King of Lies (Empire of Lies 1)

How the hell has it been over two years?

Sighing, I grabbed my phone and scrolled through my contacts. I couldn’t think of a single guy in the past who would answer the phone at this hour—booty call or not, and I doubted any of them would remember me.

I deleted all of them one by one, and decided to take Gillian’s advice. I opened OkCupid and created a profile. I typed exactly what I thought I was looking for, “a good time, not a long time” and started to search for someone new. Someone who was sexy enough to help me end my dry spell.

All hopes were dashed within seconds.

Kermit the Frog? Mr. Big Stuffed? ClitLover?

I deactivated my account and tried eHarmony. Within seconds of reading just how many survey questions I needed to answer—along with the monthly payment fee, I logged out forever.

It was back to good ole Tinder. I updated a few of my pictures and changed my profile name to Good Girl1996.

I swiped left—i.e. ‘no thanks,’ on tons of profiles—their faces either too familiar to men I’d seen before or their faces not striking enough to make an impression.

After half an hour of swiping, I stopped when I saw what had to be the sexiest man alive. What was definitely a fake profile.

‘Devil-in-Disguise’? How fitting.

A man like this would never need to use a dating app, and I didn’t bother reading his “About Me” words, since his account was clearly being run by a thirsty, attention-seeking sock puppet.

Still, fakeness aside, I was instantly wet at the sight of his deep, emerald green eyes and chocolate colored hair, his lips that looked like they would own any woman’s mouth with just one kiss, the slight smirk on his lips in the second picture where he was wearing a simple, dark grey shirt that revealed his chest muscles.

He looked like the type of man who could make a woman come within minutes, the type who would bend her over a chair and fill her with every inch of his cock, while pulling her hair with every stroke until she begged for more.

Pressing the vibrator against my clit, I bit my bottom lip as it buzzed—as I continued to stare at this chiseled face of perfection.

I pictured his head buried between my thighs, his lips licking my pussy with wild abandon and demanding me to scream his name at the top of my lungs.

Fuck…

I shut my eyes as my legs writhed under the sheets, as my fantasies of him fucking me ran wild. My clit throbbed against the pleasurable vibrations—swelling with every passing second, and I came apart under my own hands.

When I came to, I tossed the vibrator into my nightstand. I took a few screenshots of the fake guy’s pictures for good measure, and then I swiped left.

Meredith

Before

A few days later, I stumbled out of a taxi with a carton of fresh coffee in hand. My stilettos softly scraped the city pavement as I struggled to keep pace with all the other associates who were running late to jobs in The One World Trade Center.

By the time I made it inside the building and scanned my badge for Vogue, I was almost thirty seconds late. Any other job, and those seconds wouldn’t start to matter until they became minutes. When you were working as the right hand to the top magazine editor in the country, i.e. the Queen of Everything, being one second late was an eternity.

I rushed to the glittering elevators and hit the button for the 25th floor. In the mirrored glass, I smoothed my hair and used napkins to stave off the drips from the coffee lids.

When the doors finally glided open, I expected to see my boss greeting me with a scowl and a “Finally.” The man and woman standing in front of me were far much worse.

“Dad?” I said, stepping off onto the floor. “What are you doing here?”

“I have a better question,” his companion—my annoying and insensitive Aunt Catherine, said. “Why have you been ignoring his phone calls? Why have you been ignoring mine as well?”

I held back a groan. “I have a lot of work to do today. As you can see, this is my job, so—”

“Your father cleared it with your boss already,” Catherine said. “She says she sent you an email.”

I set the coffee carton down and pulled out my phone. Sure enough, my boss’s email was at the top of my inbox.

* * *

Subject: Today.

Your billionaire father has decided to interrupt my day with some type of important meeting instead of calling you on the phone/respecting my business hours. You’re still responsible for doing all the work that’s due by six o’clock.

Don’t worry about my coffee, and don’t let this ever happen again.

Also, if you plan on returning to being a boring little heiress, let me know by the end of the day.