I unravel the strand of hair from my finger and put my hands on my lap, stabbing my nails into my legs to channel my anxious energy there. “What did you tell him when he asked?”
He smashes his lips together. One. Two. Three seconds go by. “That you were with me all night.”
I sit up straight in the chair, freeing a trapped out a breath I was holding in my chest. “You lied for me. Why?”
“Because I care about you.” He gives a shrug, like it’s no big deal, when it is. He leans forward and rests his arms on the desk. “It’s not that big of a deal.”
“I’m not buying it,” I tell him with skepticism. “You can’t care about someone you hardly know.”
“I know you better than you think,” he says, his tone carrying an underlying meaning that sends a chill up my spine. “You just don’t want to believe I do. You want to be mysterious. Want people not to see who you really are.”
I don’t like where he’s going with this. I slouch back in the chair, keeping eye contact even though I desperately want to look away. “You might think so, but you’re wrong.”
“Am I?” he mumbles to himself without taking his focus off me. He seems so undecided, so confused. “I have to ask you something and I need you to answer me truthfully.”
“What makes you think I’d lie to begin with?” Maybe he does know me better than I thought.
You might want to prepare yourself.
What does that mean?
“Because I know you do a lot,” he says straightforwardly. “But I need you not to lie this time. I need you to give me this for lying to the police to you.”
“I didn’t ask you to do that,” I remind him. I know I should be being more cooperative, but he’s troubling me with his persistence for the truth. It worries me what he’s going to ask.
“I know you didn’t,” he replies. “But like I said, I did it because—”
“Because you care for me,” I finish for him. Is he being genuine? It seems like it, but I don’t think I’m the best judge to come to this conclusion. I can barely understand myself, let alone another person.
I place my arms on the armrests, knowing I have no choice but to let him ask his question. Whether or not I answer truthfully is an entirely different story. “What do you want to know and I’ll try my best to give you a real answer.”
You better be ready.
He seems undecided, taking a deep breath and exhaling. “I want to know whether I’m talking to Maddie right now… or Lily.”
Chapter 23
Maddie
It takes a moment for my mind to catch up with what he said. Quite honestly, I think I’m having one of my hallucinations. But as River stares at me from across the desk, waiting eagerly for a response, I realize that this is reality. That he did ask me if I was Lily. That somehow he’s discovered my alter ego that might be named after my dead sister. Perhaps he’s even met her. I can’t help but think of the man that broke into the house. He called me Lily… It didn’t sound like River, but still…
“Who’s Lily?” I play dumb, coiling a strand of my hair around my finger.
“Maddie, please don’t do that,” he says in a soft, soothing voice, which seems out of character for someone who knows about the other part of me that has killer tendencies. “Don’t go back to where we started.”
“Where we started? What start? We never had a start, River. We fooled around sometimes. That’s it.” Wow, you’re just as cruel as me. I didn’t think you had it in you. Bravo.
I can’t help but think of the memory of me cutting Lily and how she seemed proud of me when I did it. Why do you like when I’m bad?
Because it’s who you are, yet you fight it so hard. You let fear own you, so afraid of being what you are.
River blows out a frustrated breath. Seconds tick by and I veer toward hyperventilation. I need fresh air. Need to get out of here. I glance at the door, just over my shoulder, wondering if he’d chase me if I bailed. If he did, I could fight him. Hurt him. Maybe even get rid of him. It might be necessary now that he knows.
Before I can budge, he scoots back his chair to get to his feet. “That’s not true. We had a start,” he says, rounding the desk and coming up in front of me, in an intimidating manner. “The start of where you told me who you really were.”
I tip my chin up, eyes narrowed as I slant forward instead of leaning back. I won’t be afraid of him, even if he knows my dirty little secret. “I’m Maddie. That’s it. No one else.”
The corner of his lip tips up and he gives me a half smile, reaching forward and cupping my cheek. “I know that.”
“I’m not this Lily person.” I move from his touch, working to take slow, even breaths. My chest is heaving though like a volcano ready to erupt, and he notices, his attention sliding downward to my br**sts. “That would make me crazy.”
He tears his gaze away from my chest, his hand following me, his finger tracing a line back and forth across my cheekbone. His sleeves are rolled up and I can see faint lines of healing wounds up his arms, probably from where I clawed him a week ago. He notices me staring at the marks and pulls his hand away from my cheek to touch them.
“That night when you came up to my office and gave me these,” he begins. “You were calling yourself Lily.”
My breath catches and I quickly clear my throat. “That’s my nickname. Sometimes I like to go by it.”
He shakes his head then drops to his knees in front of me, so we’re at eyelevel. “You told me everything. About Lily. About Maddie. How you two coexist together.” He glances down at his arms then back at me, then places his hands on top of my thighs. “This was of course after you attacked me.”
“Attacked you? I thought you said things got kinky and I got rough.”
“They did. But it started when you burst into the office, strolled up to me, and… wrapped your fingers around my neck.”
Oh my God, Lily. What the f**k did you do?
I was trying to protect us. He sees too much, but things didn’t work out how I planned.
Great job. Now he sees everything.
It was an accident.
How?
She doesn’t respond and I flick my eyes to the door again, which is wide open. All I need to do is distract him and make a run for it.
“Don’t worry,” River says, his hands clamping down on my knee, securing me in place, as if he senses my desire to flee. “You didn’t hurt me… you let go as soon as I asked you to, almost like you didn’t even realize you were doing it. Then after I got you calmed down, you told me… about who you were… about Lily.”