LOGINShare
A Covert Trade
Last Updated:
2025-03-30 22:38:04
Related chapters
Ex-Periment: Fake-Dating My Sister's Ex The Confidante
TiaraBeing Ciara for twenty minutes straight is exhausting.I’ve never blackmailed someone before. Never, in my twenty-three years of living. But I guess it’s true what they say – you make one lie then you’ve got to make a thousand more to keep it standing. Well, in my case – one single act of blackmail to keep it standing.I think back on our conversation as I amble out of the building and the shock on her face replays in my mind’s eye like a snapshot. The shock that rapidly morphed into a flicker of fear, then a flash of anger and finally a desperate look of plea, that lasted a second before igniting back to anger and I know I should gloat over the fact that for the first time in our lives, I’m able to get to my sister and not the other way round.Instead I feel guilty, culpable, like I did something wrong. Something I shouldn’t have. It’s not fair having your deepest secret thrown at you like that.But then again, she did do worse to me in less graceful methods.As much as I hated
Last Updated : 2025-03-31Ex-Periment: Fake-Dating My Sister's Ex Shameless Plea
RyanThere are a lot of things I shouldn’t be doing.I shouldn’t want to share Tiara’s bed all the time, that’s for sure. I shouldn’t drink coffee as much as I do, another surety, I shouldn’t even be here in this wedding with some stupid-ass mission.And I sure as hell shouldn’t be knocking on Ciara’s door because I received her text and my mind is curious as to what she has to say.At least, unlike the other ‘shouldn’ts’, I still have time to back out of this decision.But just as I’m turning to leave, Ciara’s door swings open and she is … a crying mess.I don’t care much for the girl who almost destroyed my world, but I’ll be damned if I leave a crying girl all to her own devices. Even though said crying girl just so happens to be my ex.She is wearing an oversized robe as she opens the door, and closes it behind me, her eyes red and puffy from crying.“I’m so sorry,” she sniffles, “I just, well, I’m having a really bad day.”“I see that.”She dabs at her lids with a napkin. “Give m
Last Updated : 2025-04-01Ex-Periment: Fake-Dating My Sister's Ex Rehearsal Dinner
Tiara “What da hell is this?” Melody asks, twirling the food around her plate.I take in the look on her face and fight back a smile, “It’s octopus.”She splutters, “What?!”“Uh-huh.”“Gurl, I’m black. Black people don’t eat weird ass food.”I laugh. “Yeah right.”We are at the rehearsal dinner and the ballroom is basked in the warm glow of expensive candles and the gentle hum of conversation. Donald Lemptons is here, finally, coming in merely an hour before the dinner, and now he sits all-powerful-like at the head of the table, flanked by Ciara and Grace on both sides, and every other person looks small in comparison.A part of me tugs at my guts, whispering, ‘you should be there, in that circle with them. They are after all family, they should have to acknowledge you too’But I’m used to all the years of neglect by them, pretending I don’t exist in their glamorous family. Maybe except my mother, but to her I’m a different family than this one. To her, both of us make one family, an
Last Updated : 2025-04-01Ex-Periment: Fake-Dating My Sister's Ex Parental Issues
TiaraMy eyes are trained on my dad as he drops his fork, clears his throat and smiles. “I guess so, Donald.”What? Donald Lemptons just insulted the man, and he was acting like they were talking about the freaking weather.Melody shares a look with me and I return it with a small shrug.Donald Lemptons isn’t done. If anything he looked pissed that my father wasn’t offended with his comment. “So Africa huh?” his voice rings across the table again, “you find any married woman to your taste?” he spoons a mouthful of his food into his mouth like he didn’t just deliver one of the most hateful sentences, leaving it out there in the open.My mother’s eyes are two large circles as her gaze moves from her husband to my father.My father in question doesn’t bat a lid. The smile is gone but he holds Donald’s gaze unflinchingly, “None, unfortunately.”I almost laugh. He is playing his game, leading him on, pissing him off the more. Knowing Donald, I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad th
Last Updated : 2025-04-03Ex-Periment: Fake-Dating My Sister's Ex Not Feel
Tiara I can’t sleep.It’s hard to when the conversations keep playing in my head;“. . . you weren’t silent all those times you fucked my wife in all the cities you took her to. . .”“. . . inviting your lover to my daughter’s wedding? . . .”“Leave her out of this,”“. . . would you love you if you were me?”Too much information for one night. I don’t know what to feel. Happy that my father wasn’t lonely after all? Hurt that they had both lied to my face? Angry that she cheated on Donald? Does that even make me angry? I don’t think so.I’m overwhelmed, my feelings are in a state of flux, rapidly morphing and merging into one another, leaving me disoriented as I replay the whole night.Ryan left me alone for a while and I appreciated that he decided to give me some space to think. But in the middle of the night he knocks on my door.His features are etched in worry when I open the bedroom door and he doesn’t wait for an invitation to enter which is as well considering the number of
Last Updated : 2025-04-04Ex-Periment: Fake-Dating My Sister's Ex A Walk in The Ledges
Tiara“Where you ever going to tell me?”My mother plucks a wild flower, twirling its petals in her hands before she replies me. “Maybe.”It is weird. Not only the fact that she has never been the type to be uncertain all my life – she is a yes or no person – but also the fact that she, Grace Lemptons, just picked a wild flower regardless of the fact that ‘it would prick your finger pads’ or ‘they’re way too dirty to hold.’ Those were the words she told me when I used to play with them as a kid.“Maybe?” I ask her now.She shrugs. “You were going to find out eventually. James thought it’ll be best if you knew after the divorce.”“You were filing a divorce?”“I didn’t want to at first,” she slumps her shoulders as we walk along the pathway surrounded by untrimmed ledges and the sounds of morning birds, “I was always so selfish. I wanted it all. It wasn’t fair to him. To keep him on the side.”She is just realizing that now?“I asked him y’know. Few days ago I asked him if there was so
Last Updated : 2025-04-04Ex-Periment: Fake-Dating My Sister's Ex The Wedding Eve
TiaraThe beach is cold at this time of the night but I don’t mind.I need the wind to clear my thoughts anyway.Melody texted me earlier about attending the bridal shower tonight but I opted for the serenity of the beach instead. The appeal to get drunk and scream on the top of my lungs has always been lost on me.Tomorrow it will all be over. The wedding, the pretense, everything will be over. I can leave it all behind and catch the first flight back to New York, putting these past few days in the rearview mirror. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.It’s hard to think of my life now and hold back the tears that threaten to spill. Maybe one day, I’ll understand why she chose to stay, but today is not that day, and as I think back on the years, I try not to be her, to understand her choices.Growing up, I’d accepted my fate as the other daughter, the extra they had to keep. It was all I was and I didn’t mind. But knowing now that I could’ve had more, that my life didn’
Last Updated : 2025-04-05Ex-Periment: Fake-Dating My Sister's Ex A Night on the Beach
TiaraThe realization hits me hard as I study his features studying mine.I don’t know when or how it happened but he has come to mean a whole lot to me and this six days I’ve had with him are probably the best days of my life. Maybe I loved him before he showed up at my doorstep, maybe I loved him in freshman year while we were still friends, maybe it’s the time we spent here, together in Ocean City that did the trick but I’ve come to love Ryan in a way that might just turn out disadvantageous to me.“Tee?”I blink. “What?”“What’s going on in that head of yours?”“Nothing.”His eyes roam my face. “It’s not nothing,” he reaches out to smoothen the crease on my brows I didn’t even know was there, the movement bringing him closer, “tell me what’s getting you all worked up.”I shrug. “It’s a question.”His gaze holds mine, his thumb caressing my cheek, “Ask me.”The question rolls in my head, a question I’ve been asking myself for the past two days. It feels final even when I say it, li
Last Updated : 2025-04-05
Latest chapter
Ex-Periment: Fake-Dating My Sister's Ex The Search
RyanMy hand pushes the door to a bedroom open.Empty.Then a bathroom, a guest bedroom, the closet.I hear Melody doing the same all around the house, coming up with the same results as me – nothing.This is the third house we have been to within the span of time I called Grace and now, and we still haven’t found a single thing. Not a single thing to boast of.Grace was panicked when I made the call, frantically begging me to do something, anything, to bring her daughters back. ‘Daughters’ as in plural.I didn’t stop to think about what she meant.The physical manhandling of the cop in New Jersey might get me to jail eventually but for now it seems to be doing more wonders than naught and it didn’t take up to an hour before the sirens filled the air and a search warrant was issued.Tiara James-Lemptons is missing.If the cops are not going to take this serious then they’ll have to deal with the media on their necks 24/7 for the next month. That got their asses moving.I also informed
Ex-Periment: Fake-Dating My Sister's Ex Hello Sister
Tiara“Hello, sister.”My throat tightens as the voice registers in my foggy brain.I blink, trying to block the too bright sun rays away from eyes in that single moment.Ciara moves a bit to her right so that she stands directly in front of the sun streaming through the window, shielding me and revealing her sneering face to me at the same time.I gasp. Somehow, I still held doubt in my head even after I heard her voice. Somehow, I thought I had been hallucinating things. But seeing her confirms that she is really here, and not just some figment of my own imaginations.“Ciara? What the fuck?” I say, even though panic is tearing at my heart.This is wrong.So wrong. Surely, the hit to my head was more than I gave it credit for because now I am seeing things.Because Ciara? Yes she hates my guts but this is just . . . extreme.I try to get up to my feet to meet her gaze because the sun behind her is illuminating her features, blocking it so I know it is her but her face is kind of part
Ex-Periment: Fake-Dating My Sister's Ex Bored Cop
Ryan“How sure are you that this is an assault?” The man in the cop uniform asks Melody. He has a rough beard and a cop moustache that makes him look older than his age and the bored expression on his face is like a slap to my mentality.Melody looks like she is about to shake the shit out of him when she says, “What the fuck do you mean—”“Language, ma’am.” he warns, his eyebrow raised up.“How can you stand there and ask me — how can you – there is blood on the board, dammit!”The man gives her a warning look but doesn’t say anything.She goes on anyway, “The door was left ajar, on a spring night,” she emphasized, “There is blood on the skating board, and the victim is missing. What other evidence could you possibly need?”Immediately we found the door open and we each made rounds to different parts of the house to confirm that Tiara indeed wasn’t there, we decided to call the New Jersey cops to let them know of a possible assault and file a report of a missing person.So far, there
Ex-Periment: Fake-Dating My Sister's Ex Trickle
Ryan”Fifty bucks, she fell asleep and forgot to text you,” Jackson comments from the backseat, “I mean she is human after all. We do a lot of things we haven’t done before.”“I’m not taking a bet on the safety of my best friend, Jack,” Melody shoots at him.“Safety? I mean,” Jackson shrugs, “she could literally be asleep right now, and this road trip would all be for nothing. We can just take a swing from here right now to Connecticut. I know a guy with a club that can let us—”Melody shoots daggers at him that shuts him down.He clears his throat. “Have you tried calling her again at least? I mean it’s past dawn now.”True to his words the morning sun is trickling through the open windows into the car, the warm rays, doing nothing to uplift the coldness that has settled in my guts.I’ve forgotten that Jackson asked a question until Melody speaks up again, “She is still not picking up. It’s dawn already, Tee is a morning person. She should have been up by now. And if she isn’t, then
Ex-Periment: Fake-Dating My Sister's Ex Humid
TiaraThe humid smell of mud first hits me.For a second I am led to believe that I am in a very, very dark room. A dark room with no windows and no doors and just the right amount of oxygen.But as my eyes adjust – or in this context – fail to adjust to anything in my line of view, I realize that there is a thick material around my face that covers the entirety of my eyes. It could be sunny out there for all I know.My brain is a mush of uncontrolled thoughts and deafening buzzes and the headache just above my right eye is throbbing in a way that would make the doctors fret. If the doctors saw me now.What the fuck?What happened?The last thing I remember . . .I was in the beach house. Then I went to the beach for a stroll.No, I had gone to take my jacket from the room upstairs. But that is not the last thing I remember.The last thing I remember is me standing right across the threshold in the beach house, pulling the door open because Ryan had rang the doorbell.Wait. . .My hea
Ex-Periment: Fake-Dating My Sister's Ex A Necessary Insight
Ciara“She is being diagnosed with NPD. It’s not that rare of a case but it is as severe as any other disorder out there, maybe even more.”I remember the conversation like it was yesterday.I was ten years old and I remember being really glad my parents accompanied me to my therapist’s that day. It was one of the trips we went without Tiara and I was super pumped that she had to stay alone with boring old Mrs. Fisher, our live-in sitter at the time.My mother had squinted her eyes at the doctor while my father remained calm like he’ll rather be anywhere else in the world than here, listening to some boring ass therapist.I felt exactly the same way.“What is that?” my mother asked, “What does NPD even mean?”“Well,” my therapist adjusted her glasses like someone about to give a very educated, very important but also very boring lecture. “The word, NPD is an acronym for “Narcissistic Personality Disorder” and it is categorized in most cases by a need for control, and,” she starts tick
Ex-Periment: Fake-Dating My Sister's Ex Jitters and Frets
Ryan: “Meet me outside your apartment. ASAP”I stare at the message from Melody again as I shrug on a coat. It is weird enough that she wants to talk to me this late in the night or – I check the time on the clock, it is just a little after three am – morning, but what is even weird is that she is already in front of my apartment meaning that whatever she has to say is that urgent.She is standing by her car when I walk out, a slight frown on her face, and she has Jackson standing beside her like some protective bodyguard of some sorts.“That urgent?” I ask her, gesturing between both of them.“He was with me when I decided to come here, wouldn’t let me leave alone,” she replies.I raise an eyebrow at this and he waves off. “Shut the fuck up, bro.”Great. I didn’t know where we stood after the mini threat-like statement he made yesterday but this statement just cleared things up. “You don’t see me saying anything,” I smirk. I like him better when he isn’t oogling over Tiara.I jut my
Ex-Periment: Fake-Dating My Sister's Ex Black Hole
TiaraThe salty scent of the beach fills my nostrils as I walk, loving the breeze on my face.It is a cold spring night, and I curse for not bringing a coat or jacket to add to my casual dressing of flannel trousers and a sweater before leaving the house and coming down here to stroll along the beach. My gaze travels over the short distance to the house and I groan dramatically.I’ll just have to ride out the cold until I decide to leave.Against all earlier odds, today turned out to be great.Like the-best-thing-that-could-ever-happen kind of great.Not aiming at being smug but I got the man in the end, even though this felt like more like a beginning than an end, , and although I got hurt in the scuffle, well I did come out with the best end of the deal.And what is a victory anyway, without the battle scars?Agreed, I can’t help but feel bad for Ciara. I’ve always felt bad when I thought of our love triangle like somehow I am in the wrong. And I might have been too. He was her man
Ex-Periment: Fake-Dating My Sister's Ex No Us
RyanWhy is Ciara in my apartment?Again?It does not take me long to find out as I push my unlocked apartment door open and find her sitting cross-legged on my couch, a too smiley expression on her face.“What are you doing, Ciara?”She gives me an innocent shrug. “Watching a TV show. Come on, they just started this one I think you’ll love it.”“No, I mean what are you doing here? In my apartment.”“Why, waiting for you,” she says it like it is the most obvious answer, “when I came back from fetching the doctor you were gone, fake alarm by the way, the doctor said she was doing just fine and to be honest I don’t think anything was wrong with her in the first place, my mother has an unnatural flair for the dramatics. But as I was saying, you were not there when I got back so I just figured you’d be here. The apartment was empty,” she rolls her eyes, “where were you, Ryan?”How can she keep a straight, blank face and act like everything is alright?“I’m going to need my keys back, Ciar
