Twisted Lies (Twisted, #4)

Dante has come to discuss with Christian the hideous Magda painting that they publicly bought from Josh Chen several months ago. Dante has the painting in his art gallery and is very eager to get rid of it. However, the painting is “too embedded in the jagged pieces of [Christian’s] past” (14), which prevents him from agreeing with Dante. Christian’s ex-employee, Axel, had stolen the painting and pawned it off to Sentinel—Christian’s biggest business competitor—believing that it held highly classified business secrets, a rumor that Christian planted. Though Christian has since retrieved the painting, and Sentinel has discovered that it holds no business secrets, they do know that it’s a sentimental object for Christian. After the meeting with Dante, Christian’s thoughts wander to Stella—a puzzle he’s yet to solve—while fiddling with the small turquoise ring in his pocket.

On the weekend, Stella travels to New York for the Delamonte dinner. Affording Maura’s care at Greenfield depends on her securing the brand ambassador position with the company. Though she’s seated on one side of the CEO of Delamonte, Luisa, on Luisa’s other side is an influencer couple, Raya and Adam. Raya used to be a friend of Stella’s, and Stella helped Raya grow her influencer account, but once she began dating Adam, they rocketed to fame with over one million followers, and Raya has since ditched Stella’s friendship. Raya’s short social media success within two years has discouraged Stella, who has been working at it for nearly a decade and whose growth has stagnated at around 900,000 Instagram followers.

Christian appears at the dinner and sits beside Stella. Though Luisa does not give Stella much attention at the dinner aside from one compelling conversation, Christian believes that Luisa regards Stella more highly than she regards Raya. Stella doesn’t believe this to be true, as Luisa spoke to Raya for most of the dinner instead. Christian assures her that Luisa gives more attention to the candidates about whom she’s unsure. After the dinner, Christian walks Stella back to her hotel to ensure her safety. In her hotel room, Stella realizes that she’s missed many calls from Meredith. Meredith is angry at her radio silence and wishes to meet with Stella on Monday morning.

On Monday morning, Meredith fires Stella and claims that it’s due to her lack of enthusiasm for the job. Stella has worked overtime without complaint and shown extreme levels of dedication to the job, so she is frustrated to have it all invalidated by Meredith. However, Stella simply swallows down her anger, packs up, and leaves the office. Her journey home is filled with anxious thoughts of how her judgmental family will respond to this latest development. They believe that her various jobs—working at a fashion magazine, blogging, Instagram influencing—aren’t sustainable and have never supported them.

Her spiraling thoughts are interrupted by a call from her social media manager, Brady. He asks how the Delamonte dinner went, and when Stella expresses concern that she’ll lose out on the brand ambassador position to Raya and Adam, Brady suggests that she get a fake boyfriend. Social media loves to obsess over couples, so posting about a boyfriend will likely promote viral content for Stella, increasing her growth and engagement. Though Stella doesn’t like the implication that getting a boyfriend is the only way to make her more interesting, she sees the potential in the idea and is desperate for the Delamonte position now that she’s unemployed.

Stella goes on a few dates with potential fake-boyfriend candidates but is unimpressed. When leaving her apartment building for her latest date, Christian sees her and asks about her plans for the night. When the date does not go well, Stella is left stranded at a bar. Christian finds her again and asks why she looks so unhappy. Stella admits to her predicament and needing a fake boyfriend. Christian proposes a mutually beneficial deal: In exchange for accompanying him to many social functions, he will agree to act as her fake boyfriend. He only asks that she not show his face on social media because he likes to keep his digital footprint clean due to the nature of his work in cybersecurity. After agreeing to those terms, Christian writes up a legitimate contract for Stella to sign.

Stella meets up with her friends for a catch-up lunch. Jules is a busy attorney who has recently returned from a weeklong trip to New Zealand with her boyfriend, Josh Chen, who is the brother to their other friend, Ava. Ava has been traveling as a photographer for World Geographic magazine and busily planning her upcoming wedding with Alex Volkov. Their other friend, Bridget, is busy in Europe as Queen of Eldorra.

On her walk to visit Maura at Greenfield after lunch, Stella gets another chilling sensation on her neck, as if she’s being followed. A survey of her surroundings doesn’t reveal anyone. Maura doesn’t recognize her during the visit due to her Alzheimer’s, so Stella pretends to be a new volunteer. Maura speaks with Stella about Phoebe—the daughter she hasn’t seen in a while. Though Maura doesn’t remember, Stella’s heart aches at the knowledge that both Phoebe and Maura’s husband died in a car accident six years ago. Visiting Maura solidifies Stella’s dedication to her deal with Christian; taking care of Maura is most important to her.

Stella returns home to get ready for the black-tie event at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History with Christian. When the bell rings early, Stella panics that it is the same mysterious stalker from her past due to the strange, uneasy feelings she’s been getting lately. However, it is only Christian arriving early to deliver a dress for her. While she changes, Christian teases her about Mr. Unicorn—the stuffed unicorn on her couch that she’s had since she was seven. On the ride to the gala, Christian puts his hand on Stella’s bare leg through the slit in her dress. She captures a photo of it and posts it on her Instagram, captioned, “Date night with my love <3” (72).

Christian tells Stella that Richard Wyatt, whose wife is hosting the gala in aid of sea turtles, is an important potential client for his business. He needs a new security team, and Christian hopes to be the one to provide it. Also in attendance is Mike Kurtz, the CEO of Sentinel Security and who is intent on stealing Christian’s accounts. In one week, Christian has lost two smaller accounts to Sentinel—Deacon and Beatrix. After a tense conversation with Mike, Christian and Stella speak with Richard. At first, he is less than impressed with Christian’s straight-down-to-business approach to conversation, but when Stella spins a tale of her and Christian volunteering at a senior living facility together, Richard’s opinion changes.

When Stella wanders off to speak with Richard’s wife, Richard tells Christian that he wants a security team he can trust and wasn’t sure that Christian would provide that since he’s come off as cold-hearted in the past. Stella’s story about volunteering with senior citizens has proven that initial impression otherwise, and Richard agrees to hire Christian’s company as security. After the conversation, Christian aims to tell Stella about the good news but cannot find her in the crowd and begins to panic. He finds her exiting the bathroom and asks her to inform him before she leaves in the future because her safety matters to him.

Jules and Ava wake Stella up the next morning by knocking on her door with breakfast. Bridget calls from Europe, and the girls interrogate Stella about her latest Instagram post that claims that she has a boyfriend. Stella checks the post to discover that it’s gone semi-viral and that she’s gained 10,000 followers overnight. Stella briefly tells them about her deal with Christian. She claims that they’re fake dating because she needs more followers on her socials to improve her chances at securing a huge brand deal. The girls express concern about Stella suddenly caring about her follower count, but she assures them that everything is fine and that she just wants to try something new. While the girls support it, Bridget, who is married to a former employee of Christian’s named Rhys Larsen, warns Stella to be careful with Christian because “he’s not the type of man who does anything out of the goodness of his heart” (96).

Christian receives a text from Luisa at Delamonte, asking about his relationship with Stella. Christian claims that he was keeping it secret so as not to sway Luisa’s decision for the brand ambassador position. Luisa claims that she’s 95% certain about who she wants to take the position. Kage, Christian’s oldest and most sought-after employee by clients, expresses concern about Christian dating an influencer, but Christian brushes him off. Kage reveals what he’s learned about the recent loss of the Deacon and Beatrix accounts. He believes that it was simply price undercutting—Sentinel promising them more for less money. Afterward, Christian receives a call from Rhys, who enquires about his relationship with Stella. Rhys warns Christian not to hurt Stella, as she is his wife Bridget’s best friend.

Christian goes to the library at the Valhalla Club—an exclusive, invite-only membership for the world’s wealthiest and most powerful—to play chess with his friend Alex Volkov. They’ve met for monthly matches for five years now. Because Alex is engaged to Stella’s friend Ava, he also asks Christian about his relationship with Stella. Though Alex has gathered that they must have struck a deal, he hopes that Stella can crack Christian’s “I don’t believe in love” shell (105). The talk of Stella distracts Christian, and he loses the chess match swiftly.

After winning the second match, Christian returns home at around nine o’clock in the evening, and he notices that his office door is open. He discovers an intruder in the room, whom he pins against the wall, only to discover that it is Stella watering his plants as promised. She admits that she’d forgotten earlier in the day and wanted to water them before the weekend. When Christian reprimands her for being in his apartment outside his permitted times and demands that she leave, Stella hands him her copy of his apartment key and implies that she won’t be returning. As Christian readies for bed, he can’t get their parting out of his mind. He decides to head downstairs to her apartment and apologize.

In her apartment, Stella digs through her purse for her phone but finds a plain white envelope with nothing written on it. The letter inside reads one line: “You were supposed to wait for me, Stella. You didn’t” (114). Stella remembers events from two years ago: receiving photos of her in the city with friends, at a restaurant, while waiting for the Metro, and shopping and receiving letters at her home address filled with declarations of love and descriptive sexual fantasies with her. These activities from her mysterious stalker lasted for weeks until they suddenly stopped. Two years later, it seems that he has returned. Stella realizes that he must have gotten close enough to her throughout the day to have put the letter in her purse undetected. Stella descends into an anxiety spiral and panics. When her doorbell rings and knocking begins, she crawls underneath the table between her couch and air conditioning unit.

Her visitor, whom she hasn’t realized through the panic is Christian, unlocks her front door with a master key and finds her hiding. Upon realizing her current state, Christian comforts her as she sobs. After she calms down, Christian finds the note discarded on the floor and reads it. He calls Kage and instructs him to guard Stella’s apartment for the night. In private, he also orders Kage and another employee, Brock, to shadow Stella without her knowing until the stalker is found.