Page 44 of Cruel Lies

How could I know if they respected me, or just the pretty face?

She’d never made me feel like that,my inner voice mocked. I shut it down with a wince, leaning forward to gather up the scraps of wrapping that Harper had abandoned when she left. I hated trash lying around.

Not as much as I hated myself right now, though.

TWENTY

HARPER

I didn’t bother knockingwhen I left the living room. If Nash had a problem with me barging in, I guess he’d have to learn to lock his fucking door or something. Maybe hang a sock on the knob.

Since he was nowhere in sight, I settled on the edge of his bed, prepared to wait him out. The second I moved, though, I put a hand in a mess of semen and blood and shot up like I’d been stung.

"Fucking men." Some pretty creative swears left my lips as I stripped his bedding down, throwing it all in a heap in the corner to deal with later. A search of his closet and dresser produced no spare sheets, but there was no way he’d been living with one single set of sheets. How would he even do laundry?—

"Who let you in, bitch?"

Nash emerged from the only door I hadn’t checked, a towel slung low around his hips, another in his hands as he ruffled that shaggy mess of hair on his head. His eyes found the bed, void of any covering, and then spotted the red bag slung over my shoulder.

And then he sighed and turned around, hesitating in the doorway of what I realized now was a bathroom.

"Well, don’t just stand there. Bring it here."

The bedroom had been dark, but the bathroom was lit with an assortment of LED lights, giving it an almost ethereal glow. I didn’t mean to stop and gawk at the massive shower with a waterfall head or the amazing tilework that someone had painstakingly placed, probably by hand, along the backsplash of the long counter.

But there was no mistaking the assortment of skincare products on the counter for anyone’s but Angel’s.

"You share this bathroom with your brother?"

Nash peered into the mirror, picking at something on his face I couldn’t see from this angle. "Sorta, yeah. We drew straws, and I got stuck with that sanctimonious prick." His eyes met minein the mirror, and I wished for the umpteenth time that I wasn’t so damn short so that I could see the rest of his face. "Let me guess—you wanna take your little first aid kit to my arm, right?"

I nodded, then realized he’d looked away. "Yeah, that was sorta the plan."

His hand patted the counter next to him and swept it sideways, throwing half of Angel’s bottles and jars on the floor. "Well, come on up, short shit. You can sit on the counter and poke at me until you’re content I’m not going to bleed to death."

When I moved to jump up on the counter, he grabbed my waist and hoisted me up, and I looked up into his eyes to thank him for the assistance?—

—and watched his face fall as my eyes widened in shock.

Nash withdrew on himself in the blink of an eye, his features turning to stone as I reached forward with my free hand and tried to make sense of what I was looking at.

Scars. Jagged, ugly, and violent scars ran from the edge of his lips on either side, almost to his fucking ears. It was like someone had decided he needed a permanent smile, like some sick recreation of the Joker. His head drew back as I stretched out to touch him, so I let my hand fall, afraid to push him too far.

"I forgot you haven’t seen me without my makeup on." His eyes cut to the mirror, hard and cold now. "It’s pretty gruesome, huh?" His hands balled into fists on the counter on either side of the sink. "Makes you fucking sick just looking at it."

My voice wavered as I fought back tears. I’d known they weren’t the same men as before, knew Nash was a little—well, off—but I hadn’t expectedthis.

"What happened?"

He refused to meet my eyes. His shoulders hunched, letting his damn ringlets of mahogany hair hang around his head like a curtain. It became his shield, something to hide behind, so he didn’t have to hide his weakness.

"Does it evenmatter?"

I put a hand atop his, slowly intruding on his space to show him compassion. There was no way to know it was the last thing he wanted from me.

"What do you even fucking care, Harper? Don’t act like it doesn’t turn your stomach to see this shit up close and personal." His fists lifted, throwing my hand off, and he slammed one into the mirror, shattering the glass into a thousand jagged wedges. His reflection was like a funhouse spectacle now, and a mocking grin split across his face, pulling at the scar tissue on his cheeks as I watched. "I’m a freak. A fucking monster. What person in their right mind would want to see this every day?"

I couldn’t deny the visual was jarring, but then again, I’d never cared about that stuff. Well, okay, I cared about it for awhile growing up. Image was everything to me before I was thrown off a bridge and had to rebuild my life without money. But Nash didn’t scare me. Far from it, actually.

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