Page 124 of Cruel Lies

My fist goes white-knuckled around the phone in my grasp. "No one fucking asked you," I lash out. "Just do your job."

He sighs. "That's what I've always done for you, cousin. Always have, always will."

"Good. Keep doing that." I feel guilty, but I'm in no mood for his lectures.

I have a plan, and that plan is to tell her once it's all settled. There's no point in stirring the pot before then. I'm not a liar. I'm not afuckingliar.

I'm simply doing what must be done.

32

CALI

The drive up to the lake takes almost three hours. Hayden asks about fish for at least two of them.

"But whatkindof fish?" he demands to know for the fifth time, hanging over the back of the seat and very much up into my personal space.

"Sit down and put your seatbelt on," I tell him. "Ronan will look it up when we get there."

"Actually, I already did," Ronan says from the driver's seat. He's driving himself this time. No Paolo, no black car with tinted windows. We're in an old Land Rover that predates my existence on this earth, but something about it feels rustic and homey. I like it. "Largemouth bass. Some perch. A few catfish, if you're patient."

Hayden's eyes go huge. "Can we catch one?"

"We can try."

"Can weeatit?"

"If you catch it, we can eat it."

Isabella, buckled into her booster seat with Doctor Fuzz's shoebox on her lap, pipes up. "Doctor Fuzz doesn't eat fish. He eats leaves. I'm going to show him the water, though."

"He'll like the water," Ronan says. "I'll help you hold him up so he can see."

I look out the window so nobody sees my face do the thing it's doing. I don't know how much longer I'll be able to hide it, though. Soon, the whole world will be able to see what I've known privately for a while now:

I'm falling hard for Ronan Akov.

The house isn't what I expected. I don't know what I expected, to be fair. Something like the penthouse, I guess, lots of pristine glass and cold edges and nobody living in it.

But this is a real, proper house. Old and wooden, with a wide porch and a stone chimney, book-ended by a huge, grassy yard and a dock that stretches out over the water. There's a rope swing hanging off a big tree by the shore, exactly like he said.

Hayden is out of the car before it fully stops. Isabella is hot on his heels, clutching her shoebox. I get out slower and just stand there and look at it.

"You okay?" Ronan asks, coming around the front of the car.

"It's beautiful," I gush. "It's really, really beautiful."

We spend the first day outside. The kids don't want to be indoors for a single second, and honestly, neither do I. Hayden and Ronan take the little rowboat out and come back an hour later with two fish and Hayden's whole face lit up like a birthday cake. Isabella carries Doctor Fuzz down to the shore and holds the shoebox up so the caterpillar can see, narrating the whole time about how brave he is.

Ronan cleans the fish on the dock with a knife like he's done it a thousand times before. Shoot, maybe he has—I realize I don't know much about him or his past yet, and I'm more curious than ever. But I sit and watch silently as he shows Hayden how to do it, patient, letting him make a gory mess of the second one.

We eat the fish that night, fried in a pan on the old stove. It's the best fish I've ever had, and I tell Ronan so.

"It's the best fish you've ever had because your son caught it," he says with a laugh.

I smile and pat Hayden proudly. "That doesn't hurt."

His phone vibrates on the counter. He glances at it, frowns, and then flips it facedown.