Chapter 25

25

Lila

So this is what it feels like to finally say the truth out loud.

My hands are clammy. My tongue is swelling. It's very likely I'm about to vomit all over the new furniture.

And that's just from letting four little words I've never said before escape into the world.

I barely ever think those words, much less utter them where other people can hear them.

Tripp's eyes are bulging, and mine are getting hot and wet. I can't reach into the air and snag the words back, and beneath all of the sour stomach, there's this new sensation unfurling.

Something new.

Different.

Unexpected.

Freedom .

How can I be simultaneously terrified and relieved? It's not supposed to work this way.

But now the floodgates have opened.

And I can't stand the silence. Not when I can see the questions already sprinting through his head. What? How? Since when? Who helped you? What else are you lying about?

"Uncle Guido taught me how to invest in the stock market when I was at boarding school," I whisper.

Tripp squeezes his eyes shut, and I want to smooth away all of the worry lines on his forehead.

I can't blame him. Uncle Guido is a disaster.

Sort of like me.

"I figured out fast that whoever had the most money controlled the school. I didn't want to control the school, but I didn't want to be a target either. I wanted to sit in the middle. Not get too much attention. When Uncle Al sent checks from what my parents had left, I used half on a few key purchases to fake coming from money. And then I studied the markets and historical trends and I put the rest into an investment account. And then my trust fund ran out, but even though I'd had gains, I didn't have enough to pay for the rest of school, and…things got complicated."

Tripp makes a strangled noise in the brightly-lit office that ten minutes ago felt like a new home, and now feels like it might decide to be a prison, or it might decide to be my favorite place in the entire world, but I won't know until I stop my verbal diarrhea, which I can't, because now that the truth is out there, I have to tell him everything.

"Fifteen," I answer, because I'm reasonably certain his noise meant how old were you? "I was fifteen, and I had friends—well, acquaintances that weren't enemies, anyway—and I felt like I belonged, and the headmistress called me into her office to let me know that Al had missed my tuition payment and wasn't answering her calls. She could give me thirty days before I'd be sent back to Copper Valley to live with him. So Uncle Guido forged death certificates for my parents so that I could file for their life insurance policies and stay in school."

" Jesus , Lila."

"And then he hatched a plan to use half of the life insurance money to buy one of my dad's paintings at auction, to drive up the prices for the rest of the artwork he'd rescued from our house in Germany, so I could go to college wherever I wanted."

My skin is itching. I'm both too hot and too cold, and the urge to throw up is back, stronger, because nothing about the rest of my story is easy. "That's when Dalton Wellington was born. We needed an owner of the paintings who could take the money without it being tied to me, because we didn't know if whoever was responsible for my parents disappearing would think I knew something too. And no one can create a person out of thin air like the CIA. And if anyone found out the auction was a fraud, it wouldn't fall back on me."

Tripp drops his head into his hands.

"So that's the truth. I'm Dalton Wellington. My fortune was built on a scam. And every day of the last decade, I've posed as my own assistant, because life's way less complicated when you're not the boss, and people are more willing to believe a rich man who supposedly made his fortune in tech stocks can make smart business decisions than a woman just out of college. And I've spent the last decade making up stories about Dalton Wellington like he's real, because it's a lot easier to hide behind being a lowly assistant without power than it is to put a target on your back by being a young female billionaire who got her start by having ringers drive up the prices on her dad's paintings at legal but unethical art auctions."

I hunch over and stick my head between my knees for the second time in less than twenty-four hours.

What am I doing?

Other than handing this man everything he needs to destroy me?

"Lila," he whispers.

That's it. Just my name.

But those four letters carry so much more meaning than just my name.

You lied to me. You put my children in danger. Did you ever care about the Fireballs at all? Or are you just using me to keep growing your obscene fortune?

"Thank you for letting me pretend I was normal for a little while."

I need to move. I need to go.

But suddenly, gentle fingers are threading through my hair, and he's kissing the crown of my head, and when I blink open my wet eyes, I realize he's kneeling in front of me.

Doing that hug thing again, except he can't hug me while I'm hunched over like this, so he's doing the next best thing and stroking my hair and my back and letting me lean my head into his chest.

"Lila," he says again, and I realize that's not censure in his tone.

It's—it's reverence .

"Uncle Guido is the only other person in the world who knows. He was afraid you would find out, but I—I'm tired, Tripp. I've been tired. I retired Dalton because I got bored with business and I got tired of the lies and I thought I could try being normal, because I can afford anything I want in the entire universe, even after giving millions to charities every year— that's why I was in New York last week, by the way—and I don't want to be stuck playing Dalton forever. I just want—I just want to be normal."

"Ms. Valentine? One-minute warning for your interview," Denise says through the intercom. "Also, I've had three media inquiries this morning about Fireballs Con and the exhibition game, and a walk-in applicant for a coach position. She's waiting in the lobby with me until you're free."

Tripp goes still. "Fireballs Con?" he says in a deadly still voice.

Fireballs Con .

Like that's the biggest thing he has to worry about.

Never mind that he just found out he slept with a woman who's so full of lies that some mornings I'm surprised I can see my own truth.

A bubble of hysterical laughter rises from my chest.

Tripp sighs and moves away, hitting the intercom button. "Tell Mr. Santiago we need to reschedule, Denise."

"No—" I start, but he puts his fingers to my lips as I lift my head, and then he's pulling me to him, crushing his mouth to mine, then pulling back, a smile growing and lighting his entire being.

"You're fucking unstoppable, aren't you?"

I don't know if I'm supposed to laugh or cry, so I settle for nodding. "You—you don't care? About Wellington?" I whisper.

"How many more secrets do you have?"

"That one makes the rest together look like a dot next to the sun."

"Why the fuck haven't you had security since college?"

"Because I'm a nobody."

"You, Lila Valentine—wait. Is that your real name?"

I nod through another embarrassed laugh while I wipe my eyes.

"Good. Because, as I was saying, you, Lila Valentine, are definitely somebody."

When he puts it like that, I do feel like somebody.

Somebody special.

Somebody special, who's no longer alone.

"Are we still going to fight about the Fireballs?" I ask.

" Fireballs Con? Yes. You're damn right we are."

I'm laughing again as I lean in to kiss him. Kiss him? I'm definitely not stopping at kissing this man.

They say the truth sets you free.

I don't know if that's entirely accurate, but I know that I wouldn't trade this moment with Tripp—or any in the past, or any to come—for any more of my lies.

This is the life I want.

And I'm going to hold on with both hands, and I'm going to deserve it.