by Megan Bryce
Luke looked at her, his eyes memorizing the new lines on her face, the firmness to her mouth, her blond hair. He quietly valued the new clothes she was wearing and his eyes lingered, just a touch too long, on her engagement ring.
He sat his cup down untouched and said, “You’re not a kid, anymore.”
“Ten years will do that.”
He nodded. She couldn’t help but notice the changes in him. His golden brown hair was peppered with gray, the laugh lines deep in his face.
He picked his cup back up, took a slow sip, and said, “I’m married.”
She blinked but didn’t hide her surprise fast enough. He chuckled. “You’d like her. Thought I was Satan himself when she met me; hasn’t changed her mind much in the five years we’ve been married. She wanted to meet you, damn near broke my jaw when she found out I had a grown daughter I’d never bothered to tell her about.” He looked out the window. “Told her she could meet you next time.”
Mackenzie sipped her coffee, not surprised to find it sweet and rich just like she liked it. Her father remembered the little details just fine. The little details, he always said, was what kept a con man out of jail.
Luke sighed and looked back at her, reading in her eyes that there would be no next time. “Your sister is turning three this November,” he said and her breath whooshed out as if he’d punched her.
She hid her trembling hands under the table. “Cozy. A nice wife, a new child.”
He smiled slightly. “My wife is not nice. I’d call her prickly, with a side of bulldog thrown in for good measure. She got her teeth into me and I haven’t wanted to get them out yet.”
“That’s not the type you normally go for. She must be loaded, and smart enough to keep it out of your hands.”
He chuckled, a low rumble that made the woman sitting at the table next to them spill her coffee. “Oh, I’d taken her inheritance before she ever met me. Tracked me down to get it back.” He shook his head, a smile lifting the corners of his mouth. “She doesn’t believe a word I say. And still just won’t let go.”
“Very different from my mother.”
He handed his napkin to the poor woman at the next table, smiling into her eyes and making her face flush red. Then turned back to Mackenzie. “Your mother was a sweetheart. The biggest mark I’d ever seen, and she believed every word I ever told her. I’m lucky I got a hold of you when I did or you would have turned out just like her.”
It took all her concentration to keep her breathing even. To keep from leaping across the table and tearing off his smug, confident face.
He watched her, then murmured, “You’ve gotten good. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’d forgiven me about that.”
“I haven’t. You can rest assured.”
He nodded, winking at the woman who was still trying not to stare at him. He said to Mackenzie, “Are you playing this one?”
“No.”
“Good. Because you won’t win.”
She raised her eyebrows. “You don’t know anything about the O’Connors.”
“No. I know you. And you think it’s cheating to use your gifts to steal from someone.”
“Yes, that sounds exactly like cheating to me.”
“And so you take their money ethically?” He shook his head, laughing. “You sell investments.”
“It’s a step up from eternal life.”
He nodded his head graciously. “Of course. And now you’ve moved on to marrying for money.”
Mackenzie said, “You know nothing about it.”
“I know it sounds like a con. So I’ve come to see if my daughter has joined the game.” Luke watched her a moment. “Now I’m wondering about him.”
“It’s not a con.”
“So says the mark.”
“It’s a favor.”
He sighed heavily, shaking his head. “It gets worse and worse.”
She laughed, a bitter edge to it. “What do you think he’s trying to get from me?”
“What does any man want from a woman? Everything.”
“I know exactly what he wants from me. He’s not a con man.” She paused. “Okay, he is. But not one like you.”
Luke’s eyes flicked behind her. “Maybe he’s better than me.”
Mackenzie turned to find Ethan bearing down on them, anger plain on his face. Her shoulders relaxed. Ethan wasn’t better than her father. He wasn’t playing her. She had no doubts where he was concerned.
Ethan took her hand in his, pulling her up and trying to stare down her father. “Don’t bother her.”
“She can take care of herself.”
“But she doesn’t have to. I’m right here, and if she says she doesn’t want to see you, then I will make sure she doesn’t.”
Her father looked between the two of them, his brows furrowed in thought, and then he barked out a laugh. “Oh, you two. No one’s running this thing, I see.”
He stood, nodded at Ethan and smiled at his daughter. “When you two work this out, remember your old dad. Come and meet your sister, my wife. We’ll get to know each other again.”
Mackenzie couldn’t help it, the words popped out of her mouth. “I already know everything I need to about you. People don’t change.”
Luke nodded. “True. But they get older and slower and wiser. People sometimes get tweaked. And sometimes that’s enough.”
He smiled at her, and his smiled widened when he saw her hackles rising.
He laughed, a crystal clear boom that not even his daughter could see through. “And sometimes it’s too little, too late.” He shook his head. “Too much of me and not enough of your mother. I did too good a job.”
“My mother was a beautiful mark. You never wanted me to be like her.”
“No. And I still don’t. But she would have forgiven me, and you won’t.”
Mackenzie took a deep breath. “She wouldn’t have forgiven you. She wouldn’t have realized there was anything to forgive. But you’re right that I won’t. Don’t come back. There’s nothing for you here.”
She waited, staring him in the eye. Letting him see everything he had done to her, everything he’d taken from her. Letting him see that he could never make her believe he cared for her.
Luke finally nodded at her, a smile still on his face. He looked at Ethan. “You know what I’ll do if you’re playing her.”
Mackenzie snorted. “You should have threatened yourself.”
He turned to her, his eyes suddenly cold and hard. “I should have. But I was too stupid then. So I will threaten him.” He looked at Ethan again. “Your deepest, darkest fears will become reality. I might even talk her into helping if she finds she’s fallen to another con man.”
Ethan didn’t falter under her father’s gaze. “She hasn’t.”
Mackenzie turned, leaving her father standing there, knowing she should have left long ago. But she’d thought he would have given a hint at what he wanted. How much it was going to cost to get rid of him.
Oh, she wouldn’t have paid. But she wanted to know how hard he was going to work.
And now she knew. He either wanted nothing or everything.
She would bet on everything.
Ethan followed her out, holding her hand silently on the subway ride to their building. They rode the elevator up, Mackenzie’s arms crossed tight in front of her. She went straight through to her bedroom after he opened the front door, not looking at him.
Ethan followed her, blocking her from shutting the door with his foot.
“Go away,” she said in a harsh voice.
He pushed the door in, grabbing her arms, and pulling her in close. He wrapped his arms around her, not saying a word.
She whispered, “Please go away.”
“No.”
He held her close as she cried, as her tears fell, soaking his shirt. He simply held her and ran his hand down her hair, over and over.
Mackenzie finally whispered, “You need to warn your grandma. And maybe your mother.”
/>
She felt him smile. “They know what a con man looks like.”
“Then why does your mother still fall for your smile?”
“She’s my mother. And you don’t need to worry. The O’Connors have dealt with con men before.”
She lifted her head, finally looking him in the eye. “Not like him.”
“I’ll let them know he is a threat.”
She nodded, wiping her face.
He said, “You have a sister?”
She looked down at the carpet. “Who knows. Maybe he made it up, to get to me. It worked.”
She didn’t know what to do about a sister. A three-year-old sister. And her father married? She would have said that would never happen. What was marriage and family to a man who cared only for money?
“What made you leave? What did he do?”
A half-laugh, half-sob escaped. “He did nothing. Nothing when he should have done something.”
Ethan sat down on the bed, pulling her down to sit beside him, silently watching her. She knew what he was doing, drawing her out with his silence, but she couldn’t seem to stop the words.
“I was with him, on his compound. And my mother died.” She took a deep breath. “I didn’t find out until months later. He never told me. Not when she was sick, not when she died, not when they held her funeral.”
“Why?”
“Because he didn’t care. And he didn’t think I would either.” Mackenzie blinked a few times, not wanting to cry again. “I cared. She was my mother.”
He nodded.
“I decided I would go back home, visit her, visit my grandparents. I was tired of the compound, tired of the suckers. And he said, ‘Oh, she died.’ Like. . . like–” She waved her hand in the air. “Like they were out of peanut butter at the store and he hadn’t thought it worth the bother of mentioning.”
“I’m sorry.”
“He didn’t care that I might need to say goodbye to my mother. I was raking in the cash for him and he didn’t want to let that go. I meant money to him. Just like everyone else there. Just a big dollar sign.”
Ethan took her hand, running his thumb up and down, trying to soothe her hurt.
She said, “I’d learned to see people, see what they really wanted. So I looked at him. And all he wanted was money. He didn’t want a daughter.”
“His loss. His problem. Not yours.”
She shrugged. “I went back home, tried to see my grandparents, but they looked at me like I was just like him. Cold and heartless. They said my mother had called and sent letters, wanting to see me before she died. They didn’t believe I’d never received them.” She shook her head. “They wouldn’t forgive me for letting my mother die heartbroken and alone. I lost all my family trying to get him to love me. Lost everyone who’d already loved me.”
He shook his head. “They were grieving. Have you tried contacting them since?”
“Once. Nothing had changed.” She laughed, a hopeless tear-stained choke. “They saw a woman even colder than they remembered.”
“I don’t believe they thought you cold and heartless.”
She raised an eyebrow. “You don’t? I’ve been called ice queen enough times to know most people see me like that.”
“I never saw cold. I saw. . . closed, maybe. A fortress protected by a moat and a drawbridge, with a no entrance sign chiseled into the stone.”
She couldn’t help but laugh. “No wonder you couldn’t leave me alone. What a challenge for you.”
“I knew there must be something inside worthwhile to protect.”
She looked down at their intertwined hands. “Maybe.”
Ethan said, “No. I was pretty sure then. And now I’m certain.”
Mackenzie smiled slightly. “You’re the only one who can break my composure, so maybe that’s the difference.”
He sat back, satisfied at her confession. “Will your father stick around? Try and get to you again?”
She nodded. “If he tries contacting you, don’t talk to him. Give him nothing that he can use. Don’t let him into the OC.”
He nodded. “I only have one more question. How good were you at wringing? If you wanted everything from me, could you get it?”
She looked into his clear green eyes. “You’d be a tough nut to crack.”
But she knew what he wanted. He wanted to find that woman who was worth half his fortune. Who he could be sure of and who would make him sure of himself.
She was her father’s daughter, no matter how much she wished otherwise. She knew what Ethan wanted, how much he wanted it. She could get everything from him.
But she was pretty sure it would take everything she had.
He wiggled his eyebrows. “Could you crack me?”
She was smiling when she said, “I could crack you.”
He pulled her closer, tucking her head under his chin. “I’d like to see you try.”
“No, you wouldn’t.”
“I would. I’d like to see who’d come out on top.”
“You remember WarGames? No one left to be on top. The only way to keep from losing is not to play.”
“We’re not talking about annihilation here.”
“That’s because you’ve never lost before. You don’t know what it really feels like.”
He ran his hand down her back. “I hate your father.”
She listened to his heart beat, the anger in his voice. Felt his strong arms around her and thought for a moment she might hate her father for the exact same reason Ethan did. For taking away her desire to play with everything she had.
But she said, “Seems fair. I hate your mother.”
He chuckled. “Let’s do something both of them will hate.”
She smiled up at him. “I’ll play that game with you.”
He toppled them to the bed and said, “Good. We can see who comes out on top.”
Ethan had been quietly fuming the last few days and hadn’t been sleeping well. He decided he might as well get out of bed and let Mackenzie sleep. While he did enjoy waking her up, she hadn’t had a full night’s rest since her father’s ambush.
He headed for the gym. A quick workout before work would help get whatever was bothering him out.
It wasn’t buried too deep, a fact he realized as he headed straight for the punching bag.
He took a long, slow breath. He methodically wrapped his hands, pulled on his gloves, and then he wailed into the bag.
Right into Luke Holden’s smiling face.
He thought of Mackenzie that night. Pale-faced, teary-eyed. Broken.
And how she’d been ever since. A little closed. A little wary.
Of Ethan.
Ethan smashed his fists into the punching bag again and again and again.
Hate. Hate. Hate.
He’d never hated anyone before.
He’d never loved anyone before.
He stopped, stood still while the punching bag swung and his breath bellowed.
What was he thinking? He loved everyone. Loved people’s foibles, their idiosyncrasies. Loved brightening their day, getting them to step outside themselves for just one minute. He loved giving people a reason to remember that one moment in that one day because most days were lost. Unremembered. Unworthy of being remembered.
And Mackenzie wasn’t wrong that usually those people then gave him whatever he wanted. He prided himself that what he wanted wasn’t harmful. He wasn’t like her father, dammit.
He punched the bag again, but his heart wasn’t in it, and he wandered away, ripping the gloves and wraps off his hands, and leaning against the mirrored wall.
Was he like her father?
He closed his eyes as he remembered the trail of tabloid articles his last breakup had spawned.
He thought of using Mackenzie as a buffer to keep other women away from him. Always using someone to get what he wanted.
Fucking hell.
Ethan smashed his ungloved fist into the mirror, the glass shattering and ripping into h
is skin. His blood squirted onto the mirror and he stared at it. He looked at his hand, watched blood drip down his fingers and onto the floor.
He grabbed a thick, white hand towel, wrapping it around his hand, focusing on the pain so he wouldn’t have to think about all the people he’d hurt. All the women he’d left pale-faced and teary-eyed.
He pictured Mackenzie broken and crying over him. When their six weeks was up and he put her on a plane back home. Another woman left to wonder what had happened when the problem was, and always had been, him.
Because even though he started all his relationships clear that it was only for fun, only for a little while, it never stayed that way. Even this time, when they’d signed a contract.
His relationship with Mackenzie hadn’t stayed a business relationship. It hadn’t stayed uncomplicated. He couldn’t leave things well enough alone and they’d become a couple. He just couldn’t seem to be around anyone without trying to get under their skin.
Ethan looked into the jagged mirror, at his cracked reflection, and realized. . .
He hadn’t gotten under Mackenzie’s skin. She wasn’t the one whose favorite part of the day was walking through the door after work. Who made notes about funny things that happened when they weren’t together.
She wasn’t the one who planned activities just to see him smile. Who couldn’t imagine life now without him. Laughing, competing, fighting, loving.
Mackenzie wasn’t going to be the one broken and crying when he left.
He just couldn’t see it. He couldn’t see Mackenzie ever crying over him.
He’d put her on a plane and she would say something snarky about the half million dollars and leave him.
And fly home. And start her new boring life.
Without ever crying over him.
Without ever realizing that he was at home, wandering around his now lifeless apartment lost and alone, because she’d left him.
Because he’d loved her and she’d left him.
Fucking hell again.
He didn’t just love Mackenzie Wyatt. He was in love with her.
A knock at the door surprised Mackenzie. Ethan had gone to work before she woke up, leaving her to wander around his apartment. She’d hid a few more candy bars, wondering if she did have some kind of squirreling thing, because she was having a lot of fun trying to find hiding places.