The Lying Season (Seasons #1) - K.A. Linde Page 0,8

been easy to talk to Sam after all. “They try to force their way into my life. God, just this morning, my mother showed up with, like, half of Barneys in my apartment.” I shook my head. “I still have no idea what to do with all that shit.”

He laughed and leaned back in the chair, watching me with warm, attentive eyes. “That sounds right.”

I sighed. “Look Sam, I know that we have history, but…”

He held up his hand. “I get it, Lark. You don’t even have to say anything. This is your life. And I jumped into the middle of it. I don’t want to get in the way.”

“Oh. Okay,” I muttered. “We can just keep it professional.”

“Yes,” he agreed. His eyes slipped from mine to travel down my neck and to the opening of my white blouse and then snapped right back up. “Strictly work relationship.”

I flushed at the attention. At the way he could make me feel both sexy as hell and like the room was burning up in one look.

“Good,” I forced out. “I’m glad we’re…on the same page.”

Sam stood then. He slipped the button through the hole on his suit jacket, shrugging it back into place around his broad shoulders. My eyes memorized those lines. The shape of him. The brake I’d just put in the middle of our relationship. We were just friends. I couldn’t keep staring at him like this. Fuck.

He shot me a half-smile as if he could read my mind. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Yeah, tomorrow,” I said as he strode to the door. And every other fucking day after that.

He reached the door and glanced back at me just once. “It’s really good to see you, Lark.”

“You too,” I whispered just as he slipped out the door.

Wanting to be professional felt like the biggest lie I’d ever told.

4

Lark

Katherine Van Pelt was bathed in a puddle of light that seemed to have been made just for her. That was how it always was with my oldest friend. The universe revolved around her. She had that something that everyone else would kill for.

“How do you do that?” I asked.

Katherine turned to face me. Her brown hair was down past her shoulders in supermodel waves that looked effortless. Her big brown eyes were lined with kohl, making them appear to be twice their normal size. Her lips were painted a deep, dark red. The kind of lipstick that had a name like—Uncensored, Siren, or Don’t Stop.

She arched one perfectly groomed eyebrow. “Do what?”

“Make the light bend your way. We’re in a club, for Christ’s sake,” I said, gesturing to the gyrating masses before us. “How do you have a fucking spotlight?”

She shrugged. A keen look coming into her eyes. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

I rolled my eyes and turned back to face the crowd. English and Whitley should have been here already. I hadn’t heard from either of them yet either, except a text after work from English, saying that they’d meet us.

“Where are they?” I muttered. “I’m usually the one who is late.”

“Stop worrying.” Katherine took another glass of champagne from our waitress.

She’d procured a booth for us by dropping the Van Pelt last name—old Upper East Side money. Unlike me, Katherine had no qualms about using all the advantages she had to get what she wanted.

Katherine gestured for the waitress to hand me a drink as well.

I gratefully took it. Two days with Sam in my office, and I needed this drink.

“I’m surprised we’re at Sparks,” I told her to get my mind off of him. “I thought you liked Club 360.”

A cloud passed over her face. “I did. But…Natalie happened,” Katherine said dryly. “The audacity of that girl.”

“What’d she do?” I asked, surprised I hadn’t already heard about it.

Katherine waved a hand. “What hasn’t she done? I’m over her. I don’t even want to go to her party, but I won’t let her try to dethrone me.”

I would have laughed if Katherine wasn’t deathly serious. For as long as I could remember, I’d had my crew. Penn was the ringleader. Katherine was the instigator. Lewis egged them both on. And Rowe was…well, Rowe—a tech genius and the quiet type. And then there was me. I was the glue that kept them all together. And lately, that had been a lot harder than it used to be.

Katherine and Penn had been hot and cold, on-again/off-again since, well, ever. Until Natalie. It didn’t matter that Katherine had entered an arranged