Lies That Sinners Tell (The Klutch Duet 1)

“For the sake of your comfort, I’m prepared to offer a few interactions where you can get to know me,” Jay continued.

Okay, now I was pissed off. I mean, I had been since the start, but self-preservation had stopped me from unleashing the worse of it.

“You’re prepared to offer me?” I repeated scornfully. “How generous of you.”

Even if he was deaf, he would’ve heard the sarcasm in my voice, he’d feel it in the air. “I do not offer this kind of arrangement lightly,” he declared, his voice still infuriatingly even.

“Well, color me flattered that you had me dragged up here without my consent in order to proposition me then insinuated I was somehow lucky to be the one chosen to give you sex without any kind of relationship. Not only that, but you’re willing to do me a favor by wooing me first,” I snapped.

He hadn’t moved his gaze while I spoke. Hadn’t lightened his gaze. If anything, it got heavier and heavier as I spoke, his eyes searing me like a hot knife through butter, making it even harder to continue standing.

A thick silence hung between us after I finished my tirade. My palms started to sweat, and I desperately wanted to look away, but I also didn’t want to show any weakness. This man was a predator, and I way his prey.

“It’s not wooing you need, Stella,” he said, speaking slowly, hypnotizing me with the way his Adam’s apple moved as he spoke. “I don’t do that. I’m not that man. I’m never going to do that. So you can realize what you want and accept my offer, or you can walk away.”

I responded to his words by turning on my heel and leaving the office. Luckily I didn’t have to awkwardly wait for the elevator which opened immediately.

Walking away from this man, this stranger and his offer, was much harder than I’d ever admit.

CHAPTER TWO

Beyond getting out of the small town in the Midwest where I grew up, I’d never had any big dreams. Well, beyond living in a glamorous city and standing on my own two feet, those feet clad in some designer footwear.

I was very aware that these dreams were not noble; I wasn’t looking to better the human race, save lives or change the world in any big type of way. My dad had always told me I could do whatever I put my mind to. His mind was set on something like me becoming a doctor, an astronaut or the first female president of the United States. Not because he wanted to push me in to anything, because he wanted more for me than he had. He grew up in Vern, Missouri and had never left. He went from high school to a semi professional boxing career. That ended quickly, resulting in him working at a factory where he’d been for the last thirty years. He’d made just enough for us to have a comfortable life, mainly because his parents had left him our house, mortgage free. But we didn’t go on lavish vacations or many vacations at all. Partly because we didn’t have the money, but also because my father was not a vacation kind of man.

He was a hard worker. When he wasn’t working, he was fixing something at the house. Working on an old truck he spent much of my life rebuilding, teaching me about cars while he was at it.

My father was not a man to sit around all Sunday watching TV, drinking beer. Actually, I rarely saw him drink a beer. Except on Christmas. Same with TV. He was more partial to a history book.

He was smart, my father. Exceptionally so. Life could’ve given him so much more if things had been different. If he’d grown up in a family that nurtured his intelligence instead of dismissing it and sending him off to work at sixteen to help the family pay the bills. If he hadn’t gotten my mother pregnant when he was twenty-one.

If things with my mother hadn’t turned out how they did.

Those were a lot of ifs.

I dwelled on them much more than my father. He wasn’t unhappy. He wasn’t a man to focus on what ‘could’ve been’. He was content with his life. His routine. It made him happy. He didn’t want more for himself, but he wanted more for me.

Regardless, he never made me feel like he was disappointed in me for pursuing a career in arguably the most vapid and superficial industry there was. He was proud of me for working my way up in the business. For the passion I had for it. My talent—if I did say so myself.

I was a well-known freelance stylist—relatively in demand—who worked with everyone from Vogue to Harpers to television shows to celebrities.

My days were busy. I started at six usually, sometimes much earlier depending on the call time. Or the kind of celebrity I was working with. More than once I’d gotten a call in the middle of the night demanding I create a wardrobe for a vacation someone had decided to take, high on coke and whatever else he or she was taking.