Page 39 of A Favor Owed

Angela Pines is supposed to be a stuck-up, spoiled, bitchy, selfish idiot who doesn’t care who gets hurt by her stupid escapades. She’s supposed to be having an episode of immature defiance before going back to Mommy and Daddy and living the life she was born to live. But this girl? She’s someone else entirely. Someone who wants to help people and have a normal life even if it means never again having the luxury she’s used to. Someone who hides a whole lot of sweetness under a whole lot of attitude. Someone who draws me in with the soft curves of her body and cuts me with the sharp edges of her personality. This is my kind of girl.

And goddamn, she smells good.

I breathe her in, mesmerized by coconut hair and citrus skin with a faint hint of sweat and sex thrown in. I want this smell on my sheets forever.

“That’s it, Pines,” I say. “I’m never washing these sheets.”

Her soft laugh tickles my collarbone. “That doesn’t sound very hygienic.”

“How am I going to keep the Angie smell on them, then?”

She shrugs, and just the slightest movement of her tits against my chest starts turning me on again. “Maybe I’ll come over again,” she suggests offhandedly.

“Maybe? Maybe I’ll drag you over here again, over my shoulder if I have to.”

“I don’t know if you realize this, Brady, but that comes off as more of a promise than a threat.”

“Shit, Pines,” I growl, “you’re killing me.” The soft scent of her perfume is making me lightheaded. “Two of the great mysteries of the world,” I say, my hand running down the length of her gorgeous body. “How does Angela Pines smell so good, and when the hell does she find time to get a full-body wax?”

Angela laughs again. “I don’t find the time,” she says. “I had all unwanted hair lasered off during freshman year of college.” And then both of us freeze. Laser hair removal? I might be a guy, but even I know that’s some expensive shit. No foster care kid struggling to make ends meet in college in one of the most expensive cities in the world is getting laser hair removal.

Nope. Angela Pines just fucked up.

“I had a friend who worked—” she begins, but I stop her.

“Angela.” I tilt her chin up so she’s looking at me. Her eyes are calm and cool behind their blue mask. My heart is racing. If I don’t play along with her game, she might kick me straight to the curb. But I can’t do it, not here and now. I can’t let her hang out next to me naked in bed and lie to me. “Look, I know you’re hiding something. Probably lots of stuff. And I’m starting to think you have a really good reason for it. So it’s cool if you don’t want to tell me things. Just don’t lie to me, okay?”

She moves away from me. Shit. I knew it. “I don’t owe you the truth,” she says, her eyes like flint. “I don’t owe you anything.”

“I’m not asking you for the truth,” I say. “I’m asking you not to lie.” She continues to stare at me with those fake eyes, as cold now as they had been warm a few minutes ago. Pulse sprinting, I slowly reach out and touch her cheek, half expecting her to slap it away. “What do you think?”

She closes her eyes. The sadness and softness in her voice when she speaks take me by surprise. “My whole life is a lie,” she says.

I brush my knuckles along her cheek. “Hey,” I say. “Is wanting to be a lawyer a lie?”

“No,” she whispers.

“Is wanting to help trafficking victims a lie?”

“No.”

“Is being attracted to my irresistible Irish charm a lie?”

She opens her eyes, mostly to give me an annoyed look but also just to look at me.

“Is it?” I press. “This is a matter of utmost importance to my ego, Pines. Spit it out. Yes or no?”

A small smile breaks out on her face. “No, it’s not a lie,” she says, finally batting my hand away. I pull her back toward me, relieved that I haven’t lost her—yet—and bury my face in her coconut hair.

“See? Your whole life’s not a lie. The important stuff is all true.” I grab her face abruptly. “You weren’t lying about not being a Red Sox fan, were you?”

She smacks my shoulder. “No, you idiot,” she says, freeing her face from my hand and burrowing back into my chest. I squeeze her against me.

“It’s all good, then.”

She lies against my chest, her hand resting on my bicep. “I am hiding stuff,” she eventually says. It sounds like the words are being dragged out of her. “It’s not a game, and it’s not safe for you to know what’s going on. That’s all I can tell you.”

“Safe for you or safe for me?”

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