The Complete Truth and Lies Duet

<p><strong>TESSA</strong></p><p></p><h4><em style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>Shut up and look pretty sweetheart.</em></h4><h4></h4><h4><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>The instructions were simple.</span></h4><h4><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>1. Do as you're told.</span></h4><h4><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>2. Don't ask questions.</span></h4><h4><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>3. And always smile. </span><em style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>Men find it more attractive when you smile.</em></h4><h4></h4><h4><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>Unfortunately the job description forgot the part about not punching your partner square in the jaw. </span><em style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>Guess they should have been more specific?</em></h4><h4></h4><h4><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>Not that life lessons really mattered to a dead guy. Or the other halfwits looking to clean up his mess. If only the truth had been as easy to bury...</span></h4><h4></h4><h4><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>But the past yeah it had a way of creeping up on you. Especially when you forgot the most important rule:</span></h4><h4></h4><h4><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>4. Don't mix business and pleasure. </span><em style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>Again.</em></h4><p></p><p><strong>STERLING </strong></p><p></p><h4><em style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>If it comes down to the story or you I will choose the story. Every damn time.</em></h4><h4></h4><h4><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>She couldn't have been more clear. But that organ in his chest? The one that quickened when a certain smart-mouthed pain-in-the-ass tabloid writer entered the room. It had a bad habit of hoping what it heard was wrong. And not giving a damn if it wasn't.</span></h4><h4></h4><h4><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>After all she had said it herself:</span></h4><h4></h4><h4><em style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>It takes two people to end things. One to leave. And the other to let them.</em></h4><h4></h4><h4><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>Yep much like everything else in their relationship he wasn't about to make it easy for her. No matter how harsh the truth...</span></h4><h4></h4><h4><em style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>Or sweet the lie.</em></h4><h4></h4><p></p>