Beloved Liar (The Reed Rivers Trilogy 3)

She’s silent on the other end of the line, tacitly admitting she knows I’m speaking the truth.

“Georgie, I know you don’t trust me as far as you can throw me—which I’m sure would be out a third-story window, if you could swing it—but, please, come home. Sleep in the blue room, while we work this out. My house feels so empty without you. My heart feels like it’s rubbing against a cheese grater. Come home.”

“I can’t do that. I’m way too hurt. As sad as it is for me, I think we should agree to be friends and business colleagues, and nothing more.”

I scoff. I can’t be Georgina’s friend and business colleague. Not in a million years. I want every inch of this woman. But, hey, at least she’s not telling me to fuck off and die. And she did say it would be “sad” for her to be nothing but my friend.

She says, “Thank you for paying off my student loans. I appreciate it. But don’t you get it? It doesn’t change anything between us because I was never with you for your money. We could have been staying in a mud hut for a week, or a rundown motel, and I still would have fallen for you. We could have been eating Taco Bell for every meal, taking hikes with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, or working out at some local gym filled with nothing but soccer moms. And I still would have fallen for you. It still would have been the best week of my life. A fairytale.” Her voice cracks. “Because I would have been with you.”

Oh, God, what have I done? My heart feels like it’s physically breaking. “Georgie, I feel the same way. I know you don’t believe it was just a kiss with Isabel, but it was. I know you won’t forgive me for that kiss, even if you did believe me. But can you at least forgive me about the grant? You got my texts explaining that, right?”

“Have you talked to CeeCee about that?”

“No.”

“Good. Don’t say a word to CeeCee about the grant, please. I want to hear what she has to say, in her own words, without any undue influence on your part.”

Damn. Kat is good. “Of course. I assumed as much. What about the thing with Alessandra? Can you forgive me for talking to her about her demo?”

“Yes. I was actually about to text you about that, right before my dad called me about the student loans. She’s back in Boston now, and she called me earlier today with some fantastic news. She got hired for a weekly gig at a popular coffee place near campus. And she said it was all thanks to you.”

“To me?”

“She said she almost didn’t go through with her audition, she was so nervous. But then, she heard your voice in her ear—telling her the same stuff you said at the party—and she realized you were right about all of it. So, she marched onto that stage, the way she wished she’d done at the party, and wound up giving the performance of her life.”

My heart is soaring. For Alessandra, of course. For Georgie, who’s so obviously elated for her stepsister’s victory. But, mostly, selfishly, for myself. The way Georgina is talking to me right now, the joy she’s expressing to me, without holding back—it’s like she’s my Georgie again. We might as well be sitting at my kitchen table, talking while eating a delicious meal Amalia left for us. This, right now, we’re us again. And Georgie’s trying to convince me we’re going to be nothing more than friends and business colleagues? I take a deep breath to gather myself. “Tell Alessandra I’m ecstatic for her.”

“I will. The Man with the Midas Touch strikes again. Whatever you said to her, it really helped her out. Thank you so much for breaking your promise not to talk to her about her demo. If you hadn’t done that, she never would have gotten this gig.”

Oh, my heart. It’s physically straining to fuse with hers across the phone line. I swallow hard. “Please, Georgina, come home to me. I’m wrecked without you. I swear, I’ve learned my lesson.”

She exhales audibly. “What would be the point? If we got back together, I’d always feel paranoid and mistrustful. I’d never be able to let go completely with you, like I used to do. I’d always be holding back. And what fun would that be, for either of us, when the thing that was so amazing about us was the way neither of us was ever holding back?”

I’m hurtling toward despair. Feeling like my heart is being wrung out like a sponge. Only, it’s my crimson blood, my very happiness, that’s oozing from its twisted wreckage. “I don’t want Isabel. I only want you. And that’s exactly what I told Isabel in the garage.”