Second Lies (The Second Life Series) (5 page)

“They were misplaced emotions,” she gazed at me with a weak smile on her face. “You made me realize that.” She started throwing some things in her purse. “I’m a lesbian, Adriana…Duh.” She laughed. “Zoe wasn’t my roommate.  She was my girlfriend.  We broke up just before I met you when things were at their worst.  That’s why she was never at the apartment and fucking me over with bills. You and I had fun together.  You made me smile again.  I thought I was in love with you because I was so angry with her, but then you gave me what I wanted…and snatched that all away from me with your next breath.” I ran a ha
nd through my sweaty, oily hair, completely uncomfortable. “I’m glad you did it though.  You woke me up, forced me to get my shit together.” She watched me.  I felt like I was going to fall apart. “Thank you, love bug.”  There was a knock at the door.  She grinned. “And that would be my first real date in God only knows how long.”

Gloria
sauntered over to the door.  When she opened it, a tall, slender woman greeted her.  They gave each other a short kiss, and I gulped at the sight.  My nerves pricked.  Gloria took the woman by the hand and smiled, “This is my best friend, Adriana.  Adriana, this is my date, Vicki.”

Vicki was pale white with bleached blonde hair that was shaved on one side and left choppy and long on the other.  She was dressed in baggy jeans and a t-shirt with a band logo I’d never seen before on it.  A vine tattoo wrapped itself around her arm.  If Zoe was Gloria’s ex, then she was looking for a complete change
in looks with Vicki.

“Hi,” Vicki put out her hand, and I shook it. “Good to meet you.”

“Yes,” I looked back and forth between her Gloria.  I gulped, seeing my opportunity to exit. “I should let you guys get to your date.  It was great meeting you, Vicki.” I nodded at Gloria, thinking so many thoughts I couldn’t say out loud. “Call me tomorrow.  We should meet up.  Bye Gloria!  I’m glad we’re friends again!”

“It was the most awkward moment of my life,” I groaned as Wes hovered over the stove, heating up ground meat. “How did I go all this time without knowing my best friend is a lesbian?  I mean, I have nothing against her lifestyle choices, but I just wish I knew.  She shouldn’t have kept me in the dark.”

“And
you
kept
me
in the dark,” he seasoned and stabbed at the meat. “Why didn’t you tell me you and Gloria got into a fight?”

“I didn’t want to talk about it,” I looked down at the granite slab that surfaced the island, tracing nonexistent
circles with my index finger. “She was my best friend.  It felt so private.  It felt personal.”

“You
can tell me anything, private or not, no matter whom it involves,” Wes set the table with salsa, lettuce, sour cream and cheese.  He put two beers out for us and then began pouring the meat into hard shells. “There we go.  I haven’t made tacos in a long time, but these look alright.”

I topped my taco with the sour cream and cheese and bit into it.  Grease slithered down my chin, and I quickly dabbed at it with a napkin.  It wasn’t bad, not amazing, but it wasn’t bad for a white boy attempting to make a Mexican dish.

“How was work?” I asked mostly to change the subject.  I didn’t want Wes digging into this.  He still knew nothing about the photo shoot, and I’d do anything to keep it that way.  As long as Gloria was willing, we could keep that in the past.

“Hectic,” he shook his head.
  He took a large bite out of a taco and swallowed. “An order I placed last week was delivered to the wrong bar.  Fuckers had no problem charging my credit card but rectifying the situation is an inconvenience for them.”

“Hey, I have an idea,” I said putting down the food
, giving him a seductive look and sticking out my chest.  I purposefully wore a thin t-shirt and no bra.  I caught him checking me out all night long which was good because I felt ridiculously horny. “How about I give you a massage tonight?  I’m really good at it, and I bet you’ve got to be tense.”

Wes shoved the rest of his food in his mouth and sucked on the tips of his fingers
, making me squeeze the muscles between my legs.  He placed his dishes in the sink and wiped his hands clean, “I’ll eat more later.” I gulped at the innuendo that heated me to the core. “I’m grabbing a shower, and then I expect you upstairs in fifteen minutes.  That massage sounds perfect.”

I couldn’t help but laugh as I took another bite of my taco.  He kissed the side of my head and rushed up the stairs.  Within a minute, I heard the shower turn on.

The kitchen was still a mess, so I decided to clean it up a bit before I went upstairs.  As I started putting things away, I heard an annoying buzzing.  I ran to my purse, nothing from my phone.  It kept going, incessant, maddening.  I followed the noise to the living room.  On the coffee table, Wes’s cellphone was going off, vibrating against the glass surface.  I picked it up.  Dennis’s name was glowing bold on the screen.  I cursed to myself.  I had never called him when I got back to Philly because I had been running around all day.  It buzzed again, notifying me of a voicemail.

As I stared at the
phone, a nagging feeling crept into my thoughts.  This should be all about business.  Hell, Dennis used Wes’s bar to host an event.  Of course, that’s what this was about, but something deep inside me told me just to listen.  He was still in the shower.  I could hear the water running.  He would never know.

I clicked the button and put
the phone on speaker, “Hey Holden, give me a call back when you get this.  We have business to discuss.” I breathed a sigh of relief. “I went to that club you told me to check out and paid off that scumbag owner to wipe his records clean of Adriana.  Everything’s taken care of.  We still have a lot of work to do.  I need you to find out if her cocksucker brother said anything about Isabel while she was away.  Call me.”

The phone went silent, and I dropped it to the floor with a loud thud.  Wes told Dennis I worked at Lux?  That’s how he found out about the picture.  They were working together to cover all of this shit up…for Dennis’s campaign and Wes’s reputation.  All my trust for Wes left me instantly.  He was no better than any of the assholes in this world I was brought up in.  I wondered how I could think any different.  I wondered how I could have possibly let my fucking guard down.

From downstairs, I heard the shower turn off, and his footsteps sound across the length of his bedroom floor.  He called, “Adriana, I’m done.  Come up here.”

Jersey took me over.  Anger and spite clouded my eyes.  I clenched my hands tightly together.  My jaw trembled in fury, suppressing any weak emotions that I couldn’t risk feeling right now.

As I exhaled, I stomped up the stairs and met Wes in the bedroom.  He was standing shirtless and wet with his towel wrapped around his waist.  I glared at him.  Anger was boiling hot on my skin.  As soon as he saw me, the smile left his face, fading into oblivion.  I didn’t say a word.

He cursed. “Fuck…you know.”

“How did you find out?” Wes ran a hand through his wet hair.  Fear struck in his eyes.  He was being careful with his words.  Who knew what else he was hiding?

“Is that really the important thing right now?” I screamed.  Adriana was weak.  She was emotional.  If she was here now, she’d probably curl up into a ball and cry this out, but that wasn’t me.  Just like at Lux, I transformed into Jersey whenever I needed to be strong, fearless, unbreakable. “What the fuck were you thinking?  My business is
my
business!  What gives you any right to go to Darth with this?  You know what he’s done to my mother!”

“I was trying to protect you,” he said in a much lighter voice.  His skin was so pale.  His voice wavered when he spoke.  He didn’t make much eye contact
with me, and he was so stiff.  He was a classic liar. “I told Dennis about Lux because I didn’t want this haunting you in the future.  You said you were done with that life, so what does it matter if I had him cover it up?  In the future, you’ll thank me.  You’ll see it was for the better if you ever want to make anything of yourself.”

“Don’t fucking lie to me,”
my heart pounded in my chest.

Everything I saw in Wes was gone.  Every kiss meant nothing.  Every fuck was just a fuck.  I should have seen this coming though.  He kept rejecting me in the beginning.  He didn’t want to sleep with a stripper, and with the help of Dennis
Darth, he could rewrite history so he wouldn’t be dating one either.  As far as I was concerned, he was lying about our whole relationship, so in essence, everything meant nothing.  There was no use mourning over something that never existed.

I screamed at him,
“This had nothing to do with my feelings!  What you did was selfish, all for personal gain.  This is your last chance to tell me the truth before I walk out that door, and never look back.  You have nothing else to lose, Wes…because I’m already gone.  You mine as well tell me.”

The tension was thick in the air.  We were both frozen in time, staring, memorizing every last detail of this moment.  Wes was the first to break.  He walked towards me and reached for my hand.  I flinched away.  All I wanted was the truth.  All I wanted was to know what I was dealing with.  My women’s intuition told me he was keeping something from me all along.  Now that I knew what, I needed to figure out the extreme
and handle it.

“Adriana, I was worried about you.  I was trying to help,” he groaned and slammed his hand down on the end table. “Don’t do this!  Don’t leave me over this shit!”

“Are you going to tell me the whole truth?” I didn’t move a muscle.  I was stone, giving away nothing.

“You already have your truth,” he spat. “I was protecting
you
.  I was protecting
us
.  With Dennis’s campaign, people will eventually start digging.  Think about your mom and dad and Nick.  Do you want your face plastered on a newspaper as Darth’s stripper stepdaughter?  I bought my way out of that misery and embarrassment while there was still a chance.”

His words sliced into me like a knife.  That was all the confirmation I needed.  Whether or not he admitted this was about himself, he said it straight out.  This all had to do with embarrassment.  At the end of the day, that’s what he was, embarrassed by me.  Just like Dennis, if he could create his perfect mate with money and lies, he’d do it, and there was one thing I was absolutely sure of…I’d never end up with anyone who was even
remotely like Dennis Darth.

“Goodbye, Wes.”

He didn’t chase after me which was good because I didn’t know what I was capable of in this state of mind.  I did, however, hear him scream something and maybe punch the wall.  I’m honestly not too sure.  My body started working on autopilot.  I went downstairs, grabbed my purse, coat, phone, keys, got into the car, turned it on, and drove.  I don’t exactly remember doing any of this.  I just know it’s the order of things.  Hell, I don’t even remember driving, but in order to end up here, that had to have happened.

I pulled into the driveway at Dennis’s house and walked up to the door.  I rang the doorbell and within moments, my mom answered it.  Her cheeks
looked flushed.  She looked shamed.  The last time I’d seen her was at the bar when Dennis had her pinned to the wall.  Even after I defended her, she chose to go with him.  That was fine.  She wasn’t my priority now although I had to admit a small part of me was happy to see she was okay since she’d practically disappeared that night for days without contacting me.

“Adriana, I wasn’t expecting you,” she fixed her silk robe to shield herself from the cold breeze. “What are you doing here so late?”

“Where’s Dennis?” She looked taken back.  I pushed my way into the foyer.  She shut the door and silently measured my mood. “Where the fuck is he?”

“Baby, I’m not sure that’s such a good idea,” she grabbed my arm, but I yanked it away. “He’s working.  Right now is not a good time.  How about I set up a lunch for us later this week?
  We can try that new-”

“No, he’s expecting me
, so that won’t be necessary,” I pounded down the hall to a locked door with frosted glass.  No one could see in or out of the room.  I jiggled the handle with one hand and slammed against the glass with the other. “Open the fucking door, Darth.  It’s me.  Let’s get this shit over with.”

“Adriana, please leave him be,” my mom begged.  She wasn’t touching me this time. “I can have him call you tomorrow.  Please, just leave.  Now is not a good time.”

The lock on the door clicked, and Dennis appeared, looking abnormally pleased.  He opened the door the rest of the way to his office. “Isabel, it’s fine.  What kind of a stepfather would I be if I didn’t make time for my stepdaughter?”  He motioned inside. “Adriana, I’ve been looking forward to your visit, better late than never.”

It took everything in me not to punch him again.  His bruised chin was clearly covered in makeup.  I could make out the faint scab from where my ring broke through the skin.  It appeased me just enough to hold me back from seriously injuring him.

He shut the door in my mom’s face.  Normally, that would infuriate me, but I had my own issues to work out at the moment.  Defending her was last on my list of cares.  He clicked the lock back on the door and gestured for me to sit.  I complied.  He walked around his desk and sat down across from me, hands folded, eyes glaring with amusement.  He knew I’d be coming, and he knew what to expect from me.

“I want my picture back,” I said, trying to remain calm.

“
Your
picture?” Dennis laughed. “Actually, I think I’m the one who had to pay Mr. Clark quite handsomely to own such a portrait.  It means a great deal to me, Adriana.  It means I finally have power over an annoying little cunt that can’t control her mouth…or her fists.” He tapped his jaw.  I couldn’t help but smirk. “It’ll take a lot for me to give this up, especially because I’m rather fond of the pose.” He smirked back. “You’ll have to introduce me to the other young lady.  Botox can only go so far with your aging mother.  I’ll have to start looking into new prospects after the election.”

“Cut the bullshit,” I fumed. “What do I have to do to get that picture back?”

“Well, it’s very simple.  My wife’s daughter just simply can’t be a stripper.  After some negotiations, Mr. Clark agreed today to delete all records of you having worked for him.  Stripping is done for you, understood?” I nodded, keeping my eyes locked on him. “I understand that’s how you paid your rent, and well, I can’t have you living out on the street either.  That would look just as bad for me, so don’t worry about it.  I’ll have that taken care of with your landlord by the end of the week.” He flipped through some papers.  I spotted my name printed throughout them several times. 
Did this asshole have notes on me?

“So no stripping?” I raised an eyebrow.  I knew there had to be more. “I can agree to those terms.  As I’m sure you’re aware, I’ve already left my job.”

“Yes, I’m fully aware of that,” Dennis scribbled something on one of the papers and then tucked them away into a drawer of his massive, cherry wood desk. “That’s only one condition.  Second, I’ll need you available for all public functions I host.  That includes dinners, parties, auctions, basically anywhere that I’m trying to get some good publicity.” I nodded. “Finally, I’ll need you to keep your relationship with Mr. Holden both affectionate but modest.  I want everyone to know you’re in love without knowing how he fucks you.  He embodies every characteristic of the man I want standing with us during photographs for the press.”

“No deal,” I gritted me teeth together. “Mr. Holden and I are no longer together.  Apparently, he told some asshole where I used to work which g
ot me in quite the predicament because now I’m being blackmailed.”

“That’s a shame,” Dennis looked very much like he was enjoying being the cause of all my misery, “but I’m willing to accept that.  See, look at us negotiating.  I’m not all bad.  The quicker you learn to cooperate the faster we get things done.” He nodded his head
eagerly and leaned back in his chair. “Okay, so you’ll be single.  That could work to my benefit, too.  I’m sure I have some associates that would adore some personal attention from you.  It’ll be a lot like when you worked at Lux except much less degrading, and you can keep your clothes on…well, unless you find someone you end up being fond over.  I won’t stand in the way of you sucking off a potential investor.”

I gripped the arms of the chair and choked out, “No, I’m not going down on any of your associates.  Now, when am I getting my fucking picture?”

“After the election, of course,” Dennis stood up and removed a portrait from the wall, revealing the door to a safe.  He tapped it with a gaudy ring. “It’s in here, safely tucked away.  As long as you comply with my rules during the length of this campaign, it will never been seen by your mother, and copies will never be sent to your father and brother.  In a short while, it will be back in your possession, and you’ll have the only copies in existence.  Now, do we have a deal?”

“It doesn’t sound like I have much of a choice,” I answered.

Dennis grabbed a cigar and lit the end.  As he puffed on the smoke and blew it into the air, he laughed, “You really don’t, but I like to present this like it’s an option.  I’ll see you Friday night, my dear.  We have a charity dinner to attend.  Oh, and don’t tell your mother about any of this.  There’s no need to worry her precious heart.”

I stood up and unlocked the door without another word, slipping into the hallway.  As soon I shut the door behind me, my mom poked her head into view.  Silently, she gestured for me to follow her.  I complied and continued until we were on the other side of the house sitting in the sun room.

She closed us in and exhaled, “Baby, are you okay?  You look like hell.”

“Thanks, Mom,” I shook my head, refusing to confide in her about Wes or my stripper past. “I feel just as great.” I answered sarcastically.  Honestly, I just wanted to go home, smoke some pot, and forget about all my problems.

“We should talk about what happened at the bar,” she started playing with her bracelet, overcome by nerves. “I’m sorry if I hurt you, but Dennis needed me.  I couldn’t just walk away from my husband like that.”

“Of course, Mom, I know.  It’s so much easier to walk away from your daughter when the man who pays your way in life is throwing a fit,” I rolled my eyes.  I needed to get out of here. “I don’t even care anymore.  It’s expected.  You’ve already done it in the past, less we forget.  I’ll deal with it and move on.”

“It’s just that we were doing so well,” tears sprung to my mother’s eyes.  She brushed them away. “I’ve already lost Nick.  I can’t lose you, too.”

“If you had to choose between money and your children, money wins every time,” I shook my head at the pathetic excuse for a mother. “That’s just how you are, and that’s what I’ve learned to expect from you.  I accepted that a long time ago.  So if you’re going to be that way then own it, but don’t you dare come crying to me, pretending like I’m a necessity in your life.  We both know that’s a damn lie.”

She didn’t say anything to me.  I didn’t want her, too.  I stood up and opened the door.  My tone was harsh, “Go drink this off and go to bed.  We both know that’s what you’re going to do anyway.”

My body was physically and emotionally drained.  There wasn’t an ounce left that I could give to this demanding world.  Dennis named his price, and I would comply.  I’d do doing.  It didn’t matter about his accident.  It still didn’t put him on the same level of fucked up as
these people.  Once I got what I needed, I’d run away, too, never look back, and there wouldn’t be a single person who cared enough to stop me.

My heart twisted in my chest.  I was going to go home, but I couldn’t find the strength anymore.  My demons were calling to me.  With a sigh, I headed towards DJ’s apartment.  He was the dealer at Lux, and right now, I was craving a massive amount of coke.