Dirty Little Lies (Dirty Little #2) (2 page)

They shout questions at me in rapid fire, so quick and loud that one is indecipherable from another. Nancy is standing by my side, and my arm is looped through hers for support. A large security guard named Dusty pushes his way through the crowd, clearing a path for us to follow.
 

Nancy warned me not to engage the vultures. “Keep your mouth shut and follow Dusty. Stare at his ass if you have to, but don’t say a goddamn word,” she said, before we left the building. Not a problem. I absolutely do not want to talk to these people.
 

The walk to the car seems never-ending, and even though I do my best to drown out the questions, a few of them make it through.
 

“Marisa, did you help your parents funnel money into offshore accounts?”
 

“Marisa, how do you feel about the downfall of the Blake empire?”
 

“Marisa, do you have any comment on yesterday’s Post article about you and your sister enabling your parents’ embezzlement?”
 

The word sister stops me in my tracks, and I send a death glare out into the crowd. I despise these people, picking at what’s left of my family. I hate them almost as much as I hate my parents for what they’ve done, which is a lot. I don’t know who asked the question, and I don’t care. They all need to know that Corinne is off limits. They can ask me whatever questions they want, they can sling their allegations in my direction.
 

They can’t touch
her
.
 

“My sister had nothing to do with this,” I reply angrily. “And if any of you so much as suggest-”

 
Nancy yanks on my arm. When I look over at her, she’s stone-faced, and tight-lipped. She glares at me, nodding at the car, indicating that we should keep on walking.
 

I know my outburst wasn’t smart. If I had the chance to think it through, obviously I would’ve kept my mouth shut. But Corinne—my baby sister—absolutely cannot be touched by this scandal even more than she already has. I don’t have control over much of anything these days, but I do have control over that. I won’t allow it.
 

If that gets me in trouble with Nancy, so be it.
 

Dusty opens the car door, and Nancy gives me a subtle but firm push, letting me know that she’s pissed. Once we’re safely inside the car, the reporters’ voices are muffled through the windows, and the full weight of what I just did sinks in.
 

“Do you understand that you just implicated yourself?” Nancy pulls out her phone and starts typing. Her long, polished thumbnails click against the screen.

I do understand that. “Corinne stays out of it,” I tell her. “No matter what.”
 

“Honey, you don’t get a say in what they print about you at this point. The best you can do is not give them any ammo, and you just gave them a ton of ammo. You hired me to make sure your business interests stay out of this mess, Marisa. Don’t make that mess bigger than it already is.”
 

I take a deep breath, and close my eyes on the exhale. I know she’s right, I know I need to get a handle on my emotions. Much as I love Corrine and want to protect her, I’m not going to be any good for her now if I’m an unstable ball of anger. Even though I do my best to fight them, I feel the prickle of tears behind my eyes.
 

“Hey.” Nancy takes my hand, and she angles her body toward mine in this cramped backseat. Her eyes are full of sympathy, and at this point she seems more like my therapist than my legal counsel. “I know this is difficult, Marisa. You just found out that most of what you’ve known your whole life is a lie.”
 

That’s putting it lightly.
 

I just found out that my parents are criminals. Liars. Cheats. I just found out that their businesses were built on cooked books, and that they’ve been stealing money from almost every client they had, for almost as long as they had them.
 

“Get a handle on this anger, sweetie. If you don’t, you’re going to make things worse. Trust me when I tell you that you don’t want to do that.”
 

“I won’t blow up like that again,” I assure her.
 

She gives my hand a squeeze before she turns away, and I huddle up against the door, resting my chin on my hand as I look out the window, wishing I was anywhere but here.

“What do you have on your face?” Corrine is laughing at me through my computer screen. It’s the first video chat that we’ve had since she started her final semester in college, and I’ve missed her smiling face more than I can possibly express.
 

“It’s seaweed, do you like it?” I turn my head to the left and the right, hollowing out my cheeks and giving her the best duck lips I’m capable of making.

“Very becoming. Is that for wrinkles or something?”
 

I do my best to look offended, but the dried gunk all over my skin makes that a little difficult. When I furrow my brow, a little bit of green seaweed dust sprinkles down onto my fluffy white cotton bathrobe.
 

“Hey, I’m only twenty seven! It’s to prevent wrinkles, smartass. And don’t be sarcastic about it, because one day you’ll want to do this, too.”

“You should go for a walk in Central Park with it on,” she laughs.
 

I shake my head. “No one would bat an eye, Corinne. We’ve seen weirder things there than a lady in a seaweed mask. Hell, I’ve seen weirder on my way to the corner market.”

“This is true.” She sighs. “I really miss New York.”
 

“You could always come back home.” I’m not trying to send her on a guilt trip, but I wouldn’t mind having her closer. She knows this, it’s not new information.

Corinne furrows her brow. “I like California. Sun, almost perpetual summertime, fresh produce all-year long. No way.”

“Can’t blame me for trying. School’s going well?”

 
“So far, yeah. My professors are all pretty great. I didn’t read a single syllabus that struck fear into my heart like last semester.” Corinne looks down at something, and I can hear the rustle of her sheets.
 

Unfortunately for her, I’m aware of all her little tics, and pulling on the corner of her sheets is one of them. She’s got something on her mind. I’m not sure whether I should ask her, or give her the time and space to bring it up on her own. Ever since Mom and Dad got arrested, I’ve been worried about Corinne. She’s completely resilient, but I want to ease the burden of this in whatever way that I can. I just can’t do that unless she tells me what the burden is.
 

“I read about what you did yesterday,” she tells me. She’s still fumbling with the sheets, refusing to meet my eyes even though we’re thousands of miles away from each other. “What you said in front of the reporters.”
 

I square my shoulders, and sit up straight. I’m not sure why her comment puts me on edge, but it does. I feel like I have to be ready to defend myself. “I’m not going to let them bring your name into this, Corinne. They don’t get to talk about you, and insinuate that you had anything to do with Mom and Dad’s lies. Besides, I got a talking to from Nancy about it, anyway.”
 

Corinne grins. “Good. I don’t want you being stupid on my account.”
 

“Who else would I be stupid for?” I frame it like a question, but really, she’s the only person in my life that I’d put myself on the line for the way that I have.
 

She sighs, and rolls her eyes. When she finally looks at me, I can see that she’s touched, but also a little annoyed.
 

“You know what I mean, Marisa. Your career is going well, the brand is taking off. I see people tweeting about it all the time. Don’t do anything that messes that up, okay?”
 

Ah, the brand. The website, the lifestyle products…everything I worked so hard for and was proud to put my name on. Everything that my father deemed frivolous and wasteful and embarrassing to our family name. The brand that I hired Nancy to ensure was completely untouched by this goddamned scandal. I’ve never been so glad that in a moment of youthful, spiteful independence, I went out and got a loan for the startup cash, refusing to touch my trust fund or my savings. It was built on money that hadn’t ever been touched by either one of my parents. We had fought about that, but it ended up being the best decision I’ve ever made, in retrospect.
 

And Corrine wants to make sure that I don’t do anything stupid to jeopardize it.
 

“I just want you to have a normal life, Cor. I don’t want your name in the newspapers, and I don’t want anyone alleging you did anything as stupid and wrong as Mom and Dad did.”

“I’m fine,” she assures me. “It’s just a few photographers and some reporters yelling things at me on campus sometimes. It’s nothing that I can’t handle. Besides, the bodyguard you hired that you think I don’t know about keeps most of the trouble at bay.”

I take a deep breath, and give her what is probably an incredibly sheepish, guilty look. The girl is so smart, I should’ve known that she’d figure it out sooner rather than later. What she doesn’t know is that there’s more than one person. I have a whole team looking after her.
 

“I’m not going to apologize for doing that, if that’s what you’re wanting from me.”
 

Corinne smiles. “Not looking for an apology at all. I just wanted to let you know that I know that you did it.”
 

“Good.” In the moment that follows, I bite my lip and make a decision. “So, are you going to tell me what’s bothering you?”

 
“You know. Of
course
you know.”
 

And…she’s messing with her sheets again.
 

“Of course I do,” I reply. “So. Spill.”
 

“It’s silly.” Corinne shakes her head, and pushes a fall of her curly blonde hair over her shoulder.
 

“If it’s bothering you, it’s not silly.”
 

She sighs, and leans forward. “Do you remember my eleventh birthday party? The one where mom and dad basically rented out that water park?”
 

I was sixteen, and thought I was entirely too cool for a kid’s birthday celebration. Corinne had begged me to get on a waterslide with her, and giving in to her resulted in one of my favorite pictures of the two of us. I have it just across my bedroom, framed on top of my dresser: me wrapped around Corrine, the two of us soaking wet and screaming as we dart out of the bottom of the slide, and into a giant wading pool.
 

“I remember,” I say, although I can’t quite figure out what’s got her thinking about that day nearly ten years ago now. “What about it?”
 

She shrugs. “I can’t stop wondering if someone else’s kid didn’t get to have a day like that because of what Mom and Dad did.”
 

Oh
. Corinne’s kind heart and thoughtful soul still manage to catch me off guard sometimes. I take a moment to think about the right answer to her question; one that will be honest but still put her at ease.
 

“Cor, Mom and Dad stole money from incredibly rich people over a long period of time. They skimmed off the top for decades, so that no one would figure out what they were doing. Mom and Dad did a shitty thing, but I don’t think anyone went without because of it.” If there’s any silver lining in this situation, it’s that our parents didn’t bilk poor people out of their hard-earned money, although at this point I wouldn’t put it past them. I think my mother and father are capable of things that Corinne and I could never dream of. These past couple of months have proven that.
 

Corrine gives me this skeptical look, like she really wants to believe me, but she can’t quite let herself do it.
 

“They did have their own money,” I remind her. “You know Gran and Pop were rich.” Mom and Dad just squandered that money away on bad investment after bad investment and who knows what else. Then they took to stealing to make up for it.
 

She nods. “Okay.”

I’m relieved that she doesn’t need any more assurances.
 

“I’m going to pay you back for my tuition.”
 

“What? No you’re not.” I paid her most recent tuition bill, because she’s not going to attend college paid for with stolen money.
 

“Marisa-”

“No. You’re going to study hard, and you’re going to graduate. You’re going to do great things, and make people forget that our parents are shitty, lying thieves.”
 

 
“Okay.” She reluctantly smiles. “I think I can accept those terms.”

It’s not like she has any choice in the matter. “Good.”
 

“And how are things for you?”
 

I shrug. “Can’t complain.”
 

Corinne raises her brow, and I know that she doesn’t believe me, but she isn’t going to call me out on it. I like playing the protector where she’s concerned, and she’s very gracious about humoring me with that.
 

“The Murphy Building thing is this weekend, isn’t it?”
 

“Yeah.” I nod. I’ve been working on putting this benefit together for months now. Now that my name is in the press for something my parents did, a few of the ladies who lunch want to kick me off the board and take my name off of anything pertaining to the benefit.
 

I care about the building and its restoration too much let them get away with that.

“I take it they weren’t successful in removing you?”
 

“No,” I reply with a smirk. “They were not.”
 

There isn’t a chance in hell that I’m going to let them erase me from this, not when it was my idea. Not when I did the hard work to make it happen. I’m going to walk into that benefit with my head held high.