Lucky Liar Read online

  By Mallory Crowe

  Copyright

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. Fonts used with permission from Microsoft.

  Copyright © 2018 by Mallory Crowe

  Mallory Crowe (2018-8-7). Lucky Liar (Lucky Alphas Book One)

  Cover Design by Cover Couture.

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright

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  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Lucky Girl

  Check out all of Mallory Crowe’s Books!

  “This is going to be one of the most important days of your life. Are you ready to kill it?”

  Zoe gave a forceful “yes” at the question but knew the stakes were so much different for her. Don’t get her wrong. This was obviously a very important day for The Perfect Bite catering company. It wasn’t every day that one of the richest men in the country got married, and the fact that they’d been awarded the catering contract was monumental.

  But Zoe wasn’t here to make sure The Perfect Bite succeeded in making an impact today. Her cause was much more personal….

  “Do you know when we’ll see the man of the hour?” she whispered to one of the servers standing next to her. She hadn’t memorized everyone’s names yet. She was just a visitor here. When The Perfect Bite had gotten this contract, they’d needed to bring in a lot of last-minute help. It wasn’t hard for her to get a job. She’d been waitressing for years and had a squeaky-clean background check.

  In her entire life, the most trouble she’d ever been in was when she was pulled over for driving erratically once, and that was just because she’d spilled a soda on the front seat. So basically her biggest crime was being clumsy.

  But she was about to delve into untested waters for the first time ever. All she had to do was get Wade Maxium alone for just a few minutes….

  Everyone dispersed from the meeting, and Zoe tucked her hair behind her ears as she tried to get ready. She headed for the kitchen, where the trays that would soon be filled with appetizers were waiting. This wedding was the event of the season, and this ballroom was about to be filled to the brim with five hundred of some of the most important people in the city. Almost everyone here had a hidden motive of some type. Half of the staff were just waiting to get their few minutes with the various celebrities who would be in attendance. Kylie, the owner of The Perfect Bite, was hoping that this one gig would end up netting her dozens more clients in the future, and she was pretty sure Wade Maxium and the supermodel he was about to marry were also more focused on closing deals tonight instead of closing in on each other.

  Lifestyles of the rich and famous, she supposed. But considering how the hall was decked out, things weren’t all that bad. The theme of the day appeared to be diamonds, because crystals had taken over the entire room: dripping from the ceiling, decorating the walls, and falling from the centerpieces among the expensive white flowers.

  It all seemed a bit much to her, but considering she hadn’t even been on a date in the last few years, she supposed she wasn’t one to judge.

  Maybe confronting Wade today would work out perfectly. He’d be in a good mood and maybe extra drinky. This might totally work out.

  “What are you doing?” snapped Kylie as she came up next to Zoe and took her arm, starting to pull her toward the back hallway. “I need you.”

  Zoe stiffened at the contact but obediently followed. “Umm. Okay. Why me?”

  Kylie glanced over to Zoe and narrowed her eyes. “Honestly, I picked you at random. I hope you’re not offended. I literally have zero time to worry about offending someone today.”

  “All right. I’m your totally random girl. What do you need?”

  “I just found out that this hall has a separate lovers’ room.”

  Her brows rose up. “What’s that?”

  “That’s what I asked. It’s a room for the bride and groom to escape to if they want to take a break, fix clothes, probably get some hanky-panky in early. The point is that it’s another room we have to work.”

  “You want me to offer hors d’oeuvres in there?”

  Kylie rolled her eyes. “Of course not. But we need to do something. I need you to go in the back and grab a bottle of champagne and a few glasses. Put a plate of something together for them. Nothing that has to be heated, though. I refuse to serve the bride and groom cold food. Understand?”

  “I think I can handle it.”

  “Great. You’re a lifesaver.” Just like that, Kylie wandered away to handle her next crisis. It was going to be a long day. Guests weren’t scheduled to arrive for another three hours, but Kylie was already operating at an eleven. It wasn’t a job Zoe was jealous of.

  She obediently went to the kitchens and found a stray cart she could use. The joy of being temporary help was that she only knew fifty percent of what she was doing. Just enough to be dangerous, but not enough to really be a stand-out employee. So she just had to cross her fingers as she hoped no one would need the cart. After filling a bucket with ice, she chose two random bottles of wine, one red and one white, which was the extent of what she knew about wine.

  Then, after ducking and weaving between the army of cooks, she managed to score some cheese, crackers, and fruits that she loaded on the cart. From there, she wheeled the cart out of the kitchen and through the hall. Kylie, in her rush to get Zoe working, had forgotten to actually point out where this love nest was supposed to be.

  But she’d pointed very clearly to the northwest corner. Maybe it was the southwest. All right, Zoe had a crappy head for directions, but she remembered where Kylie had pointed. Once she was out of the ornately decorated ballroom, the hallway managed to look boring. A beige wall along with a brown carpeting with a green filigree pattern didn’t manage to have the same bit of oomph as the Fortress-of-Solitude-themed ballroom.

  After hitting a few locked doors, she finally hit on what had to be it. The door opened and revealed a room with some mirrors and a sitting area with a couch and a few recliners; attached to it was a bathroom. There wasn’t exactly a bed, but it seemed like a nice enough space to relax from the stress of throwing the event of the season.

  Zoe started to set out the display on the counter space below the mirror when the door opened. “I’ll be out of here in just a—” She looked up in the mirror and saw Wade Maxium staring back at her.

  She jumped up and twisted around all in one awkward movement. She tried to think of an excuse for being there before she remembered that she had every right to be here. Wade, however, was hours early to his own wedding
….

  But she didn’t need to explain herself. Maxium strode across the room until he stood right in front of her. Zoe found herself holding her breath as she could feel the heat of his body through the cheap material of her tuxedo-like server uniform. And then he was reaching past her to grab a bottle of wine before falling into one of the recliners.

  Zoe let out a breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding as he stared disgustedly at the bottle of wine he held. “God, this is terrible,” he said, even as he pulled the cork out with his bare hands and took a deep drink. “Girl, how much do I have to pay you to get me something stronger than this?”

  Holy shit. Was this really happening? Had Wade Maxium really thrown himself into her lap? This was what she’d planned for. The entire reason she’d tracked down Kylie and gotten this job was to get a minute alone with Wade Maxium. She wasn’t going to let this chance slip away.

  So she took one nervous gulp and looked him in the eye. “You need to pay me two million dollars.” She could see the confusion cloud his expression, so she blurted out the rest of what she meant. “You need to pay me two million dollars or I’ll tell the police that you murdered your father.”

  Wade blinked a few times as he tried to figure out exactly how much he’d drank. One shot… two shots… a few gulps of whatever else he had at the hotel. But then he’d come here to handle what needed to be done and…. Yeah. He couldn’t be that drunk. Maybe he shouldn’t be driving, but he wasn’t at a hallucinating level.

  He switched his focus to the possible hallucination in front of him. A young little thing with hair as dark as the black server outfit she was wearing and dark, huge eyes. She didn’t look like the kind of person who’d be ballsy enough to threaten him, but he was too jaded to really be surprised by anything at this point.

  Especially today.

  “My father wasn’t murdered.”

  “I found a letter. It implicates you and several others in orchestrating his… accident.”

  She held her hands in front of her, her fingers tangling with each other as she shifted her weight back and forth. He’d been in enough negotiations to know when a player at the table was weak. But it wouldn’t matter how weak she was if she held all the cards.

  “A letter you could’ve written yourself.”

  “But you don’t deny you did it?”

  “I’m responding to crazy with crazy. If you want to have a logical conversation, call my attorney. With how much I pay them, they’d chew you up and spit you out in a heartbeat.”

  “I thought you’d want to handle this quietly. I’m prepared to be reasonable, Mr. Maxium. You give me the two million and I’ll be out of your life forever. I won’t try to get any more money out of you. I promise.” Her voice was steady even as the nervous tics of her body betrayed that confidence.

  “Your promise,” he said with a bitter laugh. “Thank fuck I have your promise. Another promise by a woman. Just what I fucking need in my life.”

  The girl’s brows furrowed, obviously taken aback by his change. Whoop-de-do. Let her be taken aback. He was taken aback after today. He didn’t let her continue. She was about to find out what it was like to negotiate with the big boys. “Who the fuck are you to come here, on my fucking wedding day, and accuse me of anything?”

  “I, um….”

  He could tell she was uneasy, so he stood, allowing his six-foot-two frame to tower over her. It might be one of the oldest forms of intimidation, but it was a classic for a reason. “I can tell just by looking at you that you don’t have the money or resources to back up your threat. Even if you came here with video of me shooting the old bastard, you think I wouldn’t find a way to worm out of it?”

  She finally seemed to snap out of her nervous shuffling as anger filled her eyes. “Wow. You’ve managed to deduce I’m poor. That’s a great deduction, asshole. Was it my outfit that gave it away or the fact that I’m begging for money?”

  “Blackmailing me hardly amounts to begging. And that wouldn’t be a good tactic with me either. I’m not exactly feeling charitable at the moment.”

  “What a shock. The grouch can’t even be happy on his wedding day.”

  “Wedding was called off. You caught me on my jilted day.”

  She sucked in a breath of shock. Figures. That was a mild reaction compared to everyone else who was about to find out just how fucked he was.

  “But…. The wedding. All the food and centerpieces and money….”

  Money. Hell, that was a problem, and bigger than this little thing had any way of knowing. “I get to go into every business deal and meeting for the next fucking year with everyone knowing that I was humiliated like this. You, honey, can wear all your vulnerabilities on your sleeve. Everyone fucking knows already. I don’t have that luxury.”

  The look of pity rapidly left her face and she set her hands on her hips. “Yes,” she said dryly. “It’s a luxury that everyone knows how much my life sucks. Just go out and date another supermodel. It’s not like it would be hard for you.”

  “You don’t get it. I have the numbers. I have everything I’d ever need to back me up. But face is fifty percent of it. I’m going to be the goddamn laughingstock of the world after this, and no amount of supermodel pussy is going to make up for that.”

  “Then lie. Say that you’re the one who dumped her. That way it won’t look like she used you, right?” The girl shook her head. “This is ridiculous. I’m not here to be a therapist—I’m here to blackmail you. Are you going to give me two million dollars or not?”

  Wade barely heard the last words she said. He was too stuck on the first part of her response. Lie. What if he told everybody that he was the one who broke it off? It would be his word against hers. How would that even work? The only way to truly convince anyone that he’d been the dumper and not the dumpee would be some drastic measure. It wouldn’t be good enough to start dating someone new. Everyone knew he could get a supermodel in a heartbeat. The only thing that would work was…. “True love.”

  The girl cocked her head and stared at him. “Maybe you’re too drunk for us to be having this conversation right now.”

  “What’s your name?” he bit out.

  “Zoe,” she said reluctantly.

  “Where you from, Zoe?”

  “Birdsville, Ohio. Same as you. How do you think I got the information about you and your father?”

  “Perfect.” All the pieces started to click in his mind. He could really pull this off.

  “What are you talking about?” Zoe demanded.

  He looked her over again. She was younger than him, but not too young for this to work. The server outfit was ridiculous, but mentally he stripped her down. Tiny waist, full breasts, and he bet that if he turned her around, her ass would be damn smackable. It wouldn’t be unbelievable. In fact, this might be one of the smartest ideas he’d ever had. The press would eat this up. Besides, it would be hard to have sympathy for Tara. She’d been pretty candid about the fact that she was already dating someone new.

  And then, he was sure of it. “I’m not going to pay you two million dollars. I’m going to marry you.”

  Zoe opened her mouth, but no words came out. She couldn’t have heard him correctly. Maybe he’d forgotten what words meant? Maybe she’d had a stroke and she was suddenly mishearing things. Yep. Even though she was perfectly healthy and had no family history, a sudden stroke at the age of twenty-six seemed a lot more likely than him suggesting they get married.

  “I’ll solve all of your money problems. You’ll never have to wait on another person in your life. You help me, I help you, we both win.”

  “I don’t get it. How do either of us win? We both end up married to someone we despise.”

  “Despise? That seems a little bit strong. Do you even know me?”

  “I know you killed your father.”

  “Rule number one, we don’t talk about that.”

  He never once denied that he’d done it, she silently noted. “All right
, I don’t despise you, but I don’t like you. And considering that I just tried to blackmail you, I doubt that you like me.”

  “No, but I like my social standing. I can’t be the laughingstock of the world. Tara already has a new boyfriend. Someone she actually loves. So I’m finding someone I actually love too.”

  Zoe raised a questioning brow. “Excuse me?”

  “You’re perfect. It’s like you fell right into my lap for this purpose. We grew up in the same town, so it’s totally plausible that we’ve met before. You have a sympathetic background, so while Tara left me to fuck around with some Hollywood producer, you’re the everyday girl people can root for. And the cherry on top is that you’re the perfect amount of pretty.”

  Her jaw dropped. For fuck’s sake, was he serious?

  “Give me your phone,” he demanded.

  “I don’t think—”

  “Give it to me,” he said in a forceful voice.

  Zoe found herself handing him her phone without any more questioning. She stared wordlessly as he ran his fingers over the screen.

  “Once we make this official, you really need to add a lock screen to your phone,” he mumbled.

  She was still trying to figure out how she’d done what he said. She’d never been the obedient type. It was just a testament to how fucked up the situation was. Next, he took out his phone, and held one in each hand as he typed in his phone. Then she realized what he was doing. He’d put his number in her phone, and now he was adding hers. Holy shit. This guy was serious.

  Wade Maxium wanted to marry her.

  Zoe stared at her phone in shock. Nothing had changed. The same address she’d stayed up all night staring at was still right in her face. But she was still shocked to see it. She really had thought Wade Maxium had been bluffing. Of course, if someone tried to blackmail him for two million dollars, he’d say whatever he needed to in order to get out of the fucking room. But no, he actually sent her the name of a breakfast place to meet at. Was she actually going to go?