Page 34 of Sinful Lies

I couldn’t help but laugh—really?

Ah, and of course, a card.

It read:“Try not to get arrested again. I won’t save you next time.”

After that, things were … different.

Not in a good way.

Sure, we still had our usual rounds of me driving him insane by spilling coffee on his shoes, stealing his pens, and flirting with the movers who brought in his precious sculptures. But for somereason, he was colder. More distant. Like he’d put up an invisible wall, and I didn’t quite know how to knock it down.

He pretended my birthday night had never happened, and I wasn’t exactly going out of my way to remind him. Pretending was easier, anyway.

Then he had disappeared. Gone for seven months, off to Latin America—Mexico, Argentina, Brazil. Some business nonsense that I couldn’t care less about.

When he had come back, he was even colder.

I’d hoped the sun would’ve melted the frost off his soul, but it hadn’t. Still, he had the same icy glare, the same superiority complex, and the same way of looking at me like I was something beneath his shoe.

As for me? After the Aussie debacle that almost had me in an orange jumpsuit, I decided one-night stands were a thing of the past.

Well, at least theno-strings-attachedkind.

Flirting and make-outs though? That was still fair game.

Keeping it light, keeping it fun—no more getting tied up in anything too complicated. Men were too unpredictable—especially in New York.

I’d had enough of the drama.

Less chance of getting arrested, more chance of keeping my sanity intact.

What I hadn’t known back then was that a few weeks later, I’d get that promotion—but not in the way I had expected. Not by annoying Lazzio until he finally caved, but by stumbling onto one of hisdirtiestlittle secrets.

“You added a butterfly to your necklace?” My mama’s voice was soft, her eyes tracing the new charm.

Instinctively, I reached for it, my fingers gently caressing the two little gold butterflies.

“Yeah… one for Papa, and…” My words faltered.

She smiled with a wistful, sad curve of her lips. “They’re beautiful, Jadie.”

With a sigh, we both finished our brunch and caught a taxi back to my place.

The afternoon was spent in the comforting rhythm of cooking lasagna together, the aroma filling my apartment, and then collapsing on the couch to watchThe Notebook.

We tried to carve out some mother-daughter time, pretending for a few hours that everything was right in the world between us. Even though, deep down, I knew things would never quite be the same again.

Chapter

Eight

“They won't believe you until you succeed.”

?Brajesh Kumar Singh

Jade

28 years old

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