The Harsher the Truth: A Forbidden, Second-Chance Romance: Part One (Truth and Lies Duet Book 1) by Sybil Knight

Author:Sybil Knight [Knight, Sybil]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-02-17T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Sixteen: The Fine Print

Tessa

Compartmentalization. It was a tactic. A skill set. A second nature. That the journalist had cultivated into a true art form over time.

With practice, Tessa had developed this uncanny ability to manipulate her emotional state. She could submerge those feelings she wanted to ignore the most, tamp them down, and leave them to decay. A feat that would be impressive if the psychological aftermath didn’t include the exceedingly unhealthy coping mechanisms that followed. However, it was for this same reason that she could effortlessly fall into character; she could be whatever facade someone wanted her to be at the time, whatever twisted version of herself that’d been imagined.

Somewhere, beneath it all, was the broken girl. The one who would never climb out to the surface again because she was buried under so many layers of dirt, earth, and sand that surely she had already succumbed to its weight. The girl with the story too salacious to be printed. Too damaged to be spoken aloud—who, with any luck, had decayed and rotted away so that nothing was left but her faint imprint and an ethereal stone epitaph that read:

Here lies the foolishness that once was. And would never be again.

But who Tessa was today, this was an entirely new identity. One waiting to be named and labeled, so the mask could be catalogued amongst the others already tucked away in her privately owned arsenal. Then again, this version may not have been as foreign as she’d initially thought. It seemed to fit in a way that was uncharacteristic yet oddly familiar. It was like a stranger’s face she was certain she’d seen before. But only in passing.

She berated herself, her first logical question being: what had changed?

Of course, the only viable answer was: Sterling. He affected her in a way that was so seemingly unnatural she felt severed from her innermost person. As if she were wearing someone else’s skin and forced to embody it like it were her own.

However, a far more disturbing question hung in the air. It floundered about like a complex equation not as readily solved, no matter the numerous attempts she made to recalculate it: Why did this role feel so inexplicably customized, with each and every perceived vulnerability pinned and sewn in place? And how could she possibly feel like something so unequivocally synthetic otherwise belonged?

***

“...What’s the progress?” The voice was piqued, slightly barred, and clearly growing more impatient.

“Progress…” The repeated word rolled off Tessa’s tongue like it was alien to her, its definition unknown and unclear.

“Yeah, P-R-O-G-R-E-S-S. Now, for the second time, TK, what’s your progress on the undercover feature? Are ya even listening?”

Nope. She. Was. Not.

A sudden, aptly timed kick—exerted from beneath the conference room table—jolted Tessa from the clutches of her mental fog. However, the unexpectedness of the strike propelled the flattened pen cap from the confines of her jaw and onto a yellow-lined notepad, where it presently sat. Unfazed by the resulting puddle of saliva that was

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