Lies Are The Coward's Coin: The Broken Billionaire Series Book 2 Read online

  “That don’t explain where it’s going. You love her?”

  “Whoa! Where did that come from?”

  Holman slowly swiveled his thick neck around, searching his surroundings, before cranking his head toward me so that his face was only a couple of inches from mine.

  “Does your father know who she is?” he whispered.

  “No. I couldn’t be bothered to go into it all. He asked if I had a girlfriend. He’d overheard me on the phone. But I never mentioned her name, and he never asked.”

  “Good.”

  “Why?” I asked, hushing my own voice, the fingers of apprehension stroking my heart. “Is it something to do with her dad? I knew they were friends from before, but that they’d gone their separate ways.”

  “Let’s just say they got history, kid. When I found her out for you back when you first went into rehab, I recognized her surname but thought nothing of it. There’s a lot of Dillingers in the city. Recently, however, since you’ve been seeing her regularly, I looked further into it and found out the worst—that her father is none other than Roy Dillinger.”

  “Yeah, so what?”

  “You gotta end it,” Holman suddenly put to me, and I couldn’t believe my ears, a hole opening up underneath my heart. “You gotta end it before your old man finds out. And he will eventually, when he bothers to look in to her. And he will.”

  “So he’s got a problem with Sarah’s dad?”

  “Not just any problem. Your father hates Roy Dillinger with every ounce of his body. It’s only by a miracle that Roy Dillinger is even alive.”

  I felt a darkening of my mood at these somber words and began to look at him funny.

  “What happened between them?” I wanted to know.

  But Holman just relaxed and stood back from me.

  “You know there’s things that you can’t know,” he said, piercing into me with his eyes. “Just trust me, kid; end this thing with her before it’s too late.”

  Holman turned and went off toward the elevator. I followed him with my eyes. Along with his grave tone, there had been genuine concern in his voice. He seemed almost scared that my father should find out; not for himself, but for me. I didn't bother chasing after him and trying to get him to elaborate on his cryptic threat. I knew that he would never divulge any secret of my father’s, even to me. So I just settled on watching him leave, shrugging it off as best I could, then got in my car, before bursting up the ramp and out of there.

  SARAH

  I was sat at the kitchen table with Kay eating breakfast. Dad was at the office already, and Lucy was taking Troy to see Theresa. My casts had been off for a little under two weeks, and the bones in my legs had healed nicely. The scarring had unnerved me a little when I first saw it; a thin, four-inch line down the outer edge of my left thigh, and two more at about two inches each at the top of the right, pinky, indented slivers upon the flesh. I was told, though, that the coloring would fade and that eventually they’d be thin lines of discoloration and no more, only really showing with a deep tan—which, with my pale skin, would be impossible to achieve anyway, so no loss there. I was walking on crutches for the moment and in an hour had my sixth physiotherapy session since the casts had come off, which Kay would be driving me to.

  “So Josh is gonna meet you from your session, then?” Kay asked as she spooned granola into her mouth.

  “Didn’t I tell you?”

  “No, you didn’t,” she answered once she’d swallowed. “You just said that you only needed dropping off, nothing about being picked up at the end or me waiting for you.”

  “Well, I thought it would be obvious that I’d be meeting Josh.”

  A veil of silence descended over the kitchen, and I continued to eat. I was looking through some early notes on the Miller case, the fan of papers scattered across the dining table in front of me. The whole thing was coming together. We currently had twenty-three clients between us and the Holchers, meaning that we were in the beginnings of a class action. For the last two weeks, I’d been attending the office Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays for five hours in the afternoons, and I was starting to get back into the daily life of a lawyer. We had a lot of hope that we would successfully sue the landlord, Langley Holdings, for both the repairs and the damages to our clients’ health caused by the company’s reproachable behavior.

  “You and he an item now, then?” Kay suddenly asked, impelling me to look up from the papers.

  “Kay!” I softly rebuked. “It’s none of your business. But, if you have to know, then I guess you could say that.”

  “And you’ve kissed?”

  “Again: I don’t see why that’s your business, but yes we have.”

  Okay,” she let out with a slight frown, turning her eyes up to the ceiling, before continuing to eat.

  Again, silence prevailed, and I wondered when next she would attack me with the dagger of a question. But she stayed silent for a while, and I felt confident enough to return to the notes. No sooner had I begun once more to look over them, however, than she resumed her former interrogation.

  “What’s Dad’s problem with it?” she asked.

  I sighed loudly and looked back up at her.

  “He used to be friends with Josh’s father,” I answered, “and he doesn’t think that Josh comes from a suitable world.”

  “Daddy comes from that world.”

  “Yes, he does. And he seems to forget that.”

  “I thought it had something to do with Karl coming round the other week,” she abruptly put, before turning her eyes away from me.

  “Nothing escapes you,” I stated.

  “Not much” was her crisp reply.

  “Daddy and Karl got something wrong, was all. They thought they’d found something bad out about Josh, but they only had half the story. Now they have the whole story and have left it alone, as should you, Kay Dillinger.”

  “Okay,” she let out in a groan, before adding: “But you have to admit, Daddy’s still being funny about the whole thing.”

  “Yes, he is,” I replied, half musing over the fact as I had done on many occasions these past days. “But it’s because he’s still got issues with his past and sees Josh as some kind of reminder.”

  “I’m sure if he met Josh, he’d see that he was okay. He’s actually a really charming guy.”

  My sister appeared to swoon when she said this, and a little color filled her cheeks.

  “I’ve asked Dad,” I said, ignoring her rosy cheeks, “but he won’t meet him.”

  “What? He refused to?”

  “Not outright—that’s never been dad’s way; he’s a lawyer through and through. But he’s always busy with things when I try to arrange a meeting, and avoids the subject all the time. Plus, this Miller case has given him the perfect opportunity to dodge meeting Josh.”

  “Maybe he’s telling the truth. Maybe Daddy really is busy. Even you’re working when the physiotherapist said you should stay at home resting all the time and doing your exercises, not up on your feet too much.”

  “It’s all exercise, Kay. And most of the time at the office I’m sitting down. Anyway, Daddy is still being weird.”

  “Just let him come around to it all. He just needs time to see that Josh isn’t crazy and he’s not gonna turn his daughter into a drug fiend!”

  I simply grinned at her.

  SARAH

  We finished breakfast, and nearly an hour later, I was at the hospital swimming pool being lowered into the water by a mechanical seat. I was performing my exercises in the pool, as it helped with balance and made my muscles and joints stronger with little risk of damage. Once I was submerged to my waist, I began walking at the edge, where there was a bar that I could grab on to for support if I needed it. Under the water, my legs felt extremely heavy, and each lap of the pool was a marathon to my withered muscles. There’d been a lot of tissue damage in my thighs from the accident. Plus, I’d needed several metal plates and pins inserted to hold the shattered bones toge
ther. Getting strength back into my legs was a priority, and I found myself pushing my body harder than I ever had before.

  “Just slow things down, Sarah,” Jane, my therapist, said from the side of the pool.

  “I can feel more strength in them today,” I puffed, sweat dripping down my face from the effort.

  “You still don’t wanna put too much strain on your muscles,” she went on, “and risk another tear. That’d put you back weeks, even months. Just settle it a little.”

  The threat of extra weeks being added to my already lengthy sentence caused me to reflect, so I did as she asked, slowing to a snail’s pace.

  “That’s better,” Jane said. “We got plenty of time. You’re well on schedule; you got nothing to worry about.”

  It was after almost an hour of this that I was presented with a vision that made my heart flutter. As I traipsed slowly through the water, I looked up and saw at the farthest end a rather dapper-looking Josh leaning casually up against the doorway to the pool. I beamed the moment our longing eyes latched on to one another, and he gave a cheeky grin in return that sent the fluttering butterflies of my heart into a wild frenzy.

  “You free, Miss Dillinger?” he asked in a relaxed tone.

  “Very soon, I think,” I said from the pool, turning instinctively to Jane in order to see if my trainer was in agreement with my earnest evaluation.

  “She’ll be done in a few minutes,” she said to Josh with a faintly lascivious smile, this being the third time he’d picked me up from therapy. He’d made quite the impression on Jane, as he generally did on the female sex. “Just another length,” she added with the same smile.

  “Then I shall wait,” he said politely.

  For this final lap, Jane had to repeat her request for me to slow it down while I scythed through the iridescent liquid. The reason for this sudden vitality was obvious: Josh. I mean, wouldn’t you push yourself if he was standing at the finishing line? I wanted to get things done as soon as possible so that I could reach him. It felt cruel to be in this pool, so near and yet so far, sentenced to a few more minutes, as Jane put it, before I could touch him, be with him. He stood there watching like some illusive mirage, just out of reach. And I was eager to reach him.

  “I know you wanna see your man real bad,” Jane whispered down to me from the edge of the pool, guessing instantly the source of my eagerness. “I certainly know I would. But there ain’t no point in busting your legs in the process!”

  Her joke made me laugh, and I finished the lap with a grin printed across my face. After that I got changed, and minutes later, we were boarding a subway train. The part of the city we were heading toward was very busy this time of day, and it was much quicker to use the subway than attempt to squeeze through the afternoon traffic up above.

  Taking our seats side by side, we delicately held hands as the train rumbled on, gazing at our foggy reflection in the window facing us, pulling comical expressions at each other, sticking our tongues out, going cross-eyed. We fell into rapturous laughter, then eventually settled, and I instinctively leaned my head on his shoulder, nestling myself into him, his arm just as instinctively reaching around me. My eyes stuck upon the happy, hazy couple sitting in the window opposite. I found myself musing that if I was actually looking across that carriage at some unknown couple, not just our reflection, I’d smile at the warm glow of that couple’s supreme happiness, while simultaneously feeling the sharp dart of envy at their blissful unity that didn’t include myself. But with the knowledge that it was no set of strangers staring back, I could feel all the warmth with none of the cold jealousy. Bliss!

  It wasn’t long before we were back on street level and walking into the modern art gallery that was our destination, a pick of Josh’s. Not long after entering, I inevitably became tired, and by the time we’d reached the third exhibition room, I needed to sit down. We took a place on a bench at the very edge of a large room containing an installation piece consisting of several giant white doors that hung from tracking on the ceiling and slowly moved around the place in figures of eight, the purpose and meaning of which I’ve since lost, along with the name of the artist responsible.

  While we sat there, I once again snuggled into Josh’s flank, and he placed his loving arm lovingly around my waist, pulling me into him, our eyes following the course of the creeping doors as they stalked the room. It was then that a natural comedy began to play out in front of us. Not long after taking our seats, a man walked into the middle of the room, and, unaware of the huge floating doors moving silently about, bent down to tie his shoelace. As he was doing so, one of the crafty things slowly snuck up behind him on its tracking and hit his butt with a gentle thud, not with any real kick, but enough to make him land awkwardly on his front. An expression of absolute anger swept over his face as he looked about for his assailant from his new position on the floor. Imagine his look of surprise when he found that huge door hanging over him. I’m sure if he could have gotten away with it, he would have rushed off that minute and retrieved an axe from somewhere. I had wanted to warn him as the prankish door had approached from behind, but Josh had stopped me, grinning mischievously as we’d watched. I must admit I found it hilarious, and we had to turn away when the red-faced victim glanced sharply in our direction, obviously annoyed that we hadn’t a) warned him, and b) found it so amusing to see him fall flat on his face. After that, he brushed himself down, continued to the edge, and tied his shoelace, out of the reach of his former tormentor, before leaving, his teeth still angrily gritted together.

  We continued to observe people as they’d walk into the room unaware of the doors’ presence. They’d usually be so engrossed in their guidebook or phone to pay any real attention to the sneaking blocks of wood as they slid treacherously toward them. We’d watch people casually stroll into the room with their noses immersed in something other than their surroundings and then stop for some reason, often to gawp at their phones. A devilish door would then slowly creep up on them and then BAM! bump them forward. One woman was sent flying when she hurried into the room for some reason and got completely taken out by a door that swung into her at the exact moment she was halfway across, the timing of the collision perfect. That one I felt sorry for, as she had to be helped up, a look of complete bewilderment splashed across her countenance.

  “Too much! Too much!” Josh let out as he gasped for air, our giggling hardly suppressed at this point. “I could stay here watching them forever, but they’re gonna suffocate me in a minute!”

  “My ribs ache!” I replied.

  “Okay, let’s get out of here.”

  Josh got up, took my crutches, and offered his arm for me to grab on to.

  “M’lady,” he said as he did.

  I smiled and took ahold of his arm, pulling myself up and retaking my crutches, before we made our way out of the room.

  “Do mind the doors,” Josh joked as we did, making me burst with giggles again.

  We strolled from one room of weird art to another, submerged in a world of multiple eccentricities, such as a lobster performing the act of a telephone; a public toilet made out of leather cushions; several rooms with wax figures of mutilated people; photographs of naked old people, all hanging genitalia, liver spots, and wrinkled flesh; strange everyday objects, like coat hangers and false teeth, immersed in plastic, blurring their image and giving them an odd otherworldliness; a room where a silent film was shown of the multicolored painted slums in Rio De Janeiro, titled Superficial Street: How to Cure Poverty with Color; and another room showed a film of a weird puppet show that scared me as much as it confused me, and made me want to leave the dark room soon after entering, even if it did have seating for my exhausted legs.

  “So this is your favorite gallery in the city?” I had to ask him as we wandered toward another eerie exhibition.

  “It’s weird and dark,” he commented. “I like that modern art sees beauty in everything rather than only from certain vistas or objects. There’s no good
or evil, no ‘this is beautiful, this is not.’ It challenges our concepts of beauty, taking us away from our preprogrammed ideals.”

  “I guess” was all I could say to this. “But I still don't get what a lot of it means.”

  “Most of the concepts are pretty weak anyway—just plain strange. I prefer to concentrate on the raw aesthetic value of the art.”

  “It’s strange, I’ll give you that” was my honest answer to this.

  SARAH

  It wasn’t long before we left the bizarre surroundings of the gallery. I was quite exhausted from the activities of the day and glad when we finally got the subway back to where Josh’s BMW was parked, the passenger seat embracing me like an old friend. He then drove me home through the outer part of the city where the buildings weren’t so tall and you could see more of the sky above, not just chinks of blue between the huge city edifices. It was a cloudy day, though it hadn't been raining, and I gazed up through the windshield at the fluffy forms as they floated overhead, a luscious languor holding me in bliss and the clouds adding to my already dreamy state.

  Eventually, we reached the suburbs and my house.

  “So here we are,” he said with a smile when we pulled up.

  “It would appear so,” I replied, turning to him.

  I gazed into his eyes, and he gave me a look as if to say he knew exactly what I was thinking of in that second: him. I melted into his look, those endless crystal eyes drawing me in until I mechanically craned my head forward, closed my eyes, and met his warm lips. The moment we touched, his hands moved rapidly and took ahold of my body, pulling me across the car to him. I softened in his grasp, and my own hands reached out and took the back of his hair. I roughly pulled his head down so that he would kiss my neck, and he began biting it gently, the feeling of his breath on my skin sending shivers racing through my—

  “No more!” I exclaimed, pulling myself away from him.