His Best Friend's Sister

by Sarah M. Anderson

  He’d pay any price if he could give that to Renee.

  He’d do anything to change the past. To do a better job of shielding her from an abusive, controlling mother and the scandals of her father. If he could go back, he’d give Clint a job, one that was legal and legit—one that would keep him out of jail.

  “I need to leave,” Renee said quietly.

  “I’ll go with you.”

  She made a huffing noise that might have been laughter or it might’ve been frustration. “No, you won’t.”

  “But—”

  “You don’t get it, do you?” She pivoted in her seat and pinned him with a hard look. “I will ruin you, Oliver Lawrence. I’ll ruin you and your business and everyone you love. And I won’t do it. I...” Her voice cracked and she looked back out the windshield. “I can’t do that to you.”

  His mouth opened but nothing came out.

  “I need to pack,” she said, her voice strong and sure again. “And then I need to leave before it all comes crashing down on you. I won’t let my family destroy yours like they’ve destroyed me.”

  Thirteen

  Oliver kept talking. One minute, he was going to charter a plane. The next, a helicopter. Then it was a private yacht leaving from Galveston and heading for open waters because “no one could follow us there,” as if determined reporters wouldn’t be able to rent a speedboat.

  Renee listened with only half an ear as she packed because it didn’t matter—whatever harebrained scheme he came up with, it wouldn’t work. There was no quick, easy fix that would let everyone live happily-ever-after. Not this time. Not for her.

  She knew that. She’d always known that. Funny how thinking it, however, made her heart ache.

  She needed to leave quickly before Oliver got it into her head to make her stay or, worse, enlist his family. Renee knew what she had to do but if the entire Lawrence family showed up to plead their case, she might not be strong enough to do the right thing.

  And the right thing was so obvious. Renee simply couldn’t hurt any of the Lawrences. Not even Flash. After all, he hadn’t done anything Oliver himself hadn’t done. Oliver had just had the good fortune to blurt out her name in front of small-town firefighters instead of a desperate music promoter.

  So her mind was made up. She was leaving—alone. She’d see if she could stay with her former sister-in-law, Carolyn, for a few days. It would be awkward and uncomfortable but then again, Carolyn had given that interview where she’d passed on the chance to destroy Renee. And she and Carolyn had always got along before the scandal and divorce and death.

  Besides, it wasn’t like she could do more damage to Carolyn’s reputation. She’d already been married to Clint. In the ruined department, she and Renee were practically equal.

  Renee and Oliver would never be equal. Good Lord, he’d proposed. He’d said he’d marry her in the middle of the rodeo and he hated the rodeo.

  In another time, another life, it would’ve been something wonderful.

  Except for the but. Because there was always a but, wasn’t there? As sweet as that marriage proposal had been, Oliver had prefaced that declaration with, If I thought it’d make things better...

  He’d marry her. He’d do his best to make her happy. He might even adopt her child, when the time came, and she knew he’d be an amazing father. It might be good. Great, even.

  But it wouldn’t be perfect because he couldn’t live without her. He’d offer her the protection of his name and access to all his resources because it was the most obvious solution to a problem.

  Her.

  She might be hopelessly in love with him, but she wasn’t his problem to solve. And she wasn’t about to marry another man who didn’t love her.

  Leaving was the only option.

  “...one of those big bus-sized RVs that rock stars travel in,” he was saying when he growled and spun, pulling out his phone. He never kept the sound on and therefore, she was always startled when he’d answer it at random times. “What?”

  She hadn’t bothered to pack the funereal dress or shoes—neither fitted anymore. But her lawyers would most likely blow their collective tops if she were spotted walking around in Chloe’s fancy rodeo clothes. But the only alternative was pushing her leggings past the point of decency, so sequins it was. Which left the problem of the boots. She couldn’t exactly walk around in those things anywhere but Texas. If she showed up in New York in the boots and the sequins, the press would have a freaking field day with her. What a shame. She set them next to the closet door and then closed the zipper on her single piece of luggage.

  “Renee?” There was something different in Oliver’s tone instead of the desperation that had colored all his grand plans thus far.

  “Yes?”

  “There are some men here for you.”

  The way he said it made it clear that he wasn’t talking about the press. Even as the bottom of her stomach fell out, she squared her shoulders and lifted her chin. Old habits never died, it seemed. Just because she hadn’t had to fall back on them for the better part of a month didn’t mean she’d forgotten how to protect herself. “Who?”

  But she already knew because Oliver wasn’t trying to arrange a quick getaway in his zippy sports car. “The FBI. Security checked them out. They need you to return to New York with them.”

  Ah. They must have decided to turn the pressure up on Clint. At least, she hoped that was the case and not that they’d already caught wind of the disastrous rodeo outing.

  Again, her stomach tried to turn at the thought of someone snapping a picture of her smiling and laughing—the very things her lawyers had informed her not to do. But Oliver had reminded her how to be happy and she’d almost forgotten what it was like to keep her real self locked deep inside.

  She needed to remember. Quickly.

  “I see.” She tried to smile for Oliver, to show him that she wasn’t scared or worried—that she’d be perfectly safe in the company of the Justice Department’s best officers.

  She didn’t make it. “Don’t do that,” he snapped, throwing his phone down and closing the distance between them. He grabbed her by the shoulders. “Don’t act like everything is fine when it’s not.”

  She was leaving. Things might never be fine again. “You can’t fix this, Oliver.”

  “The hell I can’t,” he said and slammed his mouth down over hers.

  He meant it as a kiss of possession. Renee knew that. He wasn’t going to let her go without a fight, fool that he was. But Renee knew the truth.

  This was goodbye.

  She wasn’t going to cry.

  Once upon a time, the Lawrence family had shown her what love was. They’d given her another life, one where people were sweet and loud and messy and loved. So, so loved. If she hadn’t had that second childhood with Chloe, she didn’t know how she’d have survived.

  Oliver might not ever realize it because, knowing him, he’d look back at this moment and see nothing but a failure to fix everything just so. But he’d given her the same gift again. Love and happiness and a glimpse into a future she might one day have. He’d let her find her own way and made her laugh again.

  She’d be forever grateful for this month.

  But she couldn’t tell him any of that without breaking down into sobs and she knew damned well that if she so much as wavered, he’d do something stupid like bust out the high-powered attorneys and call a press conference and all but announce to the world that he’d been sleeping with the pregnant Preston Pyramid Princess, and that?

  That would be his downfall.

  So, when the kiss ended, she pressed her lips against his cheek and gave him one final hug. “Goodbye, Oliver.” Then she grabbed her solitary piece of luggage and hurried for the door before she changed her mind.

  “Damn it, Renee, I can fix this! I just need more time,” he said, so
unding half-mad with desperation. “By the time the FBI is done with whatever they need you for, I’ll have this figured out—I promise.”

  No, she couldn’t be his problem.

  So she kept walking.

  She didn’t look back.

  Fourteen

  Goodbye, Oliver.

  Fuck that shit.

  After nearly running over two photographers staked out by the garage entrance, Oliver stepped off the elevator. The door to his father’s condo swung open seconds later, making it clear that Milt Lawrence had been waiting for him. Just when he thought the day couldn’t get worse...

  “Beer?” Milt said, holding up a longneck, and Oliver knew he didn’t have much say in the matter.

  He supposed this wasn’t a surprise. Renee’s brief appearance three days ago at the All-Around All-Stars Rodeo—brought to you by Lawrence Oil—in the company of Oliver Lawrence, head of Lawrence Energies, had made headlines less than an hour after Renee had been whisked back to New York in the company of the FBI’s finest. The whole debacle was exactly the sort of thing that would draw Milt out of his hunting lodge and into the city.

  Not for the first time, Oliver wished his father hadn’t bought the condo next to his for those rare trips into Dallas. Being called in for a lecture had a way of making Oliver feel like he was twelve again and about to be grounded for another prank gone wrong.

  Except this time, it wasn’t an elevator and a bunch of balloons filled with shaving cream. This was the family business. Their livelihood. He’d risked an international energy company and his family’s financial safety and well-being for...

  For Renee. Who’d walked away without a look back.

  God, it hurt.

  It turned out that Brantley Gibbons, Brooke Bonner’s manager, had lost a lot of money to the Preston Pyramid. In fact, he was under investigation because several of his clients claimed he’d inappropriately invested their funds with Preston’s firm. Brooke had stuck by him because Gibbons was her uncle.

  Family. Was there any bigger blessing and curse than that word?

  “Here,” Milt said, handing Oliver a beer and motioning for him to sit on the leather sofa overlooking the skyline. Unlike his hunting lodge, Milt Lawrence’s condo was as impersonal as a hotel. Probably why he only spent maybe ten nights a year here. “Well, this is a fine how-do-you-do you’ve got yourself into.”

  Oliver gritted his teeth. “Do you think that, just once, we could cut the cowboy crap, Dad? Because I’m not in the mood to hear about how I look lower than a rattler’s belly in a wheel rut.” He took a long pull on his beer. It didn’t help. “No offense.” Oliver braced himself to be dressed down because with that attitude, he deserved it.

  But that’s not what happened. “I take it she’d been with you since you first asked if I’d heard about the scam?” To Oliver’s ever-lasting surprise, there was less drawl in his father’s voice. Still a little bit, though.

  It was enough. “Yeah. A month.” A good month. One of the best he could ever remember having.

  Because Renee had been there. For the first time in years—maybe decades—Oliver had done something more than look at the family business or his family as just problems waiting to be solved.

  He wasn’t able to go back to who he’d been before Renee.

  “Do you know where she is now?”

  “New York.” She wasn’t responding to his texts, beyond the bare-bones information to let him know she was fine. Everything, apparently, was fine.

  He was not fucking fine.

  “She said she had to leave because she’d ruin me. I think she actually believes that,” he said before taking another long swallow of his beer. It still wasn’t helping.

  “Hmm,” Milt said noncommittally.

  “She said...” He had to swallow a few times to make sure his throat was working right. “She said she wouldn’t let her family ruin mine or my business like they ruined her.”

  “Ah,” Milt unhelpfully added.

  “That’s it? That’s all you’ve got? Hmm and ah?”

  “I was going to say something about rattlers but that didn’t seem to be the way to go.”

  “Jesus, Dad, are you mocking me?” There were days when his father was every bit as irritating as Flash—and worse.

  “Simmer down, son.” He held up his hands in surrender. “I’m not here to fight. If you’re looking to take a swing at someone, either find your brother or go punch Clint Preston. Doubt either would help in the long run, though.”

  They sat for a moment. The silence was getting to Oliver, which had to be the only reason why he kept talking. Either that or the beer was actually starting to work and he just couldn’t feel it. “I asked her to marry me and not only did she not say yes, she said goodbye.” All that armor had been so locked in place that he still couldn’t tell if she would’ve said yes or not had circumstances been different.

  If the FBI hadn’t shown up, would she still be here—or there or wherever he could have safely hidden her away? Or would she still have walked?

  “Did she, now? In general, women like a nice proposal,” Milt managed to say without laughing.

  Oliver drank some more. Had it been, though? A nice proposal, that was. He’d said...

  If he’d thought it would help.

  Shit.

  “She said she wasn’t my problem to solve,” he admitted, feeling suddenly stupid.

  “Ah,” Milt said again.

  Oliver didn’t dignify that with a response.

  But had he actually said those words to Renee? He’d been upset, yeah. Flash had blown Renee’s cover and Oliver had been frantic with worry about the best way to keep her safe but...

  It hadn’t been a nice proposal. Hell, it’d barely qualified as such.

  “Do you know,” Milt began, and for the first time in years, Oliver heard New York in his father’s voice, “what I would give to have another day with your mother?”

  Oliver let that thought roll around his head as he finished his beer and got up to get another. “Everything,” he said when he settled back on the couch next to his father. “You’d give everything to have her back.”

  “You’re damn right I would. The company, the rodeo, the lodge...” Milt cleared his throat and Oliver made sure not to look because he didn’t want to see his father wiping away tears. “Anything to have her back.”

  “I’m sorry it’s not going to happen,” Oliver said. His mother’s death was a problem he’d never be able to fix.

  “And you know why I’d give everything for her?”

  Oliver did look at his dad then. “Because you love her.” There was no past tense about it.

  “You’re damn right I do.” He stood, knocking back the last of his beer. “Herb Ritter’s in town and I’ve got to smooth his ruffled feathers. And don’t think I don’t know you gave Chloe those negotiations after I told you not to. But Oliver?”

  Oliver unclenched his teeth. “What?”

  His father stared down at him with love and worry in his eyes. “We aren’t your problem, either.” He put a hand on Oliver’s shoulder. “I know what you promised your mother, and she’d be right proud of you and everything you’ve accomplished. But we can take care of ourselves.” He sighed. “We always could.”

  Then he grabbed his hat and walked out of the condo, leaving Oliver alone with his thoughts.

  He couldn’t function without Renee. He loved watching her try a new recipe and sharing in her success. Hell, he loved her failures, too—because they were always hilarious and only occasionally a hazard to home and health. He loved watching her grow and change with her pregnancy and he absolutely hated that she wasn’t next door, waiting to welcome him home with a kiss that became so much more.

  Holy hell, he loved her. Scandal-ridden family, broke, pregnant with another man’s child—he loved
Renee exactly as she was.

  He hadn’t told her that. Instead of treating her like the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with...he’d treated her like a problem that he was responsible for solving.

  Jesus, what had he done?

  Because now she was thousands of miles away, facing lawyers and officers and, worse, her family without anyone to back her up while he sat here and got scolded by his father.

  What the hell was wrong with him? She wasn’t the problem. He was.

  He loved her.

  That was worth risking everything.

  * * *

  “And have you had any other contact with anyone in your family?” the bored federal prosecutor asked.

  Frankly, Renee was bored, too. She’d been sitting in this conference room for the last three hours, answering the same questions she’d answered a few days ago with the same answers, which were the same questions she’d answered a few months ago. She was pretty sure the prosecutor was wearing the same suit.

  “The friend I stayed with in Texas spoke with Clint, but only to confirm that I had nothing to do with the scheme.”

  That got the prosecutor’s attention. “He did?”

  “Oliver Lawrence was a childhood friend. He runs Lawrence Energies. He wanted to make sure I was being honest.” Renee cleared her throat. It hurt to think of Oliver right now. “Trust but verify, right?” The prosecutor didn’t so much as blink and Renee felt that old fear of having done something wrong roil her stomach. “I did get permission to go.”

  The prosecutor conferred with his secretary, who made notes as the prosecutor said, “Anything else?”

  Renee unlocked her phone and called up the most recent text message from her mother. “I got this two days ago.” She handed the phone over because there was no way in hell she was going to read that message out loud.