Duplicity (13 page)

The look on his face was stern but soft. His expression was not
that of someone looking on a pathetic creature. It was anything but. “Wanting
to blame yourself is natural, but that doesn’t make it true. Nothing
—nothing—
you
did invited this.” He held her gaze as he spoke, not letting Lilith look away.
“Saying your profession enabled Francis to hurt you is a form of victim
blaming, and I won’t have that. Not even from you.”

Lilith closed her eyes against the tears that threatened. He
believed what he was saying; that much was clear. The words hurt because they
were kind, and kindness was a painful concept when she didn’t feel like she
deserved it.

He sat back.
“Anyway.
As I was saying,
you could also use sex as a means of getting people to love you, but again, you
don’t do that.” His tone now was assessing, as if he’d gone into a scientific
state of mind, just pointing out facts. He was a serious student, after all,
and Lilith found his clinical detachment helped remind
her
the
world wasn’t falling to pieces.

Everyone was emotional around her these last couple of days—Mal,
Dana, her father. Lilith knew Trey felt strongly about what had happened to
her—he’d said as much—but she wondered if he inherently understood that she
needed a break from the overload of emotions all around her.

He always did seem so in tune with what she needed.

Trey was oblivious to her internal monologue. “If you were just
using sex as a way to buy affection, I wouldn’t have consented to our
agreement. But it was obvious from the beginning we were on the same page. What
you and I have done is business. I know you get no pleasure from it.”

It was an automatic reaction to protest, but he tilted his head,
fixing her with a knowing look. “Don’t bullshit me. I know the difference
between a fake orgasm and a real one.” He touched his free hand to her arm.
“That’s fine. I needed a release. That’s what I was paying for, and that’s what
I got.”

His words cut off, and he snapped his mouth shut, appearing deep
in thought. It was obvious he was thinking twice about whatever he was about to
say. “If we
ever .
 . . If you and I
were ever to have sex—not for business, but because it was what we wanted to
do—it would be very different.”

He continued on, before she could say anything to that. “Of
course, I understand that your past somehow led to your present, but that’s
true of all of us. Would I be studying psychology if it weren’t for
Kassandra
?
Probably not.
Who
knows.
Either way, you’ve made a conscious choice to do what
you do. As a friend, I will never disrespect your choice as long as you’re not
hurting yourself or anyone else.” His smile was gentle. “That doesn’t mean I
won’t encourage you to want more. It
is
a dead end job, and you’re
capable of so much better.”

Lilith sighed, feeling tired. Everyone seemed to expect she was
capable of more, but no one could tell her what that was supposed to be.

His thumb swept just under where her IV needle disappeared into
her skin, soothing the ever-present itch there. “So you see? What I said the
other night wasn’t about any of that. You
have .
 . .
issues, but I don’t think your issue is what you do.”

Lilith smiled. His whole speech tonight sounded like he was
delivering a thesis. Trey wasn’t without his quirks.

“My issue is that I lie through my teeth,” she murmured after a
moment. Denial took more energy than self-reflection, it seemed.

“Well, I don’t know. I don’t think
it’s .
 . .
I mean, I understand why you would lie to your clients.” He squeezed her hand.
“But is that all I am to you?”

Looking down at their fingers again, she shook her head. “That is
my issue, you know. I lie. I can’t stop.” She ran the pad of her finger over
his skin. “I
don’t .
 . . if you knew I
was lying, why do you even like me enough to want to be my friend?”

At that he chuckled, and she looked up, surprised to see him
grinning. “I don’t think you understand how rare it is for me to get along with
someone as well as I get along with you.”

“Well—”

“I know. You’re going to say you were being paid to get along with
me, but I don’t think that’s the whole truth. Yeah, you were being paid to be
there.” Humor touched his eyes as he tilted his head. “Let’s not discuss the
pathology of that because I’ll admit, sometimes I was paying you to stick
around because I was lonely, but believe me; no one has the discussions we have
because they’re being paid.” He pursed his lips. “I like to dissect things,
concepts.”

“People.”

He smirked, his smile lighting his eyes. “Yes. People, too. Most
get impatient with me, and I with them, because they want a shallow
connection—what did you do this weekend, who did you screw, what movie did you
watch?” His smile was gentle. “Our connection isn’t shallow.”

There was a joke to be made there, but Lilith wasn’t up to it. Her
head felt heavy with this overload of information.

Again, like with her father, she wanted to believe. She did. She
wanted to tell him she could be his friend. Lilith had no idea what kind of a
friend she could be. She knew she didn’t want him to leave, but there was that
nagging voice in her head that said it was selfish to want him to stay.

If she didn’t have the words, would he fade away from her life?

In the end, he made it as easy as changing the subject.
“So.
That
guy .
 . .
what was his name?
Mal?”

“Oh, Mal.
I’m
sorry about him.”

“No, that’s okay. He was in protective mode.” His eyes swept her
form, and she saw his lips tug down at the corners. “I can’t say I blame him.”

Falling back into conversation with him was simple. She told him
about Mal and Dana and a little about her
father,
and
the world didn’t fall down around her.

It was a start.

Chapter 15

~Ten Months Later~

As she stepped down from the witness stand, Lilith was racked with
uncontrolled shakes. How she managed to make it the few steps from the stand to
the gallery where a small entourage waited for her, she never knew. It was the
longest walk of her life, but she got to them.

Dana and Lilith wrapped their arms around each other’s waists, not
caring that it made walking awkward. Mal fell into step on her other side, his
arm over her shoulders, and her father brought up the rear, as if guarding them
all.

Lilith closed her eyes and didn’t open them again until they were
at the car.

Before she ducked into the backseat, her father kissed the side of
her head. “I’m proud of you Lily-bean.”

She might have argued, but even she had to admit getting through
her testimony without curling up into a fetal ball had been a feat. Frank’s
lawyers were among the best in the state, and they’d been ruthless. She was a
tough chick, she knew she was, but they’d raked her over the coals.

For two years, she’d lived a peaceful life without hurting anyone,
yet his lawyers made it sound as though she were the devil incarnate. She was
salacious and scandalous—a succubus preying on men, bewitching them. Of course,
Frank was painted as the victim. On paper, he looked better. He was educated
and well liked at the university. His family gave to the community.

And Lilith was just a whore—uneducated and immoral. She’d gotten
her fair share of hits in, so along with images of her battered body, the jury
had been shown pictures of his bruised face and the stab wound. The picture had
been taken soon after surgery so the wound looked angry and grisly.

In the car, hiding her head in Dana’s hair, Lilith tried to stop
her world from spinning out of control.

The word
victim
had been bandied about again. Lilith still
hated that word. It made her feel weak. It made her feel less. That word made
her testimony for the prosecution as difficult as the cross examination for the
defense.

Lilith was beginning to accept that
victim
was a label that
had been thrust upon her without her consent. Mr. Harper had made her a victim
when he took advantage of a child’s trust. She’d been a victim of her father’s
negligence, and of Frank’s sense of entitlement.

Once she had accepted those things had happened to her, it was
easier to see what she’d missed before. She wasn’t fine. She was far from fine.
She had just as many issues as Mal and Dana; they had just manifested in a
different way. Somewhere along the line, she had retreated so far into her head
it was difficult to stay present in reality.

After she’d given in to her father’s request to come home, it
became clear there was something very wrong with her. It was one thing when she
spaced out in the middle of a group of Mal and Dana’s friends but quite another
when she did it around her family. Her father and stepmother were trying to
rewrite their relationship with her, trying to make amends for all the
misconceptions and judgments of the past, but Lilith’s complete inability to
have a conversation tried their patience.

This was the crux of most of her problems. Holding down a job,
going to
school .
 . . it all took
concentration. Among the litany of things Lilith had to relearn—how to be a
good sister, daughter,
friend
— was how to be present
for more than a few seconds at a time.

The first semester she went back to school, she’d started with
four classes. In the first week, it had become clear she couldn’t handle even that
much, and so she had to cut back to two. Her father had gotten her a data entry
job at his company, but she’d lost it because she couldn’t keep up with the
workload. Since then, she’d gotten a student job in the bookstore of the
community college. Most of her duties related to stocking and straightening,
neither of which took much concentration. She was free to space out all she
wanted as long as she kept her hands moving.

It wasn’t so long after she got out of the hospital that her
apathy faded and the anger was back with a vengeance. Struggling with simple
things left Lilith frustrated and bitter. She lashed out at her parents, her
little brother, Mal and
Dana .
 . .

And Trey.

Trey was simultaneously one of the best parts of her life and one
of the most infuriating. Whenever she threw a tantrum aimed in his direction,
he would smile and nod and make her want to call him an arrogant asshole.
Either because he knew it irritated the hell out of her or because she needed
to hear it, he always went psych mode after she’d run out of steam. He knew why
anger was her constant companion.

“Anyone would choose anger over fear.”

“Fuck you. Why would I be afraid?”

“Because there’s too much at stake, and that’s scary.” He’d
reached for her, pulling her into a hug as he spoke. “This is you. You’ve
always expected that your family, your friends would reject the real you. If
they do, it will hurt more because they won’t be rejecting whatever fantasy you
created, they’ll be rejecting who you are.” He tilted her head up, not letting
her look away. “And you know exactly what that feels like.”

She’d turned her head out of his grasp. “You think you know
everything,” she’d muttered, but his words had hit home.

Truth and trust were precious commodities, and it had been a long time
since she’d given either freely. It was unnerving sometimes how much Trey saw.
It always made her feel naked.
Vulnerable.

But Trey’s eyes that saw too much were nothing compared to the
eyes of the jury, the courtroom, watching her give her testimony. Though it was
hard to admit, Lilith understood that Trey saw too much of her because he cared
enough to observe. Having to give these people, these strangers,
pieces
of herself was a special kind of hell.

The prosecutors of Frank’s case were trying to hold him
responsible for his share of Lilith’s physical and mental suffering. It wasn’t
going to give her back what he’d taken: her peace of mind, her belief that she
was safe because she could protect herself under the right circumstances. But
walking out of that courtroom, not even anger could overcome her innate, if
irrational, terror that she stood to lose everything.

Trey was right. Her life, what little of it she’d managed to
gather, was precious to her. Some days she was just waiting for the bastard kid
from
Identity
to pop out at her, ready to destroy what she’d begun to
build. Why should she get a second chance? The thought of losing it had her
frozen with fear. Her chest constricted, her throat was tight.

“Just keep breathing,” Dana whispered to her. “It will get better.
It will get easier.”

Lilith bristled, but it occurred to her that Dana had become the
voice of experience. Her friend knew what it was like to have to put so much of
herself out there. So did Mal. That was part of the process of getting better,
and for once, they knew more than Lilith did.

They were working on talking Lilith into getting professional
therapy, but she wasn’t quite there yet.

She concentrated on Dana’s soft words, letting her lead, and
Mal’s
hand rubbing gentle circles against her back.

The worst that could happen was Frank walking free, she reminded
herself. After a thorough investigation, she had been cleared of any
wrongdoing. No charges would be brought against her.

One way or another, the verdict in Frank’s trial would not—could
not—destroy the life she was building piece by piece. It didn’t matter who she
had been—she was the only one in control of who she was becoming.

By the time they got home, the world wasn’t spinning quite so
crazily. She felt a little better when she got in the door and Aiden hugged
her—no hint of his usual teenage
snark
present. Like
her father, Delilah hugged her tight and told her she was proud.

Then Trey was there, holding his hand out. When she took it, he
pulled her close, wrapping her in his arms and swaying them back and forth, his
lips warm against her hair.

Right then, Lilith was kicking herself for making him stay out of
the courtroom. It had been a power play. She’d been frustrated when they all pressured
her to let him pay for an attorney. Sexual assault cases were notorious for
being difficult to prosecute. Not only was Frank rich—his attorney would be
brutal, no doubt—but Lilith had sex for money. Being realistic, the jury’s
first inclination would be to disbelieve the assault was his fault. She needed
a good lawyer’s clever arguments; she needed someone just as brutal as Frank
would hire.

No one wanted to see him go unpunished for what he’d done, and
Lilith had accepted Trey’s offer on the condition he would stay away today.
When she was in his arms, she could admit to herself she’d needed him, his
steadfastness, since she’d been called to the stand.

Somewhere along the line, Trey had become essential to her. She’d
known for a long while now she should stop fighting it. Not all change was so
bad. He was the first one she wanted to turn to when something happened, big or
small. She’d never struggled to talk to him the way she struggled with everyone
else.

Either way, a hug from Trey did wonders to soothe the intrinsic
fear that had her still shaking.

The rest of that day and the next, as they waited for a verdict,
her friends and family rarely left her side. Lilith recognized she was being
very clingy with Trey. She didn’t let go of his hand if she could help it, but
as crazy as it made her feel, she couldn’t deny she needed it. She needed him.

She was getting better at asking for and taking the things she
needed.

When the verdict came in, Lilith was sandwiched between Trey and
her father. She was squeezing the crap out of Trey’s fingers, but he didn’t
complain.

Her father exhaled in a gust. “Yes. Thank you. Thank you very
much.”

When he turned to her, he was smiling, and she knew what he was
going to say.

“Guilty.”

~0~

Trey looked bemused when Lilith hung up the phone.

“What?” she
asked,
a little defensive.

“You don’t need to tell them all that when you call in sick to
work, you know.” He tickled her sides, teasing her. “You have sick time. All
you have to do is say you’re feeling under the weather and leave it at that.”

Lilith grimaced.

It was still second nature for her to spin tales under certain
circumstances, especially when she felt she was doing something wrong. She
wasn’t sick, but Trey had talked her into taking a mental health day—or to be
more accurate, a mental health afternoon since she worked part-time. When she
called in, she’d found herself babbling a much more elaborate excuse than was
necessary.

She sat next to him on the sofa, nestling up close with her head
on his shoulder. “I bruise pretty easily. When I was in high school, I made up
this
whole .
 . . thing. I said the
doctors weren’t sure what was wrong with me. They were always doing blood
work—which was true, but it was because they had me on an acne medication that
necessitated checking once a month to make sure my kidneys were still working
right—but I told all my teachers it was because they were trying to figure out
why I was always tired.” She smirked. “I used to use it as an excuse to get out
of class early and go lay down in the journalism room.”

“You were in journalism?”

Trust Trey to pick up on that one factoid out of her whole story.

“Does that surprise you? It’s just another extension of liking
other people’s stories.” She picked up his hand, playing with his fingers. “And
I was Entertainment Editor my junior and senior year, which meant I got advance
screening tickets to movies so I could review them. It was great.”

He hummed. “And you don’t want to be a journalist?
Maybe a movie critic?”

The corners of her mouth bent upward, and she lifted her head. “I
don’t think so. I hate deadlines.” She pressed her lips together, hesitating a
moment before she continued. “I was thinking maybe I want to work at a daycare.
Little kids wandering around. I think I could talk to little kids.” She tried
to smile. “I have the same attention span, after all. That would be nice,
wouldn’t it?”

She’d changed her mind about what she might want to do at least a
dozen times since she’d started to allow herself think about the rest of her
life. Nothing was a perfect fit, but then, life wasn’t supposed to be a perfect
fit.

“I think if it makes you happy, that’s all that matters.” He
paused. “Do you want kids?”

Lilith’s stomach flip-flopped. She squirmed. “I
don’t .
 . .
I don’t know.”

She struggled to wrap her head around the idea of what she wanted
her life to look like five years from now. She wasn’t capable yet of dealing
with a concept as irrevocable as a child.

“Take it easy, Lil.” Trey rubbed her shoulders. “It was just a
random question.”