Savage Little Lies (Court Legacy 2)

Ares noticed my attire as I got out of my ride. His eyes narrowed with a shake of his head.

“What? No booty shorts today,” he quipped, and I rolled my eyes. He always claimed I liked to get attention, so I wasn’t surprised about the jab. The fucker had even called me a bimbo when I’d first met him. He clearly believed there wasn’t anything up there in my head and made snap judgments about me.

“Let’s get one thing straight.” I strode right up to him. He turned and was right in my face, and though he was tall, I was too. I only had to stare up at him a little to make eye contact. I cut a hand across my neck. “No insults. No bullshit. I’m here to help you. Not to have you call me names.” I shouldered him out of the way. “Now come on, bitch. Where’s the canvas?”

I expected an instant retort from my arch enemy, so imagine my surprise when it didn’t come. In fact, he was only smirking when I turned around.

He cuffed his arms. “Bitch, huh?” He approached. “So the no-insult thing apparently doesn’t go both ways?”

“The contract didn’t state otherwise.” I smirked now. “Believe me, I read it.”

That thing had me doing everything just short of signing over my unborn child. I couldn’t talk about Fight Club, and my life would become Fight Club. He had me basically living and breathing this project until it was concluded.

But that didn’t mean we wouldn’t be establishing some boundaries from the jump.

Ares’s eyes darkened as he loomed largely over me. “Well, it does go both ways. You’re working with me, so I’ll get some goddamn respect from you…”

“Same goes for me.” I got in his face. “Got it, Mallick?”

The smirk returned.

“Sure,” he said, but I noticed that wasn’t a yes. That was probably as close as I’d get from him. “And before we do this, I got some additional rules.”

“Depends. Were those in the contract?”

I swear to God, I got a little bit of a growl from him at that, and his eye twitched a little. But surprising again, he didn’t check me on this. He wanted to and I saw that, but he didn’t.

Instead, he took a slow breath, the grimace etched on his face like a dark tattoo.

“This is my project,” he established. “Therefore, I call the terms.” He put a finger in my face. “Rule number one is I’m in charge. You do what I say, and you take my direction. This won’t work if you’re going rogue and acting up.”

He saw me as a child obviously, but what his bougie ass didn’t know was I was just as much of a serious artist as he clearly felt he was.

“Well, that’s a given.” I shrugged. “What else?”

“You don’t go in my house.” His expression was serious. “Our project’s out here. You stay out here.”

“Bathroom?”

He directed a finger toward a door in the garage. “Leads to the guesthouse. There’s a bathroom in here. Cooler for water. I even got fucking snacks. Basically, you have zero reasons to go inside my house.”

For someone who had raging parties during which people stayed over, he was pretty territorial about his space.

Maybe that’d been different before. Different with me. I hadn’t betrayed his friend then.

Ares was clearly hung up on this, and I was completely over trying to prove my innocence to him. He was a fucking asshole, and I was only here because he needed me.

His jaw clenched. “Understood?”

“Yeah.”

He nodded. “Good.” He waved a hand. “Now, follow me. I’ll show you what we’re doing.”

That’d be a breath of fresh air. I wouldn’t have to talk to him anymore. Once we got going, I could do my part while he did his. I could blast my music in my earbuds, and we could stay on our own sides of whatever this project was.

We headed over to the cars, one away from the rest on the far side of the garage. He had it under a tarp and pulled the thing off, unveiling an old muscle car. Painted white, the thing reminded me of my dad’s Chevelle, except it was brand new.

Ares balled up the tarp. “We’re starting here.”