What They Don't Know

Chapter Two - Bare Faced Lies

"Madeline?" Within an instant Lachlan was on the other side of the room, touching the wall like he hoped it would swallow him whole. He looked at me with his blue gold eyes, but now they only looked at me with regret and confusion.

"Is this some kind of trick?" He exclaimed, he sounded more than a little slighted, like he thought that I had planned this. He's my brother James' best friend, did he really think I was that cruel.

"A trick? Lachlan, why the hell would I jeopardize my job, my reputation and the friendship you have with my brother?" I chucked the mask down on the bookcase by the door and folded my arms tight across my chest. Lachlan's jaw tightened and he nodded his head slowly.

"You wouldn't." He conceded, his voice low. "Let's Just forget this happened."

Yes, lets.

"Deal, I need to go." I exclaimed turning toward the door. I pulled it open before I heard a sharp intake of breath behind me. Something told me I wasn't about to get off that lightly. The cogs were turning, What had once been my secret was a secret no more.

"But you're Ali Smart." He exclaimed, stopping me in my tracks. "You write On The Point's most popular articles. You out-click every other writer by double, sometimes more. You wrote about surviving sexual assault..."

My heart twinged, until now it had always been Ali Smart who had survived Sexual Assault. I'd been okay with that because only the people here knew me as Ali Smart. Everyone in my real life knew me as Madi, but the lines were blurred and someone I knew in real life, now knew Ali Smart was me.

It wasn't like I'd lied, everything I'd ever written as Ali Smart was true for Madeline Lane, but until now only I had known that.

"Lachlan..." I began, even though I didn't know what I was planning to follow up with. He held all the power, my freedom was in his hands.

"That article was used as a case study in one of my classes earlier this year. You're what... 17, how can you... how did you?"

I decided to focus on the fact I was working here, that my name and age here were something different to what he knew, rather than the topic of the article he referred to.

"I came in for an interview. I used a pseudonym because I didn't want my brothers to know. I needed freedom, a place to vent. I could have started a blog or vented in a chat room, but I wanted to save money to move the hell out of here as soon as I could. So I applied for a job, and when I said I was heading into my senior year after summer, Carl assumed I meant college and I didn't correct him." I swallowed hard and tried to ignore my face heating up from embarrassment. This entire situation was strange and confusing, for the first time since I'd started working here I didn't want to be here anymore. I felt my shoulders sag and my stomach churn. I was going to lose the one thing that had kept me sane, and not only that... everyone would find out the truth.

"I could fire you for lying." Lachlan murmured, he sounded non committal as though he was thinking out loud and contemplating the path he should take.

"Maybe you should." I whispered, my throat dry. "But whatever you decide, you'll have to let me know later. I'm already late for James' welcome home party."

I slipped out of the room as quickly as I could. Lachlan may have said something as I left, but I was moving too fast to hear it. I needed to get home and as far away from Lachlan as humanly possible.

Never mind the fact my lips still tingled from his kiss, never mind that my body felt alive with lust. He knew all my secrets and I could never be comfortable with that.

It was dark out as I ran to the bus stop outside work, I glanced at my phone and sighed, the next bus was only a few minutes away. Kane was going to be more than a little pissed off. James, Henry and Luke wouldn't be happy either. They'd always been overbearingly overprotective, treating me as though I was made of porcelain, likely to break at the slightest of drops. They had no idea just how resilient I'd become.