Page 77 of Married to Lies

I nearly screamed, but sucked in a breath as I looked at my dad. “Shall you consult your golf buddies to see if you have time for your daughter’s wedding?”

“Hey now,” Dad said.

But I shook my head. “We’re leaving.”

“Rei,” Quentin murmured.

“Please,” I whispered, “just take me home.”

34 Quentin

Rei was stiff beside me in the car, flowers forgotten at the event. She swiped angrily at her face, but the orange streetlights still caught the tear tracks on her cheeks. Telling her family had been a clusterfuck of the highest order. I knew they wouldn’t react well just based on Rei’s anxiety, but that had been something else.

“W-why do they think y-y-ou’re with Conrad?” I asked, jealousy had my stutter rearing its stupid, ugly head.

Rei looked up at me with glassy eyes. “They don’t know that Conrad’s just an employee. They think he’s my business partner. They have this idea of him rescuing me from all the stupid things I did in the past.”

My jaw tensed. That explanation made sense but only created more questions. I wanted to ask her what stupid things she’d done, but now wasn’t the time. “So you made a few mistakes. Who hasn’t?”

“Dennis,” she said sourly. “He’s their perfect biological child.”

My stomach roiled for her. All of this felt wrong.

Her phone went off, and I took a moment to catch my breath. She pulled it from her purse and quickly pointed the screen away from me. But I could read the caller ID in the window reflection.

Private Investigator

“I have to answer this,” she whispered, holding it to her ear but lowering the volume so I couldn’t hear anything. “Hello?” she asked. Her lips were pinched and her eyes seemed tight as she listened.

“That’s it?” She paused. “There has to be something. Dig deeper. I need everything. Cost doesn’t matter.” She hung up and dropped her phone in her purse. “Sorry, work call.”

My first instinct was to think she was lying, but PI’s could be helpful in business. Maybe she was looking into a potential client. Besides, I hardly told her about all of my daily business tasks. I was probably just upset because of how her parents treated her. “Has your mom always called you the wrong name?” I asked. It upset me that she had only one daughter and still didn’t get it right.

“What?” Rei asked, chewing the inside of her cheek.

“Your mom called you Andrea.”

Rei stiffened. “Sh-she calls us all the wrong names when she’s mad. She called Dennis the dog’s name all the time when he was a kid.”

My eyebrows pinched together. Something was off about her answer, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Probably because something was off about this whole evening. Even if my parents thought I was doing something stupid, they would still be there to help me out when it failed, with a hearty “I told you so.” Rei’s family wasn’t what I expected.

Before I could ask more questions, she said, “I never should have told them. We should have had a true elopement and let them come to terms with it later.”

I frowned. “Don’t let them make your decisions for you.”

She gave me a confused look, and I couldn’t help it. I reached out and swiped a tear from her cheek with my thumb. “My parents didn’t want me to quit my job at the bank to join a start-up with zero funding. They didn’t like the idea of me using my life savings to prep pitches, only to go down with a sinking ship.”

“MyHome?” she whispered.

I nodded, still holding her face in my hand. “They’re not the ones that have to live with the consequences of your failures... or your successes.”

She looked up at my eyes, vulnerable, shy, broken, and whispered, “You think this will be a success?”

My heart beat painfully at just how much I wanted it to be. “I do,” I whispered, making her smile for just a second before I pressed my lips to hers.

The salt from her tears passed over my lips, but she held my face with her hand like she needed me this close too. I couldn’t stand the thought of her sadness like I couldn’t stand the thought of her parents’ disapproval tearing her away from me.

Deepening the kiss, I drew her closer, wishing I had the words to show her how incredible she was, whether they saw it or not. She was kind and savvy, running a major business from behind the scenes like a mastermind of epic proportions. Everything I learned about her only amazed me more, and I hoped I’d get to learn about her for the rest of my life.