The Lying Season (Seasons #1) - K.A. Linde Page 0,33

why. I don’t know if I would have treated her differently. Her fear was likely warranted.” I shrugged. “It didn’t matter. We dated for about a year. We had a falling-out. She came back to the city, and I went home to North Carolina.”

Court sat up and leaned his elbows on his knees. “But what’s the whole story? Why’d it end?”

I laughed softly. Not a laugh filled with humor, but old anger laced with regret. I could tell him. He’d probably understand. But I just shook my head. “Dude, I don’t think you could get me drunk enough to tell the whole thing.”

Court leaned back in defeat. “One day, I will.”

“Maybe.”

“What about your girlfriend? She’s chill with you seeing Lark every day like this?” he asked, downing the remainder of his drink.

“Well…” I winced.

Then he started laughing. “Ah, there it is. Claire doesn’t know.”

“Not…exactly. She knows that I dated a girl on campaign, and it didn’t work out. She knows that I worked with Lark on campaign and that I’m working with her now. She just doesn’t know those are the same people.”

“Sneaky. Maybe you are one of us after all,” Court said as he headed back into the kitchen to pour himself another drink.

It was sneaky. But it felt necessary. I knew I should tell Claire. But…there was nothing going on with Lark and me. We’d decided to be friends. Of sorts. Plus, she was technically my boss. Telling Claire would bring undue complications in my already-complicated relationship.

“So, your ray-of-sunshine girlfriend, it’s all good there? She’s not potentially hiding a secret identity or stealing millions of dollars from overseas banks and her not-suspicious boyfriend, is she?”

I winced. Fucking Jane.

“She is not,” I told him. “Actually, she’s going on tour with her ensemble next week.”

“Is she? Where?”

“Europe,” I said with a sigh. “For twelve weeks.”

I hadn’t told anyone this. Not even my parents, who I checked in with every week. I didn’t know how to tell them that I’d moved to New York City, and now, Claire was leaving to go on tour.

Court’s eyebrows rose to the ceiling. “Whoa. She’s going to be gone for three months, and you’re going to be here with Lark every day?”

“It’s not like that.”

“Isn’t it?”

I shrugged and downed the rest of my own drink in one big gulp. Because…Court wasn’t wrong.

“Lark doesn’t have to know that Claire is gone.”

Court tipped his head back. “That’s going to go over well.”

“Honestly, I’ve been trying not to think about it.”

“I like your style,” Court said. “Ignore, avoid, and if worst comes to worst…deny, deny, deny.”

“That is not…”

“Hey, I am not judging. Look at the fucked up situation I’m in. I should have seen what Jane was doing. I should have known that it was wrong to give her all the money I did to help her with her stupid fucking nightclub. But she…she got me, you know?” Court sighed and looked up again. He looked like the kind of person who had just been forced to look directly at the sun after wearing sunglasses for so long. “I thought I loved her.”

“And now, it feels like a lie?”

He nodded once. “It was a lie. Everything she did and said and felt was a lie. Because Jane Devney doesn’t even exist. Did you see? Her real name is Janine Lehmann. German-French dual citizen. She’s nothing and no one. And she fooled me completely.”

I had seen. The news made it clear how much Court Kensington had been duped. Though…they all thought he had been in on it. I didn’t see what the benefit was to him, but no one was asking the real questions. They were too interested in the scandal.

“We’re all fools for love,” I told him.

But I wasn’t thinking about Jane or Claire when I said it.

My mind conjured a pair of green eyes and dark red hair.

I’d always been a fool for her.

14

Lark

“I cannot even believe you convinced me to fly out here,” English said three days later as she dropped her suitcase in my living room and pulled me into a hug. “You’re insane.”

I laughed and hugged her back. “I know, but I couldn’t imagine anyone else in the world taking on Court Kensington.”

“This isn’t even the kind of work I do.”

“Yes, it is,” I said, nudging her.

“Okay, it is. But I’m used to Hollywood. The Upper East Side and politics are their own craziness.”

“Which you already know about because you have me.”

“Knowing and living it is different,” English said. “But…yeah, I mean, I think