Grand Lies (The Promise Duet Book 1)

by JC Hawke

  My hand drops along with my stomach, and all the blood inside me drains to my feet, leaving me light-headed.

  “Say that again,” I rasp out.

  “I think it’s best we don’t repeat it all that often, don’t you?”

  I frown at her words.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask.

  “Is that seriously all you have to say right now?”

  “Nina—”

  “Tell me everything, and so help me God, Mason, if you lie to me.”

  My skin prickles as I try to trample my emotions.

  She is here. She knows the worst of it, and she is here.

  With hope in my heart, I search for the right words. “You know about Phoebe?”

  “Yes. And about what happened after. Behind Charlie’s back,” she arches an accusing brow at me, but her eyes don’t hold the same conviction. “I want to know what Charlie won’t tell me. I want to know why your mother’s piano was in Erin’s studio.”

  I snigger and look down. “Her name isn’t Erin.” My eyes burn into the ground at our feet as I take myself back to that night.

  Only this time, I drag Nina through it with me.

  Fourteen months earlier…

  Rarely will I pick up at Melders. I try not to mix business with pleasure. But where my father’s lack of self-control lies with the bottle, mine seems to lie in the redhead that is currently on her knees, sucking my cock.

  The smell of her cheap perfume assaults my senses, giving me a headache. She is hot, though. Damn, she is fucking stunning. She has that natural Jessica Rabbit vibe going on with her bouncy red hair and hourglass figure.

  I’m not fooled, though. She is just like the rest of them. Following me with their eyes until I settle on one of them to take home for the night, just to fulfil a need. That’s all it is—emotionless sex at its finest.

  She starts to moan around me, and I pull out of her mouth, finding her eagerness to please me fucking pathetic.

  I just need to fuck.

  “Out,” I demand, hitting the button to open the elevator doors. My patience has been wearing thin all night.

  I haven’t heard anything from Vinny yet and I should have by now.

  She climbs to her feet as I tuck myself away. The hunger in her eyes only grows when she sees my home, confirming my initial judgement of her.

  “Wow. Becks said you had money. This is next level.”

  She walks into the room, past the sectional sofas and over to the piano. It stands between the lounge and the dining area, the perfect view of the London skyline beyond it.

  Using her hands, she pulls herself up to sit on it, crossing her legs and letting her dress slide up her thigh. “Come here,” she croons.

  Reluctantly I move to her, my fists clenching at my sides as I watch her squirm on the polished wood. I don’t like the feeling growing inside me at seeing her on my mother’s piano.

  Wrapping my hands around her waist, I grasp her tight. She unfolds her legs, lifting them to lock around my waist, and then I lift her from it. “You don’t touch this,” I warn.

  “No? I was hoping you’d fuck me on it.” She pops a brow.

  Does she think that’s going to turn me on? Fucking her on my mother’s piano? I’ve never been so soft in my life.

  “You don’t fucking touch it. Got it?” I spit out, making her face drop.

  Not wanting her anywhere near my personal things or feelings, I take her lips, hoping it will get me going again. I already know I am going to have to work for it. Maybe I’m an asshole, but girls like…

  “What’s your name again?”

  “Cara.” She giggles into my neck as I carry her up the stairs.

  Girls like Cara are only after one thing. Money. They can smell it from a mile off, and if I didn’t take her home tonight, El would have. That’s how I sleep at night, knowing she is only after a notch on her millionaire tally. I’m just something to brag about come Monday morning.

  Four hours later.

  I pace the kitchen as sweat forms on my brow. “Well, where the fuck is he now?”

  “I don’t know, Mase, you need to calm down. Vin will deal with this.” Lance tells me from his spot at my kitchen island.

  “Calm down? Fucking murder, Sullivan, that’s what this is!”

  Everything is fucked.

  He screws his face up. “No, it’s not. It’s a lesson, and he fucking deserved it.”

  My hands rake through my hair. He deserved it. Fuck. He deserved it.

  “How long is he going to be? I can’t wait around like this.” I snap.

  “Give it an hour and we’ll call.”

  “Fuck that—”

  Lance lifts a hand to stop me, his face tight. I follow his gaze which is trained on the closed kitchen door. “You hear that?” he mouths.

  I walk to the door and rip it open.

  The redhead gasps, and I try to remember her name, but my mind is already processing the conversation I had moments ago and how much of it she may have heard. “I was just leaving. I came to say goodbye.”

  She heard us.

  She heard what we said.

  Murder.

  “Thank you for this evening, my friend is expecting me home.”

  “Shut the fuck up,” I spit.

  FUCK.

  “What did you hear?” Lance asks from behind me.

  “Nothing.” She says in a panic. “I’m just going to go change.”

  She spins and runs for the stairs, the sheet clenched white-knuckled in her grip.

  “The fuck, Lowell!” Lance hisses.

  “She might not have heard everything.”

  “As if, you saw how quickly she fucking ran from you.”

  My phone starts to ring and I look down to see Scott’s number lighting up my screen. Lance takes the phone and steps towards the elevator.

  “Fix that.” He eyes the stairs. “Make her keep her mouth shut.”

  I wait for what feels like hours for her to reappear. My hands pulling at my scalp as I fight to find the right words.

  How do I explain this?

  She scurries from the room and spots me instantly, flinching before she schools her features.

  My eyes blaze through her as she pulls her shoulders back, and I watch her put on a front, walking down the stairs, then moving past me and towards the doors.

  “It’s not what you think,” I rush out, and I don’t know if it’s the panic in my voice, but something makes her pause.

  “How do you know what I am thinking?” she asks, jutting out her chin.

  “I need your word…” Shit. What the fuck is her name?

  “Tara,” she snaps, finishing for me. “Fucking pig.”

  “Tara, right. Sorry. What you heard it wasn’t what it sounded—”

  “I won’t tell anyone,” she assures me, and my shoulders drop in relief at the same time her lip curls.

  “But not for nothing,” she utters.

  “Right, you want money.” I look her up and down and her face reddens, her fists clenched at her sides.

  “You used me tonight, and now I want to fuck you where it will hurt. I want money, and that.”

  She points over my shoulder, and I turn, my eyes locking on my mother’s piano. “No.”

  Not a chance in hell.

  “Oh, you think you have a say here? I could go to the police, you know.”

  She’s brazen. I’ll give her that. Most women would be out of here running, but I’m pretty sure I have Satan’s spawn standing in front of me.

  Lance told me to sort this, to make her go away quietly.

  “How much? Name your price.”

  I see the spark in her eye, and I curse myself.

  “I will send a courier, Monday morning at nine. If the door isn’t unlocked, I will—and I mean it. I will go to the police.”

  “You stupid bitch.”

  She shrugs, smiling sweetly. “Stupid bitch…” She holds up one hand, then the other. “Murderer.”
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  “She took it? The piano?”

  I clench my fists as I nod, feeling every bit of the anger I did that night.

  “Who is Erin then? And Tara? It doesn’t make sense.” She turns away from me, running her hands through her hair.

  “Will you come and sit down?” I ask.

  She moves to stand in the space between the lounge and the dining area, her brows drawn together in question. “Where is it now?”

  “In the west wing at Lowerwick.”

  Her face drops, and I know that hurt her. “You never would have told me, would you? You were just going to hide it away and not tell me.”

  “I didn’t want to.” My nostrils flare, not wanting to lay it all out but knowing I have to. “I thought if you knew, I thought you’d never be able to look at me again.”

  She shakes her head, looking at me in shock. “His actions… that rapist! Mason, he got everything he deserved. I don’t condone using your money to play with karma.” She walks to me, and my eyes burn. “But I don’t blame you. You didn’t do it for you.” She reaches up and palms my cheek. “Mase, you would have lost me. If Charlie didn’t tell me.” Her brows pull in as she searches my face. “Why do you try and carry it all alone?”

  “I don’t want my mistakes to burden you, Nina. Despite all you have been through, you are good and pure. I don’t want to fuck that up.”

  “You don’t think I’m fucked up? Mase, I dream about the men who took my mother every night. I dream about wrapping my hands around their throats and squeezing until they can’t keep their eyes open and on me.” She throws her hands out to the side, shocking the shit out of me with her words. “I wanted it all with you. All the ugly parts. All I’ve ever wanted from you is you.”

  My eyes close briefly as I absorb her words. The more she gives me, the more I know I don’t deserve her.

  “I thought you’d run if I told you. I never thought it would bring you back to me.”

  “I never said I was staying.” My chest aches as she utters the words.

  I don’t know how to be without her anymore.

  “I want to know everything,” she says. “About Cara, or Erin. Whatever her name is.”

  I look past her and out the window. “Lance found out about the piano and knew we’d have to do something. I was freaked out about Marcus and hadn’t heard from Vinny. I knew I needed to go to work, but Elliot and Charlie would have known something was up, and I couldn’t have them finding out. Charlie wouldn’t have been able to live with it.”

  “I think that was your first mistake.”

  I nod in agreement with her. Maybe if I told him that day things wouldn’t have gotten so bad.

  “Cara took the piano. She was smart, and she took something she knew I treasured and made sure I couldn’t find it.”

  “The studio. You didn’t know it was there.”

  “No, not until that day I came to you.” I give her my eyes, pleading with her to believe me. “Vinny looked into Cara. We found things.”

  She looks off to the side, shaking her head. “Do you realise how disgustingly toxic it is that you prey into the lives of other people, Mason?”

  She takes a deep breath in, and I can see how conflicted she is.

  Wetting my lips, I continue, needing to get my side of the story across. “She has multiple, stolen identities. Vinny found a paper trail that allowed us to track her down. She blackmails men. Rich men specifically, using different identities to keep herself covered. Thousands of pounds stolen over the past seven years.”

  “What?!”

  “She would have done it to me, too, if it wasn’t for Lance. He threatened to expose her. We had more money between us and more connections. She didn’t have a choice but to listen. We sold her businesses, her home.” I swallow thickly, knowing how this all sounds. “Then I sent her to Australia and made sure she had nothing to come back to.”

  “You made her leave?”

  “I needed the control, Nina. She was blinded by greed and went willing. She doesn’t have a bad life, and I couldn’t have her here.”

  Her face screws up in pain, and I avert my gaze, not being able to stomach that look. “I met her in a café. She told me she had to find a tenant within three weeks. She said her mother was ill.”

  “Bullshit! Her mother lives here, and she begs to come home for that very reason. I didn’t know about the studio, Nina. I swear I didn’t. She put it in a different name, Erin O’Connor. It’s why I never found the piano before now.”

  “So, you still pay her? To stay in Australia. Why?”

  I don’t miss the disgust in her tone. “Lance never set her straight about what happened that night. It was easier to let her believe I was dangerous than risk her wandering around London thinking she had something on me, and I didn’t want to give her the advantage of knowing the truth. I took control of the situation when I could. I pay her way, and she keeps quiet. She stays in Australia, and I don’t go to every one of the businessmen she is blackmailing and expose her.”

  “You threw money at it. Always money,” she whispers, her expression one of defeat.

  “It was the only way. It was on me, and I couldn’t let it fall back on Vinny, Scott, and Lance. I didn’t have a choice.”

  “There’s always a choice, Mason. And yours somehow always comes down to the same thing. You’d be in prison without your wealth. You let it define you, but you are so much more.”

  “We did what we thought was best in the moment. I don’t know what else to tell you.”

  She shrugs, throwing her hands out to the side. “I don’t even know what to think anymore.”

  “I can’t live without you,” I tell her, reaching for her hands.

  Her face sours. “Don’t be ridiculous; it’s been a matter of months.”

  “And I love you. There’s not a doubt in my mind that you’re it for me. Don’t leave me. I love you, Nina, and I’m sorry. Let me make it right.”

  “Mason—”

  I step forward and slide my hands across either side of her face. “I’ll be the man you need me to be, I swear it. Don’t leave me again,” I beg, unashamed.

  Her dainty hands wrap around my forearms with a tentative grip as if she is afraid to touch me. “You sold my studio.”

  “I couldn’t have you involved. If what happened ever came out, and my girlfriend was renting the studio that the woman I blackmailed owned. Can you imagine how it would look?”

  “This is ridiculous,” she mutters. “all of it.”

  “I couldn’t risk it, Nina. I wasn’t willing to put you in that position. Baby, please.” I smooth my thumbs across her cheeks, knowing if she leaves now, it’s done. She won’t come back.

  How do you live without the woman you love?

  My father couldn’t do it, so why would I be any different.

  “You have to stay.” I wet my lips and my eyes drift closed, feeling completely bared to her. “You’re my Pixie.”

  32

  Nina

  My mother never begged me to stay. Not once. Most weeks, I’d leave to stay with Maggie and John, and she wouldn’t ever put up a fight. She wouldn’t tell me to stay or that she would try to be better. She let me go. Every. Single. Time.

  I should leave him. I should protect myself and run far away. But I can’t. For the first time in my life, I want to plant my feet and throw myself into somebody else’s world. I want a home—a forever one.

  “I don’t want you to help me buy a studio.”

  “Fine.”

  “I don’t want you buying me anything, period. It’s too much, and everything needs to be slower. We are moving a million miles an hour.”

  “But you will live here?” He means it as a question, but he is telling me, his tone definite.

  “I will live here because I chose to, yes. And I will contribute to the bills.”

  He narrows his eyes at me. He doesn’t like that. “I only want to look after you.”

  “It’s too much too soon;
give me time. I need to do this my way.” I should have done this at the start, made it clear.

  I told him I didn’t want to be bought, and I know I made that clear, but I should have told him that I needed to move slower. I’ve done more with Mase than I have with any man ever.

  “I know I love you, that part I am certain of.”

  “Why do I feel like there’s a but?” He glares.

  “I don’t know if I trust you anymore. I feel like we lost it before we even had it.”

  He closes his eyes, but it’s not in sadness. He is annoyed that I feel that way. “You know you can trust me.”

  “No, I don’t. You haven’t given me any reason to. The studio, Cara, they’re not small things. It’s life-changing for me; this is my life!”

  “I know that.”

  “You don’t.” I pause, fighting against my head, which tells me to hotfoot it out of here, but my heart screams at me to stay, begging me to feed it with the love it craves. The type of love that makes it beat stronger. The type of love only he can give me. “But we can work on it,” I force out.

  “Yeah?” He questions, taking my face in his hands again.

  I have to move forward. I can’t run away every time I hit a bump in the road. I have to face it. Overcome it.

  “Yeah,” I tell him.

  “I thought I’d blown it. The studio. I know I fucked up, Nina.”

  “We have a long way to go, Mason.”

  We are far from perfect, and we do have a long way to go. But today I make a new promise because I want to stay.

  Mase

  “Didn’t she tell you specifically last month not to buy her shit?” Elliot asks with a smug smile on his face.

  “Oh, they never really mean it. This is perfect,” George tells me, coming to sit on the edge of my desk.

  “If I make it about Lucy, get you to plan it.” I look to Elliot, willing him to get on board.

  “Fuck off, Lowell, I have enough to deal with.”

  “Like what?” I frown, calling him out on his bullshit.

  “You think they can all just take time off and go on holiday?” Lance asks. “You’re fucking gaga over her, mate.”