Beautiful Liar Page 4

  I shuddered, hugging my arms around myself, then stooped and picked up my discarded dress and slipped it over my head. I went to the door and locked it, then went into the kitchen to pour myself a glass of water. I looked out from the kitchen window at the house he’d rented, next door to my own. A single light went on downstairs. From the flashing of light and color across the drawn curtains, I knew he’d turned on the TV.

  I own your nights.

  My stomach trembled at the thought, but was it in fear?

  I turned out the lights and went upstairs and into my bathroom. I switched on the shower, but then switched it off again and went into my bedroom. His would be directly across from mine. I didn’t switch on the lights and saw that his remained dark. Quickly, I closed the blinds and climbed into bed.

  He’d touched me.

  He’d had his tongue on me.

  I hadn’t resisted, not for a second, and if I concentrated now, I could still feel it there, feel the wet heat of it as he’d circled my clit, as he’d licked me.

  I turned over on my side, picked up the phone, and dialed my sister’s phone number. She picked up on the third ring.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey, sis. It’s me.”

  “Hi, Mac.”

  Janey’s tone sounded like she was happy to hear from me. It only made me feel guiltier. Sadie, my two-year-old niece, spoke in the background. The sound of her voice made me smile.

  “Sorry, Sadie’s up. She has a cough and couldn’t sleep, and Aunt Alice has an early shift tomorrow.”

  “No, it’s fine. It’s late there. How are you all?”

  There was a pause. “We’re okay. Are you? I mean, are you okay? You sound strange.”

  I wiped a tear from my eye. “Yeah. I’m fine, just a long day. Hey, did you get the money I sent?” I always sent cash. I knew it was stupid, but it was the only way not to leave a trail.

  “It got here today. Thank you, Mac. I have an interview at a day care, so hopefully I can find some work soon, but with Sadie, it’s not easy, and Aunt Alice is already doing so much.” Janey had worked hard to get her GED since she’d had to drop out of high school, and finding work wasn’t easy.

  “I don’t mind sending it. I wish I could do more.” Guilt. I should never have left her alone with our stepfather. I just never—not for one second—imagined he’d do what he did to her.

  “Can you visit, Mac? Or maybe we can come to you?”

  “No, it’s not a good idea.” Especially now with Slater turning up. “Soon, though. I have to go, but just wanted to check on you.”

  “I’m okay. I’m worried about you, though. Did something happen? You really sound strange.”

  “No, no, it’s okay. I have a bit of a cold.” I sniffled, but not from any illness. “I’ll call you next week, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Kiss Sadie for me.”

  “I will. You need to meet your niece sometime. You’d like her.”

  I didn’t know how Janey did it. How she’d been able to keep Sadie. How she’d been able to have her at all. But she was a better person than I.

  The light in the bedroom at Slater’s house went on, and my gaze shifted to the window.

  Tomorrow night, I would be there, with him. I would do what he asked of me, and it wouldn’t be under threat of being found out by my neighbors. He’d told me not to run, but I wouldn’t have without that order. I had no intention of running. Maybe paying for my crime would finally alleviate some of the guilt I lived with daily. Maybe, when it was done, I could even go home.

  I JERKED OFF to the scent of MacKayla Simone’s pussy. To the taste of her on my tongue. To the look of humiliated need on her face. I pumped my cock in my fist until I came, covering the shower walls in it, needing the release more than anything else.

  Seeing her in the flesh, being in the same room with her, it was different than I’d expected. I was angry. Fuck, I was pissed, and three years had not tempered that rage. If anything, the fire burned hotter, the betrayal a constant, raw wound.

  I didn’t know what I’d do when I found her. What happened tonight, having her strip, licking her pussy? That wasn’t how this was supposed to go. But since seeing her up on that stage last night, I’d been fucking hard as a rock.

  What did I want? I’d been focused on finding her for so long that I didn’t know what I’d do once I did. That searching, that focus, it was the only way to keep sane.

  I’d felt guilty about fucking MacKayla before the photos were even leaked, but the look on Dinah’s face once I lit up the covers of every fucking publication in the tristate area? It made me hate myself. I felt like the lowest scum on earth. I’d left the house, at her request. I did everything she said. I’d have done anything to save our marriage, our family.

  Nick had grown up with me. He was my best friend, and we were as close as brothers. In fact, people mistook us for brothers all the time, but he was the son of our live-in housekeeper. We’d met when we were both three. My parents had treated him as if he were their own son, even paying for his education through the charity, an education he wouldn’t have been able to afford otherwise. We’d gone to the same schools, attended the same parties, and once we graduated from university, my dad had hired both of us to work at Bright Futures, the charity my grandfather had founded to help fund education for those who wanted it but couldn’t afford it. My dad sat on the board of directors, and I would take over that seat once he retired, building my political career in the meantime, as he had before me and my grandfather before him. My future had been laid out, and it shone bright.

  When I’d met Dinah, the three of us had been inseparable for a time. Nick had comforted her after those photos came out. Or so I’d thought. I still remembered the night he told me. How he’d said it just happened out of the blue, that comforting turning into something else.

  Out of the fucking blue.

  And I, like the fool I was and still am, believed him. He’d taken care of Dinah and Mel, my daughter.

  My daughter.

  Fuck. That burned.

  They’d been having an affair. My wife, who made me feel like the lowest of the low, who kicked me out of my own house, who played the fucking victim so well, had been screwing my best friend for years. Had been lying to me for years.

  But that wasn’t the worst of it. They’d lied about Mel too. And the way I found out? Dinah spat out the hateful words during an argument. I didn’t believe it, didn’t believe her, but I’d had a DNA sampling done regardless. The results had broken me. Dinah had told the truth for the first time in her fucking life.

  Mel was Nick’s child, not mine.

  But nothing could change how much I loved Mel. Being a dad didn’t just mean blood. You couldn’t switch those feelings off. That betrayal hurt worse than anything else, that loss of Mel. My career, the charity, their deception, it all paled in comparison.

  I did the only thing I was able emotionally and physically to do once that fact came out. I left. I walked away from it all, hoping I hadn’t broken Mel’s heart in the process. She was barely two and too young to understand why her daddy left. Mel, who by now had most likely forgotten she’d ever called me daddy at all. I went after MacKayla Simone, the woman responsible for all of this, at least in part, even though she wasn’t, not really. I wanted to ruin her life. But there was more, more I didn’t understand myself to explain. Maybe I thought she could somehow fix this unfixable thing. Turn back time. Maybe she could lift this veil of darkness, this emptiness that had become my existence. Because it wasn’t a life I lived, not anymore. And maybe once all was said and done, I’d even be a little more dead inside. I didn’t know. All I knew, in fact, was that I had to find her. I had no choice.

  The water in the shower started to cool, and I switched it off. It had been luck that this house was up for rent. I’d paid three month’s rent up-front in cash along with a hefty security deposit. That was one benefit of being a Vaughn. My family had money. Even scandalized, I sti
ll had money. I wanted the house, wanted privacy to do what I would do here. Furnishings were minimal. A bed for me, a chair, coffee table and TV in the living room, a dining table and two chairs in the dining room. That was enough.

  Part of me wondered what the fuck I was doing. What I was headed toward. The other part told that part to shut the fuck up because this was where it was going all along. MacKayla was my link to the past. To that time I couldn’t forget, couldn’t let go of. She was the only person I could punish. At least without hurting Mel in the process. I wasn’t a bad person. Or I hadn’t been before MacKayla had helped to destroy my life. Now, all bets were off.

  I’d learned all I could about her after I left. People made assumptions all the time, about each other, about situations, about everything. I knew now most people weren’t what they seemed. MacKayla’s history was a sordid mess. Her father had run out on them when MacKayla was four, her sister, Janey, two. Her mother had raised them on her own—well, on her own with a string of boyfriends, until she remarried a couple of years later. The girls were twelve and fourteen when their mother died in a car wreck.

  They lived in a trailer park, and their mother’s husband wasn’t exactly an upstanding citizen. I knew from police reports he’d hit his wife, but she’d never pressed charges against him. Some part of me wondered if he’d hit the kids too. But I didn’t want to care about that. It wasn’t any of my business. My business lay here—next door, in fact. It was the one thing that gave me purpose now. I’d found MacKayla Simone, and now, I would make her pay.

  At midnight the next night, the doorbell rang. I muted the volume on the TV but left it on and went to let her in. MacKayla stood in the doorway, wrapped in a coat and heavy boots. I made a point of checking my watch, then moved aside to let her in.

  “Glad to see you’re prompt.”

  She looked around at the nearly empty space. I locked the door, and she turned to face me, taking a step away.

  “I can’t come on the nights I dance.”

  “That’s not up to you to decide.”

  “I’ll do what you want, whatever you say, but I can’t lose my job at the club. I need the money.”

  “What do you need it for?”

  She shook her head. She wasn’t going to tell me anything.

  “If you’re not talking, then you’ll come whenever I tell you to come.”

  “Please. It’s not what you think.”

  “What do I think, then?”

  Her gaze faltered. “I… I don’t know.”

  “That’s right. You don’t. You don’t know anything about me. Take off your coat.”

  “I really can’t, Slater. I need that job.”

  She didn’t get it. I shook my head. “You don’t listen very well. Take off your coat.”

  She exhaled loudly through her nose and undid the buttons of her coat, her forehead furrowed. She slid the coat off and handed it to me. I hung it on a hook by the door and gestured for her to go inside.

  “Drink?” I asked, picking up the bottle of whiskey on the coffee table.

  She looked at it and nodded. That was good. She’d need one. I poured out two fingers deep and handed it to her before picking up my own glass and taking my seat on the armchair. She stood awkwardly, and I watched, sipping my drink, enjoying her discomfort. She took a sip and held it out to me. I took her glass and set it on the coffee table, then pointed to a spot on the carpet in front of me.

  “Kneel.”

  “What do you want, Slater? You’ve found me, fine. What I did was wrong. I know that. But I wasn’t exactly the mastermind behind the plan. That was much closer to your home. I was just a pawn.”

  It took all I had not to flinch at the truth of what she said.

  “You know what? I don’t know what I want. And you’re right; I was fucked by people I trusted. People I loved.” I threw my drink back and set my glass down on the side table. “But you’re here now. You and me.” And this is all I have left.

  MacKayla studied me. “You want me to fuck you again, is that it? I don’t remember you being a rapist!”

  I leaped up, grabbed her by the throat, and caught her when she stumbled backward. “Right now, all I want is you on your fucking knees, understand?”

  Her nails bit into my forearm, her eyes huge with fear. She made a sound, and I realized how tightly I held her. I released her instantly, and she sucked in a breath, wrapping her hands around her throat. Accusing eyes locked with my own, she bent and and knelt on trembling knees.

  “If I recall, you spread your legs easily. But five grand will do that for a cheap whore.”

  “Stop calling me that.”

  I ignored her, still feeling the need to defend myself. “I’m not a fucking rapist. But when I ask, you will give. You will give me everything.” Why I felt the need to explain this, to speak my thoughts, I didn’t understand. They were none of her business.

  “How do you know?”

  “You’re here, you’re kneeling. Your guilt lines your face. I wonder if you don’t need the release of punishment as much as I desire extracting the payment. I think the best way to look at this, Mac, is to understand that you live at my pleasure. Not only that, but you live for my pleasure.”

  She bit her lip, the whole of her trembling.

  “Did you touch your cunt last night?”

  The abrupt change made her eyes go wider.

  “No.”

  “Good girl. What did you do when I left?”

  “I went to bed.”

  “That’s all?”

  Her gaze shifted as she nodded.

  “Liar.”

  “You don’t know anything about me,” she said, mimicking my own words.

  “I know more than you think.”

  We studied each other, she cautious, me curious.

  “Tell me what you did before going to sleep.”

  “I called my sister.”

  “Janey.”

  She furrowed her eyebrows. “You know about her?”

  “Like I said, I know more than you think. I know your sister and you left together a few days after…” I couldn’t say it. “She has a baby girl. Sadie, is it? How old is she now?”

  “That’s none of your business.”

  “You’re locked up tight, aren’t you? Why? What are you afraid of?”

  Only silence from her.

  “She’s two. And your deadbeat stepdad still lives in that trailer park you called home.”

  “You know all about me. Great. You know how to use Google.”

  I shook my head and drew in a deep breath. One corner of my mouth curled up into a smile. I watched her, knowing it made her nervous.

  I handed her her drink. “Finish your drink and stand up. Time to get started.”

  “Slater, I can’t come on the nights I dance.”

  “Why?”

  Nothing.

  “Give me something, and I’ll give you something.” I could almost hear her thinking, trying to decide.

  “My sister. I need the job dancing to send her money. She needs it with her little girl.”

  “Where is Janey?”

  “She’s safe.”

  She’d risk my anger to protect her sister. “Where’s the baby’s father?”

  Her face changed, her lip trembling, her eyes filling with tears she barely managed to contain. She shook her head.

  “What I did to you, you’re not the only one for whom there were consequences. You want to punish me now—you have that right, and I’ll take my punishment. But I’ve been punished daily for the last three years. I’m reminded every single day how much what I did hurt the people I love.”

  She looked about ten years older after saying that. I thought about what she’d said, about how her face changed, the sadness that crept into those strangely beautiful eyes. There was so much more going on here than I’d anticipated, and as much I didn’t want to care, some part of me did.

  “She’s in hiding from the father of her baby?”
/>   Her gaze shifted as she nodded.

  “Okay,” I said before I realized I’d spoken. It wasn’t my problem, the thing with her sister. Why the fuck did I give a shit at all? It was for the kid, I told myself. Not for MacKayla.

  “Thank you.”

  She hadn’t asked what was going to happen to her. Only wanted to make sure she’d be able to take care of her sister. I guess I hadn’t expected that.

  She finished the whiskey, squeezing her eyes shut as the liquid burned its way down her throat.

  “Now stand up.”

  She rose to her feet, still holding the glass. I took it from her, our fingers just touching as I did, a spark making her gasp at the touch. It took me a moment, but I cleared my throat and set her glass aside.

  “Take off your clothes. From now on, first thing you do when you come in is strip naked and then kneel and wait.”

  Her face didn’t betray what she thought as she lowered her lashes and nodded.

  “Eyes on me.”

  Midnight blue and soft violet reluctantly met mine.

  “Keep them there and strip.”

  She first handed me her glasses, which I set on the coffee table. Her hands trembled as she moved slowly, pulling her sweater over her head and dropping it on the floor beside her. She wore a crimson-colored lace bra beneath it. My cock came to life at the sight of pale skin wrapped in rich red lace.

  Her hands fumbled with the buttons of her jeans. She unbuttoned them, pushed them down over her hips and off her thighs, then realized she’d left her boots on. She bent over to take them off with her jeans hobbling her knees. I chuckled, and she threw me a dirty look before continuing, pushing off her boots and jeans in one go so she stood in matching bra and panties.

  I licked my lips. “Did you wear those just for me?”

  “What?” Her face turned as red as her underwear, and I smiled wide.

  “I think I have my answer.”