Home > Devious Lies (Cruel Crown #1)(4)

Devious Lies (Cruel Crown #1)(4)
Author: Parker S_Huntington

Take tonight for example. Cotillions presented debutantes to society, but we’d all lived in this town since birth. A cotillion was no more useful to us than a stack of sequential hundreds.

A bottle of bourbon nearly toppled off Dad’s alcohol cabinet, but Able caught it and held it up like he’d meant to knock it over. “Can I drink this?”

“Do whatever you want,” I muttered, bending over to access the wall safe behind the desk.

I still wasn’t sure if it was Dad’s office or Mother’s, but they had sunk their claws everywhere in Eastridge. Even The Eastridge Junior Society, an offshoot of The Eastridge Country Club.

Able gulped down a generous swig of the bourbon behind me. I pressed the lock combination Mother had whispered to me minutes ago. His footsteps beat against the hardwood before his hand rested on my back.

I pushed it off with a small smack. “Excuse you, I’m entering the combo. Look away.”

Cursing, I pressed the wrong combination and had to try again.

The sound of Able chugging the bottle like a frat house initiate filled the little room. “C’mon, Em, don’t be like that.”

With a voice like Adam Sandler circa Little Nicky, I could give a million and one reasons why Able couldn’t land a girlfriend to save his life. He was my date because his dad was my dad’s lawyer and fighting every ridiculous request Mother sent my way exhausted me into submission some days.

“Dye your hair to match mine.”

“Maybe another liquid fast will get rid of that extra five pounds of baby fat.”

“You’ll take Able Cartwright to the cotillion, won’t you?”

“Be a dear and grab the tiara.”

Perhaps the only reasonable demand I’d gotten lately.

I bit my tongue and did as she pleased, because my plans for college and a career in design required money. As a grantor on my trust fund, Mother possessed the power to bleed me dry.

Silent rebellions, however, were my bread and butter. Wearing a stained dress. Using the pastry fork rather than the fish fork. Tossing out odd words at inopportune times. Anything to make that curly vein on Mother’s temple bulge.

“My name is Emery,” I corrected, cursing Mother’s choice in my friends. “Turn the other way.”

“Fine.” He rolled his eyes. Already, I could smell the liquor wafting from his mouth. “This fucking blows.”

Must. Not. Stab.

I swiped hair out of my face and tried another code.

The code is your birthday, sweetie, my ass.

I should have known Mother had no clue when my birthday was.

“It’s a cotillion, Able.” I typed in Dad’s birthday, but the screen flashed red twice, taunting me. “It’s not supposed to be fun.”

Dad had called it “vital networking,” sympathy in his eyes as he watched the hairstylist tame my hair with what could only be described as the technique you’d use on a wild animal.

Mother hadn’t bothered with half-hearted apologies as she reminded the stylist to touch up my “truly awful” black roots and add more lowlights, so my shade would match her blonde exactly.

“Emery,” Able groaned. I finally entered the correct code—Mother’s birthday—and pulled out the tiara, leaving it in its velvet case. “Let’s ditch this place. My parents will be here, occupied by the rest of Eastridge’s heavy hitters.” He leaned closer, his bourbon breath caressing my cheek and neck. “We’ll have my mansion all to ourselves…”

“You mean your dad’s mansion?” I straightened and took a step back when I realized how close Able stood. “You can go home. I have to stay.”

The image of Basil’s fingers clenched around Reed’s thigh burned my mind. We’d been eating soup. Who mauled someone’s thigh while eating chilled fennel soup? Not the kind of psychopath I should leave alone with my best friend.

“Babe…”

“Emery.” I shook my head. “It’s just Emery. Not Em. Not babe. Not Emery in a whiny voice. Not Emery groaned out. Just. Emery.”

I dodged to the left to brush past him, but his palms slammed against the wall on either side of me, caging me in. “Fine. C’mon, Just Emery.”

A brief burst of fear seized my limbs. I thrust it aside as quickly as it came. “Move.”

He didn’t.

“Move,” I tried again. Firmer this time.

Still nothing.

I rolled my eyes and pushed at his chest, trying to keep calm when two-hundred pounds of Southern linebacker didn’t budge. “I’m sure you think this is hot, but FYI, it’s not. Your breath smells like a brewery, your armpits aren’t too pleasant either, and I would rather be out there at the fucking cotillion than in here.”

When he narrowed his eyes, I rethought my approach and the millions of times my big mouth had gotten me into trouble in the past. I’d known Able my whole life… He wouldn’t hurt me. Right?

“Look,” I began, my eyes darting around the room for anything to help me. Nothing. “I have to get this tiara out there or my mom will flip and send everyone in here for me.”

Lie.

Mom wanted nothing more than for me to marry Able and pop out two-point-five blue-eyed, blond-haired children. Even if that meant her fifteen-year-old daughter fornicating in the Junior Society office.

I scoffed like I wasn’t freaking out as Able closed the distance with another step and forced his entire front against me. The alcohol on his breath could put an elephant to sleep. It was all I smelled as he leaned forward and squeezed a sloppy, wet kiss to the tip of my nose. His saliva slid into my nostrils, and I had never felt anything more disgusting.

My eyes flicked to the bottle of bourbon on the table behind him. The contents sat low behind the glass, nearly gone. I prayed to whatever higher power existed that Able had found it that way. That he was not plastered out of his mind.

“This isn’t funny, Able.”

I shoved again, but it was hopeless. I weighed barely a hundred pounds, and he doubled my weight. I parted my lips to shout, but his meaty fist covered it as he ground his hardness against my stomach.

Fight, Emery. You’ve got this.

I tried.

I kicked.

I clawed.

I screamed, even when his hand swallowed my cries.

Desperate, I sunk my teeth as deep as I could into the fleshy part of his palm. He cursed and released me long enough for me to run two steps before his arm wrapped around my midsection and hauled me against him.

Granite muscles met my exposed back. He carried me to the desk and bent me over it. My palms hit the mahogany with a hard Smack! I used the backs of them to cushion my head as it banged against the table. It was useless.

My vision blurred. I still saw stars by the time Able had torn the back of my dress and started peppering sickening kisses all over my flesh. His kisses formed a scattered constellation of saliva across my skin.

I gasped when I finally found my voice again. I could scream, but I was too far for anyone to hear and he would just covered my mouth again.

Switching tactics, I begged, “My lips.”

“Hmm?”

His tongue swiped a trail along my spine.

“My lips. Kiss my lips.”

Able spun me around and dug his erection into my stomach. “Emery Winthrop. So eager to please. Who knew?”

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