Last Chance (Liar Liar #3) Read online

  Last Chance

  Part Three in the Liar Liar Series

  C.A. Mason

  Copyright © by C.A. Mason

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, including photocopying, graphic, electronic, mechanical, taping, recording, sharing, or by any information retrieval system without the express written permission of the author and / or publisher. Exceptions include brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Persons, places and other entities represented in this book are deemed to be fictitious. They are not intended to represent actual places or entities currently or previously in existence or any person living or dead. This work is the product of the author’s imagination.

  Any and all inquiries to the author of this book should be directed to:

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  Last Chance © 2014 C.A. Mason

  Chapter One

  I hated holding her against her will, immobilizing her with fear, but that was the only way I could make her listen to me. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way, Maura. It’s up to you to decide.” I despised the steely edge in my voice, but I wouldn’t let her out of that suite until I’d said my piece. The truth was out, so I was going to say all the things I’d wanted to say fourteen years ago. I was going to get my answers, and so was she.

  She was still flailing and crying, her nails scraping the door. “Please, just let me go.”

  “I will, just as soon as we finish talking,” I whispered. She was afraid, and I wanted to comfort her, not terrorize her. “Promise me you won’t try to run?”

  She clenched her hand into a tight fist. “What are you going to do to me?”

  “I just want to talk to you, angel.” My voice was soft, soothing.

  She leveled another blow when she cringed, but I said nothing before carrying her over to the chair where our breakfast had been abandoned. I pulled on a pair of drawstring athletic shorts I’d tossed on the bed earlier as I tried to steady my erratic breathing with a few deep breaths.

  “What do you want from me?” She sat on her hands, looking at the pink-painted toes curling in her flip-flops.

  “I want you to look at me.” When she didn’t obey, I said quietly, “Look at me. Now.”

  She slowly looked up, gasping when her eyes locked with mine. “How did you change your eyes, your face…? You don’t look the same.”

  “I wear colored contacts and found a plastic surgeon who was a master.” I sat on the edge of the bed facing her. If I stood over her or got too close, she would be intimidated. “He specialized in facial reconstruction, fixing people with abnormalities that left them disfigured.” I shrugged. “Compared to that, my case was easy. I just wanted to look… different.”

  “You do,” she whispered, scanning my face. “So different. I would never have known it was you, even today, if not for your eyes.” She trembled before wrapping her arms around herself. “Your eyes still haunt me.”

  “What?”

  “I couldn’t see your eyes that night, because of the ski mask, and it was so dark, but I’d seen them enough times to know how they must have looked. Crazed. Vacant.” Her eyes bore into mine. “Like a mad-man. That’s what you were that night. A psychopath. I’d never witnessed such evil. Why? Was it because you were jealous or—”

  “No!” I dropped my head in my hands when she flinched. “I’m sorry.” I took a deep breath, trying to find a breath of calm in this vicious storm. “I just… I can’t believe you really think that was me… that you believe I could do that to you. I fucking loved you. You were my life.”

  “Of course it was you!” Her whole body shook as tears flowed down her cheeks, but she was still sitting on her hands. “Don’t you dare try to tell me it wasn’t you! No one else could have known the things we did together. The nipple clamps? The anal? The French ticklers? You sick bastard!” She lunged at me, knocking me back on the bed. “I loved you, you son of a bitch! That’s why I let you talk me into doing those things. Then you called me a depraved fucking whore while you raped me!” She sat on me, slapping me across the face and beating my chest with her fists.

  I let her land a few before I gripped her wrists. “I had a big fucking mouth back then, Maura.”

  “What?”

  “I said things I shouldn’t have to the guys on my crew.”

  She stared at me in disbelief. “You told people about the things we did… in the bedroom?”

  It was almost funny that she was angry about that in light of what she was accusing me of, but I didn’t dare laugh. I’d betrayed her by engaging in trash talk. She deserved so much better. “They were jealous, and I wanted to rub it in.”

  “You’re not making any sense.” She scrambled to get up. “You’re lying. Again. I can’t believe anything you say. You’re a liar and a fraud.”

  “You’re right.” I watched her back up and put as much distance between us as possible. “I lied to you, to everyone, but I couldn’t go back to that hellhole. I can’t live the rest of my life branded a rapist. I spent years in prison for a crime I didn’t commit, knowing the woman I loved more than life believed I’d tried to take her life. It was hell. I had to find a way to escape.”

  She sank down on a chair when it looked as if her legs were about to give out. “None of this makes any sense.”

  I continued my story. She needed to hear it even if she wasn’t ready to process it yet. “I made good use of my time in prison, educating myself. I figured out how to make a living doing what I loved when I got out.”

  “But you weren’t supposed to get out,” she cried. “You were supposed to spend the rest of your life behind bars. Knowing that was the only thing that helped me sleep at night.”

  Hearing that hurt, but it didn’t come as a complete shock. “I didn’t kill those women. I had to believe the truth would come out eventually, and it did.”

  “You may not have killed them.” She pulled her legs up to rest her chin on her knees. “But you did rape me. You tried to kill me. You left me to bleed to death.”

  “Do you really believe that?” I stared into her eyes, daring her to look away. “Can you really look me in the eye and tell me you believe that I would do that to you after everything we’d shared, after everything we’d been through?”

  “You had this wild look in your eyes right before I left you. You were acting crazy, jealous, possessive, like if you couldn’t have me, no one could.” Her voice sounded shaky, breathless. “You even said that when you were cutting my clothes off—that if you couldn’t have me, no one else was going to.”

  I processed her words. If it was one of the guys on my crew, someone who’d been obsessed with her from afar, that made sense. “What else did he say to you?”

  “What?”

  “What else did he say to you when he was raping you?”

  “You’re so fucking sick,” she said, her upper lip curling into a snarl. “You wanna take a little trip down memory lane? Will you get hard reliving every gruesome thing you said and did to me that night? Is that what gets you off?”

  “No. Jesus, Maura.” I felt bile rise in my throat, tasting like poison. “You got it all wrong. I’m just trying to put the pieces together, to figure out who did this to you.”

  “I know who did this to me. You!” She looked stricken when she glanced over my shoulder at the rumpled bedding. “I let you tie me up. I even asked you to. You could have killed me. I was defenseless. You could have—”

  “The fact that I didn’t hurt you, that I only gave you pleasure, should prove I’m not the prick who did those things to you.”

  As though she didn’t hear me, she lowered her head to her knees. “God, I can’t believe I let you touch
me again. Without a condom. I let you fuck me without a condom.” Her expression seemed haunted when she looked up. “Oh God, is that part of your plan? Do you have something, something that could kill—”

  “Stop it!” I held up my hand. “My God, would you listen to yourself? This is crazy. You know me. You know I’d never do anything to hurt you.”

  “I know you?” Her shock and disbelief was evident in her breathy tone. She could barely get the words out. “You must be joking. I don’t know you. I know the man you pretended to be.”

  “I’ve changed,” I said as though that would somehow make a difference. “I’m not the same stupid, insecure kid I was when we dated.” Though at the moment, I felt like it. My stomach was quivering, and I could barely breathe. Not because I was afraid she would turn me in, which was a very real possibility, but because I was still deathly afraid of losing her.

  Her face crumpled as she shook her head back and forth. “Of course you’re not the same person. You’re even worse. You’re this uber-successful tyrant who thinks his billions give him the right to play with people’s lives. You treat them like pawns in your twisted game. That’s what I was to you, wasn’t I—a pawn?”

  “No.”

  “You can’t tell me it was a coincidence that I got a job working for your company.”

  I shook my head slowly, knowing I was only digging myself a deeper hole with the truth. “No, it wasn’t a coincidence. I had to see you again.”

  “Why?” Tears flowed down her face unchecked. “Why couldn’t you just leave me alone? Hadn’t you taken enough from me already?”

  Her words cut like razor blades, opening wounds I thought had healed years ago. “I had to talk to you, to find out what happened that night.”

  Her eyes narrowed, her hatred for me obvious. “And you knew you couldn’t just walk up to me and ask. You had to get me to trust you so I’d open up, right?”

  I couldn’t deny her claim, but hearing the words come out of her mouth made me feel violently ill. She made it sound as though I’d used her, and I couldn’t even pretend that hadn’t been my intent.

  “Since you’re not denying it, I know I’m right. So you had to get me into bed, to lower my guard, so I’d talk. Did you think seeing the scars you left would be the perfect segue?” Disgust dripped from her voice. “You could ask what happened and I would tell you about the monster who tore my life apart?” She covered her mouth when a sob escaped. “And I played right into your hands, didn’t I?”

  I wanted to tell her she had it all wrong, that she misunderstood my intentions, but she’d nailed it. She was right. I was a pretty vile human being, using her pain to try to clear my name. But that was before… before I fell in love with her all over again. Now the only thing that mattered was getting justice for her.

  “I guess it didn’t matter to you that I was engaged to someone else, did it?” She clenched her hands in her lap. “Of course it wouldn’t. Sociopaths don’t have a conscience, do they? You thought you could walk into my life and charm the pants off me, literally, because lord knows girls like me don’t get propositioned by filthy rich celebrities every day, right?”

  I’d let her call me every despicable name she could think of as long as she stayed, talking and listening. I just needed to plant a seed of doubt in her mind and hope that time and distance would help it grow. But I couldn’t sit there staring at her without incensing her more, so I said the only thing I could. “Was my intent to seduce you? Yes. Did I care that you had a fiancé? No.”

  “That’s what I thought.” She stood. “Am I free to go now, or is this the part where you tie me to the bed and make me beg for my life again?”

  I dropped my head. Acid scorched my stomach, her caustic words intensifying the relentless burn. “You’ve always been free to leave. But I’m begging you for just a few more minutes.”

  “Why should I listen to anything you have to say? You’re a filthy liar who twists facts to get what you want. Did you set Jeff up? Did you pay that stripper to lure him in so I could walk in and find him in a compromising position? Was that part of your plan?”

  “What?” I was too stunned to respond at first, but when I thought of her judging me while deducing he was innocent, fury ripped through me. “That dirtbag was fucking anybody who’d let him stick his dick—”

  “Says you.”

  “You don’t believe me? Ask your father. He’s the one who spotted Jeff in the strip club in the first place. He told me about it.” I knew her father wouldn’t appreciate being dragged into this mess, but I had nothing left to lose.

  “My father confided in you?” She snorted, a derisive sound that effectively conveyed her contempt. “You had him fooled too, didn’t you? How do you think he’ll feel when I tell him you were the one who raped and tried to kill me? That you were wearing this”—she gestured at me—“this mask so I wouldn’t recognize you.”

  Her description was appropriate. Every time I looked in the mirror and saw a stranger’s face staring back at me, I wished I could peel off the mask and see my face again. But it was too late for that, too late to go back to being Matt Cooper.

  “I’m sure he’ll want to hunt me down,” I said. “I’d feel the same way in his shoes, but that doesn’t change the facts. I didn’t do this to you, and I’ll find a way to prove it. You can go on blaming me, hating me, and I admit, after this latest stunt, I’ve given you reason to hate me, but you have to understand I entered into this thinking about how I could reclaim my life. I never expected…” I couldn’t bring myself to say the words she wouldn’t believe or want to hear.

  “What? You never expected what?”

  Since she’d asked, I couldn’t evade her question. My days of lying to her were over. From now on, I’d tell her the truth, even if it hurt. “I never expected to have these feelings for you again. I thought I hated you.”

  She sucked in a sharp breath. “You must have hated me to do what you did.”

  I ignored that comment, mainly because I knew she wouldn’t believe me until the evidence of my innocence was staring her in the face. “I looked you in the eye in that courtroom, silently begging you to save me, and you turned on me. Just like everyone else.”

  “You expected me to save you?” She sounded incredulous, as though she couldn’t believe I’d had the audacity to spew those words. “Me? I was the victim. You deserved to burn in hell for what you did to me.”

  “That first night, you told me you had your doubts about whether I was your attacker, that that’s why you didn’t reveal everything in court.”

  “If I had any doubts, I don’t now. You’ve proven you’re every bit as sadistic today as you were back then. You earned my trust, convinced me to sleep with you, made me fall in love with you again—”

  My eyes trapped hers, refusing to allow her to look away. “You’re still in love with me?”

  “No!” She gripped the edges of her armchair. “How could I be? You’re a lying, manipulative, abusive bastard. I hate you.”

  I heard her words, even expected them, but I saw a hint of something beyond the hurt in her eyes. She still felt something for me. She didn’t want to, but she did, and that gave me hope. Maybe when she was forced to face the truth, she would look at me and see the man she’d fallen in love with again.

  “You hate me?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “I don’t care what you believe.”

  I was bickering with her just because I couldn’t stand the thought of watching her walk out the door. I knew this wouldn’t be the last time I saw her. One day, we’d be sitting on opposite sides of a courtroom, watching the man who’d brutalized her get his punishment, and I would revel in the knowledge that I had been the one behind his takedown. Because that was my mission now. No matter how long it took or how much it cost, I would get justice for her and for me. For us. Because that son of a bitch robbed us of the future we were meant to have.

  “Are y
ou going to turn me in?” I hoped she wouldn’t. While I had the resources to ensure someone continued the search for truth, I wanted that someone to be me. This was personal, and I couldn’t pay someone else enough to make them care about the outcome as much as I did. Besides, I didn’t want to go back to prison. I was strong enough to survive there, but I didn’t want to spend one more day in that wasteland.

  “I should.” She bit her lip. “How can I not? How can I rest knowing you’re back on the streets?”

  “I’ve been out for years,” I reminded her. “You feel safe with me.”

  She glared at me. “You think I feel safe with you?”

  “When you’re wrapped in my arms, you know no one can hurt you.” I was pushing her, maybe too far, but I wanted her to see the truth, to analyze her feelings and see what I saw. “You know I’d never hurt you. You feel it in the way I hold you, the way I kiss you, the way I make love to you.”

  “You’re so sick,” she said, her face twisting with repulsion. “We didn’t make love. I had sex with an imposter. I thought you were some high-powered business mogul who’d built an empire from nothing. I admired your success. I was intrigued.”

  “I am that guy. I developed the business plan in prison. I took courses, got enough credits to earn a business degree, and pored over my plan every waking minute. I knew about the power of affirmation and visualization because of my background as a fighter—”

  “I don’t care about your story. If you’re trying to humanize yourself, it won’t work. You’ll never convince me you’re the man I thought you were. You lied about everything. Everything!”

  “I had to have the right partner. I knew that was the key to making my plan work,” I said, pretending she hadn’t interrupted me. In spite of her protests, I knew a part of her wanted to know how the hell a guy who’d started with nothing, on the wrong side of the law, became a billionaire in less than a decade.

  I chuckled. “I was bold as hell, trying to get a meeting with a man like Malcolm. I mean, who the hell was I to expect this giant to give me the time of day? But he did. He saw something in me, something special.”