Page 33 of Faking Ever After

I nodded. She was completely right.

“And one more thing,” she said and hesitated. I waited as she bit her lip softly, then inhaled a shallow breath of air. “You need to know what you want. If you really are only interested in work, then it’s better to leave him be without causing more damage.”

“I will,” I assured her.

“I mean it, Percy. Hearts are easily broken. Don’t do it by accident,” Emily said and got up.

She patted my shoulder and left me without an invitation to join her on the walk back. She knew I always liked sitting here, especially when nobody else was around.

After a while, I got up, dusted off the seat of my pants, and returned to the street that led to the beach. As I walked toward the house, I tucked my hands into my pockets and paused every so often to look at the sea. Once, I saw a couple bathing under the moon, holding onto one another against the rising tide and growing waves.

There was a pit of hollowness inside of me and it wasn’t a mere temporary sensation. There was something lacking there, something that made everything else I had achieved a little less beautiful. Boats, jets, houses, and apartments on the dreadful Billionaire’s Row were soulless when I occupied them alone.

My life seemed perfect when you first noticed it. After that, the hollows and absences quickly appeared and they occupied most of the space.

More often than not, I was content to simply go on like that. I had tried loving and I had tried dating, never getting anything in return except for heartbreak. It taught me that my value was highest in the office where I could make true change. I could set up others for success and the gratification from it masked the emptiness that I carried wherever I went.

It hadn’t crossed my mind that Finn would like me back simply because no one ever had. Not for the real me, at least. Besides, I had told myself that keeping a distance was the only wise way to make this scheme succeed. But the days I had spent with Finn, from the very first moment in which he had distracted me from my absurd fear of flying, to the hopeful smiles he’d had for me tonight—and which finally made perfect sense ifthe things Emily said were true—were the best days I could remember in a long, long time.

I hadn’t been this relaxed with Orson and nearly as satisfied with Richie. The latter, however much he was a friend, had never been the sort of man to make me feel like I was attractive or interesting. Finn, on the other hand, inspired something new in me.

He made me want him. And he made me want him as passionately and shamelessly and beautifully as my parents wanted one another. Sure, maybe I wasn’t interested in tying him in sailor knots, but I wanted to hug him and hold him and kiss him. Whenever he was near me, his scent alone made me stumble over my words. And when I looked at him, his lips made me forget what I had been thinking about.

And all of this, I had kept down and away. I had kept it at a safe distance because I respected him too much to ruin what could be a long friendship if we wanted it.

He likes you. Emily’s voice echoed somewhere inside my head and filled my heart with hope.

But that wasn’t the only thing that happened.

Up here, inside my head, a plan was starting to take shape.

CHAPTER 13

Finn

I wokeup alone in Percy’s room and Percy’s bed. Although I had tragically tangled the sheets between my legs, I could tell his pillow hadn’t been used last night. The early morning light filtered through white curtains and the clamor and clatter Nektaria created while preparing breakfast was enough of an alarm clock.

As I sat up, the moments of last night welled up from my memory. Nasty business. I hadn’t been able to contain my disappointment, although I had only been disappointed because I hadn’t been thinking clearly. Perhaps I owed an apology. Or ten. Perhaps.

I wondered what I would say if anyone asked where Percy was. Perhaps he had slept in a spare room. Or my unfiltered disappointment cured him of his flying anxiety and sent him back to New York.

Walking in circles, I considered my options, but the safebox was on my mind enough to give me chills. I headed to the storage nook and punched in the code I had set. The date my father received the phone call that ruined his life.

It had been a day like any other. Except, around eleven in the morning, a colleague called him in panic, telling him all waslost. The platform that was touted as a revolutionary way of investing, but only if you acted quickly before its value increased exponentially, had simply disappeared. All that talk of regular people pouring their hard-earned money in. The idea was that the little investors would build this shiny project full of fancy, meaningless words spoken very quickly in a super excited voice. Afterwards, billionaires would notice the momentum, pour their money into the project, increase the value for everyone, and the riches would be unheard of. They were, ultimately, unheard of, but not in the way everyone had believed.

My father barely survived the news.

My sister’s education was suddenly up in the air.

My mother rescheduled her accounting work so she could do evening hours cleaning offices.

And I set out on a revenge spree, which had taken me to Greece to cover my tracks. While my family suffered, I bathed in the Aegean Sea and daydreamed of running my fingers through the sun-kissed locks of Percy’s hair.

The USB drive was safely inside the safebox. It hadn’t been moved. It sat there like an invisible wall between me and Percy, between me and my family. I had taken it to do something good, but all I’d done so far was run away and lie.

A knock on the door startled me. I tossed the drive back into the box and crossed the room. Turning the knob carefully, I discovered Dimitrios standing tall, smiling, with a large picnic basket hanging from one tree trunk of an arm. “Good morning, Finn,” he said in that booming voice. “If you need a few more minutes, I can wait.”

I shook my head and frowned. “A few more minutes for what?”

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