Page 37 of House of Lies

Every neuron in my brain is screaming at me to race out the door while I still can, but morbid curiosity keeps my bare feet rooted where I stand.

Screw survival.

Self-preservation…what’s that?

Instead of doing the intelligent thing—the logical thing—I’m waiting to see if Master Remington is indeed going to use that belt… or if he’s just bluffing.

One look at his face gives me my answer.

He’s dead fucking serious.

He snaps the belt between his hands, the crack so loud that I let out an involuntary gasp.

And just like that, I realize what an idiot I am. This guy could do anything to me, and no one would know. I’m at his mercy, and from the look on his face, there’s not a lot of that to go around. And if this is how upset he gets when I snuck into his room…what the hell is he going to do when he finds out I lied to him?

Unless I come clean.

God, that thought terrifies me almost as much as the sight of him standing there with that belt in his hands.

Almost…

“Stop. Please. I…I can explain.”

I hold out my hand, pleading silently until I can wrangle my tongue into action.

He slows down, but he doesn’t stop.

“I…haven’t been entirely up front with you. My—my name is Cassidy.”

Ethan narrows his eyes and snaps the belt again. A shudder courses through me at the sound.

“Think I don’t know you’ve been lying to me?” He speaks carefully, as if he’s trying not to yell, but he doesn’t give me a chance to answer him. “Actually, I applaud your commitment. None of Myles’s usual girls would have stuck to the bit as stubbornly as you did.”

Who the hell is Myles? I thought Janice was the person he was dealing with at Shimmer and Shine?

Oh God, I’m so fucked.

“I don’t know what you mean about ‘a bit’, but it’s true. I’m not a maid. At least, not yet.”

“Not yet?”

He lets out a muted growl.

It’s fucking terrifying.

I want to admit to everything, but he’s just getting angrier and angrier. I can’t bring myself to think what he’ll say—or do—if he discovers I’m here undercover to investigate him like some modern-day Nancy Drew.

Not while he’s holding a fucking belt.

So I chicken out like the coward I am.

“It was her idea. Olivia’s!” I blurt out, clutching my coat in a tight bundle against my chest. I’m all too aware of just how little clothing I’m wearing, how terribly exposed I am. “She was supposed to be training me today, but she was pissed off because she wasn’t getting paid more for the extra work. And I wasn’t supposed to be paid at all.”

He’s stopped moving now, and I’m taking that as a good sign.

“So…she suggested I come here alone. She’d get some time off, and we’d split her wages so neither of us would go home empty-handed.”

“I appreciate your ingenuity, Cassidy, but I never needed a convoluted story to step into a scene.”

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