"Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth."
***
He actually noticed something was off.
Damn it. I underestimated him.
I'd been so focused on selling the pathetic act to the crowd that I forgot Lucius had been watching me for years. He knew my patterns. My tells. Every nervous tic and awkward stumble that made up the Kaelen Leone experience.
Stupid. Sloppy. Can't afford mistakes like that.
"Different how?" I made my voice smaller. Added that little upward lilt at the end that turned statements into questions. The verbal equivalent of a dog showing its belly.
"Like you actually knew what you were doing." His smile was razor thin. The kind of look a cat gives a mouse right before it stops playing. "But that's impossible, isn't it? You've never known what you were doing."
The words were meant to sting. But I heard the real question buried underneath.
He was testing me. Poking at my performance to see if anything cracked.
