Cheater (Curious Liaisons 1)

The celebratory Hey, you got a job! plant my parents had given me—also the first one I’d managed to keep alive—fell out of my hands from the bluntness of the shove.

My cubicle partner cried.

It had been a sad day for everyone.

Now a pregnant lady was supposed to be showing me the ropes for my new internship position under one of the VPs of the company. Her name was Sharon . . . or maybe Sharie? I’d been so flipping nervous when she’d introduced herself that I couldn’t remember which it was. Anyway, she was saying words I didn’t understand and looked about two minutes away from popping. It was a miserable start, and she didn’t have much time to train me on all my actual duties and responsibilities.

Her giant belly had grazed the front of the desk as she made her way around to me. “Look, Avery, it’s not that hard. You get coffee, you fix the copy machine, and you make sure his dry cleaning is delivered every morning. He’s one of the easiest of the VPs to work with. Hell, most days he gets his own damn dry cleaning and brings me coffee, so believe me when I say you’ll be just fine. You’ll work closely with him on every project.” She let out a rough exhale. “And at the end of the eight-week internship, he’ll grade you on your work. If you do well, you’ll get offered a permanent position.” Her face contorted a bit as she bent over and gripped the counter.

Oh my hell.

Was she going into labor?

Now?

In the office?

I didn’t know CPR.

Not that she would need CPR, or that the baby would. Ahh! I was a nervous wreck. “Are you okay?”

I patted her awkwardly on the back.

She quickly straightened and let out a little sigh. “The baby’s trying to move, and space is limited in there.”

“You don’t say.” I smiled through my teeth. The woman was tiny; I was surprised she’d made it this far without popping. “Are you having twins?”

Her glare said it all.

“I was kidding,” I said quickly.

“Don’t lie,” she fired back. “Now, I’d like to enjoy the rest of my leave in peace, so if you have any questions you can always ask Lucas.”

“Lucas?” I tried to keep the shudder to myself. I hated that name. It conjured up images of complete and utter loathing, and I almost always associated the name with the horrible things in life, like Ebola. Actually, the two things were interchangeable, Lucas and Ebola.

“Your boss.” She rolled her eyes. “Tell me you at least know who you’re working for.”

No. Because when the job agency called and said that Grant Learning had an opening in their paid internship program, I jumped at it as fast as I could. The only thing I did was a quick Google search about the company.

I was desperate and needed the money so I could pay rent and stave off homelessness and starvation.

Okay, so it wasn’t that bad, but it was close. And the last thing I wanted to do was move back home. My family lived in Marysville, and because I’d lived in downtown Seattle for several months, the thought of going home to that had me ready to walk the streets handing out my résumé.

I was quite possibly willing to sleep with a creepy old man to get a job.

So maybe not creepy.

Old?

Maybe.

My mom would kill me if she could hear my thoughts right now.

But my parents had this nasty habit of oversharing every single detail about their lives, and they expected me to return the favor. When my dad got a hangnail last week, he texted me a picture of it and asked if he should go to a doctor.

When I didn’t answer, he texted the pic again with the message: I don’t think you got this.

The good news? The picture was bigger that time.

My parents were—special.

And my bedroom? Still filled with stuffed animals from my childhood, and with plush pink carpeting.

Sometimes I had nightmares of returning to that room as a grown adult. My dolls came to life and choked me to death while I screamed for help, only to have the captain of the football team, now with a beer gut, tell me he’d only save me if I married him and had ten children.

He’d tried to reconnect with me over Facebook.

And then Snapchat.

He was nice.

So nice he now made impromptu visits in my nightmares.

The very idea of having to go back home after I had been hired right out of college with a killer salary and an amazing job title—it burned.

The fact that I was starting back at the bottom?

Made me want to strangle something.

This internship was everything. Going home was not an option. And “failure”? Well, that wasn’t a word I was familiar with.

“Alright.” Sharon, Shannon, Sharie, whatever . . . clasped her hands together. “He just texted that he’s on his way in. Apparently, he had some sort of meeting that I didn’t have on my normal calendar.”

I shrugged; the guy had more than one calendar? Well, he was a VP, so I guess it made sense.

“Oh, and . . .” She slammed a hand against her forehead. “Don’t become one of the girls. If he asks, say no. You listened to those drug talks in school, right? Or the really important ones about not joining gangs and falling to peer pressure?”

“I was homeschooled.”

Her mouth dropped open, and a chewed wad of pink gum plopped onto the table before she could stop it.

I pointed with my pencil. “I think that’s yours, and I was kidding.”

“Oh thank God!” She fanned herself as if my being homeschooled was the equivalent of being in a cult. “Is it hot? I feel hot.” She looked from left to right as though she was a few seconds from launching herself toward the closest window.

Well, she was growing a human. Hell, what did I know? I’d probably be roasting. “You can go.” I stood and ushered her out. “I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

“Just”—she wagged a finger at me—“if he talks about you becoming one of his girls, say no. Curiosity kills the cat and all that. Besides, he’s your boss, so no sleeping your way up. Not only would that kill your chances with the intern program, but he reviews you in the end. You want to be reviewed on your actual performance.” She blushed. “In the office.”

I wasn’t sure if I should be offended or scandalized. By the time she left, the office was just starting to buzz with excitement.

The job was nine to five Monday through Friday and sounded pretty easy. From what I could tell, the company basically ran itself. The department I worked for was in charge of reaching out to local schools and helping assign tutors to kids who needed them. The company was a private learning and tutoring center that had franchises all over the country.

Grant Learning helped high school students with college prep and testing, but its niche, it seemed, was helping elementary students with phonics and reading.

I might have had too much wine the night I looked up the company because some of the testimonials made me cry. It was astonishing how many kids couldn’t read and how many of them were just passed through the system because schools were overcrowded.

I sat down at my desk and made sure that I had all the passwords I’d need where I could grab them.

A few curious people walked by.

One dropped some papers on my desk and marched off.

Maybe that was my cue?

I grabbed the stack and shrugged. The papers had my boss’s first name on them, and I did remember that . . . Sharon—Or Sharie? Ugh, I really needed to get her name—had mentioned that it was okay to drop off stuff for Lucas in his office.

And since he wasn’t there yet, it couldn’t hurt to get an early start.

I walked the few feet into his corner office. Geez, I figured VP of marketing and outreach must pay well. His office was more like a studio apartment; he had a conference table in the corner, a plush black-leather couch, and a small bar near the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking downtown Seattle.

I was ju

st ready to drop the papers on his desk when a smooth, velvety voice asked, “May I help you?”

My gaze lowered to his desk, I don’t know why. Maybe because I felt guilty for standing there gaping at the awesomeness that was his office, but a picture on his desk caught my eye.

The angle was off—I couldn’t quite catch the face, but it looked familiar.

“Miss?” he said.

With a sigh, I quickly turned around and said the first thing that came to mind when one lays eyes on Lucas Thorn, the one who shall not be named. “Oh, hell no.”

Chapter Three

LUCAS

She looked nothing like her two sisters, but I’d have recognized her strawberry-blonde hair anywhere.

After all, I’d had to cut gum out of it more times than I wanted to count.

I’d put Band-Aids on her scraped knees.

I’d hugged her when her date for homecoming dumped her because she wouldn’t put out.

But it was her expression on the eve of my ill-fated marriage to her oldest sister, Kayla, that I remembered most. The one that said I was no longer her hero and, in the span of minutes, I’d turned into the villain people always suspected I was. Because no one ever believed that the star quarterback, who had simultaneously lost his virginity with the girl he was going to marry, was going to stay true to his first love his whole life. But I was dedicated, loyal to Kayla. I loved her, she was my friend, and we’d been inseparable throughout high school. And when I finally fell—it was epic and expected because how was it possible that I was actually such a good guy? I’d always been considered a “golden boy.” People told me I was attractive, charming, a natural leader. Really, I had nowhere to go but down. But what sucked about falling from the pedestal I was put on was that nobody, and I do mean nobody, was there to catch me. They were all too busy saying “I told you he was too good to be true.”

My own parents abandoned me after that night.

Oh, they still called.