Devious Lies: A Cruel Crown Novel Read online

  I kept my fingers to myself as Mom’s pleas bounced around in my skull.

  Don’t cause a scene.

  Easier said than done.

  Without another word, I pivoted and nabbed the seat between Reed and Emery’s date, Able Cartwright. Able appeared as slimy as his lawyer dad. Black, beady eyes and blond hair slicked back like he’d come from an audition for the part of the vulture in that D-grade Laurence Huntington flick.

  “Little brother. Emery.” I nodded at Reed and Emery, then quirked a brow at the rest of the table, some prepubescent teens desperate to hide beneath five pounds of makeup. “Teenyboppers.”

  Basil’s flushed cheeks clashed with the almost-white shade of blonde on her head. She wore enough perfume to fumigate a gymnasium. It killed my olfactory receptors as she leaned toward me and tittered into her palm.

  “Oh, Nash, you’re so funny.”

  I gave her my back, effectively finishing the conversation. I studied Emery, one seat over. She sat with her brows furrowed and hands on her lap, trying to unravel a Snicker’s mini without drawing attention to the contraband candy.

  I wondered if she had any idea what her parents were up to.

  Probably not.

  Ma once told me that people are wired to do the right thing.

  It’s human instinct, she’d say, for people to want to do right by others, to please others, to spread joy.

  Sweet, naïve Betty Prescott.

  The daughter of a pastor, she grew up spending her free time in bible study and married the altar boy. I lived in the real world, where rich assholes fucked the little guy—in the ass, without lube—and expected to be thanked after.

  And Emery’s dad? He put up a good front. Charities, volunteer work, a sunny smile. I had thought Gideon was different. Look how wrong I’d been.

  But Emery Winthrop… I considered what to do with the ledger in my pocket. She complicated things.

  Not that I was particularly attached to her. I’d had maybe a handful of conversations with her over the past eight years, but I loved Reed, and Emery knew how to love Reed better than anyone else.

  She’d spent her childhood sharing her lunch money with him and sitting through tutoring lessons she didn’t need. The shit school we’d transferred from had left Reed practically two grades behind. Even at seven, Emery understood the only way my brother could hire a tutor was if she pretended she was the one who needed it so her parents would pay for it.

  Hurting Emery would hurt Reed. Simple math. And as jaded as I had become, as much as I hated Eastridge and the people inside this ballroom, I didn’t hate the girl who was fiercely loyal to the point of reckless, the girl with a thousand years’ worth of wisdom gained in only fifteen, the girl who loved my kid brother.

  “Emery,” Basil began after I’d ignored whatever she had said. “I heard about your fail in Schnauzer’s class. Bummer.”

  Schnauzer. Why did that name sound familiar?

  Reed dipped close to Basil, his voice a low whisper everyone could hear. “That’s not nice, sweetheart.” His North Carolina accent was strong, and he’d somehow managed to make the situation worse.

  “Do you hear that noise?” Emery tilted her head to the side. Her brows tipped together in mock concentration.

  Able invaded Emery’s space. “What noise?”

  “That annoying buzzing.”

  “Sounds like a gnat,” I offered as I leaned over Cartwright, plucked the Snickers mini from Emery’s fingers, and popped it into my mouth.

  “Nope, that’s not it.” She thanked me with a glimmer in her eyes. A fleeting salute to solidarity before they shifted to Basil. She went in for the kill. “Just Basil.”

  Basil jerked forward as I realized who Schnauzer was and cut off whatever stupidity she’d intended on spewing. “Isn’t Dick Schnauzer that AP Chem teacher? The fucker who leverages blow jobs for As? And those who don’t, well…” I cocked a brow at Basil. “Hey, you got an A, right?”

  Basil’s eyes turned to Reed. She waited for him to defend her. He looked between me, Basil, and Emery, a type of helpless that had me questioning if we were even related. But maybe he had a higher power looking out for him because Virginia chose that moment to intrude on our table.

  Her eyes skimmed the uneaten cold fennel soups across the table like they were an affront to her skills as the chairwoman of the Eastridge Junior Society. Perhaps they were, because no sane person would look at a menu and say, “I’d love the chilled fennel soup, please.”

  “Emery, honey.” She turned to her daughter and tucked a loose strand of hair behind Emery’s ear. Like a real-life sequel to Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Virginia had a team of stylists create Emery in her vision.

  Before I left Eastridge for grad school, I had lived in my family’s cottage for years, from my year at Eastridge Prep to the four years I had spent commuting to a state college to save money.

  Enough time for me to witness the sheer amount of hours devoted to plucking, prodding, and dyeing Emery into a body Virginia could inhabit… or whatever she had planned for her daughter. Death by Eastridge’s high society, probably.

  “Yes, Mother?” Emery didn’t look at her mom with love. She looked at her with resignation. The stare you gave a cop when he pulled you over for driving five miles above the speed limit. Disdain cloaked in civility.

  I swore, the only spine Reed possessed grew from years of proximity to Emery.

  “Be a dear and run into the office for me?” Virginia licked her thumb and swiped at a stray hair on Emery’s forehead. “I need the tiara to crown the debutante of the year.”

  Debutante of the year. As if that was a title someone wanted.

  Emery’s eyes darted from Reed to Basil, so transparent I didn’t bother holding my laughter back. She leveled a scowl at me, then turned to Virginia. “Can’t you ask somebody on the wait staff to grab it?”

  “Oh.” Virginia clutched at the pearls choking her neck. “Don’t be silly. As if I’d entrust a server with the code to the office’s safe.”

  “But—”

  “Emery, do I need to send you to Miss Chutney’s etiquette classes?”

  Miss Chutney was the borderline abusive lady who’d trained Eastridge’s female population into the La-Perla-panties-up-their-asses women they were today. She didn’t leave bruises, but rumor had it, she walked around with a ruler she used to slap wrists, necks, and whatever sensitive flesh it could reach.

  Able pulled out his chair. “I can grab it, Mrs. Winthrop.”

  “That’s a wonderful idea!” Virginia cooed. “Able will escort you, Emery. Run along now.” Virginia’s face remained frozen, like someone had slipped plaster into her Botox.

  Irritation dilated Emery’s eyes. The gray one darkened, and the blue one brightened. She muttered a few words I couldn’t make out, but they seemed angry. For a split second, I thought she would surprise me.

  In fact, something in me needed her to surprise me to restore my faith in a world where people like Gideon could take advantage of the Hank and Betty Prescotts of the world.

  Instead, Emery pushed her chair back and allowed Able to take her arm, as if we lived in the eighteen-hundreds and she required a damn escort to go places. The defiance in her eyes had fled.

  In this moment, she looked nothing like the eight-year-old girl who punched Able in the face for stealing Reed’s lunch.

  I watched with detached interest as Emery submitted to Virginia’s will.

  She was just like the rest of fucking Eastridge.

  Sometimes, I wondered if Eastridge wasn’t a small, affluent town in North Carolina, but a circle of Dante’s Inferno. Problem with that theory—Eastridgers didn’t limit themselves to one sin. We were voracious with our sinning.

  Lust.

  Gluttony.

  Greed.

  Anger.

  Violence.

  Fraud.

  Treachery.

  Even heresy, because let’s face it. Most Eastridgers might have called
themselves Christians, but they sure didn’t act like it when they turned up their noses at helping the other half of Eastridge—the half that slept in houses still damaged by the hurricane two years ago as they used the salary from Dad’s textiles factory to pay for food.

  Take tonight for example. Cotillions presented debutantes to society, but we’d all lived in this town since birth. A cotillion was no more useful to us than a stack of sequential hundreds.

  A bottle of bourbon nearly toppled off Dad’s alcohol cabinet, but Able caught it and held it up like he’d meant to knock it over. “Can I drink this?”

  “Do whatever you want,” I muttered, bending over to access the wall safe behind the desk.

  I still wasn’t sure if it was Dad’s office or Mother’s, but they had sunk their claws everywhere in Eastridge. Even The Eastridge Junior Society, an offshoot of The Eastridge Country Club.

  Able gulped down a generous swig of the bourbon behind me. I pressed the lock combination Mother had whispered to me minutes ago. His footsteps beat against the hardwood before his hand rested on my back.

  I pushed it off with a small smack. “Excuse you, I’m entering the combo. Look away.”

  Cursing, I pressed the wrong combination and had to try again.

  The sound of Able chugging the bottle like a frat house initiate filled the little room. “C’mon, Em, don’t be like that.”

  With a voice like Adam Sandler circa Little Nicky, I could give a million and one reasons why Able couldn’t land a girlfriend to save his life. He was my date because his dad was my dad’s lawyer and fighting every ridiculous request Mother sent my way exhausted me into submission some days.

  “Dye your hair to match mine.”

  “Maybe another liquid fast will get rid of that extra five pounds of baby fat.”

  “You’ll take Able Cartwright to the cotillion, won’t you?”

  “Be a dear and grab the tiara.”

  Perhaps the only reasonable demand I’d gotten lately.

  I bit my tongue and did as she pleased, because my plans for college and a career in design required money. As a grantor on my trust fund, Mother possessed the power to bleed me dry.

  Silent rebellions, however, were my bread and butter. Wearing a stained dress. Using the pastry fork rather than the fish fork. Tossing out odd words at inopportune times. Anything to make that curly vein on Mother’s temple bulge.

  “My name is Emery,” I corrected, cursing Mother’s choice in my friends. “Turn the other way.”

  “Fine.” He rolled his eyes. Already, I could smell the liquor wafting from his mouth. “This fucking blows.”

  Must. Not. Stab.

  I swiped hair out of my face and tried another code.

  The code is your birthday, sweetie, my ass.

  I should have known Mother had no clue when my birthday was.

  “It’s a cotillion, Able.” I typed in Dad’s birthday, but the screen flashed red twice, taunting me. “It’s not supposed to be fun.”

  Dad had called it “vital networking,” sympathy in his eyes as he watched the hairstylist tame my hair with what could only be described as the technique you’d use on a wild animal.

  Mother hadn’t bothered with half-hearted apologies as she reminded the stylist to touch up my “truly awful” black roots and add more lowlights, so my shade would match her blonde exactly.

  “Emery,” Able groaned. I finally entered the correct code—Mother’s birthday—and pulled out the tiara, leaving it in its velvet case. “Let’s ditch this place. My parents will be here, occupied by the rest of Eastridge’s heavy hitters.” He leaned closer, his bourbon breath caressing my cheek and neck. “We’ll have my mansion all to ourselves…”

  “You mean your dad’s mansion?” I straightened and took a step back when I realized how close Able stood. “You can go home. I have to stay.”

  The image of Basil’s fingers clenched around Reed’s thigh burned my mind. We’d been eating soup. Who mauled someone’s thigh while eating chilled fennel soup? Not the kind of psychopath I should leave alone with my best friend.

  “Babe…”

  “Emery.” I shook my head. “It’s just Emery. Not Em. Not babe. Not Emery in a whiny voice. Not Emery groaned out. Just. Emery.”

  I dodged to the left to brush past him, but his palms slammed against the wall on either side of me, caging me in. “Fine. C’mon, Just Emery.”

  A brief burst of fear seized my limbs. I thrust it aside as quickly as it came. “Move.”

  He didn’t.

  “Move,” I tried again. Firmer this time.

  Still nothing.

  I rolled my eyes and pushed at his chest, trying to keep calm when two-hundred pounds of Southern linebacker didn’t budge. “I’m sure you think this is hot, but FYI, it’s not. Your breath smells like a brewery, your armpits aren’t too pleasant either, and I would rather be out there at the fucking cotillion than in here.”

  When he narrowed his eyes, I rethought my approach and the millions of times my big mouth had gotten me into trouble in the past. I’d known Able my whole life… He wouldn’t hurt me. Right?

  “Look,” I began, my eyes darting around the room for anything to help me. Nothing. “I have to get this tiara out there or my mom will flip and send everyone in here for me.”

  Lie.

  Mom wanted nothing more than for me to marry Able and pop out two-point-five blue-eyed, blond-haired children. Even if that meant her fifteen-year-old daughter fornicating in the Junior Society office.

  I scoffed like I wasn’t freaking out as Able closed the distance with another step and forced his entire front against me. The alcohol on his breath could put an elephant to sleep. It was all I smelled as he leaned forward and squeezed a sloppy, wet kiss to the tip of my nose. His saliva slid into my nostrils, and I had never felt anything more disgusting.

  My eyes flicked to the bottle of bourbon on the table behind him. The contents sat low behind the glass, nearly gone. I prayed to whatever higher power existed that Able had found it that way. That he was not plastered out of his mind.

  “This isn’t funny, Able.”

  I shoved again, but it was hopeless. I weighed barely a hundred pounds, and he doubled my weight. I parted my lips to shout, but his meaty fist covered it as he ground his hardness against my stomach.

  Fight, Emery. You’ve got this.

  I tried.

  I kicked.

  I clawed.

  I screamed, even when his hand swallowed my cries.

  Desperate, I sunk my teeth as deep as I could into the fleshy part of his palm. He cursed and released me long enough for me to run two steps before his arm wrapped around my midsection and hauled me against him.

  Granite muscles met my exposed back. He carried me to the desk and bent me over it. My palms hit the mahogany with a hard Smack! I used the backs of them to cushion my head as it banged against the table. It was useless.

  My vision blurred. I still saw stars by the time Able had torn the back of my dress and started peppering sickening kisses all over my flesh. His kisses formed a scattered constellation of saliva across my skin.

  I gasped when I finally found my voice again. I could scream, but I was too far for anyone to hear and he would just covered my mouth again.

  Switching tactics, I begged, “My lips.”

  “Hmm?”

  His tongue swiped a trail along my spine.

  “My lips. Kiss my lips.”

  Able spun me around and dug his erection into my stomach. “Emery Winthrop. So eager to please. Who knew?”

  He let me run a hand through his hair as I stretched up to meet his kiss, standing on the tips of my toes to reach his lips despite my height. He groaned into my mouth, a palm splayed on my lower back and the other trying desperately to unzip his pants.

  I covered his fumbling fingers with mine, moved them to the side, and pulled the zipper of his dress slacks down. When they pooled around his feet and his boxers dropped with them, I kneed
him as hard as I could in the balls.

  Shock coated his face. I grasped the opportunity to knee him again. I refused to be the girl in the horror movie who died because she didn’t go in for the kill. I didn’t watch as Able collapsed to the floor.

  Toppling the desk chair over him and lifting the hem of my tattered dress as high as I could, I took off into a sprint toward the hallway, barely making it a foot out the door before I crashed into something rock solid.

  Emery, only you, I chided, would escape a near-rape and run into a wall.

  I grabbed whatever I could to steady myself. Guanashina fabric slipped through my palms before my fingers latched onto it, digging slightly into the owner of the suit.

  “Easy, Tiger.”

  Relief flooded my limbs at the sound of Nash’s voice. I blinked away the tears that built behind my eyes while Nash came into gradual focus. Time played tricks on my mind as I took my time stitching the image of him together like patchwork on a quilt.

  Nash Prescott was thrift-shop beauty, threadbare and jaded, the memory of something once beautiful lingering as he looked on the world with war-torn eyes. His contempt for Eastridge reflected on his face, hard edges and endless rage that, on normal days, forced me to look away.

  The women of Eastridge fawned over him, the dead eyes and the self-assured sneer. The sheer masculinity that clung to him like an expensive cologne. But when I stared at him, I saw something sad. A priceless shirt with a stain on the front.

  I meant it as a compliment. There was something arresting about someone who regarded the world for what it was. Even if he couldn’t see the beauty, he saw the truth. And because that truth was layered with ugly and flaws, I struggled to look at him most times.

  And yet, at my most vulnerable, I’d suddenly caught tunnel vision for him.

  Blatant wrath shifted Nash’s hazel eyes from golden brown to green, like aragonite and emerald gems had battled inside a kaleidoscope and neither had won. With his aquiline nose and too-full lips, he looked too pretty to touch. Still, I couldn’t pry my fingers from his forearms if I’d tried.