Bed of Lies by Shelly Ellis

hyperbolic, right? C. J. gave a wary glance over her shoulder at Evan Murdoch, who was still railing.
    â€œEv’s not normally like this,” the woman said, stopping in front of the elevator doors. She pressed the Down button, not giving C. J. a chance to tell her where she wanted to go. “Terry’s accident really scared him. He’s more than just a little distraught.”
    â€œI’m sorry,” C. J. whispered again.
    â€œIt’s okay,” the woman replied as the elevator doors opened. “You just came at a very bad time.”
    C. J. stepped onto the metal elevator and turned to the woman. “Thank you, Miss—”
    â€œHawkins,” the woman said. “Leila Hawkins. But everyone calls me Lee.”
    Leila Hawkins. She recognized her now. Evan’s mistress, according to the town gossip.
    The elevator doors shut and C. J. collapsed against the metal walls.

Chapter 5
    Dante
    D ante whistled a peppy tune as he strode and practically skipped off the elevator and down the corridor. He was excited and could barely contain the enthusiasm that surged through him at that moment. He felt like today was Christmas and the Fourth of July rolled into one. Dante hadn’t been this happy in weeks, maybe even months and it was all because his half-brother, Terrence, had decided to crash his Porsche into some poor old lady at a D.C. intersection.
    Just thinking about it made Dante beam.
    â€œUmm, excuse me,” the nurse called out as Dante passed the hexagon-shaped desk. “Excuse me, sir!”
    He didn’t pause or even acknowledge her. Instead, he glanced at the doorways of each hospital room, in search of Mavis Upton—the woman who had been in the accident with Terrence.
    Dante had used his legal connections as a lawyer to finagle her name from the local cops and now he was on a mission to not only meet Mavis but also to make her his client. They were going to sue the pants off of Terrence Murdoch.
    To say that Dante disliked his wealthy siblings was putting it lightly; he utterly despised them. While they had been born and raised in the lap of luxury, he had grown up poor in the inner city. While they carried the Murdoch name, his father had succeeded for decades in keeping Dante a secret. In fact, Dante hadn’t known that George Murdoch was his father until he was a grown man. The week after his mother made the deathbed revelation, he had gone straight to George’s office at Murdoch Conglomerated to introduce himself.
    â€œWhy are you here?” George had asked Dante coldly within seconds of him stepping through the office door.
    Dante had just laid eyes on his father, gazing in awe at the man he strongly resembled. George had had the same skin tone as himself, had been balding, and had shrewd hazel eyes that seemed to bore into Dante’s very soul. He had admired George already based on what he had heard and read about him over the years. Seeing George in person, looking so dignified and commanding in the penthouse office of the company he had built from the ground up, only made Dante admire him even more. But his father’s chilly tone had been like a splash of frigid water.
    His mother had warned him that George had been embarrassed about his liaison with her—a poor waitress he’d had a one-night stand with in the early days of his marriage. Because of that, Dante hadn’t expected a bear hug or even a tear-filled apology for ignoring him for thirty-six years, but he had at least expected his father to offer him a seat in one of the two leather wingback chairs that had been facing the immense mahogany office desk. He hadn’t expected the first words out of his mouth to be “Why are you here?”
    â€œDo you want money?” George had asked, eying Dante. “Is that what this is about?”
    â€œMoney would be nice,” Dante had said. He had forced a laugh to let his father know he had been joking, but he had