Lies That Sinners Tell (The Klutch Duet 1)

Something hit me in that moment. That our lives would never again look like they did right now ever again. In another year, everything would be different. We would all be different.

Wren would be in another country, with another man. Or she would be a princess. Or whatever it was that Wren was going to be. She changed her mind daily, so who knew what a year would do.

Zoe was a wild card of a different variety. She was strong, steady, a force of nature. But one that still wanted conventional things like kids, a man. Just not the white picket fence. So she could be married, a mother.

Yasmin would likely own her practice by then, running the world. Heck, she’d probably be in New York or Washington DC, wherever she could make a difference.

And me.

I’d still be here. In the same apartment, in the job I loved, most likely out of the arrangement with Jay, which meant I’d be a broken, ruined shell of a person. Albeit in excellent shoes.

That was the best-case scenario.

The worst case was I’d be seeing things that weren’t there, that I’d be on a cocktail of drugs trying to regulate a chemical imbalance, looking at a future that could very well end with a stay in some kind of facility. Just like my mother.

A year would change everything.

But tonight was tonight. My girls were around me. Jay still wanted me. My mind saw only things that were there, like fairies.

“To you,” Zoe raised her glass, breaking the silence, eyes on me.

The lump in my throat grew larger with the emotion in Zoe’s eyes.

“To Stella,” Yasmin added.

“Our fairy queen!” Wren chimed in, wearing a grin.

We clinked our glasses together.

The ringing of Yasmin’s phone broke the moment. She sent an apologetic smile my way before answering it, turning her back so she could figure out whatever legal crisis she was in the midst of right now.

As if it were timed, Zoe’s went off too, and she answered.

Wren looked at me expectedly. “It’s your turn now. For some A-lister to call with a crisis of fashion,” she teased.

I sipped my drink leisurely. “I’m sure someone is. But I intentionally left my phone at the apartment. It’s my birthday. I don’t work on my birthday.”

“Cheers to that,” Wren clinked her glass with mine again.

I thought about my phone being at home, that there was a certain person who had made it clear that I was to be available to him at all times. Who barely ever called me, but expected me to answer if he did. Like the other night, after midnight, my phone ringing when I was trying to find sleep.

I groaned, thinking it must be a client with some outlandish demand. Although that would’ve been welcome since the night had been too quiet, even with Friends quietly humming in the background I’d never been able to sleep without some kind of noise. A TV, music, anything other than the unyielding silence that only night could offer.

So even the shrill demands of some celebrity was appreciated.

But it wasn’t some celebrity.

It was Jay.

My stomach dropped before I even answered the phone. He still did that to me. Every time I was in his presence. Every time I thought about him. Nothing had dulled. If anything, the way he affected me became sharper and sharper, carving at my insides, marking my bones.

“You’re up late. I hope you’re not calling to have me bail you out of jail. I spent my last dollar on an utterly darling pair of Manolos,” I joked, hoping to come off a lot less blasé than I actually felt.

“Touch yourself.”

I jerked at the two words. At the chill in his voice. The command.

“What?” I whispered.

“You know exactly what I said, Stella,” he replied. “Do as I say. Touch yourself.”

I swallowed, my thighs already pressed together with need. My hand moved over the silk of my nightgown, trailing slowly. My breathing was already heavy, strained, and I had only reached the edge of my panties.

“You’re already wet,” Jay predicted.

I gasped, my finger entering my underwear and proving him right.

“I want you to make yourself come,” he instructed. “Don’t be quiet.”

I’d never done such a thing before. Phone sex had always seemed so cheap, so tacky and something that only really happened in the movies. Not something that people really enjoyed.

But I did it.

And I enjoyed it. Loudly.

“I want you here at 12:01 a.m. Saturday,” he demanded before he hung up.

I jerked, staring at Wren. She’d said something, I’d heard the vibration of her words directed at me, but I couldn’t for the life of me decipher a single word. All I heard was Jay, his voice deep, velvety and dangerous on the other end of the phone.

Wren looked amused, as if she could somehow read my mind.