Page 1 of The Fragile Truth
1
The blare of the TV in the background wasn’t enough to crowd out the scream of frustration that kept pinging through Lina’s mind. She hugged her arms, glaring at the four walls closing in around her. This wasn’t how it was supposed to end—her sitting in a crummy apartment on house arrest awaiting trial for the attempted murder of Effie Romeo. An inferno of hatred boiled inside her gut as she thought of the interior designer that had stolen Talon’s heart. Tears of rage bubbled in her eyes. She would get her revenge on that twit if it was the last thing she did.
She looked down at the electronic device shackled around her ankle. The wretched thing made her skin itch terribly. A hot, suffocating panic seeped through her as fingers of hysteria pricked at the base of her skull. How was she supposed to live like this? A prisoner. After the trial … if she were found guilty and sentenced to prison, then she’d be staring at bars instead of four sheetrock walls. Her throat thickened as she swallowed.Think!she ordered herself.There must be a way out.
Many would call her cruel or a monster for the things she’d done, but Lina preferred to think of herself as a survivor. An image of her dad flashed through her mind. She saw him passed out drunk on the couch, his breath reeking of alcohol. This was after he’d screamed obscenities at her and punched her in the jaw, bloodying her lip. The minute she graduated from high school, she broke out of her horrible upbringing by taking off to LA to become an actress.
Lina’s need to escape the ugliness of her reality fueled her desire to act. When her dad berated her, she’d pretend that she was being lavished by praise. When kids in school made fun of her shabby clothes, she pretended they were showering her with compliments. When she went hungry because her dad used the last of their grocery money for booze, she’d pretend that she was on a hunger strike for some noble humanitarian cause like saving starving children in Africa.
Her stunning good looks were Lina’s greatest asset, but even that wasn’t enough to forge her way into the acting world. When she could no longer pay her rent, she went back home to Rainsville, Alabama, where she worked at a mechanic shop. Yes, she stole five thousand dollars, but only because Old Man Billings kept forgetting to lock the safe, and he was too cheap to pay her what she was worth. She knitted her brows, thinking about her next job at the nursing home. Even now, after all this time, the stench of old people and urine still permeated her memory, souring her gut. It wasn’t her fault that Mrs. Adams refused to take her pills. Lina hadn’t hit her that hard. The old bat had stopped breathing. She shuddered, thinking of those glassy, vacant eyes.
She hugged her arms as she tried to clear her mind. That was the problem with being cooped up in this infernal apartment. Too much time to think! No internet. No one to talk to. How was a person supposed to stay sane?
Her thoughts drifted to her past. After the nursing home incident, Lina turned her back on Rainsville and vowed to never go back. She changed her name to Lina Holt and reinvented herself. Everything changed when she moved to Summerhaven and met Talon Chasing. While Lina may not have been able to convince the powers that be in Hollywood that she was a good enough actress to take note of, she had a knack for making men fall in love with her. Talon was no exception. Lina worked hard to mold herself into the type of woman who would catch the eye of the son of one of the most influential families on the East Coast. That Talon was also handsome and charming was an added bonus.
The problem with pretending is keeping up the act for the long haul. If only Madeline Chasing, Talon’s spiteful mother, hadn’t hated her so much, then maybe Talon wouldn’t have turned against her. It wasn’t Lina’s fault that Wesley Laramie stepped into the picture, promising her a future in Hollywood. Lina still had no idea who sent those incriminating pictures of her and Wesley to Talon and his parents. She didn’t know who sent her that text the night of her birthday party, demanding that she meet at Pembrooke Lighthouse or else the person would go public with the dirt they had on her. She pushed out a long sigh. In some ways, the events of that fateful night might’ve happened only yesterday. Other times, it seemed like they happened a lifetime ago.
Her focus came back to the present as she looked around the shabby apartment, her disdainful eyes falling on the stained carpet, worn furniture, and dingy blinds. “I shouldn’t be here,” she seethed as she balled a fist. “I should be with Talon.” Effie’s face flashed before her eyes. Before she came back to Honeysuckle Island, Lina had worked out her plan with meticulous detail, but everything had backfired.
Effie should be dead right now! While Lina was away, Effie Romeo, Miss Superstar Interior Designer, swooped in and made Talon fall in love with her while working on the hotel renovation. Now the two of them were a couple. Effie would soon live in Talon’s magnificent beachside home. She would share Talon’s bed and have his children.
Hatred burned through Lina’s veins. Forget that she’d not wanted children before. Forget that she and Talon’s relationship had been rocky and that they were divorced when she disappeared. Lina wanted children now. With Talon!
She jumped, hearing the doorbell ring. The only person who came to visit on a regular basis was her pot-bellied, balding attorney, Ellis Rutherford. Her spirits perked up. Hopefully, Ellis would have some information on who paid her one-million-dollar bail. The judge deemed Lina a flight risk due to her previous disappearance, and a bail bondsman wouldn’t work with her. It wasn’t like she could have scrounged up the 100 or 150K required to pay the bail bondsman. Just before she disappeared, Lina stole $250K out of Talon’s safe. He owed her that much for all the grief his family put her through. Lina blew through the bulk of that money living on the run for an entire year. Playing dead wasn’t cheap. Then, out of the blue, someone paid the entire one-million-dollar bail that got her out of jail and put on house arrest. Lina had no idea who her benefactor was. However, she’d been around long enough to know that no one did anything kind or noble without expecting something in return.
The doorbell rang again. “I’m coming,” she grumbled as she got up from the couch and went to the door. She looked through the peephole, a jolt of surprise running through her. Well, well. She never expected this. A crafty smile wound over her lips as she fluffed her hair and adjusted her clothes. “This ought to be interesting,” she smirked.The lapdog couldn’t stay away. Ian always was a sucker.
She opened the door, throwing him a dazzling smile as she laid on her Southern accent thick as molasses. “Ian Russell, to what do I owe the pleasure?”
His jaw stiffened with a rugged determination as he nodded curtly. “Lina.”
A cackle tickled her throat. Ian always was the brooding type. She let her eyes run up and down the length of his lean, muscular frame. “Looking good, Sheriff.” Before Talon entered the picture, she and Ian were a thing. He was uncommonly good-looking with deep-set penetrating blue eyes, even features, a shock of thick blond hair, and a sexy cleft chin. Aside from that, it was Ian’s raw masculinity and bad-boy vibe that excited her. Too bad she’d had to dump poor Ian for Talon. A sheriff’s salary just couldn’t compare to the luster of the Chasings.
“We need to talk,” Ian said brusquely.
She thrust out her lower lip in a pout and batted her eyelashes. “Just talk?” The evening was turning out much better than she’d anticipated.
“Cut the crap, Lina,” he growled. “Or should I call you Britney?” He looked her in the eye, a checkmate expression written over his chiseled face.
She flamed hot inside like someone had lit a Roman candle as she clamped her arms over her chest. “What do you want?”
He closed the door behind him as he motioned to the living room. “Let’s sit down.”
She thought about throwing him out on his ear, but that would be hard to do considering he outweighed her by a hundred pounds or more. “Fine,” she sulked as she went over and plopped back down on the couch.
He sat down in a chair across from her.
She cocked an eyebrow. “What’s wrong, Ian?” she taunted. “Are you afraid to sit close to me? I don’t bite … much.”
It gave her a ping of satisfaction when his face darkened with fury. She shouldn’t be toying with him, but he made it so dang easy. “You know,” she began, pouring sweetness into her voice, “in some ways, it’s a shame that I never could talk to you about my past. You had no idea how similar our backgrounds are—both of us growing up with alcoholic fathers. Both of us having to scratch and claw our way to the top.” She glanced to see how he was receiving her little heart-to-heart. His lips were set in staunch, hard lines. “See,” she cooed. “You and I are not that much different.”
“Growing up hard does not excuse bad behavior,” he shot back.
Her pretense of playing nice was stripped bare as she cackled out a bitter laugh. “Still playing Superman, I see. You can channel your feeble efforts into saving the world all you want, but I’m gonna get what’s mine.”
Disgust clouded his features. “Look at what you’ve become. It didn’t have to be this way,” he added under his breath. They sat in tense silence for a few seconds until he threw an annoyed look at the TV. In a flash, he grabbed the remote from the coffee table and turned it off. He dropped the remote back down with a heavy plunk.
“Hey,” she protested. “I was watching that!”