Little White Lies

by Lizzie Shane

  “Does your sister realize she’s marrying a man who is a walking billboard for his own awesomeness?” Ren asked under his breath as they approached.

  “Yeah, I’m pretty sure she knows.” Candy eyed Charlotte where she was preening at Tug’s side. “And she loves him in spite of it. Or because of it. It’s hard to tell sometimes with Charlotte. Reggie was very dominant in a different way, but she certainly seems to gravitate toward men who tell her what to do.”

  “They say women marry men like their fathers, but Tug doesn’t seem much like your dad.”

  “No. My mother keeps saying he’s exactly like my father, but the only similarity I can see is that they’ve both done a stint at the State Department. I’ve only met Tug a couple times, but he certainly seems more like my mom. Image conscious. Competitive. Controlling—it probably seems very familiar to Charlotte, since that’s what we grew up with. Scott’s like that too, when he’s sober.”

  Their conversation faded away as they approached where Tug was orating. “Of course I had a bachelor party,” he declared to Scott, who had been needling him about the lack. “Biggest, raunchiest bachelor party you’ve ever seen. Made The Hangover look tame.”

  Scott arched his brows, wearing his superior look of mild contempt—which meant he hadn’t yet started drinking and gotten the loose, sarcastic expression brought on by alcohol. “I thought you and Charlotte agreed you were above such vulgar displays.”

  “For Charlotte,” Tug insisted. “It’s unnatural for women to do that kind of thing before their wedding. Men have always needed to let off some steam and sow some wild oats before tying on the old ball and chain, but this new thing where women put on dildo necklaces and run around Vegas panting after men slathered in baby oil, it’s disgusting. I’m marrying a lady, thank you very much. Not some trashy piece of ass who needs to prove how modern she is by debasing herself.”

  “Was that a compliment?” Ren whispered under his breath.

  Candy didn’t know how to answer that, especially when Charlotte seemed to think so. Her sister glowed at his side like she was honored to be the “lady” marrying a prince like Tug.

  “Did you have a bachelorette party, Candy?” Scott asked, clearly in the mood to goad even though he hadn’t started in on his scotch quotient of the day.

  “Nope. Just a quickie wedding.”

  Tug nodded knowingly. “How old are your kids?”

  It took Candy a moment to get his meaning, so it was Ren who responded. “We don’t have any. We didn’t have to get married in a hurry. I just wanted to lock it down before she changed her mind.”

  Tug didn’t apologize for the assumption, nodding like assuming they’d had a shotgun wedding was the most natural thing in the world. “We’re going to have two,” he announced to the group at large. “A couple boys to carry on the Newton family name.”

  “I thought you always wanted a big family, Charlotte,” Scott poked again.

  Tug chuckled as if Charlotte’s wishes were just adorable and answered for her. “Two is plenty. We are not going to be like those freaks who have eighteen kids. Charlotte knows better than that.”

  Somehow Candy managed not to kick him in the teeth.

  *

  “You know, I thought if I got to know him better, he wouldn’t be so bad, but I think he actually gets worse the longer you talk to him.”

  “Your beloved future brother-in-law, you mean?” Ren watched as Candy flopped down on her back on the bed. They were supposed to be changing for dinner, but she looked so damn good sprawled there it was hard for him not to lie down next to her and forget the rest of this fiasco.

  Candy rolled her head without lifting it to keep him in view as he moved toward the closet. “Do you think he could really make her happy? That Dipshit McAssholeface is honestly what she wants out of life?”

  “I don’t know her very well, but she didn’t look upset when he was verbally patting her on the head.”

  “Yeah. She was eating that shit up like a lapdog.” Candy wrinkled her nose. “Did you notice how whenever anyone disagrees with him, he immediately reverts to anger and tells them that their opinion is not just wrong, it’s abnormal to have it? How much do you want to bet he made sure ‘obey’ will be in their wedding vows?”

  “I’m guessing we took that out of our imaginary wedding vows.”

  Candy snorted. “Hell, yes, we did.”

  “Anything else I should know about our imaginary wedding?” The bed looked too inviting—and so did she. He gave up on pretending to get dressed and came over to stretch out next to her on his side facing her. “Did the bride wear white?”

  “I should show you the pictures. It was that slinky white dress—the one you said made me look like a twenties movie star.”

  “The one you wore to the Golden Globes that time when you were doing soft cover for Sandy Edwards?” He was half-hard just thinking about it.

  “That’s the one.”

  He groaned. “That dress would not have lasted long on our imaginary wedding night.”

  She chuckled, the sound fading into a sigh as she met his eyes. “Thank you, Ren. For never treating me like Tug treats Charlotte. Jessica’s a lucky girl.”

  He jolted, startled by the reminder, and the truth spilled out before he considered the wisdom of telling her. “Jessica and I broke up.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  About one and a half years ago…

  “I come bearing beer and pizza.” Candy hitched up her offerings to display them and Pretty Boy grinned, swinging his front door wide to let her in.

  “How can I resist?” He took the pizza boxes from her, leaving her to carry the beer, and led the way through to the kitchen.

  His place wasn’t large or ostentatious. He could have lived in a palace off the residual income from his father’s music library, but the place he’d chosen was a spare mid-century modern bungalow with a killer view of the city. The furnishings were an eclectic mix of styles that somehow suited him and gave the place a vibe that was both inviting and zen.

  Just like Pretty Boy. She knew she had his easygoing personality to thank for the fact that they’d been able to become actual friends after their fast and furious affair the year before.

  Flipping open the boxes, he slid the pepperoni and sausage-laden combo toward her and spun the Veggie Explosion she knew was his favorite to face himself. “You drove all the way to Bertucci’s just for the pizza?” He handed her a paper towel, forgoing plates as had become their habit.

  She could have told him she was in the area and downplayed it, but instead she told the truth. “Figured you deserved your favorite on your birthday.”

  His slice paused in mid-air for a second. “You remembered.”

  “The least I could do after I changed it for you.” The rest of the Elite Protection staff would celebrate with him on Ren Xiao’s birthday, but she’d wanted someone to remember the real day. Especially since Ren had so little family left. She popped the top on a beer, handing it to him, and opened one for herself before clinking the necks together. “To Lorenzo Tate Jr. Happy birthday.”

  “Thanks.” He took a long drink, his throat working.

  “Does anyone else know?” Candy asked to distract herself from the sight.

  He shrugged. “My uncle. He’ll call next time he sobers up enough to realize he missed it.” He grimaced, thumbing the label on the beer. “I’m now as old as my mother was when she died.”

  Candy quickly did the math. “I hadn’t realized she was that young when you were born.”

  “Twenty-two. Fresh out of art school. Following the tour of a rock star nearly twice her age.”

  She arched a brow at his characterization. “I thought theirs was a love story for the ages. He fell in love with her the first time he saw her from the stage. Isn’t that the story?”

  “It’s a nice story,” Ren grinned. “And he did fall in love with her—but my mom started out as a groupie.”

  Candy’s brows climbed
higher. “They told you this when you were a kid?”

  He shook his head. “My uncle told me when I was sixteen.”

  Asshole. “Was he trying to be a dick?”

  Ren snorted. “Possibly. But it didn’t work. I didn’t care that she was a groupie. My dad did fall in love with her. She was his everything. Even if it took them until they had me to get there. You could hear it in the way his music changed.”

  He had a point. The change hadn’t been subtle—a hard rocker suddenly producing love song after love song, pushing to do acoustic sets, eventually leaving his band behind. Candy had never thought about how his father’s music would give Ren a link to his parents. She eyed the guitar in the corner of the living room—the one she’d never seen him touch. “Do you play?”

  *

  Present day…

  Candy felt the foundations of her world sliding sideways and was too disoriented to tell whether she liked it or not. Ren and Jessica were over. Done.

  “When…? Why didn’t you say anything?”

  “It was just after I agreed to come here and… I don’t know. I didn’t want you to feel pressured…”

  Because he was no longer off the market. Because there wasn’t anyone else in the picture and their relationship didn’t have to be entirely in the rearview if she didn’t want it to be.

  Oh my God. Candy scrambled off the bed away from him. “Is it because of me? Because I asked you to come? You said she handled it as well as could be expected. Oh God, she freaked out, didn’t she? I broke you up.”

  “Keep your voice down.” He looked significantly at the wall that separated them from the room where Scott was changing for dinner. “It wasn’t your fault. It was mine.”

  “I don’t believe that. Oh God, I screwed up your relationship. Of course I did—”

  He sat on the edge of the bed, watching her pace. “It was already screwed up, Candy.”

  “But you could have fixed it. She would have forgiven you—”

  “I didn’t want her to.” He stood, blocking her path and forcing her to stop. “I didn’t want her badly enough to fight for her and I’m pretty sure she felt the same way about me.”

  “How could she? You’re so freaking perfect.” All of her frustration poured into the words. It would have been so easy to cut him out of her life completely if he hadn’t been so damn wonderful all the time. He’d made it impossible for her to get over him, even when she could never be what he needed.

  “I have flaws, you know. I steal the remote. I kick off the covers. I leave the toilet seat up.”

  “I know,” she snapped. She knew him. But somehow none of Ren’s flaws ever seemed like flaws.

  Shit. Was this what Charlotte had been talking about today? Was she in love with Ren?

  No. She’d just been brainwashed by the happy love vibe at the wedding. People got sappy at weddings, right? Hell, Max had started going to weddings with his sister’s best friend and the next thing Candy knew they were engaged. The love pheromones were in the air at weddings and people lost their good sense. That was all this was.

  “Candy.” He started to reach for her and she backed away. “I didn’t tell you this to freak you out. I just didn’t want a lie between us.”

  Oh, the irony. She was made of lies.

  “I don’t want to get married, Ren. Ever.” She knew she probably sounded like a crazy person with the non-sequitur, but the words kept pouring out and she couldn’t seem to stop them. “I don’t know if that’s what you were hoping for when you came here, that we’d get back together and I’d change my mind about forever.” His expression tightened and she knew she should shut up, but the words kept coming. “I know your parents and grandparents were great, but all I’ve seen of marriage is the messed up Machiavellian crap my parents’ marriage has devolved into. And the way Scott and Eleanor hate each other. And Charlotte’s incredibly bad taste in men. And Aiden’s awful grief when Chloe died. It isn’t good. It isn’t the fairy tale.”

  “But it doesn’t have to be bad,” he insisted. “We wouldn’t be bad, Candy. Look at Max and Parvati. Look how crazy in love with his wife Adam is. You aren’t your parents. What makes you think you’d be exactly like them in this?”

  She rubbed both hands down her face. “I don’t know.”

  But she did. She knew she would screw it up. It was inevitable. And the idea of a lifetime commitment still scared the shit out her. So damn terrifying—but a tiny part of her, buried so deep she could almost ignore it, whispered that he could be right. It could be good. They could be good.

  A gong sounded deep in the main house, jolting her out of the moment.

  “We have to go to dinner.” She fled into the closet to change, frightened of meeting his gaze for one more minute.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  One and a half years ago…

  Ren ran his fingers over the strings, caressing them as the familiar notes rose sweetly into the air. It was his favorite of his father’s songs—a folksy, acoustic ballad from his last album, a little-known deep cut about promises and promising to be better, promising to be there.

  He’d always loved the ache of the song, the poignant simplicity of the lyrics. The longing. But it felt different playing it for Candy. Like a whole new aspect of the song had opened up inside him.

  He didn’t perform often. There were pictures of him on his father’s lap plucking guitar strings when he was three, and after his parents were killed he’d often used music as a way to try to feel connected to Lore. His voice was naturally a shade lower than his father’s, but he could mimic his father’s smoky timbre better than any of the front men his uncle had brought in to attempt to replace him in The Fifth Horseman. But for all that he loved the music, he would never be the showman his father had been. The music was something he felt inside—he always felt exposed when anyone watched him let it out, but it was different with Candy.

  Things were always different with Candy.

  She looked almost like herself tonight. Or what he had come to think of as her Candy look—dark blonde hair loose around her shoulders, snug jeans hugging her world class ass, and a gauzy black blouse sliding off one shoulder. She looked relaxed. And sexy as hell.

  She curled on the couch beside him, catching her breath as he sang the last chorus and only letting it out on a sigh when he let the last notes fade. “Wow,” she whispered.

  “He was a talented man, my father,” Ren agreed, absently plucking out the melody of another old favorite.

  “I meant you,” she corrected. “Wow.”

  His face heated and he set aside the guitar. “Well, now you’ve heard me play.”

  She looked at him and the moment seemed to stretch.

  *

  Present day…

  He’d overplayed his hand. Again.

  Ren had always prided himself on his patience, but this week he sucked at it. Every time he saw an opening with Candy, he jumped at it. Too fast. Too hard. And scared her away again.

  They walked into the drawing room a couple minutes late to find the rest of the bride and groom’s families already gathered. Charlotte leaned against Tug’s arm, gazing up at him adoringly as power couples circulated through the room. Everyone was smiling, laughing, secure in their own wealth and privilege.

  “Ren! Candice!” Candy’s mother waved them over as soon as she spotted them, beaming with an enthusiasm that made him nervous. She was speaking to another extremely well preserved middle aged woman. “Tug’s mother was asking me about your family connections, Ren, and I realized I still don’t know what your parents did.”

  “I was raised by my grandparents—” he started to explain again, but Regina flapped a hand, interrupting him.

  “No, no, I know all that, but what about your parents? Before their untimely death.”

  “Mother,” Candy scolded.

  “No, it’s fine,” Ren said, in an effort to keep her from drawing more attention to the evasion by objecting to the question. “My father w
as a musician. Guitar, mostly.”

  “Oh, how lovely. We are great supporters of the arts, you know,” Tug’s mother bragged.

  “And did your father teach you how to play? Before he died?” Regina pushed.

  “Mother.”

  “What?” Regina asked innocently.

  “He did,” Ren admitted to keep the peace. “Though I was very young and I’m not nearly as good as he was.”

  “I’m sure you’re wonderful. You’ll have to play for us. After dinner! It’s just family here, but we would just love it. Wouldn’t we, Martha?”

  “You do not have to sing for your supper,” Candy insisted, glaring at her mother.

  “No, it’s fine.” He covered her hand on his arm with his. “I’d be happy to play something.”

  “Delightful.” Regina clasped her hands together as dinner was announced and they all began the stately processional toward the table.

  “You don’t have to do this,” Candy whispered as they fell into line behind her siblings. “She’s only trying to use you to show off and I know you hate performing.”

  At first he didn’t know what she was getting at, then he remembered bitching to her when his uncle had tried to convince him to be part of the Fifth Horseman reunion tour. It had felt so wrong to even consider stepping into his father’s role. Being on stage under the burning lights had never been his dream. He’d confessed to Candy at the time that he never felt right on stage. He’d never had his father’s talent—had always felt like he was pretending to be something he wasn’t. Javi had tried to make the life sound sexy, but Ren had read his father’s journals—about the isolation of the road, the tour buses, the lack of privacy, the heat of the lights during the marathon shows that left sweat pouring off his body. No. He’d never wanted that life.

  But that wasn’t what this was. “I hate the idea of pretending to be my father in front of an arena of fans screaming so loudly they can’t hear the music unless we crank it up until our ears bleed,” he acknowledged. “I don’t hate playing for you.”

  “It wouldn’t just be for me.”

  He looked down, meeting her eyes. “Yes. It would.”