Chapter 21
Wesley
After my talk with Chad, I decided to take him up on his advice. I wouldn’t call her until Saturday afternoon, and maybe we could sit down and talk. In the meantime, I decided I would look over the paperwork she’d given me. After all, there was still a business deal on the table and money I was looking to pocket sometime next week. I was ready to be rid of that property as well as this professional wall that sat between the two of us.
But when my eyes graced back over the name of the lawyer, I realized why the name jumped out at me.
Nelson Wainwright was the lawyer I’d used on several occasions for my own cons.
I sat back in my chair as my mind began to spin. The stuttered answers. The hesitant glances in my direction. The scurrying off Olivia had been doing. All the red flags I usually looked for in women were now starting to flood to the forefront of my memory, and I cursed myself for being so stupid.
Olivia was pulling something over on me, and I’d allowed her to do it.
I read through the contract over and over again before taking to my computer. I looked up Nelson Wainwright and placed a strategic call to his secretary. I asked a few pointed questions about things the lawyer could help me with, and one of the questions was whether or not Wainwright had connections with someone in the city named Olivia Hart.
“Ah, heard her name around the block a few times, huh?” the secretary asked. “He frequently partners up with her. She’s the premier private investigator in the city. Are you in need of some sort of assistance?”
Private investigator? Olivia?
My Olivia?
“Thank you for your time,” I said before I hung up the phone.
Olivia hadn’t only pulled the wool over my eyes, she was investigating me. I thought back to the last woman I conned and the credit cards I took from her wallet. I thought about the money still sitting in a safe in my kitchen pantry, and my blood began to boil. Olivia had conned me. Seduced me. Wrapped me around her little finger by using that tight little pussy of hers to pull me in. I slammed my phone down on my table, raking my hands through my hair, and then Chad’s words tumbled back into my mind.
I would call her this afternoon to see if she wanted to talk.
I was shocked when she answered the phone, and even more shocked when she said she would come over. I went and got a bottle of dark red wine and popped it open, precisely for the occasion. Blood red wine was used in transactions like these. Transactions that required blunt force truth before someone got their heart broken. I poured the bottle into a decanter to aerate it before I pulled two wine glasses from the cabinet. Then, I took everything over to the table to wait.
Twenty-five minutes later, I watched Olivia’s car pull into the driveway. I took the paperwork and placed it in the middle of the table and then beckoned Olivia to come through the sliding door when she knocked.
“Hey there, Wes,” she said, smiling.
“Would you like a glass of wine?” I asked.
“I’d love—”
She came around the corner and caught my icy stare before her eyes panned down to the paperwork. In a large red marker, I’d circled Nelson Wainwright’s name. I watched the confusion roll behind her eyes before I ushered her to sit down. Then, I took a sip from my wine glass and waited. I wanted to see if she would come clean. I wanted to see if I could back her into a corner. I wanted to see if she would be the first to speak.
The first to admit. The first to grovel.
“I have a confession to make,” I said when Olivia didn’t begin.
“All right,” she said, grabbing her wine glass.
“I’m a con artist.”
Olivia spat her wine back into her glass before she set it back onto the table. My eyes hooked heavily onto her as she wiped at her chin, then I slid her a napkin so she could clean herself up. When her eyes rose back to mine, I watched the entire wall come crashing down. This was never about emotion or professionalism or unabashed desires she didn’t want to admit to.
No, the wall was because she was running her own con, and I cursed myself for not seeing it sooner.
“What?” Olivia asked.
“I’m a con artist,” I repeated. “I’ve conned women into falling in love with me, and sometimes, I’ve taken things that aren’t mine. I’m not proud of it, but I did what I had to do until I was making enough at the bar to fend for myself.”
“Is that what you told yourself when you were gallivanting through Texas and Alabama as well?” she asked.
“So, it’s true,” I said. “You’re a private investigator.”
“You know Nelson Wainwright,” she said.
“Not particularly. I’ve used his services on a couple of occasions with women I’ve backed myself into a corner with, and he’s been particularly helpful. One strategic call to his wife with a well-placed question and she was more than willing to tell me what you actually did for a living.”
“I partner myself with Wainwright frequently, yes. Now, are you willing to listen?”
“I don’t give a shit what you have to say,” I said. “You conned me.”
“Doesn’t feel great, does it?” she asked. “The name Destiny Smart ring a bell?”
“Why would it?”
“Because that’s the woman you recently conned, even though you seem to make enough at the bar to hold your own,” she said.
“That’s why you’re investigating me?” I asked. “Because she hired you?”
“Yes. She called me up crying and told me she’d been duped by some hottie with a nice body and steely gray eyes. No money in her wallet and all her credit cards were maxed out. Ring a bell?”
“Vaguely.” My hands clenched in my lap. How the hell could I have missed this? How the fuck did Olivia pull the wool over my eyes like this?
“I can’t fucking believe you conned me,” I said.
“Wesley, look at me,” she said.
“Not a fat chance in hell, Olivia.”
“Wesley, I’m sorry.”
The tone of her voice prompted my eyes to pan over to hers. Gone was the cold look of the private detective, and in its place, was the vulnerable Olivia I knew from high school. Her eyes were begging me to listen. Pleading and calling out to me, and I had to admit that part of me was curious. I wanted to know what she had to say. I wanted to know how she would defend herself.
And I allowed myself the opportunity to listen, if only to make sure this shit never happened to me again.
“I’m sorry, Wesley,” she said. “When I approached you in that bar, I should’ve been upfront with you about what was going on. I should’ve told you why I was there instead of going about this charade.”
“Yes. You should have.”
“What you’re doing to these women is despicable,” she said. “You understand that, right? You’re lucky no one else has filed a complaint against you until now. It’s the only thing you’ve got going for you.”
“I bet you have a nice large file on me right now, don’t you?” I asked.
“Locked away in my desk. I sure do. It’s because I’m good at my job. Always have been. It’s how I caught my father—”
Olivia shut her mouth before she said anymore, but she already had my attention. My eyes darted along her, reading her like an open book, and for a split second, I softened.
“The rumors in high school were true, weren’t they?” I asked.
“About as true as the rumors about your mother, yes. That’s why you’re doing all this, right? To somehow show the world that women can’t treat you the way your mother did?”
“Got a psych degree in that desk, too?” I asked.
“Wesley, believe me. I’ve been wanting to back out of this for days. The deeper we got into it, the more wrong it felt.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“I’ve enjoyed every single fucking moment I’ve spent with you. Wes, I never thought I’d see you again. You dumped me the night before graduation and didn’t even attend the ceremony. What the hell happened to you? My heart ached for you for months.”
“Like you fucking care,” I said. “Look, Olivia, I know how this works. At one point in time, I conned women for a living. Hopping from state to state, taking what they had on them in order to survive when no one would hire me. I know how this game works. I get them in my claws just like you got me, and just as they begin to fall in love with me, I pounce and then leave.”
“Wes, that’s not what I was going to do.”
I was shocked to see tears in her eyes. The way she was pleading, I almost believed it. And honestly? Every part of me wanted to. I wanted to reach out to her and take her hand. I wanted to hold her close and tell her I forgave her. I wanted to believe she was different, that she hadn’t spun a web of lies just for her pleasure. Just to see me writhe. Just to see me flail.
But I couldn’t.
“I love you, Wes,” Olivia said breathlessly.
A grin flew across my face before I began to chuckle. She reached out for my hand, and I pulled it away, crossing my arms over my chest. I shook my head as my laughter grew, and before I knew it, I’d thrown my head back. I was laughing at her. Laughing at the absurdity of it all. Olivia had run her own con and had gotten sucked into the romanticism she’d created by herself.
“You were just using me, Olivia. It’s obvious. You’re trying to nail me to the wall for robbing your poor, pathetic friend, and you’ve been caught in your own web. I might’ve been flailing around in your lies, allowing myself to be sucked into the beautiful body you seem to have cultivated. But you’ve gotten stuck, too. You fell in love with your own fucking ruse, and that’s what makes you and me different.”
“What’s so different?” she asked.
“Because unlike you, Olivia,” I said as I planted my hands in my lap. “I don’t fall in love.”
Massive tears lobbed down Olivia’s cheeks as shock rolled over her face. She wasn’t breathing, she wasn’t moving, and for a split second, I thought she was going into shock. She leaned back into her chair before her eyes finally pulled away from mine, and I shook my head before I bowed my gaze into my lap.
“Get out,” I said.
“What?”
“I said, get the fuck out. Take your phony fucking papers and your bullshit persona and get the hell out of my house.”
“Wesley, please. Let me help you.”
“That’s rich, coming from a private investigator. You mean little old Olivia Hart is willing to give up all she’s worked for, all she’s done on a case, just to hop on a bit more dick. Sweetheart, I’ve mesmerized many women with my devilish ways. You most certainly won’t be the last.”
“Please, just listen.”
“I’ve listened enough,” I said. “Take your shit, and get the fuck out.”
“Wesley—”
“Holy hell, Olivia. What don’t you get? You wanna know why I was laughing? Because while you were conning me, I was conning you!”
That got her attention, and she slowly stood to her feet.
“You were what?” she asked.
“The very first night you came to the bar. You made some hoity statement about how you had a shit ton of money now and could do with it whatever you wished. Why did you think I was fucking you so well? I figured I just needed to get a bit more wine in you before you passed out afterward.”
The force of my words stumbled her back on her feet. I picked up the papers on the table and shoved them into her chest, making sure our fingers didn’t touch when I pulled back.
“Get the hell out, and don’t you dare come back,” I said. “Unless it’s to arrest me, of course.”
Then, without another word, she turned around on her heels and ran for her car.