He shoved a hand through his hair and sighed heavily. “Sophie, I can’t stop thinking about you. It’s that simple. It has nothing to do with your brother.”
I held out my hands in question. “Then I just don’t understand why you didn’t tell me.”
He shot me a quizzical look. “Uh, maybe because it’s not that easy for me to say.”
I barely registered his words as the memories of my own admissions reared to the surface. I’d shared so much with him. He’d shared so little. He’d had so many opportunities to tell me. “Ryan, I just went on and on about John and his work so many times. And you knew who he was. You even made remarks like ‘I bet he has some stories about what he’s seen.’ You said that on the Ferris wheel,” I reminded him, my near-photographic memory coming in handy. “I just feel stupid.”
“Did you want me to drop this on you on the Ferris wheel?” he asked, his tone turning heated. I could practically feel the frustration burning off him. “That your brother is investigating a fucking murder in my family? Just weave it in as we gabbed about our siblings. Oh, it’s great that you’re so close with him. By the way, he asked me the other day if my mom happened to be associating with anyone new at the time of the murder. Is that what I should have said?” But he didn’t give me time to answer. “We don’t even use the last names we had when we were growing up, Sophie. Everyone had heard of us in this town. It was all over the news. Everyone fucking knew us. And we were the kids left behind—mom in prison, dad in the ground, Royal Sinners gang gunman behind bars. We were the poor Paige-Prince kids from the shitty section of town, who everyone felt sorry for,” he said harshly, and I let out a surprised squeak.
I’d heard the story when I was finishing junior high. It was one of the biggest news stories in town at the time. “That’s you?”
He nodded. “Yes. That’s us.”
He’d lost so much. So incredibly much. A father. A mother. A normal childhood. Everything. My need for self-protection took a back seat to compassion, and I tried once more to comfort him. I wrapped my arms around him and hugged him. “I am so sorry for what happened to your family, Ryan. I’m sorry for what happened to your dad, and to your mom, and to you and your brothers and your sister,” I said softly. He said nothing, but he let me hold him, even leaning into me. He sighed softly, and that sound, that vulnerable sound from this strong, sometimes standoffish man infiltrated my heart and soul. Somehow, in that brief exhalation, I felt him inching toward me.
Not physically. But emotionally. I wanted to be the one there for him. I ran my hands through his hair, wishing I could erase the tragedy.
John’s footsteps echoed across the hardwood, breaking the moment. He cleared his throat. “Sophie,” he said, and I separated from Ryan. “Is everything okay?”
I nodded. “It’s fine.”
“Do you want me to stay?”
I shrugged. I didn’t know what I wanted anymore. Everything that had felt so certain before John knocked on my door had been uprooted in minutes. “No. Yes. I don’t know,” I said helplessly.
He pointed his thumb at the door. “I’m going to go wait in the hall. Give you some privacy, but I’ll be nearby if you need me.”
After he left, I looked at the man I’d been falling for. He had the same brown hair, the same blue eyes, the same strong build as an hour ago, but he wasn’t the same, because I didn’t know how to see him the same way. “I feel like I barely know you. I don’t even know where you live.”
In a monotone, he said his address.
But it didn’t change anything. Knowing the numbers and street name didn’t give me any greater insight.
I didn’t know what to make of this revelation. Maybe I was overreacting to this news. Or maybe I was underreacting. Was I supposed to feel hurt? Or outraged? Be sympathetic? Care for him?
I had no idea what to do next.
This new wrinkle was so strange, and my chest was knotted up, my head fuzzy. “I like you, Ryan. I like you so much, and I am falling for you. And I understand it’s not easy to talk about what happened to your family. I get that, and I wish I could take away the horrors of what you’ve been through. But aside from that, when I analyze what’s been happening with you and me, the reality is this—I’ve been completely open. I told you at the diner about my marriage. I didn’t wait for you to uncover it. I put it all on the table. I told you about my parents and my brother and myself. I can’t help but wonder what else you haven’t shared, or said, or didn’t want to deal with when I’ve tried to be forthright with you.”
“Look, Sophie. I don’t tell anyone. I don’t get close enough to tell anyone. But I knew I needed to tell you, and it’s not the kind of thing I wanted to tell you on the phone, so I was planning to tell you tonight. I was starting to at the table . . .” He waved his hand in the direction of the dining room.
Maybe he had been planning on opening up. But I had no way of knowing if he was being truthful now. I tried a new tactic. “Why was the case reopened?”
“I don’t know. He won’t tell me. I think he thinks there were others involved.”
His words sent me back to the night I left for the gala, and my conversation with John beforehand.
Talked to some guy today who I’m sure knows something, but he won’t let on what it is.
What do you think he knows?
Something that would help me find the other guys I think were involved.
John was my brother, my flesh and blood. He was the man who’d supported me and helped me build my business, who would take a bullet for me. He had a reason to suspect Ryan was hiding something, and I’d be a foolish woman to wave that off and carry on as if nothing had changed.
“I need you to believe me. I wanted to tell you,” he added, and I desperately wanted to trust in his words.
But I’d relied on my instincts before, in my marriage with Holden, and those instincts had been wrong.
Maybe I needed to use my head more. Not my heart. Not my body. “I don’t really know what to think. I want to believe you, but I need to sort this out. I’ve been letting my heart lead instead of my head, and my heart feels pretty foolish and stupid right now.” I walked over to the dining room table, picked up the peach pie, returned to my kitchen, and covered it in tinfoil. Then I handed it to him.
He shook his head. “I can’t take the pie.”
“I need you to. I made it for you. I need some space to think, and I can’t do it if I’m surrounded by this dessert I wanted to give you.”
I showed him to the door.
36
Ryan
My grandmother dug her fork into the pie on her plate. She rolled her eyes in pleasure.
“Let me tell you something. You don’t give up a woman who cooks like this.”
“Yeah? That’s the bottom line, Nana? How she cooks?” I asked, and grabbed a fork from a utensil drawer, stealing a bite from my grandma’s plate.
She smacked my hand, then eyed the ceramic pie pan. “Get your own, young man. This is all mine.”
“That’s all I wanted. One bite,” I said, thinking the sentiment might be apropos for Sophie too. Maybe all I’d take of her would be the one bite I’d had. Then I’d walk away. It was better like that, wasn’t it? Leave before your heart gets mangled. Enjoy it while it lasts, like this dessert. This absolutely scrumptious dessert.
My grandma scooped up another forkful, then answered my question. “When she bakes like this, yes. You don’t give her up. This pie is divine.”
Funny, I had used that same word to describe Sophie.
Divine.
As well as exquisite. Not to mention delicious.
Sophie was a peach pie.
And I wanted the whole damn pie.
I wanted all of Sophie.
But what was the point? Tonight’s argument was further proof that intimacy was too dangerous. I had to protect the secrets I’d locked up. When secrets were cracked wide open, you were left far too vulnerable. And when you were vulner
able, you could wind up dead in your own driveway.
“Yeah, it is, but . . .” I said, letting my voice trail off.
“You like her,” my grandma said.
I shrugged. “What does it matter?”
She set her fork down and parked her hands on the counter. “It matters because this is all we have,” she said, tapping her chest.
“It’s not like that.” I tried valiantly to deny that there was more to the empty ache I felt right now other than missing great sex. “We were just having a good time.”
She screwed up the corner of her mouth. “If it was just a good time, why are you here?”
“I wanted to bring you the pie.”
“You could have eaten it yourself.”
“Nah, I can’t finish that,” I said.
“Sure you could. You’re a sturdy man. You can handle a peach pie.”
I patted my flat stomach. “Gotta watch my boyish figure.”
She shook her head and rolled her eyes. “You’re not fooling me.”
I held my hands out wide as if to say I was an open book, even though that couldn’t be further from the truth.
“Ryan,” she said gently, walking around to join me on my side of the counter. “I worry about you. You’re so private about everything.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not. You brought me this pie because you wanted to talk, and you have never wanted to talk about a woman before. So I’m saying perhaps you should consider talking to her. Sharing some of your heart,” she said.
“What would I even say?”
“Just talk to her. Tell her why you didn’t say a word. Tell her what’s on your mind. What’s in your heart. Women often like that.”
But did they? I flashed back to Sanders’s wife and her weird glances at the mention of the speeding ticket. I hardly knew how to do what my grandma was prescribing. “Is it even worth it?”
“Is it?” she echoed. “Only you know the answer to that. But Ryan, you think you have to manage everything perfectly because your life spun out of control when you were younger. Here’s the thing you need to see—you can’t control everything, and you also don’t have to. The only things you can take charge of are the choices you make, and if Miss Peach Pie is a choice you want to make, then you should let her in.” She paused, then added, “Besides, you’ve never shown up at my house at ten p.m. to talk about a woman. So think about that, my love.”
I wasn’t sure I agreed with her.
Hell, I wasn’t sure about anything. Except tonight seemed to prove it was a good thing I generally didn’t make it beyond a third date.
Just look at the mess I’d made of the fourth one.
37
Sophie
I scrubbed the island for a third time. John finished loading the last plate in the dishwasher. “Look, men are pigs,” he said in a matter-of-fact tone.
I shot him a sharp-eyed stare. “That makes you a pig too, then.”
He nodded vigorously. “Takes one to know one. Men are horrible.”
I grabbed a dishtowel and swatted him on the shoulder with it. “Stop. You’re being ridiculous. Men aren’t pigs. Not all of them, at least,” I said softly. “You’re not. Dad wasn’t. I don’t really think Ryan is either.”
John said nothing, and I returned to cleaning the marble countertop of the island. I wasn’t trying to erase the evening, or the man. I was merely trying to keep my mind busy, so I’d be less apt to rely on my heart.
My heart was a puppy, happily trotting in a field of poppies.
That was the problem.
“Does your silence mean you think he’s bad news?” I asked John. I didn’t know anybody else who’d even met Ryan. At least my brother had spoken to him.
“I don’t know enough about him to say if he’s bad news or not,” John said carefully as he poured dishwasher soap into the machine.
“You don’t trust him though.”
“It’s not that I don’t trust him. I don’t trust anyone.”
I shoved the sponge roughly back and forth. The repetitive motion was strangely soothing. “But is your distrust of Ryan more or less than your baseline level of distrust?” I asked in a clinical manner.
“It’s higher, but that’s because we’re talking about you now. And I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“You think I’m foolish.”
“No,” he corrected as he shut the dishwasher. “I think you love easily. Maybe too easily for your own good.”
“I’m not in love with him,” I said quickly, dropping the sponge and meeting his eyes.
He arched a brow, questioning me with his steely stare. “It sure looked like that. Or like it was heading in that direction.”
“When? When did it look like that?”
“When I walked back out and saw you holding him.”
I shut my eyes as I slipped back in time to those few seconds that felt like a slice of possibility. My arms around him. His cheek on my shoulder.
“Also, you believe in love so strongly because of Mom and Dad, and you think you’re going to have that,” John continued. “But most of the world isn’t like that. Some of the world is like Ryan’s parents.”
“What happened with them? Beyond the news. Beyond what I could find on the internet,” I asked. I was dying to know. Curiosity had me in its grip.
“Soph,” he said in a chiding tone. “You know I can’t say.”
“But you think he knows something that will help you in the investigation? You said that. You said that the night I went to the gala. I know you had to have been talking about him then.”
He huffed. “You’re too smart for your own good.”
“I’m just a good listener. So what do you think he knows? You don’t think he’s a suspect, do you?”
He laughed and shook his head, leaning his hip against the counter. “No. Absolutely not. But everyone has an agenda, and I think Ryan Sloan has his own, which for some reason involves protecting his mother.”
“But she’s in prison. How can he be protecting her?”
“I think he’s protecting things she won’t tell us. But the good news is he told me something that I think will be helpful, if I can just connect all the dots.”
“Can you?”
He shrugged. “That’s the million-dollar question. And you know I can’t say any more. If I do, I’d compromise the investigation, and all investigations matter, but this one is a big one, Sophie.”
I had a sneaking suspicion John wasn’t merely looking into an eighteen-year-old murder. I had a feeling he was hunting for something that went much wider and bigger.
“And if you crack this one? You can keep the streets safe?”
“That’s always my goal.” He nodded to the door. “I should go. Unless you want me to stay.”
I shook my head. “I’m fine. Just tell me—is there anything about him you think I need to know? Would I be a fool to see him again?”
He tucked his finger under my chin. “Sophie, I can’t make those sorts of promises or guarantees about anyone. Let alone someone I barely know. What I do know is this—he is focused and intense, and his mother adores him, and he loves her too.”
Was that such a bad thing? Was there some law that said you were supposed to become a hater if someone you loved killed? I shuddered at the thought. Was the world that black and white? I had no clue how I would feel in Ryan’s shoes, which was why I didn’t want to judge him.
I said goodbye to John then went to bed.
When I woke up the next morning, my phone bleated loudly—a reminder of my meeting in a few hours with Clyde. I groaned because the man would surely ask me about my date for the fundraiser, and I didn’t know if I had one still.
Or if I wanted one anymore.
38
Ryan
Pool cue in hand, I stared down the eight ball and the corner pocket. I tapped the ball lightly then followed its path as it rolled across the green felt, hell-bent on its destination and imp
ending victory.
C’mon.
The ball veered to the right, bumping the edge of the table and missing the mark by an inch.
“Damn.” I let out a long, frustrated sigh.
Brent pulled back on his stick and knocked the eight ball in flawlessly.
“You’re killing it today,” I said, extending a hand to congratulate my brother-in-law on his third win of the afternoon.
Brent shook his head then waved his hand as if my utter demolishment in a game at which I usually excelled was no big deal. “Just lucky today, that’s all,” Brent said.
There was a time when I hadn’t been a fan of Brent Nichols, because the man had broken my sister’s heart long ago. But that was then, and as I had gotten to know Brent anew these days, I’d let the past go. Brent made Shannon immensely happy, and I loved seeing my sister like this—glowing.
“Go again?” I asked, holding up my cue.
“You’re a glutton for punishment, aren’t you?”
“Seems that way,” I said. But I was determined to right this ship. I never lost three games in a row. Never ever. This was unprecedented, and I had to get my act together, because I didn’t like being so off my game.
I racked the balls as Shannon walked into the den, holding up soda bottles for the crew. “Are we ever going to eat lunch?” she asked as she doled out drinks to Brent and me. She had one left for Colin, since he’d texted that he’d be there any minute, and she set it on the edge of the table. “Or are you boys going to play all afternoon?”
“I’ll stop when I break my streak,” I said, as Johnny Cash barked happily from the other room. He must have spotted one of his favorite lady dogs walking along the sidewalk from his perch staring out the front window.
“Brent, please let him win. I’m hungry,” Shannon said to her husband, who simply laughed.
I shot a sharp-eyed stare at Brent. “Play fair and square.”
“I’ll play.”
I spun around to see Colin walk in, with Johnny Cash trotting by his side. “What the hell? You don’t knock?”
My Sinful Desire (Sinful Men Book 2) Page 16