Little White Lies

by Lizzie Shane

  She opened her mouth to argue and Ren met her eyes in the mirror, unsmiling. “Candy.”

  Her mouth snapped shut, tightening into a frown. “Fine. You’re right.”

  Victory streaked through him. Finally. Finally she was going to let him in. He opened his mouth to suggest a Thai place he’d been wanting to take her for months, but Candy spoke first.

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have been using you.” She nodded, as if coming to a decision. “We have to stop sleeping together.”

  He should have known from their sparring sessions. She always did know how to cut him off at the knees.

  *

  Present day…

  Candy started to retreat—irrationally convinced it was Ren, that he’d somehow found his way to the fountain before her—but then a voice called into the dark.

  “Candy.”

  Aiden.

  She changed course again, moving back toward where her brother was staring into the babbling fountain in the darkness. “Hey. What are you doing out here?”

  He lifted the bottle in his hand, angling it to show off its nearly empty state in the low light. “Celebrating my future.” He turned to her and she was close enough now to see that his gaze was bleary. “What about you?”

  “Running away from my past.” She nodded to the bottle—so out of character for what she knew of Aiden, but how well did she actually know him, seeing him at family events scattered over the years? “Anything particular you’re celebrating?”

  “Evidently, it’s time for me to remarry. Mother invited Tamara Hilton. Wouldn’t we make a cute couple?”

  Candy arched a brow. “Have you seen Tamara Hilton since boarding school?”

  He snorted. “Does it matter?” That unusually bitter remark was followed by a long swallow of scotch.

  Was this what he’d tried to talk to her about the other night? Breaking away from family expectations… was their mother trying to bully him into another marriage? Chloe had only been gone two years.

  “If you aren’t ready, just tell her. She’ll understand.”

  “Yes, our mother is so understanding.” Another humorless laugh. Another long drink.

  Candy had left when she was eighteen and Aiden only twelve. She’d always liked her little brother, but it had never occurred to her that he might be more like her than the rest of the Montgomery-Raines clan who marched in lockstep to the tune of civil service and political dynasty. Her mother always spoke of Aiden like he was the second coming of Robert Kennedy—only Republican, of course. Candy had sort of assumed he was like Charlotte—a smart enough, nice enough kid who had long since drunk the family Kool-Aid.

  Had she been wrong all this time? Was he looking to escape like she had?

  “You don’t have to step into the life she built for you if you don’t want to,” she told him. “You don’t have to live your life by their rules. You have a right to be happy, Aiden.”

  “You say that like it’s so easy.” He tilted his head at her, as if his neck wasn’t quite up to the task of holding up his head. “Are you happy in California? Really happy?”

  “Are you?” she countered.

  His smile was bitter. “I can be happy anywhere and doing anything as long as I have my girls. Maybe I should go along with Mother’s master plan. My life would certainly be easier if I let her run it for me.”

  “But would it be yours?”

  “Free will’s overrated, right? What’s it gotten you beyond a husband you lie to?”

  She flinched, but Aiden went on, oblivious to the dig in the words. “Sorry about spilling the beans, by the way. It didn’t occur to me that he wouldn’t know.” His head swung toward her, his neck once again seeming too loose. “Why didn’t you tell him, Candy? Why didn’t you let him be there for you? You have to let people care, you know?” He grimaced, lifting the bottle but not drinking, staring into the fountain. “Chloe pushed me away when she got sick. She thought she was protecting me, but I just wanted to be there for her. Instead it was her disease. Her fight. And I was the innocent bystander watching the mother of my children waste away. Even if there’s nothing we can do, even if there’s no way we can make it better, it still hurts when you won’t let us try.”

  She swallowed, her throat dry. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know that about Chloe.”

  He snorted. “Badmouthing my sainted dead wife isn’t exactly my favorite pastime. And we all handle these things differently, right? If she threatened to divorce me when she was diagnosed, that was just how she processed grief, right? One day everyone’s happy and the next she’s dying and she doesn’t want me anywhere near her.” He took another drink, her baby brother who’d already been through so much. “It doesn’t make you stronger, you know. When you refuse to lean on anyone. It just makes you…” There was a long pause and she thought he was done speaking, then the last word fell into the silence. “Alone.”

  He lifted the bottle for another drink, found it empty and frowned, turning that frown toward Candy. “I guess that’s the end of my bender.”

  “Do you need help getting back to the cottage?”

  “No.” He waved her away. “I’ve got this.” He stood, swaying only slightly, which made her nervous about just how much practice he might have concealing his drinking. Was he on his way to becoming Scott two-point-oh?

  He took two steps up the path, then stopped and spun suddenly, swaying on his feet as he caught his balance from the abrupt move. “Do you like being alone, Candy? Is that why you ran away to California and left us all behind?”

  She swallowed again, her throat thick. “No.”

  Aiden nodded, accepting the answer as sufficient explanation, and turned to stagger up the path toward the cottage where a light shone in one of the upstairs windows like a beacon.

  *

  Pretty Boy—Ren—stirred when she slipped back into bed beside him, muttering unintelligibly and reaching for her though he didn’t wake up. Candy let him draw her against his chest, curling into his warmth after the slight chill of the night air.

  She didn’t like being alone. Not all the time. Part of her did prefer it, did indulge in the isolation, but this feeling, when he held her in his arms, not even aware of the comfort he was giving her and she could hear his heart beating through his chest…God, she missed this feeling. The warmth of it. The safety of an entirely different kind.

  Feeling this way, like he really was warm and strong and reliable, like he would never let her down or betray her trust—it scared the shit out of her. Because what if? What if she lost him? What if she screwed it up? What if he left? What if she learned one day that she had been wrong to put so much faith in him?

  For years she’d told herself that she was happy in California, that she’d built her life to be exactly what she wanted it to be. That independence and freedom meant more to her than love and codependence. That all she wanted was more of the status quo, to keep things exactly as they were because that way she was safe…

  She’d gotten so good at lying she hadn’t even realized she was lying to herself.

  She wasn’t really as happy as she’d told herself she was. She wasn’t really living. She was existing. She was hiding from the pieces of her past she didn’t want to face. And it was time she took her life back. It was time she stopped blaming her family, or herself, or anyone else and got a little braver. It was time she learned how to accept what Pretty Boy had been offering.

  Except he wasn’t offering it anymore. He was with Jessica now.

  And all she had now was the illusion of him. And the beat of his heart beneath her ear.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Four years and two months ago…

  Quitting Pretty Boy cold turkey was easier the second time, Candy mused as she poked at her sister’s wedding cake. Of course, it probably helped that she’d flown to DC before temptation could get the better of her and had spent the last three days being reminded of all the reasons she never wanted a relationship.

 
And speaking of the devil, her mother appeared suddenly, sinking onto the empty chair at her side, a half-filled champagne flute clutched in one hand. “What’s this I hear about you insulting the Davenport boy?”

  Candy resisted the urge to roll her eyes only because she didn’t want to deal with a lecture on the vulgarity of eye-rolling. “I didn’t insult him. I simply said I had no interest in marrying him and having perfect little Conservative babies with him.”

  Her mother huffed. “He’s a highly eligible—”

  “I don’t want eligible, Mom. And even if I did, I wouldn’t want it here. My life is in LA.”

  “Lots of people move when they get married. I did.”

  Candy managed not to snort. Moving from a mansion in northern Virginia to a condo in DC was hardly a romantic pilgrimage. Though later in their marriage her mother had followed her father all over the world, so she might have an argument there—if their marriage weren’t such an exercise in passive aggression.

  “And yet, I’m still not going to marry him,” Candy replied. “Regardless of his political pedigree.”

  Her mother hummed irritably. “I suppose there’s always Elliot Danvers—”

  “No.”

  ‘It’s rude to interrupt, Candice.”

  “And it’s not rude to arrange marriages among the unwilling?”

  “If you aren’t arranging them for yourself, what’s a mother to do?” she exclaimed.

  “Back off?” Candy suggested, without a drop of hope that it would make any difference.

  “I worry about you, Candice. I worry about your future—”

  Her mother went on, extolling all her many worries, and Candy pinched the bridge of her nose, rubbing her eyes. Occasionally she entertained the delusion that her mother meant well, but this was not one of those occasions. Her mother viewed Candy’s lack of matrimony as a personal failure. A blemish in her record among the matrons of the DAR. Three perfect happily married children. And then there was Candy. Who lived in California, no less. A den of liberals.

  They’d probably all decided she was a lesbian, though her mother wasn’t brave enough to ask.

  It was tempting to tell her that she was gay just to get her mother off her back. Or seeing someone at least.

  Seeing someone…

  On another day, she might not have said it. If she hadn’t already been upset about how things ended with Ren. Seriously, what man turned down sex? She didn’t want to date, damn it. If she’d been capable of letting anyone close to her, it would have been him, but she couldn’t. She wasn’t wired that way. She didn’t want what other people wanted. So sue her. Why the hell was it so important that she get married anyway? Why couldn’t they all just leave her alone?

  “He’s a very nice boy. His grandmother was a Vanderbilt. If you would just talk to him—”

  Candy interrupted her mother with the one thing she could think of that might shut her up. “I’m already seeing someone.”

  The pause was minute. Then her mother launched back in, as determined as ever. “It can’t be serious. You would have mentioned him if it were serious. Just talk to Elliott—”

  “Actually, it’s very serious,” Candy lied, smiling sweetly. “We’re engaged.”

  *

  Present day…

  The bed was empty when Ren woke up the next morning—which didn’t surprise him. But Candy had left him a note and a pastry on the bedside table—which did.

  The pastry was apple—his favorite—and the note informed him that her mother had arranged a full spa day for the ladies and hunting for the menfolk and advised him not to “get his ass shot.” Ren grinned around a mouthful of pastry as he read her message. At least she was telling him not to get in the way of any bullets rather than hoping for a stray one to make her a fake widow. After last night he hadn’t been entirely sure which way she would lean this morning.

  He’d let his frustration get the better of him. Something that only seemed to happen where Candy was concerned. He’d been blindsided by something huge from her past and even though he’d tried to be understanding and everything she needed him to be in that moment, he hadn’t been able to entirely squelch the flicker of resentment that if left to her own devices she never would have told him the truth.

  He’d come here thinking he was going to get some incredible insight into Candy’s soul and that would make the difference. That he would learn her Big Bad Secret and she would fall into his arms, trusting him. Loving him.

  Funny, how things never quite went as planned.

  His cell phone rang and he reached over to the bedside table to grab it off the charger, still holding her note. His uncle’s face—contorted into his favorite rock god expression—filled the screen. For a moment, Ren almost considered not answering, but he gave in, like always.

  “Hey, Javi. What’s up?”

  Ren mentally calculated the time zones. He’d slept in later than he normally did, still mostly on Pacific time, but unless his uncle was on tour he was in LA as well, which meant he was calling at just after five in the morning—and probably also meant he hadn’t been to bed yet. He hadn’t mentioned to Javi that he was going to DC, so for all his uncle knew he was waking him up before dawn.

  “Junior!”

  Ren cringed. He’d never been comfortable with his uncle calling him Lorenzo Junior, but he’d never been able to break Javi of the habit. “What has you calling so early?”

  “Is it early? I thought it was late.” His uncle laughed as if he’d told a hysterical joke, then sobered with what would have been alarming speed if Ren hadn’t been accustomed to his rapid mood swings. “You never called me back. I called you with a business opportunity. The least you could do was return the call even if I’m not important enough for you to take my calls anymore.”

  “I was on a plane when you called and yesterday was hectic. I didn’t have a chance to get back to you, but you already know what my answer is going to be. I don’t want to do a reality television show. You know me better than that.”

  Or he should, but Javi had a tendency to see people not as they were, but as he wanted them to be. Then he got mad when they didn’t behave the way he thought they should.

  “I thought I knew you, but the nephew I thought I knew wouldn’t leave his uncle in the lurch. The nephew I thought I knew cared about his family and put family above anything else.”

  “Nice guilt trip. Have you been practicing?” The hell of it was, he did feel a little guilty. Javi was the last family he had left. Even if he was an overgrown man child who had never matured past his sex, drugs, rock n’ roll phase.

  “Your father would want—”

  “Javi.” A sudden surge of anger saturated the name. Javi knew better than to try to use his father’s memory.

  “Fine. But don’t you think you owe me this?”

  That was Javi all over. The entire world owed him. “Do you need to borrow some money?”

  “You gonna write me a check from the money you made off my fucking music?”

  Ren sighed, unmoved by his uncle’s flash of anger. “It was my father’s music too.”

  “And no one ever fucking lets me forget it.”

  “Do you want to forget my father, Javi?” Ren asked softly.

  Usually that tone worked, but Javi wasn’t hearing him. “Maybe I’m tired of playing in his band twenty years after he died. Maybe I want to stop being upstaged by a fucking ghost every day of my goddamn life, huh? Maybe if we did this reality TV show it would change how people saw me.”

  “That’s what this is about? You want to change your image?”

  “I want to be seen. I want the world to know I was here.”

  Ren closed his eyes, already exhausted by the conversation. “I think they already know, Javi.”

  “No, they know Lorenzo Tate’s brother was here. I want them to know I was here.”

  “It sounds like the producers of this reality show want to play on my father’s name too—why else would they want m
e attached? You’re still going to be Lorenzo Tate’s brother.”

  “That’s just how it would start! You don’t understand these things, Junior. Lore is the hook to get them to watch, but I’m the star, get it?”

  Ren rubbed a hand across his face. There was a certain irony in the fact that his father had been killed literally trying to run away from his own fame, while his uncle had been desperately chasing fame his entire life and couldn’t seem to catch it. Ren barely remembered seeing the two brothers together—he’d been too young at the time to keep many strong memories—but they’d always seemed so in sync in the performance videos he’d seen of the band. It was hard to believe the two of them could be so different.

  They looked alike—more like each other than like either of their parents—and for a while when Ren was a teen he’d wanted to believe that Javi was the man his father would have become if he’d lived, but Javi had always lived in his younger brother’s shadow. Since the day The Fifth Horseman hit it big. Lore was the front man. The main songwriter. The artist. And Javi was a guy who played guitar who’d been born with the right brother. At least that’s what the media said.

  “Javi, I’m not doing the show.”

  Javi swore creatively, occasionally punctuating the cursing with snarled comments about ungrateful sons-of-bitches who were just like their mothers, ruining everything without caring how it would affect anyone else and ending his rant with, “See if I ever do you any more favors.”

  “Always nice talk to you too, Javi,” he said into the dead connection, tossing his phone aside.

  Nothing like waking up to a reminder of what was left of his family. Ren stood, stretched, and went in search of hunting clothes. Time to put his game face on and deal with Candy’s nearest and dearest. And hope he didn’t get a face full of “accidental” buckshot for his trouble.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  A little over four years ago…

  Candy was jumpy when she got back from the East Coast. Almost guilty.

  Ren felt like shit that he’d made her choose and put them in this awkward place, but he didn’t regret it. He’d spent enough time around rock stars and models to see plenty of relationships like the one she seemed to want. All physical heat. No emotional connection. No real closeness or intimacy.