“One question at a time, Sunshine.”
“Don’t you dare call me that until after you’ve explained.” I crossed my arms and leaned back against the booth.
He looked up at the ceiling and then at me.
“I need an alias because I am, for lack of a better term, a corporate mole. I’m a freelancer and companies hire me to infiltrate and do undercover investigations, anything from embezzlement to fraud to sexual misconduct. I’ve gone undercover in companies all over the United States and whenever I go to a new one, I get a new identity. New name, new résumé, new life. So Stefanie met me when I was Tyler Keller. That time it was a Public Relations firm that had a problem with missing money, and several of the executives were funneling drugs and using the company events to do it. Stefanie and I . . . had a relationship for a few months. It was nearly a year ago and it ended the second my job was over. I never thought I would see her again. I had no intention of ever seeing her again.” He took the card and ripped it up in front of me.
“I wish I had your shredder right now,” he said with a tiny smile. Oh no, he could not dump all that info on me and then make a joke. No f**king way.
“That is a lot of information, Lucah.”
“I know.”
“What is your real name? Am I allowed to know it?” This wasn’t the most important thing he’d lied to me about, but a name was an important thing.
“My real first name is Lucah. I went with Lucas because it was close to my real name and I was tired of trying to be someone else. My real full name is Lucah Jacob Blythe. I’m from New Hampshire. I went to Dartmouth. I’m twenty-five and I’m in love with a girl named Aurora Abigail Clarke. Those are the only things you need to know.”
No, that sure as hell wasn’t all I needed to know.
“You lied to me,” I said as an enormous silence stretched between us like it was pulling us apart.
“I had to,” he said. “I am so sorry.”
“So those locked rooms in your apartment?”
“All of the things from my real life. In boxes. I ship them with me wherever I go so I can remind myself who I am once in a while. I couldn’t let you see them because I couldn’t jeopardize my job.” That led me to another question.
“Why are you at Clarke Enterprises?” Jesus, what was he investigating? Who had hired him? My brain was about ready to blow up.
“I can’t tell you that. Like I said, there are a lot of things at stake, and it’s not just about you and me. I’ve just broken every single rule by telling you anything at all. It puts the entire investigation in jeopardy.” Investigation . . . That made something click. The Board of Directors. Dad. They’d be SO ENTHUSIASTIC about him and had basically told me to hire him. Had Dad known about him? No, that was impossible. He wouldn’t have lied to me.
“Are you investigating ME?” There was no way.
“No! No, of course not.” He was definitely telling the truth about that. Well, that was a little bit of a relief. Not that there was much relief happening for me in that moment. Knowing the truth was almost worse.
“You lied to me.” He might not be the only one.
“I know.” He didn’t make an excuse this time. Yes, I knew that it wasn’t his choice, and that it was his job, but that didn’t make it hurt any less.
“You lied to me.”
He didn’t answer, just reached across the table for me, but I pulled back even more. I didn’t want him to touch me right now.
“I think I need to go home. Alone. I need some time to think.” And I got up and left, grabbing a cab and going back to my apartment.
“What are you doing here?” Sloane said when I opened the door. Then she saw my face.
“What happened?”
I’d been holding myself together in the restaurant and in the cab, but here, in my apartment, I finally let myself fall apart.
31
I told her everything. I knew I probably wasn’t supposed to, but I didn’t give a shit. My boyfriend had lied to me and I needed to talk to my best friend about it.
She sat on the couch and stroked my hair and listened as I cried and poured my heart out.
“Wow. That’s unbelievable,” she said when I was finally done.
“I know. I wouldn’t believe it unless he’d sat there in front of me and told me the whole thing.”
“So he’s investigating the company? How do you feel about that?”
“It’s f**king crazy. I’m actually pissed off about it, because I know the Board went behind my back, and maybe behind Dad’s. I have no idea why they thought they could do this without telling us this.”
Sloane’s hand paused for a second as she played with my hair. “Are you sure your dad doesn’t know?”
“No, no. If he knew he’d tell me. Dad isn’t that good of a liar.” But honestly, I wasn’t sure about anything right now. My world had flipped upside down. If the sky was green tomorrow, I wouldn’t be surprised.
“But he told you his real name.”
“But he lied to me about everything else. And that girl, my God, you should have seen her.”
“But it’s not like he cheated on you like Royce. He was just doing his job. It’s not like he meant to fall in love with you. It’s actually kind of ironic, if you think about it.” It wasn’t ironic, not really. I didn’t know what it was, but ironic wasn’t the word that I would use.
“Or maybe it’s more tragic than ironic,” Sloane said.
“Sloane?”
“Yeah?”
“Stop talking, please.” She did and started humming. That didn’t help because it just reminded me of Lucah, so I asked her to stop doing that too. I knew I was being a pain in the ass, but I didn’t care. Then she turned on the television and Mystic Pizza was playing.
“Julia Roberts’ hair is ridic in this movie,” Sloane said.
“Yeah, it is,” I said in agreement.
I had literally no idea what was going to happen when I went into work the next morning. I considered calling in sick, but there was no way I was going to do that. If I stayed home, then I would just mope. I wanted to be out and have something else occupy my mind other than Lucah. Only problem was that I didn’t know if I would see Lucah at work. He’d tried to call me last night, but I’d ignored him.
To tell the absolute truth, I had no idea how I felt. It was like I had too many emotions and my body had gone into some sort of shock because it was overwhelmed. I hoped it was on vacation somewhere nice. A tropical island would be great.