Page 12 of We Are All Liars Here

But when she stalks into the front office, the waiting room—whatever it’s called—she’s reminded all over again.

The grave in her gut. Carved out with an ice-cream scooper then tossed away like off meat.

Preston.

She blinks away the tears and prays that if he notices them, he thinks they’re for Carmine and only her. Sniffing, she stalks past him.

He quietly peels himself away from the wall and follows her out the front doors to the parking lot. He’s a ghost on her tail all the way to his car. Not even when she slams the passenger door shut does he speak a word.

And that usually riles him up.

Instead, he’s calm as he starts up the engine and rolls out of the parking lot. All he says is, “I’m bringing you home—with me.”

She doesn’t argue.

Not with wat happened at Grace’s. She doesn’t want to be alone in that trailer. And maybe—just maybe… she wants to be with him tonight.

4

First thing Billie does at Preston’s is head straight for his room. It’s late, just an hour or two from sunrise actually, so the house (or mansion, as she thinks of it) is asleep, minus some early rising servants. A maid and a footman.

Preston follows her upstairs, and she’s relieved to find exactly what she needs on the nightstand as though it was waiting for her. It’s not the glass of water, the Aspirin, the sandwich he clearly had made for her, or even his sweatpants and t-shirt laid out for her to change into.

No, it’s the bottle—that thick-glassed, smokey looking beauty of a beast—that has her suddenly rushing across the enormous room. She scrambles over the bed and snatches the vodka before Preston can even lock the door behind him.

He says nothing. His silence says enough.

But as she’s drinking the vodka like fresh water to a dying desert man, she hears the bathroom light flick on, then the sudden stream of shower water.

She lowers the bottle to her lap. A smear of vodka has glossed her chewed lips, and she just… stares. Stares blankly ahead at the wall opposite, where the bookshelf spans on for too long and is full of books whose titles she doesn’t even recognize.

“Billie.” Preston speaks her name softly. There are so many meanings behind that one gentle word.Comeis the one she hears.

She doesn’t budge.

She stays sitting on her folded legs at the edge of the bed, staring at rows of old tomes with peeling leather and some without lettering on the spines.

It’s only when she blinks that she feels the tears in her eyes, the ones that fall free and run down her cheek.

And he’s there.

Preston, the soft-footed elegant ass that he is, has come around the bed. And he does just what she expects when she lifts her gaze to him, seeing him through the glaze of watery lashes.

Without meeting her look, he slips the bottle out of her grip and places it on the nightstand. Her hands slap onto her lap with a slump of defeat. No warning, nothing but a fleeting lock of their gazes, then he reaches for her. Scoops her up into his arms, nothing but limp skinny limbs, and he carries her to the bathroom.

Steam from the running shower swells inside, and the heat is something of a sauna. Billie instantly melts against it, as though it kneads out any scraps of tension left in her.

“She’s dead…” The whisper that escapes Billie before Preston steps into the wide shower.

His answer is to drop his head, his mouth to graze her forehead, a fleeting kiss that never happens, then he sets her down. Takes one meagre second before she’s soaked through to the bone. Clothes cling to her body and, piece by piece, in silence, he peels them off of her, letting them slap to the shower floor.

His clothes follow after.

But it’s not a proposition.

Sliding a hard arm around her waist, he pulls her against him. Body to body. And the water rains down on them, washing all their sins away—until they return in the morning, as they always do.

Billie is limp against him.

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