The funny thing about lies is that they always leave a scent, like cheap cologne.
You can try to scrub it away, cover it up with charm, with money, with a dazzling smile—but eventually, it lingers. It sticks to everything you touch, every word you say, until people start to smell it before you even walk in the room.
Tyler Warren was a master at hiding the stench.
He wore his deceit like an expensive suit, tailored perfectly to fit his needs. For years, I was trapped under that same illusion, believing in the lies he spun, the life he promised.
Until I wasn’t.
It’s been two years since I signed the divorce papers and walked away from him and the wreckage of our marriage. But now, as I sit across from him in this too-expensive restaurant, I can smell the lies again, even stronger this time.
And I can’t help but wonder—what exactly does he want from me this time?
What’s He Spinning Now?
“You’re still looking good, Elena,” Tyler said, flashing that familiar grin, the one that used to melt me when we were first married. Now, it just made my skin crawl.
I wasn’t sure how I’d let myself get talked into this dinner.
Curiosity, I suppose.
When I saw his name pop up on my phone a few days ago, my first instinct was to hit ignore. It had been two years since our divorce—two years since I’d last seen his face, three and a half years since I found out about the endless string of affairs, the lies, the double life he’d been living.
I thought I’d moved on, rebuilt my life from the ashes he’d left behind.
But curiosity is a dangerous thing.
So here I was, sitting across from Tyler at Chateau Leone, the kind of place he’d always loved—showy, expensive, and all for appearances.
He looked good, I had to admit. The same perfectly styled hair, the designer watch glinting under the restaurant’s dim lights, the confident way he leaned back in his chair as if he owned the world.
But I knew better now. I knew that all of it was just surface-level gloss.
“Cut the small talk, Tyler,” I said, picking at the edge of my napkin. “You didn’t ask me to dinner to catch up. What do you want?”
He smiled, tilting his head slightly as if he found my bluntness charming. “Always direct. I missed that about you.”
I didn’t respond. I wasn’t here to play games.
“Alright,” he sighed, leaning forward. “I’ll get to the point. I’ve got a business proposition for you.”
That caught me off guard. “Business?”
He nodded, his grin widening. “Yeah, I’ve got a real estate development in the works. A big one—luxury homes by the lake. The kind of project that could make us both a lot of money.”
I blinked, processing the words.
It wasn’t that Tyler had never been ambitious—he always had grand plans. But he had no idea what he was doing in real estate.
He was a smooth talker, sure, but projects like that required knowledge, connections, expertise.
And that’s when it clicked.
“You need my help,” I said, my voice flat.
Tyler didn’t miss a beat. “Of course I do. You’re the best in the business, Elena. No one knows the real estate market around here like you do. I need your connections, your reputation. Together, we could make a killing.”
I leaned back in my chair, watching him carefully.
There it was again—that smell of lies, creeping through the cracks in his words.
Tyler didn’t come to me because he thought I was the best. He came to me because he was desperate.
And the way his eyes flicked away from mine, just for a split second, told me everything I needed to know.
“I’m not interested in helping you,” I said, standing up and throwing my napkin onto the table.
“Elena, wait,” Tyler said, grabbing my wrist, the charm in his voice replaced by a thread of desperation. “Hear me out. This is a big deal. You’d be walking away from a serious opportunity.”
I pulled my hand away. “I’m not walking away, Tyler. I’m just choosing not to walk into another one of your messes.”
As I left the restaurant, I could feel his eyes on me, but I didn’t look back. I wasn’t sure what game Tyler was playing, but I knew one thing—he hadn’t changed.
Not one bit.
Too Good To Refuse?
I spent the rest of the week trying to shake the encounter with Tyler, but the more I thought about it, the more the details started to nag at me. Tyler was a lot of things—charming, manipulative, reckless—but he wasn’t stupid.
He knew I wouldn’t be swayed by his flattery alone, so why was he pushing this so hard?
And then there was the development project itself. Luxury homes by the lake?
It was the kind of deal that could be huge in the right hands, but Tyler wasn’t exactly known for his real estate acumen. His last few ventures had gone bust, and from what I’d heard, his finances were shaky at best.
So why now? And why come to me?
I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was more going on beneath the surface, something Tyler wasn’t telling me. And as much as I hated to admit it, curiosity was getting the better of me again.
By the time the weekend rolled around, I had decided to do some digging.
It wasn’t about helping Tyler—no, that ship had sailed.
But if there was something shady going on, I wanted to know what it was before I found myself caught up in it. So, I spent my Saturday morning researching the development project Tyler had mentioned.
What I found wasn’t surprising, but it was disturbing.
The land Tyler wanted to develop was near the lake, just outside of town. On paper, it looked like prime real estate—beautiful views, a growing market for luxury homes—but a little more digging revealed something else.
The land was part of a protected area, subject to strict environmental regulations.
There was no way Tyler could legally build luxury homes there, at least not without pulling some serious strings.
And then there was the financing.
The project was being backed by a group of high-risk investors, the kind of people who didn’t ask too many questions as long as the profits looked promising. Tyler had gotten them on board with promises of massive returns, but he hadn’t told them the full truth about the land.
If the investors found out they were pouring money into a development that could never get off the ground, they’d bail faster than Tyler could charm them.
I sat back in my chair, the pieces starting to fall into place.
Tyler was in deep, deeper than he was letting on. And now he needed me to clean up his mess, to make his shady deal look legitimate so he could keep stringing his investors along.
A part of me wanted to wash my hands of it entirely.
Let Tyler sink in his own lies. But another part of me—stronger, louder—saw this for what it was.
An opportunity.