After closing the door and locking it, Alex turns his attention to me and takes a deep breath. He offers to make me another drink, but this time I decline.

“I'm really sorry about that. Marie was supposed to be there to make sure that no one comes in.”

“Does that happen often?” I ask.

“No, luckily not, but you do get the occasional disgruntled client.”

“Are you not returning his money?” I ask, sitting back in my chair.

He pauses for a moment, his back tensing up, but then continues to pour the scotch.

“Of course not,” he says with a new smile on his face. “Of course, I'm going to allow anyone to withdraw their money that wants it back. It's not my money. I just take a fee for handling it.”

“That's what I thought,” I say. “So, why is Jackson so angry?”

Alex gives out a big sigh and responds, “Why does anyone get angry? Something happened that has nothing to do with the situation and suddenly he's freaking out.”

“He didn't seem like he was freaking out,” I challenge him. “He seemed calm, collected, and pretty certain of the fact that you are running a pyramid scheme.”

“I'm not running a pyramid scheme!” Alex snaps.

“Okay, so why was he so angry?”

He takes another deep breath, but beads of sweat appear on his forehead.

“Listen, I didn't mean to lose it. I'm just having kind of a hard day and Jackson showing up threw me for a loop. We're not doing anything illegal. It's just that if he wants to withdraw his money, he has to do so in an orderly fashion.”

He said that he has been asking for his principal back for two months, I want to say, but I don't. Instead I decide to listen.

Alex keeps talking in circles about how he has tried to get back Jackson's money, but things never worked out.

At one point Jackson said he wanted to invest more, but then he went back and said that he actually wanted to take it out.

Nothing of what Alex says makes any sense and I get the feeling that he's trying to give me the runaround.

A few minutes later, he tries to drive the conversation back to the paperwork. He gets a pen out and opens the folder, but I stop him.

“Let me just take all of this paperwork with me and I'll read it over and I can fax it to you.”

He clenches his jaw.

“That would be okay, right?” I ask nonchalantly.

I had previously planned to sign and get all this over with right here and now, but I am now having doubts.

“Yes, sure,” he says sternly.

A long pause passes between us.

I wait for him to try to put me more at ease, but instead he shuts down.

“Well, okay,” I say, getting up. “I guess I'll be in touch in a little bit.”

I walk over to the door and when I touch the knob, Alex says, “I know that you slept with her.”

My shoulders tense up. So, he knew all along, huh?

“I didn't realize that you knew,” I say quietly.

“I did.”

“I don't really know what you want me to say,” I say, tilting my head to one side.

“How about sorry? How about that's not what a friend does?”

“You broke up.”

“We are engaged.”

“No, you were engaged. Besides, what happened between me and Emma… It doesn't matter.”

“What about the fact that you're lying about who you are? What about the fact that you told her that your name is Liam Parish and that you are a famous writer. When you really are Liam Linville, a no-name who probably doesn't even have two million to invest but has no problem coming here and wasting my time.”

I move my jaw from one side to another in an attempt to release the tension.

He's trying to get a rise out of me.

He's trying to push me off.

He's trying to see me break.

“I have the money, but I will not be investing with you.”

“No, you don't,” he says, tilting his head back and laughing. “You have nothing. You’re just a poor asshole who wants everything that I have just like you always did.”

I walk out of the room and head straight to the elevators.

I want to punch him in his face more than anything, but I stop myself. It's not worth it.

If he presses charges and gets the cops involved, then my whole life is going to go up in smoke.

I pull out my phone to text Emma when I see a Google alert for my name. It's an article that was just published a minute ago by Coast Magazine and it’s by Emma Scott.

The headline reads

Who is D. B. Carter?

For a moment I think that it might be the other one, the first one that she had written. As I start to read, I realize that it's not.

This is the second article.

It contains everything that she has discovered about me up until this point. It connects all the dots: Liam Linville, Liam Parish, and Peter Mueller Schmidt. It ends with her wondering whether or not I'm really D. B. Carter at all or just a poser pretending to be him?

My mouth drops open. The elevator continues to make stops and I just lean against the back wall for support and wait to get to the ground floor.

Now that everything is out in the open, published, and available to anyone who has a Google alert on my name, my life is not my own anymore.

They’re looking for me and now they can connect the dots. Hell, she even mentioned the town where I live, population 420 people.

It won’t be hard for them to find me now.

Thank you so much for reading All the Lies. I hope you are enjoying Emma and Liam’s story. Can’t wait to find out what happens next? Their story continues in the next book.

1-click All the Doubts now!

I’m a liar.

I’ve been lying for so long that it’s all I can do anymore.

My name isn’t what she thinks either.

I got a new identity and a new life because my old one was going to get me killed.

That’s why I don’t do interviews. That’s why I don’t show my face on social media.

But when Emma’s article comes out everything changes.

They’re coming for me.

It's all a matter of time.

If I want to save myself, I have to disappear again. But what can I do if they go after her?

1-click All the Doubts now!

Want to find out more about the mysterious and beautiful Jackson Ludlow? You’re in luck, he has his own book!

1-Click Tangled up in Ice now!

I have debts to pay and secrets to keep. When someone threatens my life, I crash into him: Jackson Ludlow

The reclusive billionaire of New York

Once, he had everything a man could want. Then, he lost the only thing that he ever loved.

So, he spent four years holed up in his mansion doing the only thing he knew how to do: make money.

We are all wrong for each other. He’s cold, uninterested and demanding.

I’m impatient and inexperienced.

The only thing we have in common is that we both have secrets.

And the closer we get, the more they threaten to destroy us.

1-Click Tangled up in Ice now!

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