Liar Liar

‘Not even what happened to your motorbike? You were still pretty pissed off last time we spoke.’

‘Was that supposed to be provoking?’ I ask in a drawling tone as I relax back into my chair. But Rhett just stares back, his expression inscrutable. Fuck him and his poker face, even if he’s right. I’d owned that bike less than a week, but more than that, I don’t like the idea that it now belongs to someone else through my own stupidity. With a sigh, I give into the urge. ‘So, did he talk, this hardened criminal of yours?’

Rhett curls his hands around the arms. As one corner of his mouth kicks up, I know the answer. ‘Nah. The PI offered him money, but the fella got a Bobby big balls complex as if he was some fucking Don.’

‘Extortion?’

‘Pretty much.’ He shrugs.

‘So that is the end of the road.’

‘The end of the road where you fell off your bike. Or you were pushed? Did you fall off a damaged passerelle, or did someone take a crowbar to your head?’

‘Yet, I’m still here.’ I spread my hands, though I feel less than magnanimous.

‘Yep, here you are even after the bike and the boat, and even after someone used the wrong lube and you were nearly fucked dry.’

The helicopter, of course.

‘And by fucked dry, you mean fucked dead.’

‘What’s there to smile about?’ he asks, both annoyed and perplexed.

He doesn’t need to know I’m thinking about Rose remembering the way she complimented my cursing, my mind slipping to last night, and how she’d enjoyed the other ways I’d used my tongue. I’d devoured her as she’d writhed between my face and the velvet chair, taking her pleasure, taking all I had to give. She’d crawled over to me then, her movements as sinuous as my shirt was wrinkled, her fingers at my shirt, my belt, feeding my cock between her legs. And as my tongue traced the rise and fall of her breasts, the pointed tips, she’d stripped the day from me, kissed away my dread. Scoured my thoughts of what might’ve been. Of what is.

Am I three times lucky? Or three times almost dead?

She’d taken me on a slow ride to heaven as I’d realised I’d never ever feel her enough, be inside her deep enough, be enough for her in this or any other life.

Rhett’s voice brings me back to the moment all at once. The helicopter.

‘You could’ve been killed.’

‘So, you heard.’

‘Some head of security I would be if I hadn’t. Do you think the lads don’t report back to me?’

‘I want you to double the security of the house.’ My answer takes the conversation in another direction but not as a diversion. It’s more a gut reaction.

‘Okay.’ He sits straighter in his chair. ‘But fuck the house. You need close personal protection because some fucker is trying to do you in.’

‘Maybe.’

‘Corporate or personal, d’you reckon?’

‘I’ll leave that discovery to you.’

‘Thank the fucking Lord.’ He smiles like the devil himself, his voice like the action of rubbing his hands together. ‘Want to tell me why? I mean, it’s not like I haven’t been telling you to pull your head out of your arse for months, but why the change of heart?’

Because I have something to lose now. Because these no longer feel like coincidences. ‘A precaution,’ I answer instead. ‘I want someone watching Rose, too.’

‘Ha, that last one might be problematic. She’d take to close personal protection like a dog losing its balls, I assume?’

‘I’ll talk to her about it.’ Or not. ‘We could keep it remote for now.’

‘A tail you mean?’

His tone isn’t lost on me. ‘I want her protected, not watched.’

‘Yeah, sure. Because those aren’t the same.’ He pauses, the look he sends my way almost penetrating. ‘Is there something you’re not telling me?’

My gaze slides to the window and the expanse of blue beyond. ‘It’s just a feeling I have.’ A sense of foreboding, I suppose. A sense that all is not well.

‘That’s hardly surprising, given what’s happened to you lately. Normal people might even seek some counselling.’

The look I send him could best be described as withering. I don’t need help. How I feel is not superstition, and I’m not at all sure it’s suspicion, either. Could it be a fear of fragility, rooted in how I’m still keeping the truth from her?

I twist my laptop to face me, opening up a new email.

‘Fine. Don’t answer. I’m just the hired help, after all.’

‘Just do it, Rhett. Please.’ As my gaze flicks his way, his expression reflects his surprise.

‘Yeah, no problem. But we’re upping your security, yeah? Because, I tell you, these midnight meanders through the marina aren’t gonna do you any good.’

I consider it as I type out an email to the head of my legal team to schedule an appointment for reasons both private and personal.