“Motherfucker,” West mutters.
“If I hear anything else, I’ll be sure to come straight to you, Mr. Archer. And if you’d like me to keep tabs on Lily for you, you know, keep a note of who she speaks to and stuff, just let me know. I’d be happy to oblige.”
His lascivious grin has me seeing red. “You stay the fuck away from Lily.”
His hands shoot up in the air like I’m pointing a gun at him. “Okay, okay. No worries, bro. But you should know that you have some enemies in this office. But not me! I’m on your side. One hundred percent loyal.”
West merely grunts at the guy, then looks at me and cocks his head toward the door.
I wait to speak until we’re alone in the elevator. “You think he was telling the truth?”
West pinches the bridge of his nose. “All I know for certain is that the only two people who know what the article’s about aren’t talking. And two separate people connected to this magazine have told us that it’s about us. What the fuck else are we supposed to think?”
“Maybe we could hack into her laptop and see this article for ourselves.” It’s a longshot. “You can do that kind of shit, and if you can’t, I know a guy.”
West shakes his head. “It would take a few days, and the article comes out next week. We need to fix this now, Zeke.”
“So, she’s just been playing us all along?” I blow out a breath. “What I don’t get is how she could have planned this. She had no way to know we’d end up living together.”
“Think about it. How she met all three of us on the same day and then showed up at our club that night. She could have orchestrated the whole thing.”
“But she couldn’t have known we’d be there that night.”
“Maybe she went every week until she bumped into us. Or maybe she got lucky on the first try.” He levels me with a stare. “Think about it, Zeke. The way she’s just too fucking perfect for us. How easily she adapted to the three of us and how she fits in with each of us like the missing piece of a puzzle. Like she’s …” Clenching his jaw shut, he shakes his head.
“Too good to be true?” I finish for him. “So, how the fuck do we handle this?”
“We fucking cut her loose. We let her go and we discredit her. We make sure that nobody believes a single goddamn word that comes out of her mouth ever again.”
Considering his idea, I nod. “And how do we do that?”
“The launch party tomorrow night. How about we show Lily exactly who she’s fucking with?”
Chapter
Forty
WEST
I stare at my monitor, a pencil gripped between my fingers so I can take notes, but the pages of numbers swim before my eyes. I can’t focus on anything other than how quickly everything has fallen apart. Lily isn’t who we believed she was. When I first heard Bree’s story, I was convinced that her jealousy drove her to cause trouble for us, but it turns out I’m not as good a judge of character as I thought.
It tracks that I was wrong about Lily this whole time. She’s been sleeping in our beds, letting us fuck her every single night, making us fall in love with her. All for a fucking story. She did say that nothing would ever stand in her way of becoming a writer, so I guess she didn’t lie about everything. The worst part about the whole mess is her involvement with the Constantines. I can hardly believe she’d crawl into bed with a pit of vicious snakes, but I saw the fucking proof with my own two eyes. My pencil snaps in my hand, snapping me from memories of Carmine Constantine—memories that are better off left in the past where they belong.
Lily startles, then smiles brightly when she comes out of the bathroom to find me sitting on her bed. She is one hell of an actress. “I didn’t think you’d all be home until later.”
I narrow my eyes, searching her face for any hint at all that she knows we’re onto her. But what the fuck do I think I’m gonna find? She played us all for months now. I’d admire her if I wasn’t so preoccupied with fighting the urge to wrap my hands around her throat and forcing her to tell me the truth. “Zeke and Xander aren’t back yet.”
Stepping closer, she bites her lip. “So we’re alone?”
My traitorous cock throbs. I need to get out of this room before I end up with a part of me inside her. “I have to work.”
I get up to walk out and she turns to the vanity. “You work too hard, West.”
The way she says it snaps something in me. Before I even know what I’m doing, I’m standing right behind her. “Yes, I do work hard, Lily. I have busted my ass for every single fucking thing I have.”