Page 33 of Devious Lies (Cruel Crown)
“If Emery finds out, I will cut you off, Virginia, and I will sue you for everything you own, Cartwright,” Gideon had warned, his voice steady and threat real.
“Please,” Virginia scoffed, unladylike without an audience, “she already knows. Why do you think I sent her to that shrink to set her straight?”
The ledger had only left my suit’s breast pocket once since I’d stolen it, and I felt the heat of it burn my chest. Emery Winthrop knew about her parents’ scam, and I… I’d made two mistakes tonight that I couldn’t take back.
Sin number two.
The day the F.B.I. and S.E.C. had raided Emery’s McMansion, she’d led an agent to my parents’ cottage, covering for her dad as she listed our names—Betty. Hank. Reed. Nash. They stood in front of the mailbox, staring at the door, but I’d heard enough.
I dipped into the maze and retrieved the ledger I’d hidden before some government smuck found it.
I had a plan to atone for my sins.
I had a plan to fix my parents, Eastridge, everything.
I had a plan.
Then, Dad died.
And I was just as guilty as the Winthrops.
Wealth.
I never realized it had a scent, but I’d been away from Eastridge for so long, I almost couldn’t recognize the familiar stench as it assaulted my nostrils. Prior to last week, I’d never been inside a Prescott Hotel before. I had no intention of stepping foot in another after I finished my internship.
It reeked of wealth I’d worked so hard to distance myself from.
So pretty. So fragile. So breakable.
It reminded me of a snow globe. A picture-perfect world trapped within delicate glass that would shatter if handled too roughly. Just like my world had shattered four years ago.
The features spoke of wealth. Marble lobby. High ceilings. Over-the-top chandeliers. A floating pool built one hundred feet into the Atlantic Ocean. The fact that I could picture my mother here had me looking over my shoulder as I dipped back into the ballroom from the restroom.
“Adagio for Strings” and the hushed sound of the country's top point-one-percenters living their best lives accosted my ears.
Most of the hotel remained in a partial construction stage, waiting for finishes, flooring, and paint. You wouldn’t know it if you stood inside the ballroom.
Over the past week, I’d helped furnish half of the suites on the sixteenth floor, the main part of the lobby, and the ballroom for a masquerade party my boss had dropped on us last minute.
We were designers, not event planners. But Chantilly viewed the masquerade as an opportunity to cement her name as America’s foremost designer. I saw a thinly veiled attempt at assuring the who’s who of North Carolina were on board with the fast-tracked creation of this hotel.
Worse, Reed had promised I wouldn’t be in the same room with Nash, yet I felt him here tonight with intimate, uncanny precision I had no business possessing. Dipping past a group of men discussing Chinese tariffs, my skin tingled from the sensation of being stared at.
I’d felt it all night, two eyes tracking each step I took. I needed to run. I also needed money for food, loans, and penance.
Pivoting abruptly, I gave the source no time to turn away as I tracked him down. Two brown orbs watched me from three tables over. Their owner lifted a glass to me. I struggled to place him beneath the distance and his distinct, emerald-colored masquerade mask, but I knew it wasn’t Nash.
The eyes were wrong.
The lashes too short.
The hair too orderly.
The goosebumps on my arms too absent.
Neither of us broke eye contact, even when my vision blurred and I spelled cryptoscopophilia in my head. The urge to secretly peer in windows of homes as one passes by. Except it was a mask my eyes itched to stare past.
The stranger unsettled me, like my brain knew something the rest of me didn’t. Reckless. Gutsy. Stupid. I wouldn’t argue against any of these descriptions of me as I planted my feet and tilted my chin up—daring him to approach me.
