Sweet Little Lies (19 page)

“Admit you’re a liar!” Jesse demanded.

Thirty miles over.

Jane could feel her heart pounding in her chest. “Jesse,please !”

“Say you’re a liar!”

People honked their horns as Jesse began weaving aggressively between cars. “Jesse, please slow down. You’re scaring me!” Jane begged.

“Say it! Say you’re a liar!” Jesse swerved, narrowly missing a sleek black BMW. The driver blared his horn at them.

Jane began crying. “Jesse, please stop the car! Please! You’re gonna kill us!”

“Say it!” Jesse roared. Through her haze of tears, Jane watched in terror as the Range Rover careened toward a line of cars that had stopped at an intersection. The blur of red taillights rushed at them.

“Say it!”

“I’m a liar! I’m a liar!” Jane sobbed. “Please just stop! I said it! I’m a liar!”

The Range Rover screeched and careened sideways across two lanes, in the direction of the curb.Oh my God, he’s going off the road! Jane thought, horrified, squeezing her eyes shut and bracing for the
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crash.

She felt the slam of brakes as the car came to a sudden halt. Then nothing. Slowly opening her eyes, she realized that Jesse had pulled onto a side street off La Brea.

Jane raised her tear-streaked face to look at him—slowly, cautiously. His gaze was locked angrily on her.

“Get out,” Jesse spat. “Get out of my car, liar.”

Jane began shaking. She was terrified—even more terrified than when she thought he was going to crash.

“Seriously, get the hell out of my car!”

Without saying anything, Jane grabbed her purse and jumped out of the car. She had barely shut the door before he sped off, leaving her alone on the quiet street.

She dropped onto the curb, unable to stop shaking. And just sat there, feeling completely numb. And it was silent again.

Jane fumbled through her purse for her cell phone. She was still miles away from home and didn’t have any way of getting there. She instinctively began scrolling to Scarlett’s number…then stopped. She knew she couldn’t call her. She could call Madison—or maybe Gaby—but they already hated Jesse, and she didn’t want them to know he had just dropped her off on a street corner. She didn’t want anyone to know.

Then she took a deep breath and reluctantly called the only person she knew would understand.

Braden picked up after three rings. “Jane?” he said, sounding surprised. She must have come up on his caller ID.

“Hey, Braden, I’m so sorry to bug you, but I didn’t know who else to call.” Jane tried to hide the fact that she was still crying.

“Are you okay?” Braden asked quietly. Jane could hear voices in the background.

“Umm…I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be bothering you. I—”

“Jane, what’s wrong?” Braden said, more urgently.

“I told Jesse that we had lunch today, and we got in a fight and he left me on the street.” Jane started crying harder. “He was yelling and driving so fast, and—”

“Where are you? I’m coming right now.”

Jane told him the intersection. She swiped at her face with the back of her hand.

“Okay, I’ll be there in five minutes.”

“Thank you, Braden.”

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“No problem. But…Jane?”

“Yes?”

“Please just trust me this time. If you’re planning to make up with Jesse, don’t tell him I took you home.”

“Okay,” Jane whispered.

Later that night—after Braden had dropped Jane off at her apartment and she’d gone straight to bed (alone), and after Jesse had left her twenty voice mails and texts apologizing profusely and telling her how much he loved her, how the thought of her being with Braden (again) had made him temporarily lose his mind—she decided to forgive him. Even though what he had done had been practically unforgivable, she felt she had brought it on herself. And it wasn’t that she shouldn’t have told Jesse about lunch with Braden—she should never have agreed to the lunch in the first place. How would she feel if Jesse had cheated on her with her best friend (Scar? Madison?), and then gone out to lunch with her, just the two of them? As though nothing had happened?

Especially if Jesse really did have feelings for that best friend—just as Jane had feelings for Braden?

Jesse was right.

Shewas a liar.

29

TIME BOMB

“Come here, doggy. No, stay away from Madison’s shoes! Bad boy!” Jane scolded.

Madison bit her lip in exasperation as she watched Jane chase after the dog (correction,mutt ) that they (correction, Jane) had adopted from the pound yesterday. The little furball was racing around the apartment, chewing on everything in sight, including Madison’s brand-new Manolo snakeskin pumps that had cost a small fortune.

Why had she agreed to this…animal? When she had suggested to Jane last Saturday that the two of them adopt a puppy together, she had meant the small, fluffy, well-behaved kind that could be carried around in a purse—not some mixed-breed animal on steroids. This was ridiculous. She was just waiting for him to start peeing on Derek’s favorite Persian rug.

Jane was saying something to her. Madison had no idea what, because the psycho dog was barking loudly at the wall.

“Whaaaat?”Madison shouted, cupping her hands around her ears.

“What do you wanna name him?” Jane shouted back.

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“How about Crazy?” Madison suggested.

“Whaaaat?”

“Never mind!You name him.”

“I think he looks like a Tucker!”

“Sure! Whatever!” Madison watched nervously as Tucker sniffed the white leather couch.

“Really? You like it? Yay! Come here, Tucker!” Jane got down on her knees. The dog bounded over to her and knocked her down to the floor, covering her face with wet, slurpy, nasty dog kisses.Ew. Jane didn’t swat him away, but instead started giggling happily and speaking to him in some stupid-sounding doggy-speak: “Yesyou’resuchagoodboy! Yesyourmommiesloveyou!”

Madison rubbed her temples. She needed a couple of Advils and a martini—ASAP. Who cared if it was only 10 a.m.?

Still, it was kind of a relief to see Jane acting like her old self. When Jane came in on Friday night, she looked like hell, and she had obviously been crying. Madison had tried to find out what was up—maybe she and Jesse had finally had a big falling-out about the boy fight at Teddy’s?—but Jane hadn’t wanted to talk, instead going straight to her room. Madison had emailed Veronica with news of the fight and her immediate reply had been,Tell me something I don’t know . The problem was, Veronica seemed to know everything. Madison had yet to unearth a single newsworthy fact about Jane that hadn’t already been inGossip .

Jane had been quiet and pensive yesterday morning, too. It wasn’t until yesterday afternoon, when they’d made the excursion to the SPCA and adopted the hound from hell, that Jane had perked up.

Actually, “perked up” was an understatement. Madison had never seen her so giddy with happiness.

Eventually, thething exhausted himself with all his barking and running around in circles. He curled up in the brown corduroy bed Jane had bought for him at some discount pet store on Santa Monica Boulevard and went to sleep, twitching and thumping his tail. (Madison made a note to herself that she had to replace the bedimmediately with something more in keeping with the decor.) Jane sank onto the couch next to Madison, beaming. “Isn’t he soooo cute?” she gushed.

“Hmm.”

“They said he was, like, part German shepherd and part collie and part something else, right?”

“Hmm.”

“Are you hungry? I could make us breakfast. How about some pancakes? My dad always used to make blueberry pancakes on Sunday morning.”

“No, thanks,” Madison replied. “I’m trying to lose a few pounds.”And you could stand to lose more than a few pounds, she thought, eyeing Jane’s figure. “Soooo. How are you doing?”

“I’m good.”

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Madison decided to press. Maybe Jane was finally ready to talk about whatever had gone down on Friday night. “Everything okay between you and Jesse?” she said gently.

Jane reached up and tugged at a lock of her hair. “Um…well…you know.”

Good. It was an opening. “He’s still pretty mad about Teddy’s, huh?” Madison guessed. “I can’t believe Braden had the nerve to show up.”

Jane bit her lip. “Yeah, well, Braden didn’t know Jesse and I were gonna be there.”

Madison raised her eyebrows. “Braden tell you that?”

“Yeah, at lunch.”

“Lunch?”This was getting better and better. And was something Veronica didn’t know.

“Yeah. We had lunch on Friday. It was Braden’s idea.”

“Where’d you go?”

“Greengrass.”

“You met him at Barneys?”

Jane shrugged. “I didn’t want…you know, photographers around.”

“Got it. So why did Braden wanna meet you?”

“He wanted to apologize for what happened at Teddy’s. Plus, you know, he wanted to catch up and stuff. His show fell through, so he’s, uh, back in L.A.,” Jane said casually, then looked away.

Madison couldn’t believe it. Jane was still hung up on Braden. This was…awesome. This was exactly the kind of dirt Veronica wanted. This was also the ammunition she needed to pry Jane away from Jesse.

If they broke up, Jane would have a lot more free time to spend with her. Madison could envision entire L.A. Candy episodes devoted to their girls’ nights out, intimate talks, and more. Or maybe Madison would get a (disposable) boyfriend. Thenshe would have the main relationship on the show. She began to imagine crazy first dates, romantic vacations spent entirely in a bikini, and a dramatic, over-the-top breakup. The season one finale was coming up, so there weren’t many episodes left. But there was sure to be a season two, right? Although Trevor still hadn’t mentioned anything about that.

But first things first. “Did you tell Jesse about your lunch date?” Madison asked Jane.

Jane’s expression darkened. “Well, it wasn’t a date. But yes, that night, at Katsuya. He didn’t take it too well.”

“Oh, sweetie, I’m so sorry,” Madison said, her voice oozing with faux sympathy. “What happened?”

“I don’t know. We got into a fight. I told him it was just lunch, and Braden was just apologizing about everything. But he wouldn’t believe me. It was pretty bad….” Jane stopped.

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Madison tried to hide her excitement. She couldn’t make this stuff up.Wait’ll Veronica hears about this, she thought.She’s gonna do a huge spread about me, just me. No “Jane Roberts’s friend and confidante”

bullshit.

She leaned over and squeezed Jane’s arm. “Sweetie, I know you don’t want to hear this. But that’s the real Jesse. He’s a total time bomb. You should get out while you can.”

“No, no, I’m not gonna break up with him!” Jane protested. “I love him. And he loves me. Besides, it’s my fault he’s acting like this. I cheated on him with his best friend. This is on me.”

“Okay. But he has to get over what happened between you and Braden. He can’t go on punching people in clubs and stuff.”

“Yeah.” Jane looked like she was only half listening now.

Maybe she’s starting to see the light about Jesse,Madison thought.

“Everything was going so well.” Jane sighed, and Madison wondered if she had meant to add,before Braden came back . “Seriously, like, even you and Jesse were starting to get along better. Hey, I keep meaning to ask you—what did you say to him at Teddy’s, anyway? I asked Jesse, and he said you apologized?”

“Oh, you know. I just worked my amazing charm on him. I told him I was sorry for any misunderstandings between us and could we be friends and blah, blah, blah.”

“Wow. You’re good!”

“Hey, I would do anything for you. You know that, right?”

Jane smiled gratefully. “Thanks. That means a lot.”

Madison smiled back. It was easy lying to Jane. The girl was beyond gullible, or maybe she was just desperate for a friend. The truth was, Madison had called Jesse aside at Teddy’s and told him—in a dark corner, with the two of them standing close enough for him to admire the view of her plunging V-neck dress, whispering so their conversation wouldn’t be picked up by the mikes—that she had shown those pictures to him back in December because she had been hopelessly attracted to him and wanted him to break up with Jane. He had been just drunk enough to buy it, and to buy the convoluted story she told him about how, exactly, she had acquired the pictures and why she had tried to get him to take them to Veronica Bliss and how someone else entirely, she wasn’t sure who, had ended up selling them to Veronica—and he was so obviously flattered by her confession to him that he hugged her (and continued hugging her for a second beyond what would be considered friendly), and let her link arms with him as they headed back to Jane and Gaby, joking and laughing. Really, the whole thing was genius.

She wasn’t exactly dealing with rocket scientists here, but she was pretty impressed with herself.

Madison’s self-congratulatory reverie was interrupted by the sound of barking.Ugh. Tucker.

“Yay, he’s up!” Jane said, suddenly animated again, as if the mutt had barked away her troubles with Jesse. “Hey, you wanna take him over to the dog park? He’d love that, right?”

“Yeah, sure,” Madison said amiably. Jane’s news had put her in such an excellent mood, she didn’t mind humoring her. Besides, long walks often led to long conversations. Maybe she could unearth more useful
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gossip about Jane’s potentially scandalous lunch date with Braden.

30

I DIDN’T MEAN ANY OF IT

“I wanna surprise Jesse with a minivacation, to cheer him up,” Jane told Hannah. It was Monday morning at the office. TheL.A. Candy cameras were there filming, and Jane had just finished telling Hannah all about the recent events at Teddy’s. “Like maybe Jesse and I could drive up the coast? I was thinking of renting a beach house or maybe checking into a cute B and B. It might be good for us to just get away for a few days.”