Page 121 of The Liar's Reckoning

“You’re here all the time,” I argue, the first stirrings of irritation making my heart pump faster. “I lived with three other guys for years. I never fucked any of them.”

He rubs his face and groans. “It’s not like I don’t want to be with you.”

“Kinda sounds like it.”

“Silas. Come on. Don’t do this. I’m rattled. I’m sorry.”

“So rattled you’d rather stay with mommy and daddy instead of me?”

“Hey…” He kisses me, pressing his body to mine. “Don’t listen to me. This is what I want. It’s what I’ve always wanted. You and me.”

“You sure about that?”

“Tell me it’s what you want, too,” he says.

“I love you,” I remind him. “I’m not going anywhere. There’s no one else for me.”

His mouth twists like he’s managing an uncomfortableemotion. “No pressure,” he breathes, his thumb running mindlessly over the sensitive skin beneath my jaw.

He’s freaking me out, and I hate the way it makes me feel. Unsteady. Uneasy. Unsure. I wrap a hand around his wrist, over his bracelet to remind him who he is to me. Kissing him, I move over him until he’s on his back, and I’m straddling his hips, our mouths deeply connected where I pour all my tense feelings into a tortured kiss. Within seconds, his erection is rubbing my dick and getting me hard.

I don’t know who’s about to fuck whom, but the need to join our bodies is intense. If the bracelet isn’t enough to remind him where he belongs tonight, I have another way to make my point.

He belongs with me.

Always.

37

GRAHAM

It’s not surprise I feel when I get a call from the real estate billionaire Gibson Hayes. It’s pure dread. The feeling of the other shoe poised to drop. The request for a divorce felt out of character for Avery from the moment I walked into the kitchen that morning, but the Hayes’s involvement helps it make more sense.

Before she met Marianne, Avery was sweet, charming, unassuming, and humble. These days, she’s embodied her socialite status. There are certain places she used to go—the coffee place two blocks down for example, which she refuses to step foot in now. She never leaves the apartment without full make up, dressed in the trendiest styles. Her former Pilates friends? They’re now only gossip fodder for her and Marianne.

I suspect Marianne is behind this demand for a divorce. The question remains, though, how much does she know? Did Avery tell her I have a lover? Or has she only said enough about her lack of a sex life to gain Marianne’s sympathy?

It’d be a lie to say I’m not scared shitless when Gibson requests a lunch with me. I know better than to say no. I have to understand my enemy in order to fight them.

My face is pale in the mirror as I shave. Silas is asleep because he worked last night. I haven’t told him about this. I have a feeling he’d tell me to ignore it and deal with Avery directly.

But the situation has clearly evolved, and I no longer consider Avery safe. She hasn’t spoken to me since I packed a bag and left the apartment last week. I’ve sent a handful of texts that have also gone unreturned. My parents are pissed on my behalf, and they say she’s not returning their calls, either.

Lawyers are being consulted. My brother Holden’s been looped in. The wagons are circling, and there’s been some noise from my father about digging into Avery’s past. So far, I’ve managed to talk him out of that, but I won’t be able to hold him off forever. It’s only a matter of time before the media gets hold of the story, and even with all Dad’s connections in the press, a scandal is a scandal. He’s determined to make Avery the focal point of any negative attention, though. Not me.

I’ve been a wreck. Scheming doesn’t suit me. I don’t have the brain for this high level game of chess. I think one step at a time, not four or five moves ahead. Today, I assume I’ll find out what Avery really wants in order to keep my secret, because that has to be what this is about. Maintaining another residence isn’t scandalous. It won’t get me in trouble with my constituents or the senate. Having a gay lover? Well…

She has to know I’d do just about anything to protect that secret.

She also knows—and this is why I’ve been dry heaving off and on all night—that I’m practically broke. All my income is accounted for—it goes to the apartment at Hanover Gardens, Avery’s therapist, her fucking wardrobe, and all the travel I’ve been doing. The debt I’ve managed to amass has me ready to choke on bile at any given moment.

In the bedroom, I pull on my suit jacket as I stare at Silas’s sleeping form. Our entire relationship passes before my eyes. That night at the Plaza. The cosmic coincidences that placed himfirmly in my life in an irrevocable way. The way he’d fought me—his own feelings. The way he didn’t shy away from me after the miscarriage when I’ve never been more miserable. All the kisses he was never able to refuse me.

The home he’s kept warm for me all this time. We met nearly two years ago now, and for my part, there hasn’t been a day since that first time I haven’t thought about him. We’ve come so fucking far. Weathered impossible odds in a relationship we both know can never be more than a secret affair.

Whenever I doubt whether his feelings for me rise to the level of mine for him, I think about what he’s had to sacrifice to call himself mine. He could have anyone. Someone who would openly claim him, introduce him to his parents. Be able to be seen in public with him at all for Christ’s sake.

But he’s chosen us—hidden. Isolated. Living in the shadows.

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