Page 3 of Sharp Lies

And I’m sure you’re saying to yourself, ‘Well, you got laundry and dishes done! Well done, you!’

Right?

The problem was that wasn’t as right as you might think. Because in this household, getting things halfway done was almost worse than not starting them at all.

I slid into the bedroom, started folding clothes, and tried to remember how to breathe. Beyond that, I tried to remember how lucky I actually was.

Because I was really, really lucky, despite the rules about finishing the projects I started. I was living in a freaking gorgeous house that I never would have even dreamt of six months ago. Gone was the tiny apartment that I shared with my mother. Gone was the kitchen so small I could pretty much reach every cupboard and the fridge without bothering to take a single step in any direction. Gone was the tiny bedroom with no windows, the living room that only had enough space for a couch too small for both of us to sit on at the same time.

I mean yes, my mother still lived in that same apartment, because she was stubborn and insisted on taking care of herself rather than accepting money from me.

But me?

I lived in a gorgeous farmhouse on the outskirts of town that boasted four—four!—different bedrooms and two bathrooms, an upper floor and a lower floor, and a kitchen that would have made most of the chefs I knew downright jealous. I had beautiful furniture and a bed that came with a remote to change the firmness of the mattress. I still had both of my jobs, because I loved them, but I didn’t have to rely on the income to pay rent and buy my groceries and coffee every month.

Because now I had Tony for those sorts of things.

Yes, the Tony that the rest of the town didn’t like because he’d never lived here. The Tony whose father was richer than Midas and who had gone to a snooty college after going to private school his entire life.

The Tony that I’d sworn to myself I didn’t like. Until he walked into my bakery and gave me that smile.

I’d fallen for him hard, and it hadn’t helped that he’d then gone out of his way to see me around town every single day. I’d seen him at the florist, and at the market, and at the local bar. I’d run into him on the street and seen him during the weekly movie nights at the theater. It had been such a concerted Attack of Tony that I’d actually asked him at one point whether he was stalking me.

He’d laughed and told me he was going to keep doing it until I agreed to go out to dinner with him.

And the rest, as they said, was history. I’d been shocked and more than a little bit uncomfortable at the idea of such a rich man courting little old me, the baker’s kid and town waitress. But he’d talked me out of feeling awkward, and before long, I was with him all the time and defending him to my friends, telling them that he wasn’t as bad as we’d all thought and that he wasn’t actually going to sell all the land around the town to a developer.

I knew, because I’d asked him directly, and he’d cleared that right up. He had a small plot of land he wanted to sell, and that was only to make more apartments so there was more housing for the people who lived here.

Which wasn’t, when you thought about it, the worst thing in the world.

Beyond that, he’d been a dream, always meeting me in the morning at the bakery and bringing me flowers. He’d been all charming dimples and attention, and I’d fallen more in love with him every day.

So when he asked me to move in with him, I hadn’t thought about it for more than thirty seconds. I mean, maybe I should have. I’d be leaving my mom alone in the apartment and moving in with a man I barely knew. I’d be throwing away my independence and agreeing to live by his rules and in his house.

But as I looked around, I thought the gamble had been worth it. The house was gorgeous and comfortable, and I was safe from the bills that had been piling up in the basket where Mom and I kept them. I liked being safe. And I liked knowing that I had the ability to save my mother, if she needed me to.

I let out a small sigh, my eyes on the window in the bedroom, which showed me the rolling fields of corn outside town. Wow, it was gorgeous here. And somehow, the comfort and safety made an already-gorgeous view even better. I didn’t know how that worked.

But I wasn’t going to question it.

Until I heard the front door slam downstairs and remembered what I’d been doing.

I jumped back to work, folding clothes so quickly that most of them ended up in a cluttered pile more than anything else. I thanked the universe that those clothes were mostly mine and shoved them into a drawer, making a note to fix them later. I moved Tony’s things into his drawers, tidying them up as I went, and then flew downstairs, praying that he’d gone into his office to finish work rather than going into the kitchen. If he went in there and found the dishes stacked on the counter, there’d be hell to play.

If, on the other hand, he came in and found me putting things away, he’d just think I was doing my job in terms of keeping the kitchen clean.

I got to the kitchen via the back stairs and saw with relief that he wasn’t there yet. He must have headed for his office, to at least put his briefcase down. I rushed to the counter where I’d left the dishes and started shuffling through them, organizing them into groups so I could put them away more efficiently.

And I tried to calm my breathing as I did it.

I heard him stomping down the hallway long before he arrived in the kitchen, so I had time to collect my thoughts before he arrived. When he came through the doorway, I looked up and smiled like I’d just been thinking of him.

I mean, I had. But I smiled like all of those thoughts had been happy.

“You’re home early,” I noted.

“Bad day at the office,” he grunted, going directly to the fridge and yanking it open.