Dirty Trick (Perfectly Matched 1)

“Aw, honey, you don’t. Let’s get out of here and get a bottle of wine and talk, all right?” She sounded almost as baffled as Grace felt and leaned in closer. “Once we talk it out, you’ll see. He did a stupid thing, but he was telling the truth about the important part. He does care about you.”

Grace opened her mouth to respond, but she was so numb she couldn’t string the words together. Sure. In theory, Trick had proven in the past that he cared for her, but that didn’t mean he was incapable of hurting her. People hurt people they cared about every day. Who knew what his thought process was or why he’d made the choices he had? The thing was that choices came with consequences. Now he was going to have to live with those consequences.

And so was she.

How was she going to be okay without him in her life? How had she gone from having a best friend and a lover five minutes ago to losing it all? Her jaw ached from clenching it against her tears, and she willed herself to relax before she worked herself into a migraine.

Serena tried again, taking her hand. “He told me he wanted you to see him as someone you could be with, but you would never give him a chance. That you couldn’t get past the fact that he was a player when you first met, but that had nothing to do with who he is now.”

The ice that seemed to cover her whole heart started to thaw with the welcome spark of anger that came with her friend’s words. “So the best way to change my opinion of him was to seduce me at a party, lie to me, and pretend to be someone else so he could get me into bed?”

Serena winced at her quietly spoken words and shrugged. “Sure. Now when you say it like that, I can see how that would be ill-advised, but I don’t think that was how he saw it.”

“Most people who do something shitty to someone else don’t see it, Serena. Guys who cheat always blame it on the wives because they don’t get enough attention. Women who beat their kids say they do it because they push their buttons. It’s called rationalizing.”

Unfortunately for Grace, the thawing around her heart continued the more she talked, and now it hurt something fierce. She blinked back the tears clouding her vision, trying not to think about what a fool she felt like. The movie theater. The things he’d said. The things she’d done.

It had been Trick all along. Her face burned.

She shoved back her chair and leaped to her feet. “I’ve got to get out of here,” she muttered, a breath away from falling completely apart.

“You can’t drive all upset like this. Let me come with you.” Serena stood and grabbed her shoulder but Grace shook her off.

“I can’t be around you right now. I need…some time.”

She bee-lined for the office and scooped up her purse with Serena hot on her heels.

“Lock up. I won’t be back today.” She all but ran out the door, covering her mouth with her fist to keep from sobbing.

“Grace!” Serena called after her, but Grace was in flats and was in her car before Serena even made it out of the building.

How could Trick have deceived her that way? It was so humiliating, but that wasn’t even the worst of it. He’d betrayed her trust. The one man she was so sure had her back actually didn’t, and now she didn’t have anyone. She’d lost Catman, Trick, and Serena in the face of one enormous, ugly lie, and now she was all alone again.

Maybe that was the way she was meant to be.

Now it would just be her and Gandalf—the one friend who would never lie to her. The one friend she could rely on.

…

Trick stood on the porch with his cup of coffee watching Gandalf chase a squirrel in the rain, and he grinned. That damned dog was so slow, unless the squirrel lost use of both back legs in some sort of traffic accident, the dog stood zero chance of catching him.

He took a long pull from the steaming mug of coffee in his hands and glanced at his watch. Grace’s note had said that she had a meeting at work, but she’d only be a couple of hours. Still, time had been moving like evergreen sap since he’d heard the door shut earlier that morning. He’d had every intention of telling her the truth before they even touched last night. But then she’d come out looking so soft and pretty, and his brain had short-circuited. Then afterward, when she was lying in his arms, cheeks pink with happiness as they shared an omelet and belly-laughing at I Love Lucy reruns, he couldn’t bring himself to be the one to wipe that smile off her face. He made a pact with himself that he would hold her through the night and, in the morning, as soon as they woke up, he’d sit her down and explain. But she was gone.

Guilt pricked him hard, and he swiped a hand over his face. It was going to be bad. And he deserved that. But if he led with the truth…that he was f**king madly and completely in love with her, maybe she would find it in her huge heart to forgive him. And hopefully it would happen sooner than later.

“Come on, boy,” he called to the mastiff who whined at the bottom of a massive oak tree. He felt for the mutt. He knew exactly how it felt not to have the one thing you wanted more than anything else. The question was, had he gone too far to get it?

The dog gave one more mournful howl and lumbered to the door.

Both dogs had come back inside, and he’d topped off his coffee when a car pulled up. Grace. Time to face the music.

He set down his cup and sat at the kitchen table, racking his brain for how to start in a way that might get her to listen to the whole story before kicking him in the balls and sending him packing. He’d come up empty on what to say other than that he loved her, but she came barreling in like a hurricane, and his thoughts evaporated.

She laid right into him. “You f**king bastard. You’ve got a lot of nerve sitting here drinking my coffee, Catman,” she spat. Her face was flushed with fury, and her dark eyes glittered like icy chunks of granite. “Get the f**k out of my house.”

The hurt on her face made the coffee in his stomach curdle. Too late. It was too late. She already knew the truth, and he hadn’t even gotten to explain…to make her understand. For all she knew, it could’ve just been some cheap ploy to get his dick wet. He shook his head furiously, “Grace, listen—”

“No, I think I’ve listened to you both long enough.” Her voice went thick and her chin trembled. “Like when you told me how beautiful I was and fed me all those bullshit lines from behind your stupid mask about how much you wanted me. But even worse than those lies?”

Her face crumpled then, and if ever he’d wished a sinkhole would open up and swallow him, it was now.

“Was when you told me how you would always have my back. And pretended to be my f-friend. I thought you loved me, you know that? That was the reason I was afraid to look at you as more than that. Because what we had, before all,” she smirked with disgust and gestured between them, “of this? Was the best thing I’ve ever had. You were my best friend, and you broke my heart and humiliated me. Was that the plan? Or was it the thrill of the chase that kept you motivated enough to put a year and a half into screwing me?”

He stood on quaking legs and moved toward her, but her shout stopped him cold.

“Don’t! Don’t even think about touching me.”

Gandalf pushed himself to his feet and positioned his massive body between them. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up as he gave Trick the hard eyes. Et tu, canine? But f**k if he didn’t deserve it. You know you messed things up if even the dog thinks you’re an asshole.

He held up a hand and backed away. “I’m not going to touch you. I just want you to hear me out.”

She shrugged and laughed. “Go ahead. There’s nothing you can say to fix it, though, Trick. You’ve proven to me that you’re a liar. Just like Victor. Anything you say means less than the piece of gum stuck to the bottom of my shoe. But go for it.”

Her grim smile chilled him to the bone as her words hammered into him like iron spikes. How had he been so stupid? How could he not have seen how much of a betrayal this would seem like to her? Screw that. He was still making excuses for himself. It didn’t seem like a betrayal. It was a betrayal. He was the guy he despised, and he’d hurt the woman he loved. Terribly and willfully. She stood with her chest heaving with fury, her face etched with pain, and all the excuses died on his lips. Without a word, he forced his legs to carry him to the door, heart aching like it had just been hit with a lead pipe.

Because suddenly it was as clear as day. The reason he never had a chance in hell of winding up with Gracie Love.

He didn’t f**king deserve her.

…

Grace stared at the bowl of rapidly disintegrating cereal and swallowed a sob. She had to get a grip. Gandalf had been moping for a week, and she wasn’t about to let Trick wreck her and give her dog a case of the doggie depression on top of it. She’d already allowed him in to do enough damage.

Mortification hit her again, swift and sure, like a kidney punch. It happened every ten minutes or so when something she’d said or something he’d done came to her mind out of nowhere. Trick, behind his mask, asking her what she drank, like he couldn’t recite her drink order at every restaurant in a ten mile radius if pressed. Her, head tossed back, begging him to bite her again. Telling him how free he was making her feel. Sitting at the movie theater waiting for him to come in so she could act like a total slut for him…her anonymous lover.

How could she have been so dumb? Even Serena had known it was him. And, in hindsight, the signs were all there. The tingles, the way he fit against her, the way he’d made her feel so comfortable and so edgy at the same time.

She squeezed her eyes closed tight and opened them again to stare at the television screen blankly, not really even seeing what was playing. It had been a long and exhausting seven days, and it didn’t seem like it was going to be getting better anytime soon.

An image of Trick standing in the middle of the Brewhouse, head thrown back, laughing at her poorly thrown dart flitted through her mind and with it came the pain, every bit as sharp as it had been the day she’d learned the truth. She was still so frigging mad, but the missing him was even worse. It was weird because when Vic betrayed her, she’d been hurt, no doubt. It had been the darkest time of her life, emotionally. But even through the self-recriminations and the sadness at having been so wrong and seeing her future crumble before her eyes, she’d never missed him once it was over. Not for a second. He wasn’t the person she thought he was, and the person he actually was? Disgusted her.

Another memory of Trick pushed itself to the forefront of her mind, and she groaned. Him stretched out on her bed, sheet loose around his hips, crooked grin on his face. Nothing about thoughts of Trick disgusted her. Pissed her off? Yes. Made her want to scream with humiliation and despair? Absolutely. Sent her heart bottoming out into her stomach? Definitely.

Disgust would have been better.

She couldn’t avoid him forever. She’d managed so far by leaving for work an hour earlier than usual so she didn’t see him on his morning run and making sure that she took Gandalf for a walk before Trick got home from work, but that wouldn’t last. They were neighbors, and their houses were only half an acre apart. They were bound to come face to face, and probably soon.

The thought made tears prick her eyelids again. Damn. She’d thought the tank was empty by now.

Gandalf groaned and settled more deeply against her calves, and she reached down to scratch his neck. “You’re a good dog, you sweet boy, you. I know you love it here, but we may have to think about looking around for a new house.”

Maybe she’d move closer to work, near where Serena lived. That would be nice. They’d had a few rough days, but Grace had eventually forgiven her for her part in this mess with Trick. Her friend was so upset and guilt-ridden about the way things had turned out, but how could Grace really blame her? Trick had fooled her, too. At least they were suckers together, and Serena had sworn on a pile of Manolo Blahniks never to lie to her again.