Dirty Little Liars by Missy Lynn Ryan Page A

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    She hit ignore and switched the phone to airplane mode. And just like that, the outside world was completely cut off.
    Juliette grabbed the half empty bottle of wine and headed to her bedroom. She toweled off, slipped into her third pair of yoga sweats for the day and another long-sleeved t-shirt. She stared at herself in the mirror. It was a far cry from the girl she had seen earlier this evening. The one who looked like she donned the cover of Vogue or Esquire for Men. Now she was just plain old Juliette Morgan.
    There’s nothing wrong with that, a voice told her, and she was inclined to agree. She climbed into bed, grabbed the book on her nightstand, and settled in for the night.
    Juliette jerked awake for the second time that evening. Only this time it was the pounding on her apartment door that woke her.
    She glanced at the alarm clock, which read 2:23. “You have got to be kidding me.” She had only been asleep for an hour.
    Juliette tried to ignore the knocking but her curiosity got the better of her. If she had been a betting woman she would have put money on one Mr. Tyler Chase, though there was also a slim chance it might be Courtney. Juliette wasn’t in a hurry to see either one of them. The door rattled again as someone resumed the knocking.
    She pulled herself out of the bed and plodded to the front door.
    “I’m coming,” she snapped at what had to be the sixth set of pounding. Don’t these people know I have neighbors?
    She stood on her tiptoes so that she could peek through the peephole. It wasn’t Ty or Courtney. It was Winston. The friend slash assistant slash campaign advisor.
    He pounded again and she jerked backward. Holy hell. This was ridiculous.
    Juliette undid the locks and yanked the door open before pulling him inside and closing it again.
    “What the hell is wrong with you?”
    “Huh?” He looked completely perplexed.
    “It’s two-thirty in the morning. I have neighbors, you know.”
    “Oh, yeah. They’re not home. Well, Gina and Mike aren’t anyway. And the old couple can’t hear a thing without their hearing aids. Dead to the world, they are.”
    “That doesn’t make it okay to pound on people’s doors in the middle of the night.” Juliette crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him.
    “Riiiight…” he said. “I’m sorry?”
    The fact that he said it like a question was an obvious sign that he wasn’t sorry at all. Clearly he didn’t understand what he had done wrong.
    “What are you doing here?”
    His face suddenly lit up again as he remembered his reason for banging on her door.
    “I came to get you.”
    “To get me? For what?”
    “There’s something you need to see.” Winston grabbed her arm and pulled her to the door.
    “Hold on.” She stumbled after him. He turned at her resistance.
    “What is it?”
    “I’m not even dressed and I haven’t agreed to go anywhere with you. I don’t even know you.”
    “You know Ty.”
    She waited for him to continue because certainly that wasn’t reason enough to leave the comforts of her own living room.
    “Just trust me. There’s a lot more to this story than meets the eye. You have a right to know the truth. If you come with me, you’ll get just that.”
    “The truth about what?”
    “About Ty.”
    Juliette began to back away. “No. I don’t want to know anything more about Ty. In fact, I want nothing to do with him.”
    Winston’s phone rang and he snapped it open. “Hello?”
    Juliette took advantage of the distraction to move farther into the living room. She didn’t want to go anywhere with Winston. He could tell her whatever it was she needed to know right there.
    Winston turned away from her. His voice dipped lower. Who was he talking to and why was he trying to keep it a secret? Juliette tried to listen in on his conversation. But the voice on the other end was muffled and Winston was only offering vague answers to the conversation.
    “Winston?” she called and he jerked around at