Two pretty lies, p.1
Two Pretty Lies, page 1
About Two Pretty Lies
“This story pushed all the right buttons for me! I read it in one sitting because I just couldn’t put it down.” –Barnes & Noble customer
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A pretty math prodigy with hidden desires … and secrets.
A ruthless British mercenary with dark cravings.
A dangerous new tale of forbidden love.
She sat alone in a coffeehouse, unaware of what she was doing to me. Katie, the one with innocent eyes. My longing for her was as painful as she was beautiful. That glorious ache became my weakness, my sweet addiction.
I agreed to Katie’s terms with no hesitation, promising not to research her background because I was desperate for her touch. If she were anyone else, her lies would have triggered my anger when I learned her identity. Instead, I only wanted her more.
I was a man who took what he wanted, and I had no intention of letting her go.
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Fans of Skye Warren will find their next compulsive read in this new adult novel, a steamy, age-gap romance from USA TODAY bestselling author K.L. Clare.
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Two Pretty Lies is a standalone spin-off from the All the Lies duet.
Copyright © 2022 by K.L. Clare
All rights reserved.
www.klclare.com
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Published by White Rose Press
www.whiterose.press
978-1-7329314-8-0
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Editor: Jovana Shirley
Cover designer: Hang Le
Cover photo: Wander Aguiar
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No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, transmitted, stored, distributed, or recorded in any form or by any means without written permission from the author. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights.
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Two Pretty Lies is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locations is coincidental.
For the readers who waited so patiently
for this little story.
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Also by K.L. Clare
About the Author
It was not the thorn bending to the honeysuckles, but the honeysuckles embracing the thorn.
Emily Bronte
Prologue
THOMAS
I stood with my brothers at our father’s graveside, cursing at the old man while swearing to myself that it would be the last time.
Brisk air rushed in from the northeast and over the ridge, rolling across the estate and back out to the English Channel. The gust carried nuances of brine and evergreen and spring’s wildflowers.
The wildflowers. Beautiful, resilient, and unintentional.
Like her—the someone. The one I planned to die for.
Death had never scared me.
As a child, I’d watched my father beat the fear of it out of my older brothers. From within the shadows cast by their giant forms, I had witnessed the repeated fracturing and mending of their spirits as he trained them to become his soldiers of fortune.
Richard Hastings had been the son of an earl, the next man in line to inherit a title earned as spoils of another monarch’s war. After a falling-out with the peerage, he abandoned the title. Still, his connections had remained strong.
Our father had supplied counterintel to Britain’s military intelligence organization and conducted assassinations for Homeland Security. And because he was useful, the nation’s ministers protected him. They overlooked the personal crimes he committed, the hits he made to line his own pockets, and the hits made for a protection pact that was part of our family history.
But while shielding him from prosecution, each of those ministers had also kept a personal running tab. My father’s sins had accumulated like credit in their bank accounts.
On my eighteenth birthday, it had been my turn to become the next soldier in my father’s legion. I accepted my fate without resistance, vowing to train hard and kill whenever it was necessary.
Three months later, my father had lost his life on a government mission, leaving the burden of his legacy and his debts on the shoulders of my three brothers and me.
After a decade of cleaning up our father’s shit, only one debt remained for my family. But the obligation belonged to one of my brothers—to Will. I would reconcile this one myself to protect him, to protect his family, to atone for my emotional betrayal.
I dropped my gaze to the ground, where blue blossoms and ordinary woodland foliage fought for real estate.
Stepping between our younger brother, John, and me, Will gripped my shoulder. “Get in, find the information we’re looking for, Thomas, and then get out. If your investigation proves our target committed espionage against the prime minister, detain him and turn the matter over to the director general. This is not a hit.”
“I’ll handle it,” I said. “You have my word. Focus on your wife and children.”
He’d recently learned that he and his wife, Ellie, were expecting twin babies. He’d also found out that he was the father of the eight-year-old girl we’d been led to believe was our niece.
Will’s grip on my shoulder tightened. “Don’t get drawn into the governor’s politics, brother.” Then, he gestured with his chin at the monument marking our father’s grave. “Go on then. We’re expected to have our arses at the breakfast table this morning before you leave for New York.”
“Thom, if you need me, I’m not due back at university for quite a while.”
“We’ll see, John. Stay put for now.”
Words on the granite slab grabbed my attention. The line below my father’s name.
Beloved husband and father.
Empty space on the other side waited for my mother’s death to fill it.
No way, I thought. No fucking way.
Anger overwhelmed me. It moved through my blood and filled my bones.
I glanced at Ethan’s gravestone for a moment. We’d lost our oldest brother not long ago.
Eyes back to our father, I drew breath through my nose, pulling in another strong hit of evergreen and wildflowers, and stepped forward, closer to the stone.
Committing myself to the same promise that I’d once heard my brother make, I said to our father, “Listen, old man. When the time comes, my death won’t be for the sake of your legacy. It won’t be for you. I’ll die for someone I love.”
One
KATIE
I popped grape number seven into my mouth, crushing the skin with my teeth, and a burst of sweetness hit my tongue. A moan vibrated at the back of my throat. I closed my eyes.
It was a silly response to a small piece of fruit, but my senses were hyperaware after a weeklong stretch of only tea and oatmeal and isolation.
The number seven inspired waves of soft blue to flow through my mind, although the seven grapes that had been arranged next to my avocado toast were red. I wished for a moment that the server had put only six on my plate. Six was perfect. In fact, it was the smallest perfect number. A positive integer equal to the sum of its positive divisors.
According to Pythagoreanism, because six was an even number, it was also feminine. Maybe that was why it triggered flashes of vibrant pinks inside my head. For me, six conveyed vibrance and strength in all definitive formations.
Exhaling slowly, I opened my eyes, relieved to be out of the house.
It had been finals week, and those exams had brought an end to my first four years of college at Columbia University. In a few weeks, I would attend the commencement ceremony and celebrate achieving a bachelor’s in mathematics summa cum laude.
Math came to me differently than it did to most people. Numbers were beautiful and colorful. I loved the ease of discovering new patterns, loved the fascinating overall structure of mathematics.
My parents, schoolteachers, and college professors called me a math prodigy. I couldn’t remember a time when I hadn’t been labeled that way. But the prodigy brand created a mask that I didn’t like to wear. It concealed too much of me, hiding the things that made me a whole, feeling person.
I was more than a numeric expression.
I also loved flower gardening and taking photos and long afternoons spent wandering around the Metropolitan Museum’s corridors, where photography exhibits by women artists provoked a feeling of power and satisfaction that resonated in my heart.
Academically speaking, in addition to math, I was interested in exploring the properties of modern theoretical physics.
No sooner had I dared to entertain the thought than two text messages from my mother’s personal assistant hit my phone.
The governor is waiting at the
apartment to see you.
* * *
Are you at the coffeehouse?
Of course, I already knew why my mother wanted to see me. Mom was in the city, and now that finals were over, she and my father wanted to discuss my extended future at Columbia. Their plan included a mathematics doctoral program, one in which I wasn’t interested. It was a program that would leave me at the mercy of a boring university, teaching fellowship.
Still, always the good girl, I texted back with a compliant response.
Yes. I’ll be right home.
Thanks.
All my life, my parents had sheltered me on the Upper East Side. My private school and the university were on the Upper West Side, so even when I was at school, I hadn’t been far from home. I was only allowed to leave the city for weekends at the executive mansion in Albany or to spend time at our summer home in Southampton Village. I could visit the summer house either with my parents or with my aunts on my mother’s side of the family.
While I loved New York, I still wanted out. I craved a better view of the world and a bigger role in it. London would be a good place to start, but the time didn’t feel right to tell my parents about what I’d done and the opportunity waiting there for me.
My stomach growled, reminding me that I hadn’t eaten my breakfast.
I started on the toast as I dug an envelope from Oxford University out of my bag.
The department head from the mathematical and theoretical physics graduate college at Oxford had sent a letter, inviting me to join the program. The university was offering me a fellowship. A fully funded package—tuition and stipend.
Jarring me from my thoughts, Jack, the coffeehouse owner, stopped at my table. “Hey, Katherine. Sorry, didn’t mean to take you by surprise like that. I just wanted to say it’s good to see you back this morning. Your exams went well?”
“Yes, really well. Thank you. I’m just happy to be done with it all. Your mashed avocado recipe is different. And delicious. What did you change?”
He smiled. “You noticed. Lime juice instead of lemon, a pinch of cilantro. No latte for you this morning?”
“I’ll grab one on my way out. I need to get going. Mom’s home.”
The cashier called out to him, and he held up his finger to let her know he’d be right there. “I’ll have one made ready. Coconut milk, lightly sweetened with brown sugar?”
I nodded. “Thanks, Jack.”
The coffeehouse was a hip, cozy hangout, an art-friendly space with vintage furniture and rows of wooden tables. It was a popular place with considerable foot traffic. I spent a lot of time there, gathering with friends for breakfast before class.
At other times, it was a private escape for me, where I often devoured sweet lattes and the latest women’s interest magazines from the corner newsstand. My mother had forbidden me from reading them at home, telling me the magazines were a distraction. Mom wouldn’t know that many of them included more than a look at the latest style trends or dating advice. She’d never opened one to see the global coverage on women’s health issues or international culture.
I watched Jack as he ducked behind the service counter, and I wondered what his last name was and why I’d never asked. He was a nice man, forty-two. He walked with a limp, but overall, his body was in great shape.
He'd served four tours in Afghanistan, and the stories he’d shared with me about his unit’s hikes through the dystopian mazes of concrete blast walls were heart-wrenching. Starving children had lined the streets, patiently waiting every day in the hot sun for US soldiers to arrive with candy and bottled water. With their eyes, he’d said, they would plead for passage out of that hell.
Someday, when I called the shots, I would abandon this privileged life and use my God-given talent to help some of the world’s broken children. So many lacked food, clean water, safe homes, and yes, basic math skills. I could teach them.
Completing my graduate studies abroad would be the first move in that direction.
My mother wouldn’t easily accept the idea, not now, if ever. Dad would understand, but he still wouldn’t pull his punches. He would say anything to stop me from leaving. He’d always been cautious about my personal safety, citing random threats sent to Mom’s office as reason enough for his overprotective behavior whenever I questioned it.
I gripped the invitation from Oxford, pinching the three sheets of ivory stationery harder, the area around my fingernails turning white from the pressure.
I was sick of pleasing everyone else.
Attending Oxford’s graduate program would get me one step closer to those children. And one step closer to having the world see me as something more than a math prodigy.
I smiled to myself, not even caring anymore about what my parents wanted. I knew what I wanted, who I wanted to be. I carefully placed the letter back into my bag, as if it were a golden ticket. It was exactly that, and it was mine.
The heat of someone’s stare caught my attention. I looked around the place, searching, stopping when I found the source. A man who I’d never seen before. He was twenty-eight years old, no less than twenty-seven, no more than twenty-nine.
He walked through the center of the room and sat at the table across from mine without turning his gaze away from me. His tall, well-muscled body moved with the refinement of a beautiful predator. Eyes ice blue. Fiery, not cold. They held mine, their strength compelling my cheeks to get warm, my heart to pound faster.
Influence and desire rushed through me. I was experiencing his emotions. Our locked eyes created a mutual, soul-stirring connection, and he used it to command me. I couldn’t break free. I couldn’t turn away from this man.
Then, as if we’d been playing a game that he had just won, he released me. A small smile touched his lips, and he winked.
I shivered.
His authority was hot as hell. He was hot as hell.
Every cell in my body warned me that this guy was dangerous.
Patterns of constants and variables and operations abruptly flashed through my mind, my brain acting on instinct to form and reform numerical expressions. Pushing math around inside my head was a reflexive behavior, a self-preservation mechanism that allowed me to regain my sense of self-control.
I took a deep breath.
Game not over.
Reclaiming my composure, I smiled back at him and then dropped my lids for a beat before locking my eyes on his again. I’d thrown a playful smile to flirt with an attractive guy in the past, but I’d never asserted interest with my eyes that way before.
The past didn’t make sense to me in the moment. Being suggestive with this man felt right in the present. It felt good.
He was still affecting my thoughts and my behavior, I realized.
The idea of all or nothing hit me. He was projecting it.
Through his eyes, he insisted that in all situations, he would take control of everything, or he would have nothing at all.
There wasn’t a thing in between his all or nothing, no other possibilities.
That was the danger I sensed.
My phone chimed with another text message, drawing me out of my curious fog. Desire for a stranger had consumed me, making me lose my way in a provocative haze, blocking my normal thoughts. The weightless sensation it left behind made me feel pretty and wanted.
The text-reminder alert chirped, urging me to look away from him.
I did but only because his phone started in as well.
It was my mother on mine.
Come home, Katherine. I miss you.
