Her Silent Revenge novel Chapter 102

But you've met them before. Yes. As his employee.

Sweet Jesus, I hate my inner dialogue.

I tighten my fingers around the mascara wand as my phone buzzes on the table beside me. I wrinkle my nose.

Kayla.

Of course it's her calling right now. Of course she'd interrupt this moment with some invented crisis or a new demand that's all about her.

For a hot second, I consider declining the call.

She'd message later, though, furious to know what I'm doing that makes me too busy to talk to her. My best friend. My only friend.

She has a real knack for rubbing salt in the wounds and making it feel like a kindness.

It's also not worth the hassle, so I grab the phone and answer, hoping to keep this brief.

"Hey, Kayla. What's up?"

"You don't sound excited to hear from me, Lemmy." I can almost hear her pouting. "If you didn't want to take the call, you didn't have to."

"Sorry, Kay. I'm just doing my makeup. You know how it is."

"Oh? You're wearing makeup?" Her tone changes like she can smell a juicy secret.

"It happens every once in a while."

"What for? Have you got an event?" She pauses. "Oh my God, is it a date?"

"Nothing important," I lie. "How was Hawaii?"

It's the only thing that's kept her away all this time—a long trip island hopping around the Pacific to distract her from the fact that Patton Rory hasn't asked about her once.

"Amazing!" she gushes. "Did you see the photos I put on Insta? It was beautiful. So warm and relaxing. The surf was amazing and the turtles were cool. We even did a turtle tour with this lady who had like a cheetah cat. Can you believe that? She barked at me to put down my camera a few times and not to get too close, but still. It slapped."

I roll my eyes and scrunch my hair, encouraging my curls to stay curled.

Maybe I need more hairspray.

"Turtles, huh? Aren't they a protected species?"

"Ugh, yeah. I wouldn't have even hurt him with a little pat on the head. But they got all up my ass about how it's a law there and shit. Crazy, right? They wouldn't even let people surf by their little roped off beach area."

My eyes roll right out of my head. "I thought you didn't surf?"

Not true.

I know it isn't, but the thought that he could makes my skin crawl. I roll my shoulders to shake off that imminent spider feeling.

Patton may have been like that once—we've barely spoken about his body count or old habits and at this point I don't want to—but he's not like that now.

"If that's the case, what makes you think he'll be interested in you?" "Um, hello? Because I'm on his level. Come on, Lemmy, keep up. I'm

the caviar and the rest are all bread girls." She sighs. "Anyway, what are you doing with makeup? Are you seeing someone?"

Help me.

It's burning the tip of my tongue, the truth about the only girl Patton Rory is seeing.

But if I do that, she'll freak.

She'll probably work overtime, grinding me into dust, especially if she thinks I ‘stole him' right under her nose.

Not to my face, of course. She'd be sickly sweet and absolutely murderous behind my back.

First, she'll tell everyone who's anyone in this town that I'm just another ‘bread girl' who slept with him to get ahead. I don't have much of a social life and even fewer opportunities, and what little I do have revolves around Kayla and her favors.