The Perfect Deception Read online

  Also by Lutishia Lovely

  The Hallelujah Love Series

  Sex in the Sanctuary

  Love Like Hallelujah

  A Preacher’s Passion

  Heaven Right Here

  Reverend Feelgood

  Heaven Forbid

  Divine Intervention

  The Eleventh Commandment

  The Business Series

  All Up in My Business

  Mind Your Own Business

  Taking Care of Business

  The Shady Sisters Trilogy

  The Perfect Affair

  The Perfect Deception

  The Perfect Revenge

  Published by Kensington Publishing Corp.

  The Perfect Deception

  LUTISHIA LOVELY

  KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  Also by Lutishia Lovely

  Title Page

  Acknowledgments

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  CHAPTER 45

  CHAPTER 46

  CHAPTER 47

  CHAPTER 48

  EPILOGUE

  A READING GROUP GUIDE - THE PERFECT DECEPTION

  DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

  Teaser chapter

  Copyright Page

  This one is for the brand-new, first ever online book club hosted by myself and Zuri Day, already nearly one thousand strong! Thank you for joining us in having . . .

  A LOVELY DAY EXPERIENCE!

  (To join us, go to Facebook and type above group name into search box. Thx!)

  Acknowledgments

  It’s three a.m., and I sit here deliriously excited . . . or deliriously exhausted (semantics—you know—po-TAY-to, po-TAH-TO?) but so very grateful to have finished book two in the Shady Sisters Trilogy! I love these shady women and the chance to be a bad girl vicariously through their muddled, messy lives! What a blessing to have an editor and friend who’s as crazy as I am and gets a kick out of these devious plots. Thanks, Selena! As always, Team Lutishia is the village that helps raise this literary child: Natasha, my Kensington family, you guys are the best. A special thank-you to Rebecca Cremonese, who handled a sinful amount of last-minute edits without putting out a contract on my life! Heading to New York soon, girl. Drinks on me!

  To my family and my secret lover (long story . . . stay tuned . . . might end up in a book). Thanks for your patience while I was chained to my computer, a socializing outcast who rolled through twenty-four-hour workdays and tried to hold conversations after having no sleep. Either “I take back everything I said” or “I didn’t mean it,” whichever is most appropriate. Drinks on me!

  Readers, supporters, fantastic fans: If I began thanking all of you who’ve supported/promoted/encouraged/kept me sane during the writing of this novel, I’d run out of room and leave out too many names. The book clubs, bloggers, reviewers, literary magazines, and everyone who promotes my books with as much enthusiasm as I do . . . thank you. Again and again. You are the wind beneath my wings. Let’s keep flying!

  PROLOGUE

  “If forced to choose, would you pick your family . . . or your man?”

  The question caused Jessica Bolton to look up from her cell phone to the reality show turned on mainly for background noise.

  The show’s star and most vocal character was the first to respond. “Are you kidding? My family comes before anybody, including my baby’s daddy!”

  “Not me,” countered the one viewers loved to hate. “I didn’t choose my family. I chose my man and he means everything to me.”

  “More than your mama?” the quiet Southern belle asked.

  “She said everything,” Star sarcastically replied.

  “And I meant it,” Hated retorted, totally unapologetic. “Everybody didn’t have a mother as wonderful as the one who raised you.” The little smirk that accompanied this statement was enough to suggest it hadn’t quite been a compliment.

  Star jumped up. The requisite reality fight scene had been cued. “What the hell does that mean?”

  Unfortunately, Jessica was all too familiar with the feelings about which Hated spoke, a passionate comment that took her back to when she discovered that the woman who raised her was not her mother and life was not always so wonderful.

  “Where’s Mommy?” Six-year-old Jessica wandered into the room where several children played. She used a stubby finger to poke the leg of the boy sitting at the end of the couch. “Where’s Mommy?”

  He watched cartoons for several more seconds, then leaned toward her, his face in a scowl. “She is not your mommy.”

  “Is too.”

  “Is not.”

  “Is too.”

  “Is not.”

  “Is too!”

  “Uh-uh. You’re a foster child. Your parents are dead!”

  Dead. Jessica flashed back to the year before and the incident that gave that word meaning, the bird she and her sister had found on the sidewalk, the one that couldn’t fly. The one that was almost as stiff as plastic, and had eyes that did not move. As foggy as was the memory of her mama and dada, surely they weren’t like that.

  “No they’re not!” she screamed, punctuating the declaration by connecting the foot of her naked Tammy Lifelike doll with the eight-year-old liar’s cheek. “They went to heaven!”

  Enraged, the boy grabbed the inside of her leg and pinched hard. “Stupid foster kids,” he muttered amid her yelping.

  “Oww!”

  “Stop it!” Mommy’s obviously unhappy command reverberated through the wall before her face—red and disfigured by poverty, bitterness, and lack of sleep—appeared in the doorway. “Jessie, go to your room, now.”

  “But Mommy, he pinched me.”

  “She hit me with that stupid doll!” the boy countered. As the foster mother’s only biological child, Dennis’s word was truer than the Bible.

  “Give me that,” she hissed, snatching the doll from Jessie’s hand.

  “But that’s my Sissy!” Jessie cried.

  “Maybe next time you’ll learn to not use Sissy as a weapon. Now get upstairs.”

  “I’m hungry!”

  “What have I told you about that? It’s either food or fighting. You chose the latter. Now go!”

  “But Dennis—”

  Mommy’s raised hand put a period on the thought and encouraged little Jessica to head toward the stairs.

  Later that night her new sister, Francine, handed her two biscuits and a slice of ham before cra
wling into bed. “William never cleans his plate,” she whispered, once they were safely beneath the heavy quilt where their voices didn’t carry. “I snuck it when Mommy said to scrape it into the trash.”

  Though only two years older than Jessica, Francine had been in the system since birth, in this house since the age of two, and knew all the ropes. Francine reminded Jessie of Sissy, the older sister who’d gone away and the inspiration behind the name of Jessica’s doll. That sometimes made her sad, but not ungrateful.

  “Thank you, Franny.” Jessie turned back the quilt, sat up, and carefully spread out the napkin. She tore the ham slice into two even pieces and placed the meat between the sliced biscuits. Her stomach growled, but she ate slowly, deliberately, savoring each bite. She thought to save the second biscuit should she get in trouble tomorrow, but almost before she’d wrapped the idea in a napkin and placed it under the pillow her mind changed, and she relished the taste of strawberry jam on her tongue.

  “Franny, you awake?” Jessica lightly shook her bedmate once the second biscuit and the last bit of jam had melted in her mouth, and the quilt covered them both once more.

  “Yep.” Franny turned to face her.

  “What’s a frosted mom?”

  “Foster, not frosted. That’s a woman who acts like our mommy but is not our real mommy . . . like Mrs. Lewis.”

  “Why can’t she be our real mommy?”

  “Because we didn’t bake in her tummy.”

  “Why did my real mommy go to heaven?”

  “Go to sleep, Jessie,” Francine said with a sigh as she turned over. “And be glad she’s not in hell where my mommy ended up.”

  By the time Jessica was ten years old her natural beauty was striking: long curly hair, almond eyes, pouty lips and flawless tan skin. Fourteen-year-old Dennis’s torment went from pinching to probing, from fighting to fondling, threatening to kill the family pet if she said a word. He needn’t have bothered. One year before, Francine had confided in Jessica that she and Dennis were “boyfriend and girlfriend.” So anyone finding out about what he’d forced Jessica to do was the last thing she wanted. But someone had found out, stumbled across them in the laundry room when all were supposed to be outside helping Mommy gather pinecones for holiday decorations. And not just anyone but the worse possible person—Francine. This revelation had cost her the dearest friend she’d known since Sissy, and one month later, it forced Mommy to send Jessica away from the relatively comfy foster home and back into the system. What happened was all her fault after all.

  Francine was the last female Jessica trusted, her one and only best friend forever. Forever was an illusion in foster care. At sixteen Jessica was reminded of this lesson and learned that no matter the sex, friendship was fleeting. The first boy she willingly slept with, the one who loved her and only her (“No, really, I mean it, you’re it for me, girl”) also only loved fellow classmates Oneida, Felicia, Tess, Jill, and Shannon . . . that she knew of. This eye-opening “he’s not your man” conversation—is too, is not, is too, is not—couldn’t be assuaged with a ham-filled biscuit topped with strawberry jam, and taught Jessica that both mommies and men could be a pain in the chest.

  When Jessica came out of memory lane, the drama-filled reality show was ending. She muted the volume and refocused on the vague request in the out-of-the-blue e-mail that had rocked her world. If she refused outright, would there be any chance of a relationship? She doubted it. But if she answered yes, her purposely designed, solitary world could once again be filled with family and love . . . the illusion that came with painful consequences, and vague, hazy memories of a time when she was happy, when someone else cared.

  Ironic that the raucous dialogue from a lowbrow reality show had aided her decision. Jessica fired up her iPad and began to type.

  Hey Sissy: Sounds interesting. I want to hear more. Whatever it is, of course I will help you. Still can’t believe you wrote me! So much has happened. So happy you did and you’re right—there’s nothing like family. I love you. Your real! sister . . . Jessie.

  CHAPTER 1

  Several months later . . .

  A beautiful couple walked up the immaculately landscaped entrance to a large home in a tony Alexandria, Virginia, suburb. The woman, Jessica, was nervous. It was Thanksgiving, which, for various reasons, was one of her least favorite holidays, second only to Christmas. More importantly, it was the first time she was meeting her boyfriend’s family, the amazing man with whom she’d enjoyed a whirlwind courtship for the past two months. Life had turned out better than she could have dreamed when shortly after moving to Atlanta she’d spotted the handsome stranger among a happy-hour crowd and made a bold move. If she played her cards right and impressed his next of kin, who knew what type of sparkly bauble Santa might place under the Christmas tree and change her feelings about holidays?

  He knocked on the door and after a moment, it swung open.

  “Nathan!” An attractive woman dressed in black stretch pants and a colorful sweater opened the door.

  “Hey, Sis!”

  “Come on in!” She stepped back so the couple could enter the massive foyer with a high vaulted ceiling and chic chandelier.

  The siblings hugged. Nathan Carver turned and beamed at the woman standing by his side with a hesitant smile and downcast eyes. “Sister, this is Jessica Bolton. Baby, this is Sherri Atwater, my sister and best friend.”

  A genuine smile lit Sherri’s face. “I’ve heard so much about you.” They shared a light hug. “You’re as pretty as my brother bragged that you were.”

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you.” Jessica’s eyes darted behind them to the hallway from which jovial voices traveled.

  “That’s my crazy family,” Sherri explained, “and a few of our friends. They’re pretty lively, but no one bites.”

  Nathan put his arm around Jessica and gave her shoulder an affectionate squeeze. They started down the hall. Halfway to their destination a handsome man rounded the corner and walked their way.

  “I thought I heard the doorbell.” He reached them and gave Nathan dap and a shoulder bump.

  “Hello, Bro.” Again, introductions all around.

  “Where are you from?” Randall Atwater asked Jessica once they’d been introduced. “You look familiar.”

  Private by nature, Jessica’s brow arched in surprise. “Me?” She quickly added, “I live in Atlanta but am from California.” This was basically true. She had lived in California for many years, before her divorce.

  “Southern California?” Randall inquired as they continued down the hall into the great room where the adults had gathered.

  “Northern. Oakland.”

  They stepped into a comfortably decorated space where Nathan’s mother, Elaine, was recounting a funny incident from when Randall and Sherri first began dating. Listening were Randall’s mother, her male companion, Randall’s brother and sister-in-law, Sherri’s best friend, Renee, and a few others.

  “It was thoughtful for him to buy me a bouquet,” she finished. “He went on about how he’d searched the city for just the right type of flowers. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that the price tag was still on it from the store where he worked part-time, along with the receipt that was time-stamped to show he’d bought them right after finishing his shift!”

  Various responses echoed around the room, laughter sprinkled among them. “Come on, Mom Elaine.” Randall stopped just inside the door. “Haven’t I lived that one down by now?”

  “Yes, but it’s worth retelling.” She’d answered him but her eyes were on Nathan and his date, as were all other eyes in the room. “Hello, Son.”

  “Happy Thanksgiving, everybody.” Nathan gave a general wave before crossing over to give his mom a hug. “Hello, Mom.” He reached back for Jessica’s hand, bringing her forward. “Mom, this is my friend, Jessica. Jessica, this is the best mother in the world, Elaine Carver.”

  “Hello, Mrs. Carver.” Jessica’s outstretched hand reached Elaine’s. “It
’s wonderful to meet you.”

  “Nice meeting you too, darling. Congratulations on making it to a family function.” With a side glance at Nathan, she continued, “It’s been awhile since my son has invited a guest.”

  Jessica split her smile between Nathan and Elaine. “I’m happy to be here.”

  Nathan then addressed the room. “Everybody, this is Jessica.”

  With a nervous giggle, she scanned the room. “Hi, everyone.”

  “We’ll make the rounds for a personal hello,” he said, still holding her hand. “But don’t worry about remembering every-one’s name.”

  “I was hoping there wouldn’t be a quiz once we’re done.”

  He lowered his voice. “I’ll definitely test something later . . . but not your memory.”

  “What are y’all drinking?” Randall asked. They followed him over to the bar.

  And with that, conversation resumed, more drinks were poured, soft music played, and Nathan and Jessica made their way through the rest of the personal greetings.

  “This is a beautiful home,” she commented after they’d circled the room.

  “Come on. Let me give you a quick tour.”

  Nathan was a perfect guide as they navigated the large yet cozy abode. Upon seeing the upscale setting and a grouping of plaques, certificates, and photos that filled almost an entire wall in the downstairs office, Jessica was even more impressed with her honey’s in-laws than when he’d told her about them. Randall, his brother-in-law, was a prominent scientist who’d won awards for his groundbreaking research. A picture of him with President Barack Obama placed the man in very high company. The day was already overwhelming and now she felt intimidated, too.

  Nathan immediately noticed her change in attitude. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Tell me about nothing.”

  She smiled. His sensitivity and astute observational skills were just two of the many things that she both loved—and feared—about him. “Your family is so . . . accomplished.”