It Started With a Lie

by Lisa Suzanne

  “That shouldn’t have happened. I—” she cuts herself off then starts again. “We can’t do this.”

  “Because we work together?”

  “That’s only part of it, Brian. I—I can’t. I have to go.” She looks around wildly for a beat, and then she pulls my hands off her hips and runs up the beach before I get a chance to ask her why.

  chapter thirty-four

  Me: Meet me at six in the lobby.

  I stare at the text without hitting send. I’ve typed about a hundred texts, deleted them, and restarted them over and over, and nothing seems to sound quite right.

  I’m sorry I kissed you again.

  Why did you run away?

  Why can’t we kiss on the beach?

  What more is there?

  Fuck your rules. I want to kiss you again.

  Stay the night with me.

  I finally send the business professional one and keep the personal stuff to myself. As much as I want to know why she ran from me, why we “can’t do this” and what other reasons she has stored up in her mind, the fact is it’s a conversation we shouldn’t have over text message.

  My message shows as delivered. I watch as the little bubbles show up on her end indicating she’s typing me back. When the bubbles disappear, I wait a full minute for the text to come through before I admit defeat.

  She didn’t say anything back.

  I toss my phone on the nightstand and stare up at the ceiling as I try to figure out when the hell this got so goddamn complicated. I’ve kissed her twice now. She’s stopped our kiss twice now.

  But that was all it took.

  Maybe it’s because I’ve always wanted what I can’t have. Always. It’s just part of my nature.

  But at the same time, this feels like so much more than the petty shit of the past. I’m thirty-two, yet this feels like it could be my first real, adult relationship. The stuff with Kendra seems like nothing more than a childhood crush on a pretty girl compared to what I’m feeling for Vivian.

  Except it’s completely one-sided, and I don’t know how to fix that when she keeps running away from me every time things start to heat up between us.

  I finally grab my phone and slip out my balcony door. I slide into a chair. I set my feet up on the railing and listen to the waves roll in as I look out at the moon’s reflection on the water for a while. A wall divides my patio from hers. It looks dark next door, and I wonder if she’s sleeping. I wonder if she’s curled up in bed with her phone as she reads my text message and tries to figure out how to reply. In my imagination, she’s wearing nothing but a skimpy pair of panties and a matching bra, things I could easily remove with my teeth or a simple snap of fabric.

  I shake my head to clear out those thoughts when my phone starts ringing. I glance at the screen and find it’s my brother calling me.

  “To what do I owe the pleasure of a phone call from world-renowned rock star Mark Ashton?” I answer.

  “Just checking in on my little brother.”

  I roll my eyes. He knows I hate it when he calls me little. “I’m fine.”

  “Are you?” His voice is condescending, and it hits a nerve.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means I’ve gotten messages from your boss telling me things are fine, but I don’t believe her. I may be a musician, but don’t forget about that little degree in psychology I also have.”

  I blow out a breath and don’t answer. He loves to rub my nose in the fact that he has a master’s degree. He acts like he knows the motivation behind every person’s actions just because he studied psychology.

  I refuse to admit he might be right.

  “I knew it,” he says.

  “Knew what?”

  “Things aren’t all right, are they?”

  I don’t answer again, but at least the salty ocean air is keeping me calm during this conversation that might otherwise be striking more than a few chords in me.

  “Look, I’m just trying to line up all my ducks before Reese goes into labor.”

  “She still didn’t have that baby?” I ask, deflecting as usual.

  “Her official due date was three days ago, but the doctors say it’s common for the first baby to come late.” His words are filled with anxiety that only someone who knows him as well as I do might detect.

  “Shouldn’t you be off rubbing her feet or something?” I ask.

  “She’s sleeping. Well, she’s attempting to sleep. She’s lying in the recliner in the family room with a box fan three feet away from her turned on high.”

  “Sounds sexy.” I’m teasing him, which is how it should be. What happened with his wife and me is three years in the past now, and while some of the scars still show, we’ve done our best as a family to put what I did behind us.

  “Honestly, the woman who’s about to deliver my child any second is the sexiest thing I’ve ever witnessed.”

  “Hotter than that threesome you told me about in Paris?”

  He laughs. “Yeah. Way hotter. Now tell me what’s going on with you and Vivian.”

  “It was just a kiss.”

  “Wait...what?”

  Oh shit. That wasn’t what he meant. “Um...” I rack my brain to come up with some way to backpedal out of blurting what I just blurted, but I can’t think of anything to say.

  “You kissed her?”

  I sigh. “Yeah, kind of.”

  “Jesus, Brian. Can’t you keep your paws to yourself? I’m calling for a fucking update on how the two of you are handling my investment and you tell me you kissed her?” He sounds pissed, and it strikes me how moody he’s been lately. The hormones coursing through his pregnant wife must be rubbing off on him.

  “You can’t throw temptation that looks like Vivian Davenport into my office and expect me to work three feet away from her without acting on my attraction.” It’s a weak defense, but I don’t care. I pull my feet from the railing and set them on the ground.

  “You shouldn’t have kissed her.”

  “Fuck you.” I stand from my chair as I continue looking out over the water. “You don’t know anything about what’s happened between us.”

  “It doesn’t matter. She’s your boss, and besides that, she’s—”

  “I think I love her.” My words are short and terse as I interrupt my brother, and they’re met with a beat of shocked silence.

  “You...you what?”

  I blow out a long breath, and when I speak, my words come out more desperately than I intend for them to. “I think I’m falling in love with her.”

  I hear some noise in the background that sounds like yelling.

  “Oh shit. Shit! Reese’s water broke! It’s baby time! Holy fuck! I gotta go.” He cuts the call, and I stand on my balcony for a minute.

  I’m excited for my brother and Reese. They deserve happiness, and I’m finally in a place where I can admit that.

  I think it has everything to do with the woman in the room next door.

  I open my door to head back inside, and that’s when I hear a door open on a neighboring balcony.

  My heart races at the implication as I think about what I just said on my balcony to my brother without censoring my words. I don’t know if the door was directly next door to me, and I don’t know if someone is just coming out or just going in.

  I do, however, fear that the woman who keeps running away from me overheard me admit I think I’ve fallen in love with her.

  * * *

  My phone wakes me at four with a text notification. As I flip over lazily to see who’s texting me so early, I think to myself I really should turn my goddamn ringer off.

  Mark: Update: No baby yet but Reese is doing great.

  I roll my eyes. He texted me in the middle of my sleep to tell me nothing’s new?

  Me: Text me again when the baby is here.

  I toss and turn as I try to fall back asleep, but it’s useless. I’m going to be an uncle any time now, and I can’t help but think back over t
he time I spent with Reese. That could’ve been me.

  I never wanted it to be me, and yet these feelings I’m having for Vivian are bringing out some strange caveman mentality where I want to reproduce with her. I want to look into a child’s eyes and see her bright blues staring back at me. I want to hold something we create together.

  I shake that thought away.

  I’m halfway between dreaming and awake, and clearly the dreams are winning. These images must be coming from my conversation with Mark right before I went to bed.

  I’m still up when a text from Viv comes through at five.

  Vivian: Sounds good. See you in an hour.

  I wonder why she didn’t write that back to me last night. Maybe it’s because she typed out ten different messages like I did and ultimately couldn’t figure out a good one to send. Or she might have waited until morning because she’s playing a game.

  I could be totally overthinking this, which tells me my feelings must be love. That’s the only time people’s brains turn to shit like this, isn’t it?

  I get out of bed early and take care of some administrative shit on my laptop. I head down to the business center to print the final numbers on the contract Viv approved last night, and then I run over to Starbucks to grab a coffee. While I’m there, I decide to get Vivian a coffee, too. Unlike my secretary who knows Vivian’s Starbucks order, I realize I have no idea how she takes her coffee. Ultimately I just get her a black coffee and a muffin and I grab some sugar packets for good measure.

  With breakfast and coffee in hand, I’m a couple minutes early, so I head over toward the chairs near the elevators and sit. When I see her get off the elevator a minute later, I’m positive this is love.

  She simply takes my breath away as I look at her in a professional navy dress paired with nude colored heels. She tugs at the neckline of her dress, and then her eyes edge over to mine. I stand, but even from this distance I can tell something’s off. It’s the way she looks away from me as soon as our eyes meet, and it’s the unmasked unease I saw there in the little glimpse she gave me.

  I know immediately she heard what I confessed to my brother last night.

  She knows how I feel about her, and I can’t even think of an actual way to pretend like I didn’t say it because that would be admitting I said it. And even though I admitted it to Mark last night, I’m in no way ready to say those words to her—certainly not when she’s so averse to the idea of getting close to me.

  “Good morning,” I say.

  “Morning,” she murmurs.

  I hand her the coffee, and our fingers brush. “I didn’t know how you take it, so I just got you black.”

  “That was nice of you. Thank you.” She avoids my gaze.

  “I have sugar packets, and Starbucks is just over there if you want some cream.” I nod over toward the store.

  “I think I’ll grab some cream.” She steps away from me, and I hate the sudden awkward wall between us. Things seemed so much easier back when we just hated each other. Now there’s all these complications, and we still have to work together for a couple more months.

  God, I’m an idiot.

  When she returns with her coffee doctored up to her liking, she says, “You ready?”

  “We have a little time, and I’d actually like to run through our proposal once before we leave.”

  “Of course,” she says. She nods to the chair where I was sitting. “Here okay?”

  “Yeah.” I follow her over, and I pull out the paperwork once we sit. “Is everything okay?” I ask before we begin.

  “Fine. Just adjusting to morning after too much wine last night.” She shoots me a tight smile that tells me it’s more than that.

  “My brother woke me up early with a text to let me know Reese is in labor.”

  She smiles. “How early?”

  “About four.”

  Her smile widens, and even though there’s all this weirdness between us this morning, it lights up her whole face. “How exciting.”

  I nod and launch into what I’m planning to tell Paul Porter an hour from now. When I’m done, our eyes meet for a brief second. I spot the admiration there before she glances away. “It’s perfect, Brian. There’s no way he’ll turn it down.”

  “Let’s hope.” I stand and shuffle all the papers into a neat folder then place them in my bag. “You ready?”

  She nods, and I extend a hand to help her up. She takes it, surprisingly, and the fit of her hand in mine just feels right. I don’t want to let go, but I don’t have a choice.

  We grab an Uber since the car I usually arrange for myself in Miami is currently out of my price range, and we get to the Porter building fifteen minutes early. I’m not nervous, exactly, but there’s something in the air pushing a pin of anxiety in the pit of my stomach.

  I think it’s Viv’s perfume. It’s the scent that’s everything I want but exactly what I can’t have. It’s the scent that tells me my personal life is suddenly in shambles even though the business prospects are looking up. It’s so much more than that, but it’s also something I need to sweep under the rug for now so I can close this deal.

  And so I do. I put my professional hat back on and ignore the burning need I feel for the woman beside me. I strip away the feelings and emotions as I focus on what has to happen over the next hour or two.

  It’s my only option, and it’s hardly the first time I’ve done it.

  The act is good, I guess. Or at least I think it is all the way until we’re getting ready to walk out the door.

  Paul Porter signs on the dotted line and writes a deposit check that’s enough to get FDB out of the red for the rest of the month.

  It’s not until we’re leaving that he pulls me aside. Viv is several paces ahead of me.

  “I just need to talk to Mr. Fox a quick second,” Paul says to Viv. “It was lovely meeting you.”

  She turns back to shake his hand. “You as well, Mr. Porter. I look forward to doing business with you again soon.”

  He smiles at her, and she turns to leave us alone for a beat.

  “There’s something I need to say to you,” Paul says as soon as Viv turns the corner. We step back into his office.

  “What is it?”

  “I’ve known you a few years now, Mr. Fox, and I have to say, you’re a different man.”

  I raise both brows. “I am?”

  “You’re always a consummate professional, but this girl you’re working with has changed you.”

  “In what way?” I ask.

  “You smile more. You’re more relaxed than I’ve ever seen you, yet your ambition seems twice as intense. You look at her for approval and you don’t even know you’re doing it. I don’t know if I would’ve signed if I didn’t feel the utmost confidence the two of you can handle this transition.”

  I’m surprised he admitted he might not have signed, but I don’t let that surprise show on my features. I reach out my hand to shake his. “Thank you, sir.”

  “Keep her around. She’s not just good for you. She’s good for FDB.”

  I press my lips together in what I can only describe as a professional smile as an ache spears my chest. I don’t have the option to keep her around. She’s leaving when her contract’s up. She’s returning to her life in Los Angeles, to her other jobs and family and friends and other men who aren’t me that might want to pursue her.

  I can’t let that happen. I’ve got to figure out a way to get her to stay.

  chapter thirty-five

  The meeting took far less time than we planned for, so we’ve got a few hours in Miami to kill. If I was by myself, I’d head back to the Ritz and use the business center to get some work done.

  I’m not by myself, though, and I don’t want to work right now. I want to find a way to get her to open back up. I want to find a way to tear down the wall that divides us.

  “What’s your favorite thing to do in Miami?” I ask as we stand on the sidewalk in front of the Porter building.

&n
bsp; “How do you know I’ve been here before?” she asks.

  “You once said something about not wanting to come to the most romantic city in America with a guy you hate so much.”

  Her lips twist in embarrassment. “I didn’t mean that. I don’t hate you.” Her voice is soft.

  “Don’t you?” I ask as I match her tone.

  She looks at me desperately for a half a beat before she slides on her sunglasses. “No, I don’t.” She starts to walk away from me. “And my favorite thing to do in Miami is walk on the beach, but you ruined that for me last night.”

  “Where are you going?” I call after her as she moves further and further down the sidewalk.

  “Away from you.”

  I blow out a breath of frustration before I speed walk to catch up to her. I grab her by the bicep and pull until she turns to face me. “Stop walking away from me. Stop running away from me. Face this thing with me and just admit how you feel!”

  Her sunglasses hide her eyes, but her sniffle betrays her emotions. She runs a finger under her eye beneath the lens.

  “I can’t,” she says with a soft, trembling voice.

  “Why not?” I yell, our tones completely contrasting.

  “Because I’m—” My phone starts ringing, loudly interrupting our moment. She stops short in the middle of her sentence and looks away from me. “You should get that. It could be your brother with news about the baby.”

  She’s right, and of course I want to know what’s going on and whether everything’s okay. But hearing her finish that sentence seems somehow more urgent.

  I stare at her for a beat and let my phone clang loudly in my pocket before I pull it out. It’s not my brother. It’s my mom.

  “Hey Mom,” I answer.

  “The baby’s here! I’m a grandmother!” She’s full of joy, and I want to feel as jubilant as her...but I can’t, not when Viv and I are in the middle of something.

  “Congratulations, Grandma.”

  I can practically hear her smile over the phone. “She’s seven pounds, four ounces and twenty and a half inches of perfection.”