Page 1 of Marry Lies
PROLOGUE
THE FOUNTAIN, PART ONE
Miles
One Year Ago, Paris
You’d think taking a three a.m. stroll around the Eiffel Tower would lend me some solitude and quality alone time. Instead, there’s a naked woman a hundred feet away from me, traipsing through the Fountain of Warsaw at Les Jardins du Trocadero. I’d watched her with interest from a couple hundred yards away as she set her things on the ground and quickly stripped down to nothing. Averting my gaze like a gentleman, I began walking in theotherdirection, but then I stopped.
I suppose you could say my curiosity got the best of me, as it always does.
My opinion of the general public is low. People are unreliable, insatiable, and self-interested. Of course, that also includes me, but I’mjustdelusional enough to consider myself smarter than most people. It’s rare for something to pull me out of my structured routine—rare for something to pique my interest. Once it does, I have to see it through.
If I gave into every whim, I’d never get anything done.
Which is why I’m both fascinated and irritated with the naked woman in the fountain—especially because she’s leaning her head back and smiling.
I’m not naive. I know every large city has its fair share of miscreants. Still, something about that large, infectious smile has me taking a few steps toward her. There are a couple of other people passing through the Jardin, but otherwise, it’s just me and this lunatic. As I get closer, I realize she’s submerged past her neck, so I feel less like a voyeur as I walk closer. The first thing I notice is that she’s young. Pretty, but in an objective sort of way.Not my type.She has curly, blonde hair piled up on top of her head, and she looks carefree and at peace.
The way she’s floating, completely still in the water, uncaring…
I could never do that.
I could never do something so stark raving mad.
A flurry of emotions pass through me: wonder, intrigue, envy… and then that envy twists around inside of me and turns into resentment. I will never get that luxury, even if I wanted it.
I could never let peopleseeme.Allof me.
When I’m about twenty feet away, I stop walking. A small part of me wants to get closer to ask her what the hell she’s doing. Surely there must be a reason. But the other part of me is telling me to walk away.
What could I possibly have to say to her?
And more importantly, whydoes a very small part of mewantto talk to her?
This is the problem with my curiosities. I’m focused and eagle-eyed. No one else is looking at the naked woman. The people around us haven’t noticed. But when something catches my attention, I can’t forget about it. I can’t help but look. I can’t help butwantit.
As a little boy, I once saw this teddy bear in the shops of Beverly Hills. It was small, and it had a little red beret on its head. I thought about that bear for days.Weeks.I begged my mother to take me back so I could get it. Chase, one of my younger brothers, kept trying to show me all of his shiny, new toys to make me feel better.
I didn’t want more toys.
I wanted onespecialtoy.
So in a way, whenever I feel that same tug of longing, that same burning hunger, almost nothing can stop me from pursuing it.
And yes, I went back for that bear. It was my favorite toy for years. I’m sure a therapist would be able to connect the dots between my quiet, scheming mind as a child, and becoming the CEO of my own firm by the time I was twenty-five. I never settle for less.
“Aren’t you boiling in that suit?”
Her voice startles me—the British accent is soft and lilting. I press my lips together and refuse to tell her that yes, I’ve been boiling all day. Paris isn’t usually so hot in October, and yet it was abnormally warm today.
“I’m fine.” I rock back on my heels as she tips her head slightly backward, exposing her neck.
Just as I open my mouth to ask about the fact that she’s skinny dipping in a very public—and probably very germ-infested public fountain—she speaks.
“Let me guess,” she says brightly. “You’re American?”
I nod. “What gave me away?”
