The Beauty of Lies
Brinda Berry
Sweet Biscuit Publishing LLC
Contents
Copyright
Also by Brinda Berry
Epigraph
1. Toe the Line
2. Waiting for the Other Shoe to Drop
3. Worse Comes to Worst
4. Catching a Tailwind
5. Another Think Coming
6. Grandma Lulu’s Litmus Test
7. Passing Strange
8. Silver Lining
9. Canary in the Coalmine
10. Resting Bitch Face
11. Playing By Heart
12. Nosy Harper
13. One Fell Swoop
14. Perfect Storm
15. The $64,000 question
16. Olive Branch
17. Catch-22
18. Sleight of Hand
19. Pay the Piper
20. Get Religion
21. Cover All the Bases
22. Eleventh Hour
The Fiction of Forever
Preview of Chasing Luck
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Also by Brinda Berry
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright Warning
EBooks are not transferable. They cannot be sold, shared, or given away. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is a crime punishable by law. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded to or downloaded from file sharing sites, or distributed in any other way via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the publisher’s permission. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000 (http://www.fbi.gov/ipr/).
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are fictitious or have been used fictitiously, and are not to be construed as real in any way. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales, or organizations is entirely coincidental.
The author acknowledges the trademark status and trademark owners of My Little Pony, WD-40, IKEA, iPod, iPad, and Starbucks.
Published by Sweet Biscuit Publishing LLC
Edited by Nancy Cassidy of www.redpencoach.com
Cover Credits
Design:Najla Qamber of www.najlaqamberdesigns.com
Model: Hollis Chambers
Photographer: Scott Hoover
Courtesy of Ellie of lovenbooks.com
The Beauty of Lies
All Rights Are Reserved. Copyright ©2015 by Brinda Berry
First electronic publication: October 2015
Print ISBN-13: 9780692529393
Also by Brinda Berry
Adult Novels
Chasing Luck (A Serendipity Novel, #1)
Tempting Fate (A Serendipity Novel, #2)
Seducing Fortune (A Serendipity Novel, #3)
Serendipity Boxed Set (Books 1-3)
The Beauty of Lies (A Stand By Me Novel #1)
The Fiction of Forever (A Stand By Me Novel #2)- coming soon
And Then He Kissed Her: A Contemporary Romance Boxed Set (Sweet Romance)
Young Adult Novels
The Waiting Booth (Whispering Woods #1)
Whisper of Memory (Whispering Woods #2)
Watcher of Worlds (Whispering Woods #3)
The Waiting Booth Boxed Set (Books 1-3)
Wild at Heart II (An Anthology)
Lore: Tales of Myth and Legend Retold (An Anthology)
For release news, subscribe at http://bit.ly/Brinda_Berry
Website: www.brindaberry.com
Truth is beautiful, without doubt; but so are lies.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson
1
Toe the Line
Leo Jensen
I scroll down the list of unopened emails and wonder why bat-shit crazy seems to follow me.
“SUBJECT: You must like getting your toes sucked.” The subject line alone forces me to grimace. I can guess what’s coming next. I’ll open the email and find some misguided blog follower who wants to rant at me for my latest post. Or maybe the sender is making an offer.
At least my toes would be getting some action.
Yesterday, I wrote a blog post about a teacher who was fired for inappropriate behavior. Why did she lose her job? She’d chronicling about toe affection on her personal, yet public, blog. A fetish post for certain, but pretty tame by internet standards.
I wrote that her romantic preferences were her business, and certainly didn’t merit getting canned. It’s not like she fondled a student’s little piggies. Teachers certainly don’t deserve scarlet letters for admitting they have a love life.
Love and romance.
These are topics I have no business talking about, since I’m officially on strike when it comes to women. My A Torrid Toe Affair post garnered over two hundred comments, some more snarky than others. Blog traffic spikes with sex-related topics.
Last week, I exposed a restaurant owner taking advantage of underage employees. The week before, I featured a postcard submission from a woman who’d been fired by her employer for not letting him give her dictation. Naked. Him, not her.
I seem to be a regular employee advocate this month. The month before, my posts were all about politics.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not a masked marauder for justice. No cape in my closet. My talent for revealing truth seems to be accidental. It’s not what I really want out of life. I want to write books that entertain and thrill and keep you awake at night, turning pages.
I spend all my daytime hours working on my paying gig using my pseudonym, Mr. Expose. In the middle of the night, I hammer out my latest manuscript called The Incident, a political thriller on its third rewrite.
I click the boxes of at least twenty emails. Delete, delete, delete. I have more pressing things to do than read this shit.
The postcards on my desk pull at my attention. I pick up the top one. It’s a plain, white postcard with a picture of a crow on the front. I flip the card over to study the back. The sender’s handwriting tells me that he or she was in a hurry. The connective strokes between each letter are broken and thready. Barely there. The breaks between the letters indicate the person is impatient.
Handwriting analysis experts say our writing is like a fingerprint. The lines and curlicues can reveal the personality of the sender—whether they are open and honest or if they’re hiding something.
I took a class on graphology, because writers are like that. We like to know what makes people tick.
Some people don’t like my requirement for a postcard submission. They say my rule is archaic. That an online columnist shouldn’t act like a Luddite. The requirement does stop most impulsive people who would send an electronic submission in the same way they post a Facebook status—without taking time to think about repercussions.