AllFreeNovel
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“You seemed to be getting a little wishy-washy, so I thought I’d give you a push.” The carefree facade Crystal always sports slips for just a second, her face more serious than I’ve ever seen it. “If you don’t want them to find you and drag you right back to everything you ran from, he’s your best shot, Val.” She comes to sit beside me on the bed, wrapping one arm around my shoulders and leaning her head against mine. “Show your dad he’s not in charge of your life anymore. That you won’t let him use you. Make it so he can’t try to rope you back in.”
I know Crystal can be kind of a mess—she’s loud and wild and I’m pretty sure has a terrible case of oppositional defiance—but I’m still lucky our paths crossed when I parked my rental car in front of the first convenience store in Sweet Side to replenish my caffeine supply. Most people would silently judge a woman wearing a rumpled wedding dress buying a case of energy drinks and a handful of Snickers bars. Not Crystal. She thought it was fantastic that I’d crammed all that tulle and veil into the backseat of an Uber and sped away from the church without looking back. She cheered me on and gave me the first genuine hug I think I’d ever had.
And then she offered me the second bedroom in her apartment.
“I bet he has a nice place.” Crystal looks around the tiny room that used to serve as her reading room. “Probably has plenty of space and a king-size bed.” She lifts one shoulder. “I mean he’s a cheating filthy liar, but he’s also filthy rich.”
“I don’t care about his money.” I have my own money. Technically.
And can make plenty more now that I can use the degree I spent four years acquiring, thinking it would change the trajectory of my life. Make my father see my real value.
Wrong.
That’s why I do care about finally having control of my own life. The power to make my own decisions. Independence. Freedom from manipulation and coercion.
And organized crime, but that’s just a bonus.
“Then get your shit together and convince him this will be good for both of you.” Crystal wiggles her brows. “Especially your poor neglected vagina.” She snatches my phone and opens the Instagram app, pulling up the account of the woman whose personal, yet very public, drama serves as the basis for my plan. She scrolls through the thousands of posts on Jessica Barnaby’s account, flying past pictures of her lunches and shots of her at social events, surrounded by the city’s elite, before stopping on a photo I haven’t seen before. She holds the screen up between us and my stomach does a little flip.
It’s Fynn, shirtless and smiling. Tanned skin glowing in the summer sun under a sky as blue as the eyes I couldn’t stop staring into tonight. But they look different in the picture. They’re missing the weariness that edges them now and it punches me right in my guilty gut.
“Why does she still have that picture of him up?” It shouldn’t irritate me the way it does, but Jessica’s worked awfully hard to ruin his life. It doesn’t seem right that she would want the reminder of their happier times in the digital history books.
Crystal shrugs, tilting the screen back her way. “I guess to show that even a guy as handsome as he is, can be a piece of shit.”
I press my lips together, keeping my opinion in the way I always do. She might blindly believe a woman she’s never met, but I don’t. I don’t even believe people I’ve known my whole life at this point, so I’m sure as heck not going to let some rich girl convince me Fynn’s a bad guy through the rumor mill. If he is, then Fynn’s one hell of a great actor—with no real motive.
It’s not like he was trying to get in my pants. Unfortunately.
The answer Fynn gave me when I asked if there was a reason I shouldn’t see him circles back through my mind.
No. There’s not.
He sounded so serious. So earnest.
“Why does she think he cheated on her? Did she catch him or something?” I look away from the picture, feeling a little like I’m betraying a man who’s been nothing but nice to me. A man who turned down my blatant offer of first date sex.
Pre-first date sex.
Fynn didn’t even take advantage of the kiss I gave him, which was also a little disappointing, but I got that bit of my plan out of the way. I hated knowing the last pair of lips to touch mine were attached to an actual slimeball who deserves anything bad coming his way.
That’s another reason I’m struggling to fully believe Fynn is all everyone thinks he is. I know what a filthy liar really looks like.
“She was at the nail salon and heard some other girl talking to her friend about how she met this amazing guy who took her snorkeling and then on a bike ride down the boardwalk.” Crystal lowers the phone, her brown eyes locked on mine as she spills the truth as she believes it. “His name was Fynn Hadaway and he was tall with dark hair and blue eyes.”
The story sits heavy in my gut because that is pretty specific. “Did she ask the girl about it?”
“No way.” Crystal tosses my phone in my lap. “Jessica was humiliated. When she confronted him he lied and told her none of it ever happened.” She stands up. “So she got back at him the best way she could and told everyone she knows.”
“It still seems a little like overkill.” I understand being cheated on sucks, trust me, but Jessica’s reach is huge. She knows everyone in this town and has hundreds of thousands of social media followers who get to see her every move and feel like she’s the best friend they’ve never actually met. She had to know what would happen when she told them all Fynn cheated on her.
Crystal juts one hip out and lifts her brows. “He’s getting what he deserves for being a cheating, dirty liar.”
I know I should keep my mouth shut to keep the peace between us, but my next words slide out all on their own. “That you encouraged me to screw the first time I met him.”
“You need him to agree to marry you. The best way to get a man to agree to go along with anything you say is to ask when he’s nice and relaxed.” Her lips lift into a devilish smile. “Plus he’s a hot, cheating, dirty liar.”
She’s not wrong on the hot part, but his looks weren’t the only thing that had my pulse racing as I struggled not to make an ass of myself at the bar. I was feeling optimistic about my odds until he opened his mouth and I heard his voice. It’s deep and a little rough at the edges. Top it off with that British accent and it was too easy to imagine how it would sound growling in my ear, whispering all the dirty things I’ve never had done to me.
