Page 111 of Devious Lies (Cruel Crown)
“Actually, I think it’s time for lunch.” Cayden stretched his arms above his head before standing. “Anyone want to grab a quick bite to eat with me?”
Hannah and Ida Marie left with Cayden, but I stayed because I was even broker than usual. This morning, I had sent in the twenty-five-hundred-dollar donation to the Winthrop college fund.
I also didn’t want to chance leaving for the soup kitchen only to have Nash head there, too. Safer to suffer in hunger than risk another fight and be banned for life. Turned out, Nash funded most of the meals served there, which meant he owned me in more ways than I knew.
Chantilly hung around the office, waiting for Nash to invite her to lunch. He didn’t. She left soon after him, her head dipped down like a five-year-old who didn’t get the toy she wanted for Christmas.
My mind shot into overdrive. I fired a text to Reed once I was alone.
Emery: I have to be in Eastridge for the fourth of July. Please gag me and drop me off in the middle of the ocean.
Emery: Kidding
Emery: Sort of.
Emery: I need a ride… Haling Cove is sort of on the way from Duke, and I happen to know a blonde-haired, blue-eyed best friend who owns one hell of a Mustang…
Maybe Reed could come and be a buffer between me and Able. That scar on Able’s head had never faded. Our presence would probably throw him off balance.
Reed: Sure. I’m headed to Eastridge to go yachting with Basil and her family. We leave a few days before the fourth.
Fuck.
I had to go to the art gallery with Nash to view the Sisyphus sculpture and get his final approval. Another thing I dreaded. No way would I show him the triumphant Sisyphus now. He’d get the defeated, depressing one whether it’d been sold or not. I'd make sure of it.
Emery: Gahhh, no. I have something with work.
Emery: I’ll figure out another ride. Don’t worry about it. Hope you’re giving them hell in Durham, Reed.
I set my phone down when a wrapped lump fell to the desk in front of me. A sandwich. The label read Tuccino’s, the overpriced delicatessen a block over that catered to women of the Range Rover-driving, toy poodle-holding, flawless-credit-history variety.
Nash stood in front of me, that perma-bored expression glued to his face, staring at me like he expected a thank you.
I didn’t touch it.
Didn’t thank him.
Didn’t do anything but stare at him, face blank, a half-smile on my lips that I knew would taunt him.
In reality, I was flexing the hell out of my stomach, praying it wouldn’t growl at the scent of what smelled like pastrami on rye.
Holy crap, I wanted that sandwich.
I also wanted to not be poisoned sometime this century, and I trusted Nash Prescott like I trusted the phrase, “just the tip.”
“Eat the fucking sandwich, Emery. You look like ninety-nine percent of your weight is in your tits, and a half-starved preteen under my employment is bad PR.”
My fingers pried open the wrapper, holding eye contact with him and loathing that smug expression. I took a slow bite of the sandwich, chewing with an open mouth before I spit it at his foot.
The second it left my mouth, I regretted it.
One, I was hungry. Real hungry. The type of hungry where it felt like my stomach was trying to eat itself.
Second, wasting food made me feel like a shit person. Everyone I knew at the soup kitchen would kill for this sandwich, but my pride never let me back down.
Funny that Nash’s mom had been the one to tell me that pride changed angels to devils, and here I sat in front of her devilish son, turning into something that reminded me too much of him.
Nash ground his teeth together, his jaw so ticked, I couldn’t help but notice how defined it was. I had it in me to feel bad about wasting the food, but not about spitting it at his foot. He treated me like dirt, second only to Basil Berkshire.
