Crown of Lies

Pacing quicker didn’t help.

Angry fingers looped around my elbow, yanking me backward. “You don’t get to leave, Elle. Not like that.” His eyes were brighter in the sun—more aged port than oak whiskey. A few lines etched around his mouth as if he struggled just as much as I did.

Which didn’t make any sense, as he’d been the one messing me around since the beginning. He was the one who’d caused Greg to explode with jealousy and threaten me. He was at fault in all of this.

I jerked my arm back, breaking his hold. He only let me go because a woman with a stroller narrowed her eyes as she went past. “Stop following me.” I fell into another barefoot stride, cursing him when he matched my rhythm, joining me on the grass, his black shoes glinting in the sun.

I hated that in his graphite suit with ice blue shirt, he came across as priceless and sharp as a diamond. There were no mistakes in his veneer. No hesitation—as if he held all the clues.

Which he does.

“You ask questions, yet didn’t stick around to hear the answers.”

I snorted. “As if you’d tell me the truth.”

His fingers looped with mine, pulling me back gently this time.

I gasped as he ran his thumb over my knuckles. His face softened. His shoulders fell. Somehow, he switched the fight between us into a white flag. The urge to push and push—to crack his façade—paused, willing to accept him in that moment. Mask and all.

He half-smiled, a mixture of reluctance and tolerance. “Try me. Ask again.”

I blinked as the sun blinded me, dancing off his hair, hiding his face for a second, so he stood there with no features or belonging to a name.

He could’ve been anyone.

He could’ve been Nameless.

He could’ve been one of the men who mugged me.

He’s a stranger I let inside me.

I shuddered at a how irresponsible I’d been. How I’d let myself be glamoured by his fancy games and pretty face. How I’d let lust take ordinary brain cells and transform them into flirtatious floozies.

I don’t like him.

I don’t like him.

I don’t.

The sun sparkled, burning my lies even as I forced them to be true.

Tiredness suddenly blanketed me, heavy and thick, stifling and oppressive. There was only one answer I needed to make all the other questions obsolete. Just one. The biggest one of all. “You want me to ask? Fine, I’ll ask.” I inhaled deep and jumped in. “Where you were on the 19th of June three years ago?”

Nothing happened.

No trumpets, no choir, no streamers at winning the magical prize for asking the right question.

There was no flinch or shock or outright denial.

The date when I’d met Nameless, when I’d kissed him in this very park, meant absolutely nothing to Penn.

His body remained relaxed, his head cocked curiously to the side. “What?”

I wanted to tell him to forget it.

That all my silly sleuthing and ponderings were wrong.

I had my answer.

But now I’d ripped off that particular bandage, I couldn’t stop. I had to let it out before it crippled me. “It was my nineteenth birthday. I ran away from Belle Elle for one night alone. I walked, I explored, I was hurt by two men. A third saved me.” I sucked in a breath as emotions that should’ve subdued and faded by now swelled. “He brought me here. To Central Park. We kissed.” I moved closer.

He stepped back, his face hardening with things I couldn’t decipher.

“We ate chocolate. We felt something—”

“Penn, there you are. You’re sooner than I expected.”

A man appeared from the passing crowd, holding a remote control airplane with Stewie by his side. The kid clutched a controller as if dying to activate the plane and send it soaring rather than leave it trapped in the older man’s grip.

Penn exhaled hard, his face etched with things I desperately wanted to understand. His posture had somehow lost its sedate softness, mimicking a granite statue. His mouth a tight line. His fists curled rocks.

Tearing his gaze away from mine, he visibly struggled to smile. He shoved his hands into his pockets in a mixture of defiance and self-protection—just like another I’d known once upon a time. “Hi, Larry.”

I jolted.

Larry.

So this is Larry.

My habit of studying people who were either in business or in some way advantageous to me came back. I guessed Larry was in his mid-sixties with salt and pepper hair, stocky build, and intelligence brimming behind black framed glasses. He looked at Penn with utmost fondness and pride.

Penn took a step back from me.

Invisible ropes snapped, untethering us with painful ricochets.

My previous confession vanished as if it’d never been, destined never to be clarified or denied.

Clearing his throat, Penn regrouped and performed social niceties. “Larry, this is Noelle Charlston. Elle, this is Larry Barns. My benefactor.”

Two answers in one.

Larry and I nodded, extending hands to shake. His grip was warm from holding the airplane, his fingers gruff but kind. “Pleasure. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

My eyes widened as I flicked a quick glance to Penn. When, how, and why would Penn discuss this sorry excuse of a relationship? Why would he talk to another yet never talk to me?

Because you’re just a girl in his bed. This man shares his life and secrets.

I’d never been a jealous person, but I suddenly understood the green acrimony knowing Penn would never let me in like Larry. That I was wasting my time—time I’d stupidly spent when I’d promised myself my heart was impartial to whatever Penn conjured.