I see him rattled. The casual tone in his voice disappears and new anxiety sets in.
Is he really not giving him back his money?
“Why don't you pay him back now?” I ask.
Alex glares at me, narrowing his eyes.
“Hey, you said you're going to. I just figured we could defuse this whole situation right here and right now.”
“Yeah, why don't you?” Jackson asks, holding his hands across his chest.
“It's not that simple,” Alex insists.
Jackson smiles out the corner of his lips.
“Yeah, it's not that simple because he needs your money to pay me back, isn't that right?”
“What are you saying?” I ask.
“He's running a scam,” Jackson says.
“No, you can't believe him,” Alex protests.
“This whole thing is one giant pyramid scheme. He signs on new clients and he pays back his old clients with those proceeds. That is not how this hedge fund makes money. What he is doing is illegal.”
“Get the fuck out of my office!” Alex says. “Marie, call security!”
“You know that it's true and we’re not going to let you get away with it.”
“You have no proof.”
“Maybe not yet, but I will.”
“Get out of here!” Alex yells.
35
Liam
Jackson leaves on his own accord right before the security guard shows up.
I decide to stay, not entirely sure why. Suddenly, things start to make sense.
Alex must know what happened between Emma and me, at least on the surface, because of her article and yet he did not bring it up. Why?
After closing the door and locking it, Alex turns his attention to me and takes a deep breath. He offers to make me another drink, but this time I decline.
“I'm really sorry about that. Marie was supposed to be there to make sure that no one comes in.”
“Does that happen often?�
� I ask.
“No, luckily not, but you do get the occasional disgruntled client.”
“Are you not returning his money?” I ask, sitting back in my chair.
He pauses for a moment, his back tensing up, but then continues to pour the scotch.
“Of course not,” he says with a new smile on his face. “Of course, I'm going to allow anyone to withdraw their money that wants it back. It's not my money. I just take a fee for handling it.”
“That's what I thought,” I say. “So, why is Jackson so angry?”
Alex gives out a big sigh and responds, “Why does anyone get angry? Something happened that has nothing to do with the situation and suddenly he's freaking out.”
“He didn't seem like he was freaking out,” I challenge him. “He seemed calm, collected, and pretty certain of the fact that you are running a pyramid scheme.”
“I'm not running a pyramid scheme!” Alex snaps.
“Okay, so why was he so angry?”
He takes another deep breath, but beads of sweat appear on his forehead.
“Listen, I didn't mean to lose it. I'm just having kind of a hard day and Jackson showing up threw me for a loop. We're not doing anything illegal. It's just that if he wants to withdraw his money, he has to do so in an orderly fashion.”
He said that he has been asking for his principal back for two months, I want to say, but I don't. Instead I decide to listen.
Alex keeps talking in circles about how he has tried to get back Jackson's money, but things never worked out.
At one point Jackson said he wanted to invest more, but then he went back and said that he actually wanted to take it out.
Nothing of what Alex says makes any sense and I get the feeling that he's trying to give me the runaround.
A few minutes later, he tries to drive the conversation back to the paperwork. He gets a pen out and opens the folder, but I stop him.
“Let me just take all of this paperwork with me and I'll read it over and I can fax it to you.”
All the Secrets Page 15
