A Beautiful Lie (Playing with Fire #1)(27)

"You don't think it killed me every single time I couldn't really tell you where I was going or what I was doing? Do you think I enjoyed pretending to be someone else when every single moment I spent with you made me finally feel whole and alive and like maybe I didn't need to pretend anymore?"

Parker's hold relaxed on Garrett's arms, but he didn't move.

"Every single day for eight years you were the only one I ever wanted to be completely honest with."

Parker was tired of the lies. If Garrett wanted the truth, she'd give it to him. She would give him anything he wanted.

All he had to do was ask.

Garrett watched as Parker slid her hands down the underside of his arms and pushed against his chest so she could sit up. He stared as she swung her leg off of him and stood. He didn't move as she looked down at him.

"I signed my life away two months before I even met you and Milo. No matter how much I wanted to tell you, I couldn't.”

Parker turned and started to walk away, only to stop and look back at him.

"I failed at keeping Milo happy. I am not about to fail at finding out the truth about what happened to him. I don't want to fight with you, Garrett. I need you for this. I need my friend."

Garrett stayed on the floor and watched her walk out of the gym. He replayed every single word she’d said to him, wondering if he had just imagined it considering he wanted to hear something like that from her for so long. Maybe the fire in her eyes was just due to the fact that her secret was finally out. Maybe the words she spoke came out in the heat of the moment and she hadn’t given them much thought.

He could still feel the warmth from Parker’s body when she was spread out over him, and he could still feel the clench of her thighs on either side of his hips and the whisper of her breath against his lips. He forced himself off of the floor and shook the thoughts from his head.

Parker said she needed her friend. No matter what was going on between them, no matter how hurt he was that she’d kept something like this from him, he could never deny her anything she asked.

Garrett would turn off his feelings just like always and give Parker what she needed.

He would be her friend.

There was too much at stake with this mission to be anything else.





Chapter Seven



Parker walked back to the villa wondering if she had just screwed everything up with this job, with her friendship to Garrett, and with her life in general. So many thoughts and emotions about Garrett and Milo and what they each meant to her were swirling around inside of her and she felt like crawling out of her own skin. She used to be so clearheaded, so in control. Parker prided herself on being professional and put together. Regardless of what Garrett accused her of, everything about her wasn’t one big lie. She needed to hide her skills and her knowledge about certain things and was forced to tone down some of her confidence and turn up a bit of the “girliness” so no one would catch on to the talents she had talents that would make their heads spin. But inside she was still the same woman.

She still loved looking at life through the lens of a camera. She still stopped everything she was doing if one of the Brat Pack movies was on, especially “The Breakfast Club”, and she still wondered if she had made the right decision every single day.

At the time, she thought it was her only option.



She was about to start her senior year of college in just a few months. The thought had thrilled her immensely. She was growing tired of the monotonous day-to-day activities of going to class, taking tests, writing papers, and going home to study only to get up and do it all over again the next morning. She always felt older than her peers and right now, going to class just seemed like a waste of time. While her friends were content to party every night of the week, hook-up with random guys, and joke about how they wished they could stay in college forever, Annabelle couldn’t wait to get out. She wanted to travel, tell stories with her pictures, and get paid to do what she loved.

She chose the University of Maryland because it was her mother’s Alma Mater. And frankly, it was the farthest away from her father. He made it clear he didn’t want her around, and after eight months of putting up with his depression and anger, she gave him his wish. Luckily, she didn’t have to rely on him at all to get her through college. Her mother had made her the beneficiary on one of her life insurance policies, so as soon as she turned eighteen, she had plenty of money to live and go to school as long as she budgeted wisely and didn't waste funds on anything frivolous.

For the first year she took to telling people that both of her parents were dead. It was easier than the truth. If people knew she had a father that hated her because she was still alive, it would make them talk about her more than they already did because she was quiet and kept mostly to herself, preferred books over kegs, therefor she must be weird.

She tried to go the honesty route with the first guy she dated and when he asked, “What was wrong with you to make your father hate you so much?” She realized honesty wasn’t always the best policy. Being honest just made her feel like a failure—she failed at making her father love her.

All of this just helped to reinforce her views on love and happily ever after and that they were just one big messy entanglement she didn’t need in her life. No man would ever want to settle down with a woman that couldn’t love him back and refused to give him all of herself because she was afraid of turning out like her father. No woman would ever really want to be her friend because they could sense she kept part of herself hidden to avoid being hurt. She had acquaintances and she had dates. She had people she hung out with and men who she slept with when her hands and toys couldn’t get her off. All of those things just made her an obvious choice for recruitment. And it made her decision that much easier.