Page 168 of Sinful Lies

“Stop lying,” he interrupted, as he kissed me again, harder this time, his teeth catching my bottom lip and tugging just enough to make me gasp. “What’s wrong? Tell me.”

And God help me, because I wanted to.

But how do you tell the man you’d beensleepingwith—your walking disaster of an obsession—that tonight you were going to destroy him? That you’d spent six years weaving a web of lies sointricate evenyoucouldn’t remember where the truth began and the deception ended?

You don’t.

Because there’s no way to casually slip into conversation that you’d been lying for six years, pretending to be nothing more than his loyal, slightly-too-mouthy employee, when in reality, you’d been plotting to ruin everything he had ever cared about. And maybe it wouldn’t be so bad—if it weren’t for the fact that you’d also somehow managed to fall in love with him along the way.

Ironic, really.

Instead, you’d stand there, half-naked in his kitchen, wondering why you ever thought it was a good idea to fall for the man who had killed your sister.

And the worst part? I couldn’t even blame him for being so…him.

“Jade—”

“I’m just… processing, you know? You’re still my boss, Lazzio. And, well, I never expected to be the girl fucking with her boss.Repeatedly. What’s next? People whispering that I blow you in the elevator and let you bend me over your desk for raises?”

He laughed, the kind of laugh that made my chest clench with equal parts fury and betrayal.

Because, of course, only Angelo Lazzio could find my existential crisishilarious.

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” he said, kissing the tip of my nose.

“You’re insufferable,” I muttered, smacking his chest—not that it fazed him in the slightest.

He caught my hand effortlessly, brushing a kiss across my knuckles. “Don’t worry, Miss Whitenhouse. That’s the beauty ofbeing the CEO—if anyone so much as whispers, I’ll make sure it’s their last word.”

And just like that, I hated him even more.

Not for his arrogance, or his power.

But because, in that moment, I almost wanted to believe him.

Almost wanted to trust that he could protect me.

From whom, though?

From himself? From me?

No.

Not even he could save us from what I was about to do.

“How do I know you’re not lying, Miss Whitenhouse? You lied on national TV, claiming you were best friends with Miss Dupont and swearing her death was a tragic suicide. And now, out of nowhere, you’re telling me Angelo Lazzio murdered her? Forgive me if I’m having a hard time keeping up with your fairy tales.”

Alexandra Jasper wasn’t just a journalist—she was a predator. The kind who didn’t chase stories; she built careers off the wreckage of others’ lives. And as the reigning queen of Fox News’ prime-time slot, she had the claws to back it up.

She leaned back in her chair, her legs crossed, her perfectly manicured nails tapping against the table between us, a deliberate tick designed to unnerve her prey.

She called herself an investigative journalist.

I called her a vulture.

She circled the dead and dying, ready to pick their bones clean and call it “reporting.”

And if she smelled your weakness? God help you.

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