Home > Twisted Love (Modern Romance #3)(7)

Twisted Love (Modern Romance #3)(7)
Author: Piper Lawson

Now it seems as if there’s a bigger problem—my friend is pulling away from me at warp speed.

“I know what makes you tick. I know why you’re as protective of Lil as if she were your own kid. I know you can size someone up before they even open their mouth. That any man should be terrified to sit across a negotiating table from you, and anyone you invite into your life is so goddamn lucky.” Her eyes go shiny at my words, and it takes me a second to regain my composure. “I don’t get why this is a big deal. Go to the gala with me. Act like I’ve seen you naked. A lot of women would kill to be my pretend girlfriend.”

Her gaze drags down me, and awareness has the hairs on my arms lifting even before she leans in, close enough I get a hit from her jasmine shampoo.

“Then invite one of them.”

She shoves past me and heads back down the hall, her wedge sandals clicking on the floor and sounding like something I'm not used to hearing, especially from my best friend.

Rejection.

 

 

3

 

 

Monday is the most important day in my recent memory, but after I get up, shower, and dress for my meeting with Richard Vane, there’s nothing to eat.

“Are we all out of bagels?” I call from the kitchen of my two-bedroom apartment.

Lil sticks her head out of the bathroom, toothbrush in her mouth, wet hair hanging around her head and a fluffy purple towel fastened around her body. “Rtkmthlbry.”

“Come again?”

She disappears, returning a moment later without the toothbrush and dragging her fingers through shoulder-length hair darkened to chocolate by the shower. “I took them to the library to study. They’re a good dinner."

I grab my phone off the kitchen counter and head for the door of the apartment.

"Hey,” she calls after me. “I wanted to talk to you about something.”

I glance at the time. I need to get to the office. “What’s up?”

“How would I go about getting a small bank loan? I mean, I know how banks work and inflation and monetary policy,” she goes on as if she’s ticking off shades of toenail polish, “but I mean getting an actual person at the financial institution to approve my actual request for cash.” She folds her arms over the towel.

“Tell me how much you need.” I pull out my phone and tap a few keystrokes.

“Thirty thousand dollars.”

Her young, makeup-free face scrunches, and I blink at her. “Lil, in what world is that small?”

“It is compared to the GDP of even the most emergent national economy.” Defensiveness accompanies the folded arms.

“What do you need thirty grand for?”

“My scholarship for the fall is gone.” The words are so low and miserable I barely make them out.

Horror slams into me. “How? You crushed your finals in April. You have one of the best GPAs in your program.”

“I was so focused on my exams I missed the email reminding me to file my end of term paperwork.”

Unbelievable. Lil’s always been the brain of our family, but when her head’s not in a book, it’s in the clouds.

“Call the financial aid office. Talk to them.”

“I did. I explained what happened. They wouldn't reconsider.” Her eyes are big and round like she knows she fucked up. “I’m sorry.”

I don’t even know who she’s apologizing to. “It’s okay. I’ll figure it out.”

It’s one more weight on me on this already critical day, but I feel partly responsible.

Vi, Lil, and I might be sisters, but we were always distinctive. Vi was the popular one. Lil’s the smart one.

After Vi up and left in college with zero notice, my parents were as shocked as I was, only they blamed me, deciding I must have done something to drive her away. As a result, Lil got shortchanged, dealing with the awfulness plus my parents’ disappointment and distraction.

I’m trying to make up for it. When Lil finished her first year at Columbia, I suggested she live with me. I don’t charge her rent.

As I rummage through the front hall console table, Lil asks, “What’re you doing the spastic gopher for?”

“My bracelet. I can’t find it. I don’t want to pitch without it.”

Even though my sister left, I kept the one thing we always had in common—the matching Tiffany bracelets Vi got us when we were eighteen. She saved an entire summer for them, which was so unlike her I never forgot it.

“Did you have it after brunch?”

I frown. “I don’t remember.”

“You seemed weird when you got home,” she goes on.

I give up, reaching for my black strappy heels.

She moves between the door and me. “Did something happen at brunch? Like the waitress dropped her tray because she was checking out Logan again? You need to let me hang out with your friends.”

Lil might be so focused on one thing she misses all else, but she will dig until she learns the truth.

I answer as honestly as I can. “Ben was nominated for this big award and asked me to be his date for the gala next month.”

Lil’s face slackens. “Bougie crowd, uncomfortable shoes, pretentious types… but good arm candy.”

“He wants me to pretend to be his girlfriend.”

She grabs my arms, a dreamy smile spreading across her face. “You have to do it.”

That stops me.

I think of how persistent he was yesterday, how stunned when I’d said no.

None of it matters. I’m trying to put boundaries on our relationship—boundaries that are long overdue, especially if I’m entertaining the idea of an actual relationship with someone else—not get in deeper.

“You realize if you don’t do it, he’ll get someone else,” Lily points out as I reach for the door. “He’ll smile at her and kiss her and grab her ass—”

“There won’t be ass grabbing."

“All new relationships involve ass grabbing,” she calls after me as I start down the hall. “It's a well-documented fact!”

The entire way to the office, I try to focus on my pitch, rubbing my hand over my wrist where my missing bracelet goes.

Getting to the office always comforts me, because it’s mine. I created it from nothing. Sure, the building was here before, but all the activity in it started with me.

Occupying a suite on the second floor of a converted warehouse in SoHo, Closer helps customers with relationship products, everything from online dating to sex toys to lingerie to—if I can land this Vane account—couples’ resorts. And I want to expand to help other companies improve the relational aspects of their businesses. Technology helps but can make people feel disconnected rather than connected if the creators aren’t intentional.

I want to be intentional.

Plus, I love that I've built a team of more than a dozen account reps, designers, and communications experts who are not only savvy businesspeople but amazing individuals. I consider all of them family, and some of them friends too.

The two tenants below Closer are a cannabis dispensary and a rare bookstore that specializes in mainly erotic literature, fiction and nonfiction. It’s kind of poetic.

Once I’m upstairs, I say hello to the four people here this early, including Kendall, who's sitting in with me on the Vane pitch, before heading to my office.

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