Before the Lie (The Confession Duet Book 1) Read online

  Also by KD Robichaux

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Epilogue

  Note from the Author

  Acknowledgements

  Coming Soon

  Copyright 2016 by KD Robichaux. All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the author. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  Before the Lie Production Crew

  Editing by Hot Tree Editing

  www.hottreeediting.com

  Cover Design and

  Formatting by Pink Ink Designs

  www.pinkinkdesigns.com

  Cover Photography by FuriousFotog

  www.onefuriousfotog.com

  Cover Model: Matthew Hosea

  Note:

  This story is not suitable for persons under the age of 18.

  *Potential triggers lie within this book

  The Blogger Diaries Trilogy:

  Wished for You

  Wish He was You

  Wish Come True

  The Blogger Diaries Trilogy Boxed Set

  Standalones:

  No Trespassing

  Anthologies:

  Tempting Scrooge

  The Confession Duet:

  Before the Lie

  Truth Revealed (Coming Soon)

  A HAND CLAMPS over my mouth, and his full weight presses against my face, shoving my head into the pillow.

  I had been dead asleep, but I’m fully awake now, panic rising within me like lava to the surface, wanting to burst forth through a scream that has no way out.

  I claw at his arm, twisting my hips beneath him, but it only seems to help him remove my leggings and underwear, as he yanks at them with his free hand.

  So fucking strong. I can’t push him off.

  My legs. My legs are my biggest source of strength. If I can just….

  Naked from the waist down, still pinned in place by the hand over my mouth, I bring my feet up and push my heels against his bare hips, kicking with all my might.

  It does nothing.

  He rotates his pelvis enough to dislodge my feet and works his body between my thighs. No matter how hard I try to keep them clamped together, I’m no match for the man on top of me.

  I begin to cry, realizing this is going to happen. No matter how hard I fight, I will not be able to stop him.

  I shouldn’t be here.

  I only stayed because of the story my husband told me, about his girlfriend in high school who died when she vomited in her sleep. I grew up sheltered, without any alcohol in the house. I drank nothing my whole life except for a sip of wine every Sunday at church during communion. So in my head, liquor was bad. It brought nothing but bad.

  My friend had been drinking, and with that damn story in my head, I couldn’t very well leave my friend alone. What if it happened to him?

  So I stayed. So I could be there to wake him up if he got sick in his sleep.

  And now, as he shoves himself inside me, ripping me open as I wail behind his hand…

  I wish I’d just left him to die.

  Three years earlier…

  I’M HANGING ON by the tips of my fingers and my big toes, clinging with a strength no one really thinks I have until they see it with their own two eyes. I feel a single drop of sweat trickle its way from my hairline, down my temple and cheek, until it finally drops off my jaw. Breathing in deep through my nose, the familiar and comforting scent of rubber I’ve grown to love fills my lungs. I breathe it out through my mouth before sucking it in once more as I make my move. With a burst of energy shooting me skyward, I leap from my perch on the crimper rocks screwed to the 90-degree wall and dyno to the much larger handgrip three feet above my head, grabbing onto it with perfect timing before finding two more to rest my toes on once again.

  The dyno. A move in rock climbing that takes an obscene amount of practice. It’s a leap of faith, basically. You jump, hoping your grip lands on its targeted rock with enough strength to catch yourself with one hand before you fall to your death, or in this case, to the regrind—ground up recycled tires—that cushion your landing.

  The smell of rubber, sweat, and hand chalk permeates the rock gym I call my home away from home. I wake up early every morning to shower it out of my hair, where it’s clung to me and followed me home, only for it to reattach itself that same afternoon. The eight hours of sleep I get each night, solid and restful from the physical exhaustion I earn every evening, followed by the seven hours I spend at my high school finishing up my senior year, are the only hours during the course of a day that I don’t spend here, at Rock On rock gym. It’s only six minutes away from school, and fifteen from home, and the only reason I leave at night is because they close and lock down the place at 9:00 p.m. So for six blissful hours each day—from the moment the last bell rings, until the owners of the gym, Mr. and Mrs. Burrell, flash the overhead fluorescent lights to signal closing time—I get to spend it in my happy place, the only place in the world where I actually feel accomplished, good at something. No… amazing, truly talented at something.

  It was by pure coincidence we discovered my hidden talent. My first boyfriend, Jax, invited me to go rock climbing with him here for one of our first dates when we were freshmen. At first, I didn’t want to go. I’m the least athletic person on the face of the planet. At that point in time, I couldn’t touch my toes. PE was a joke. I purposely forgot my gym clothes most of the time so I could just do health assignments instead of participating in class, and when it was time for testing, I would walk the mile run. I always felt awkward and gangly, with my long, skinny arms and legs, and I was embarrassed to do anything physical in front of my classmates.

  So no, I didn’t want to go with my super cute blond-haired, blue-eyed boyfriend to the place he spent so many hours at after school. I couldn’t understand why he liked it either. He was kinda nerdy like me. But rather than loving books and English class like I did, he preferred computers, and his giant bass in band. After his mother called mine to confirm mutual permission for this date, even my mom tried to reason with me.

  “Vi, baby, you might like it. You should try everything once. You never know. You gave up on piano lessons and ballet class, and you haven’t signed up to do any more plays after the one you did in eighth grade. So at least go see what this rock climbing stuff is all about,” she persisted.

  In the end, it was Jax’s sister, Maddy, who talked me into going. She loved it as much as he did, and she was my body type, long-limbed and bony, not an ounce of muscle on her scrawny yet tall frame. “I don’t like sports,” she confessed, “but I love climbing. No balls flying at your face. No running. Just you and the rocks, at your own pace and skill level.”

  So I gave in. There were no buses at our private school, so when my mom picked me up from school on that crisp winter day, we followed Jax’s mom’s car until we arrived at the brick building just a few minutes away. The sign at the top looked like a man hanging from the roof by his hand and a harness, the bold letters next to him spelling out Rock On with a picture of the well-known hand signal of a pinky and forefinger pointing upwa
rd. I grabbed my bag containing the stretch pants and T-shirt Maddy told me to bring to change into out of our school uniform of white polo shirt and khaki dress pants. The four of us—my mom, Jax, Maddy, and me—made our way in through the glass door, the bell attached to the top jamb ringing loudly to announce our presence. Jax waved at his mom as she drove out of the lot. Apparently, she just dropped them off every day, and picked them up at whatever time they set.

  It was the smell that hit me first. It was overwhelming. It smelled like the place my parents always went when they had to get new tires, but it was mixed with body odor and something else I couldn’t put my finger on. I could feel it in the air though, like the oxygen itself was coating my skin.

  Then I took in the interior of the massive structure. It was like they had taken a gutted warehouse and then built random giant foot-thick, ceiling-high walls throughout the space, and then poked holes all over them. Half the holes I saw were covered with multi-colored handholds. Most of the walls stood straight up, but others were angled, and as I peeked around one of the huge straight ones, I saw that the outer edge of the building was lined with one continuous wall of various angles and depths, and it led to a cave, an actual cave. Even its ceiling was covered in colorful rocks.

  We walked up to the front desk, which was really a long glass display case that showcased all sorts of equipment. I had no idea what any of it was used for. Behind the middle-aged woman greeting us with a friendly smile, there was a wall of shoeboxes, racks of T-shirts, harnesses, cute little colorful bags, and rope.

  “Hey, kiddos. Y’all brought a new friend today, I see. How are you, sweetheart?” she asked, turning to me, and I gave her a nervous smile.

  “I’m pretty good. Just a little scared,” I admitted, and she waved one hand, pushing a clipboard toward my mom, while Jax and Maddy signed their names on another.

  “Oh, there’s nothing to be scared of. This is meant to be fun. And if you listen to your friends and follow their instructions, they’ll teach you how to not hurt yourself,” she told me, pointing a pen at my boyfriend and his sister. “Now, if you want to learn to belay, just come and let me know. It’s ten dollars for the twenty-minute class and includes rental of one harness for the student.” When I looked at her confused, she chuckled. “Getting ahead of myself, hun. That’s only if you want to get on the ropes and climb up, not over.”

  “Think we’re just going to boulder today, Mrs. Burrell,” Jaxon told her, and to me, he clarified, “That’s when you climb sideways, just a little bit up the wall. No ropes or anything. There’s a line marking all the walls at eight feet. Not allowed to go up past that without being in a harness.”

  I nodded then watched my mom sign her name at the bottom of the waiver after filling out all our information. She handed the clipboard back to Mrs. Burrell then smiled at me, rubbing my back briefly when she saw the nerves clearly written all over my face. Fun, she mouthed, and I rolled my eyes before shaking my head.

  “Come on, Vi! Let’s go get changed,” Maddy called, skipping toward a set of bathrooms in the corner, so I took hold of my bag and followed after her.

  An hour later, with my rented climbing shoes on my feet and chalk bag tied around my waist, dangling over my butt like a tail, and after some simple instructions, like correct foot position—always with the inside of your foot facing the wall—all my nervousness had disappeared and was replaced by a sense of assuredness. Mrs. Burrell even came over to where my mom was sitting on the worn-out, chalk-covered couch in the center of the gym, and I overheard her say that I was a natural. I was damn near keeping up with Jax and Maddy, although they stopped frequently to teach me better techniques to make getting across the wall even simpler for me.

  That was the whole thing. I discovered rock climbing didn’t require that much strength if you had technique. And with my long reach and small body weight, bouldering was easy enough not to be discouraging, but challenging enough that I wanted to conquer it. Jax told me that climbing upward would be a different story. Technique would still be a big part of it, but I’d need to work on my strength just to be able to pull my body weight up to the next rock. Luckily, I had pretty strong legs from the years of ballet I had taken, but gave up on when I got too self-conscious to wear a leotard in front of people. So until I had more power in my upper body, I could use my legs to push myself up when I needed to.

  By the end of the night, I was hooked, and seeing how much fun I had, my mom went ahead and paid for a monthlong membership after I promised I would make use of it. That monthly membership eventually turned into a yearly one, and here it was four years later.

  Jaxon and I had broken up just a few months after I started climbing. We realized we were great friends, but there wasn’t anything there as far as chemistry. Whatever chemistry could be had by fourteen-year-olds. We continued to climb together often, but where he was ambitious about climbing outdoors, I really had no desire to leave the gym. The rocks changed positions every couple of months, so the routes were always different. And I still preferred bouldering to climbing, no hindrances of ropes and harnesses, just me, the walls, and my Prana chalk bag—a Christmas gift from my big brother. I loved it as much as if he handed me a Louis Vuitton.

  The bells over the door jingle on the other side of the gym, pulling me out of my memories. I don’t look over to see who it is, figuring it’s just another one of the regulars who will come say hi to me after they sign in. Instead, I walk to the wall directly in front of that same old worn-out, chalk-covered couch my mom is sunk into, where she’s reading the latest Nora Roberts book. Even after all this time, she refuses to just drop me off. She stays the whole time, six hours a day, my biggest fan and greatest cheerleader. She even learned to belay soon after I made climbing a hobby I was going to stick with. So whenever I’m going up on the ropes, she puts on her own harness, hooks herself to the line and carabiner attached to the floor. One end of the rope loops through an anchor in the top of the rock wall that threads through her belay device, and she’ll wait for me to tie my own harness to the other end of the same rope. We’ve done it so many times now that we do it more through mindless muscle memory than anything else. I can’t even count how many 8-knots I’ve tied in the last four years.

  “Momma, mark me,” I call over to her, and hand her a piece of sidewalk chalk when she walks over to where I stand in front of the wall.

  “Any requests?” she asks, making her way to the far left end of the blue-painted wall, which already has tons of markings all over it from people making their own routes.

  “Hmmm… I need to practice squatted positions, so make it a low route,” I tell her, and she begins circling hand and foot holds until she’s all the way to the right end of the wall.

  “There you go, doll.” She hands me back the chalk stick, and I put it in my chalk bag dangling over my butt, reaching in farther to coat one hand and then the other in the sweat-absorbing powder.

  “Thanks, Mom. That middle part is going to be a bitch,” I point out, biting the inside of my cheek and trying to figure out how I’m going to make it from one set of crimpers (tiny rocks you can only grasp with your fingertips) to another without any jugs or mini-jugs (larger rocks that are easy to grab with your whole hand) in between.

  “You got it. Take your time,” she encourages, and I blow out a breath, taking up my start position at the beginning of the route.

  I’ve fallen six times trying to make it from the first set of crimpers to the next, and I’m about to make my seventh attempt, when I hear, “Spidergirl!” yelled from the front of the gym, breaking my concentration, and my left foot slips off its precarious perch on a chip the size of a quarter. I get my legs under me just in time to land in a squat rather than on my ass.

  “Dammit,” I hiss, but then out loud, I reply, “Yeah, Sierra?”

  “We have two newbs. Will you give them their belay lessons, please? I’d do it, but I’m in the middle of feeding little man his dinner.” Sierra is the owners’ daught
er-in-law. She runs the office in the evenings now, and instead of putting her new baby in day care, she just brings him along with her to work. I spend lots of my breaks holding the adorable little guy. I don’t work here, but I’m a part of the climbing team, so we often give the belay lessons to people who sign up for them. An actual employee just has to give them a final test before the climber earns their certification.

  “Coming!” I call, and start making my way to the front, clapping and rubbing my hands together to shake off the remaining chalk. I’m almost near the entrance, when the tingling in my nose starts, and as it creeps up the back of my eyes, I know it’s going to be a doozy. I stop where I am, look up into the fluorescent lights, and let it rip. “Achoo!” I sneeze, my feet coming off the ground with its force as I cover my face with my hands.

  “I’d give that one an eight out of ten,” Sierra scores, a long-standing tradition the regulars have when we sneeze from all the chalk in the air.

  But then I hear the sexiest deep voice add, “Bless you,” and that’s when I finally look up at the newbs.

  With my hands still covering my face, I peek over my fingers and take in the two men standing at the glass display case that Sierra is currently behind, baby Alaric hidden beneath a nursing blanket with just his tiny feet poking out. One of the men is super tall, probably 6’5”, with a military haircut and kind eyes. But my eyes only land on him briefly before they lock on the ones belonging to his friend.

  My heart pounds in my chest and I can’t seem to take in enough oxygen as I watch his dark brown eyes trail down my body. His gaze travels from the top of my high ponytail to the black toes of my climbing shoes then back up to meet my green eyes, still the only thing visible of my face behind my palms. He’s not tall, especially compared to his friend, maybe just a couple inches taller than me, but his body, dressed in a black wife beater, basketball shorts, and tennis shoes, looks like it was chiseled by Michelangelo himself.