Why Lie? (Love Riddles #2) Read online

  “Sydney, come on.”

  “You don’t leave right now, I’m calling the cops,” I hiss.

  He may have fooled me once, but I’d be damned if I’d give Heath Mackey a chance to do it again.

  “All I’m asking is that you talk to me,” he argues.

  Turning from the door, I stalk over to where my cell is charging. “I’ve got my phone.”

  There’s a quiet clicking behind me and I spin around in time to watch as Heath pushes open my door. My mouth hangs open as he strolls in, lifting the credit card he used to jimmy my lock for me to see.

  Snapping my mouth shut, I stomp my foot before shouting, “Did you seriously just break into my apartment.”

  He shrugs, shoving his credit card into his wallet. “You wouldn’t talk to me.”

  Shaking my head, I lift my phone to call the cops only to have him pluck it out of my hand. “Give me back my phone,” I snap.

  He slides it into his pocket. “Not until we’ve had a chance to talk.”

  Shoving past him, I head for the door. I’ll just use the diner phone. His arms wrap around me, stopping me. They are painfully familiar. For one perfect week, I discovered exactly how amazing his body was. His suits only hinted at the bulk his naked body could not hide.

  “Let me go,” I hiss, trying in vain to jerk away.

  His arms only tighten. “I’m sorry.”

  I stiffen, twisting my neck to glare at him. “For what, treating me like a slut or breaking into my place?”

  He glares right back. “I never treated you like a slut.”

  Lifting my foot, I stomp down on his, hard. His hold loosens enough for me to pull away.

  Once I do, I whirl to face him. “We sleep together and then you propose to someone else. As soon as she”—I point at him—“not you, calls off the wedding, you come knocking on my door again like nothing happened.”

  “Sydney—”

  I cut him off, dropping my hand. “No, there is nothing you can say that will make that all right. You might not think it, but I know I deserve better than that. So, you can take your apologies and shove them up your ass for all I care.”

  He flinches as if my words were blows.

  I hate him.

  It’s not fair knowing that a part of me still wants him. There is no greater tragedy than the impossibility of erasing the memories of our time together. I can’t escape them. I can’t protect myself from them. They come out of nowhere, beating my already bruised heart.

  Nowhere is safe, not the diner, not my apartment, not my car, and not even places we weren’t even together in. He’s ruined men in suits for me, which is insane because I was never attracted to guys who wore them before him. He’s rewired my brain, flipped my likes and dislikes all around.

  Now, I see a tall man in a suit and I have to stop myself from drooling, but the moment my brain confirms it isn’t him, I remember the hurt instead.

  “I messed up,” he murmurs.

  My eyes close and I hug myself. He messed up. My anger cools, disbelief replacing it.

  “You were going to marry her,” I whisper.

  “It was complicated,” he argues.

  I take some solace in the fact that even though he’s still gorgeous, he also looks awful. It serves him right. The day I found out he proposed, I told Gigi I needed some time off and drove straight to San Francisco. There was no way I could stay and watch them together.

  I needed to get away so I could process the shotgun blast to my chest. It was like finding out something that seemed so real, never was. Like my entire life was built around the earth being flat only to be handed a globe. How could something, the start of something so beautiful have meant so little to him?

  I’m not naïve. I wasn’t a virgin. I’ve had serious relationships before. Each time, before it got serious, there was this moment where my entire being recognized that whatever was happening was the start of an actual relationship.

  Once, during our week together, I woke up, wrapped snug in Heath’s arms to find him looking down at me with gentle eyes. I felt it, deep within. It was so massive I gasped. Heath had laughed, thinking he startled me by staring at me and that was why I reacted the way I had.

  He had dipped his head, and pressed his firm lips to mine, promising he wasn’t being creepy. He had no clue that I gasped because I’d realized that I was already falling for him.

  Problem was, for him, I was just a girl he fucked.

  On the drive to San Francisco, between blinking back tears and cursing Heath straight to Hades, I created a boyfriend.

  My pretend boyfriend was not blond, did not have pale blue eyes, and did not fucking wear suits.

  He also wanted me and would never hurt me. Outside of not existing, he was perfect.

  My friend Cecil didn’t hesitate when I showed up on his doorstep. No, he made me a strong drink and let me pour my heart out. Then, since he’s a stylist at a trendy boutique and believes makeovers have magical healing powers, he talked me into dying my hair black.

  Whether it was the alcohol, or just needing a change, I agreed. Besides, the black matched my mood. His couch was good for a week but since the rent in San Fran was crazy high, his apartment was smaller than most of those tiny homes that are all the rage on HGTV. It was getting crowded and I’d never bail on Gigi like that.

  He didn’t say it, but I was also putting a damper on his active sex life. He has always been like a brother to me but every other female around seemed to pant after him. Not the kind of friend to bail, he stayed in to play nursemaid to my broken heart. This involved drinking ourselves stupid.

  There was only so much of his style of nursing my liver could handle. That, the close quarters, and the fact that my checking account wasn’t exactly flush meant it was time to bid farewell to San Fran. It was time for me to go back to Ferncliff, that or I could go out east to where my mom and dad lived.

  If I wasn’t certain my mom would drive me crazy, I would have considered crashing with them until I found something. Only that would have meant leaving Gigi and Pops. Nope, I had to suck it up and deal. There are no guarantees in life. I was not the first woman to get dicked over by a jerk and I wouldn’t be the last.

  I was doing a disservice to the sisterhood of passed-aside women by wallowing. That’s when I decided I would go back to Ferncliff and I’d do it with my head held high. I decided that if and when I saw Heath, I would never let it show how much he’d hurt me.

  Nope, I would be just fine. If there was someone out there for me, he’d find me and we would be awesome together. I actually liked Kacey, which made hating her for the sake of it impossible.

  That night, when Heath, Jake, and Reilly all ended up at the diner, I knew the wedding was off. I should have been thrilled but hearing them talk, it hit me that Heath didn’t love her either. It became clear that night in a way that had not sunk in before. In his eyes, Kacey was good enough to marry and I was not.

  “Complicated?” I ask.

  When he doesn’t say anything, I keep going. “I’m going to un-complicate this for you. You fucked me in the biblical sense and then you fucked me again in the “men are scum never to be trusted again” sense. You can apologize from now until the end of time and it still won’t undo what you did. Your actions have consequences. This one is me hating you.”

  His brows knit and he reaches for me, but I take another step back. His hands fall to his sides. “You hate me?”

  I don’t answer him. “Please leave.”

  His gaze shifts to his feet before looking back at me. After a pause, he nods and moves to my door. Standing in the doorway, he pulls my phone from his pocket and sets it on a shelf mounted to the wall next to it. Then with his hand on the knob, he looks back at me. “I’m not giving up.”

  With that parting shot, he closes the door behind him. More than a few moments pass before I come unstuck and move to the door to lock it. Tomorrow I’m buying a deadbolt.

  Too wired from our confrontation to g
o back to sleep, I pace, wringing my hands as I try to make sense out of what just happened. My eyes hit the digital display on my microwave. Three thirty-seven. Well, I’m officially screwed sleep wise for tomorrow since I’m opening and it’s pointless to try and go back to sleep. What was he thinking knocking on my door in at this time?

  God, after my reaction the first time he tried to talk to me backfired, what did he think was going to happen? Maybe he thought I was such a slut that the proximity of my bed meant I’d just jump on his dick.

  My mouth tightens as I continue to frown. Guys are always saying that they can’t understand women. That’s such crap. It’s men who are backwards. For one, they’re all about the chase and then, once they’ve got the girl, what do they do? They start chasing someone new. How confusing is that?

  They’ve been confusing ever since elementary school. When I was nine, there was a boy who pinched my arm every time I was near him and would chase me around the playground at recess when I tried to get away. When I told my dad, he told me that maybe this boy picked on me because he liked me.

  What kind of backward-ass crap is that? You are not supposed to torment the people you like. These confusing-as-hell boys only grow up to be confusing-as-hell men. Not that I don’t believe there aren’t nice normal guys out there, there are. Jake is a nice guy, Jimmy is a nice guy, Cecil is a nice guy, a few of the guys who work at the diner are nice. Am I attracted to any of them? Nope.

  Still, after that mess with Heath, I have no desire to start anything with anyone anytime soon. There’s enough on my plate to keep me busy. Heath or no Heath, I’m staying in Ferncliff and taking over the diner. Gigi needs a break and there isn’t anything else I’m good at. In a way, I was raised to run a diner.

  I was still in high school when my parents and I moved to Maryland. The first job I got was at a greasy spoon. The place wasn’t as fun as Lola’s but after growing up doing my homework sitting on the stool at the counter, I needed to work someplace that reminded me of Ferncliff. Every summer I’d come back and spend all of July and the first week of August with Gigi and Pops. To earn my spending money, I’d work with Gigi.

  Pops was an instructor at the local technical school. Before that he was an electrician, but he’d hurt his back and wasn’t able to move around as well as he used to so he took a job teaching. The school where he’d taught had year-round classes but each one was only nine weeks long. That meant he had a three-week break when one session ended.

  One of his breaks overlapped with my summer visits. Gigi would take a week off and he’d take us to a cabin in the foothills of Big Bear. There was no Internet, and no cable, only gin rummy tournaments, stories from when they were kids, and lots of hiking.

  For four years, I spent only twelve weeks total in Ferncliff. It still felt more like home than Maryland ever did.

  Going from growing up in a small town to living in a suburb of DC was jarring. As hard as I tried to make new friends and settle, I couldn’t. It’s why I moved back here after I graduated. Gigi and Pops took me in.

  They didn’t mind that I didn’t want to go to college, unlike my parents. You’d think they’d appreciate me not wanting to waste their money while I found myself. Nope, I was wasting my potential. Then, when I got my first tattoo, the constellation of Taurus on my ankle, I was “acting out” and trying to “hurt them.”

  If it wasn’t for Gigi and Pops, I swear I’d wonder if I was switched at birth. How my dad could have parents as chill as his and be so boring was beyond me. My mother, on the other hand, is a carbon copy of my grandmother. Some days I can feel my mom’s disapproval all the way from the other side of the country. I can hear it when she sighs after I tell her something I’m excited about.

  When Gigi first brought up my taking over Lola’s, the idea scared me. I love this town but trying to fill her shoes will be impossible. I was scared of failing. Now I have something to prove. This diner will be mine. The people who come to it will do so because the food is good and it’s well run.

  I’m working my ass off, soaking up everything Gigi will teach me. It was my idea to add the TV and so far, people like being able to glance up and see the score of the game without having to pull out their phones. I have more ideas too. Lola’s is going to thrive because of me. It’s cool to see how proud Gigi is of me, too. She’ll tell anyone that’ll listen.

  My self-esteem took a hit after that shit with Heath. It hurt. Hell, it still hurts but I am so much more than one man’s opinion of me. Focusing on Lola’s has reminded me of that. I’m finally beginning to see what I’m capable of. It doesn’t suck knowing that Heath will see that too and he’ll have to live with the fact that he threw me away.

  That went well. I slam the door of my car and touch the button to arm it. My hands are tense as I unlock the door to my place. It’s fucking late as hell but I still move to my couch and not my bedroom. I’m not sure what possessed me to try and talk to her tonight. My own lack of sleep is clearly affecting my ability to make rational decisions.

  Asking Kacey to marry me had been a drunken mistake. At the time it seemed like a brilliant idea to solve problems for the both of us. People would no longer give her crap for being hung up on Jake and my mom could see me settled down with someone I already knew she adored. I’m a problem solver and in my head, after too many drinks, it seemed perfect.

  Except for the fact that Kacey was more like a sister to me and she was in love with someone else. Instead of owning up to it, I grabbed a shovel and went whole hog to dig that hole deeper. Why is it so hard to admit when I’m wrong? Would it be that terrible if I didn’t live up to my own hype?

  No, digging my way out of the pit of my own creation was absolutely worse. As a result of my own actions, I almost fucked up my friendships with Jake, Kacey, and Reilly.

  That was nothing compared to explaining to my mom and dad that the wedding was off.

  At first they had been furious with Kacey. They assumed she led me on only to drop me for Jake. When I came clean about the real reason for the engagement, the disappointment on my mom’s face took the strength from my legs.

  I fell to my knees beside her bed, ashamed of myself. With my forehead to the back of her hand, I quietly begged for her forgiveness. She forgave me. But, she hesitated before she did it. She felt responsible. That because of how sick she was, I wasn’t thinking clearly. She took that on, shown by the pinch of her lips and the sag of her shoulders. Her learning of my actions physically weakened her.

  My dad walked me to the door. I saw it coming and braced when he stepped out with me onto the porch. There, where we were in no danger of my mom overhearing him, my father handed me my ass.

  I deserved every single thing he said. In trying to hide my mistake, I had done the opposite. Not only that, I had shone a spotlight on it. You could get a pass for stupid shit like this when you were in your twenties, by your thirties, it’s just sad.

  An offhand remark after too many drinks the cause.

  I hurt Sydney. What sucks is, she was 100 percent right about me. In my eyes, we were only having fun. She was a great girl, sexy as hell but not my type. Or, she wasn’t until she poured that soda over my head. No, it was before that. In fact, from the moment I left her, I’ve done nothing but try to convince myself she wasn’t what I wanted.

  Kacey was what I thought my type should be. She was cute and she was shy with people she didn’t know that well. She was so different from the woman I was fighting against being my type.

  After I talked Kacey into staying engaged to me, I heard Sydney took off with some guy to San Francisco. That didn’t bother me at all. It didn’t bother me so much I punched a hole in one of the walls of my bedroom.

  She could do whatever she wanted. I was getting married so it wasn’t like she was even an option for me. In fact, her moving on so fucking fast was a good thing. It made it easier not thinking about her, not imagining his mouth on her, his fucking hands on her. It was great.

  Knowing Sydney took
off the way she did is what really set me off about Jake spending the night at her place. That, and remembering everything we had done when I slept there. It was a dick move on my part to think anything happened between them. My jealousy got the better of me. All he did was crash on her couch and I lost my mind.

  Then, I try to talk to her after Kacey chose Jake and she was pissed. That didn’t stop me from wanting her. Nope, as much as I tried to convince myself otherwise, sweet and shy doesn’t do it for me the way sarcastic and feisty does.

  There’s one thing I do know; she wouldn’t be pissed if she didn’t care. Tonight, I wanted a chance to talk to her without anyone else around. I made a giant mistake and she’s the only one who hasn’t forgiven me for it.

  Tonight I learned that she wasn’t just pissed but she was hurt by what I did. It’s not like Kacey and I slept together. All we did was kiss. She fucking took off with a guy and she doesn’t see me holding that against her.

  No, I wanted her back. It was torture looking at her tonight. She was beautiful in a way that made my thoughts stutter. Especially tonight, her hair mussed from sleep, her robe draping in the front to hint at the lush curves of her breasts.

  All I wanted to do was pull her against me and kiss her. I wanted her to wind her arms around my neck while she pressed up tight to me and opened her mouth under mine.

  When my mind wanders these days, it’s to her lips. If I didn’t know her, I’d think they were surgically enhanced. Her lips are full, soft and pouty in a Sofia Loren way. And she could fucking kiss. Best kiss I ever had and that scares the shit out of me. Didn’t mean I wasn’t going to try to get her back. A mistake got me where I am today. It’d be another one if I didn’t make things right with her.

  Good thing I’m stubborn. From what I heard, she’s taking over the diner, so that means she won’t be taking off again.

  One way or another, I’ll get her talking to me again. She’s pissed now but there’s no way she can stay that way forever. I lean to the side and fall back, my head coming to rest against the padded arm.