Page 110 of Devious Lies (Cruel Crown)
I’d been born with a spine, and I fully intended on using it. Flowers wilted. Girls didn’t.
“A tyrant no one has the guts to stand up to except you.” She slanted her head my way, for once looking sharp-eyed. “You either have a death wish or… I don’t know. Something.”
I fed the thick fabric to the machine, increasing the pressure on the foot pedal, feeling in my element for the first time in ages. “I think you’re looking too much into this. I hate bullies, and he’s the biggest one I’ve ever met.”
Understatement.
Nash made Hannibal Lecter look like the second coming of Jesus.
Ida Marie had the decency to seem ashamed. “Sorry. I thought maybe… you liked him? He certainly seems taken with you.” She released her hands from her curtain for a second, causing the stitch to veer left. “I mean, I sound like I’m five, talking about preschool crushes, but you two are always staring at each other—”
“Yeah, that’s a hard no.”
In fact, I had done a good job of avoiding one-on-one situations with him since he left without sex.
With the exception of the Soup Kitchen Incident.
I couldn’t see the bruises around my neck, but they existed, rearing their heads every time I remembered what it felt like to be judged by someone I’d once respected. Someone childhood Emery considered a savior.
“—but I was reaching,” Ida Marie continued. “He’s always with Delilah anyway.”
I had never talked to Delilah, but I saw her long enough to know she wore a wedding ring on her finger the size of a small country. Nash was a bastard, but he was a loyal and proud one. No way did cheating or being the other man interest him.
Mags, on the other hand, was fair game.
And why the hell did it matter?
Answer—it didn’t.
The only use Nash provided me was getting off, and I had Ben for that. Our phone sex the past few weeks had been more intense than usual, like we both needed to exorcise our frustrations by way of orgasms.
Ida Marie peeked at my stitches. Her eyebrows crept up her head. “How are you doing that?”
I lifted my foot off the sewing machine pedal and hovered over her machine, skimming my eyes across her set up. “Your feed throw timing is off. You actually might want to adjust your hook timing.” I fiddled with a few buttons, my ass bent over—and I could feel Nash’s glare scorching it. “Here. Try that.”
“Thank you.” She inched her foot onto her pedal until she accustomed herself to the new settings. “I should have minored in fashion, too, instead of going all-in on interior.”
“I actually majored in fashion and minored in interior.”
“Huh. Why are you working interior then?”
I sat back down at my station, working the fabric under the needle. “No market for fashion designers in this part of town.”
I tucked my chin down and focused on my curtain, not bothering to elaborate. Talking about the way I had entered college with stars in my eyes and a dreamer’s mentality enforced Nash’s accusations that I had fucked up my ‘ten minutes as an adult.’
Fashion design made no sense to Virginia. Her argument hinged on my lack of style, but it never was about style for me. Fashion is showing people who you are on the inside because most of them never bother to look past the packaging.
Tell me another way to speak without speaking, and I’ll learn it, live it, breathe it.
From Cayden’s desk, Chantilly turned off her machine and stalked over to me. “Coffee, Miss Rhodes.”
“I’m in the middle of a stitch, and—”
“Coffee. I’m not asking.”
Unbelievable.
Chantilly had taken Nash’s demands as an invitation to order me around—more than she already had been. Yesterday, I dropped her dry cleaning off and picked the purple Skittles out of her family-sized bag.
