Reveal

by Bromberg, K.

  “Yes. I’m f—”

  “You’re fine. So I’ve heard.” There’s a smile on his lips but a hint of frustration in his voice that I pretend not to hear.

  “Thank you for watching Luce for me,” I say to prompt his departure.

  We say our goodbyes, and I pay him for his time before heaving a huge sigh of relief once he’s out the door.

  I’m drawn to Lucy’s soft snores. To the need to see the one thing that centers me, because after tonight, I’m not sure what in the hell I’m supposed to feel.

  A part of me wants to pick up the phone and call Ryker. Tell him what the senator just did, because I’m scared and unsettled, and Ryker is the only person I’ve ever known besides Samantha who has seemed to have my back.

  The other part of me knows this—the senator being here, his sense of ownership over me—is all because of Ryker and what happened in the pool house.

  Ryker is the one who did this to me. I was already a target, but Ryker’s actions made me a bull’s-eye in Carter Preston’s zero-sum game that holds so much collateral damage when it comes to my life that I’m terrified.

  Number one being the sleeping little girl whose arms are wrapped around a stuffed animal all while a tiara still sits perfectly straight on her head.

  So many things happened tonight—bad, then good, then overwhelming, and then ugly.

  What good is blackmail material when the person is undeterred by it? Do I destroy him so that we both go down in flames together?

  But was he as unaffected as his words stated? Or was the sudden change in him a tell?

  I stare at Lucy with ghosts of my past humming around, trying to make sense of everything Carter said, and one thing stands out more than anything. Ryker is the only person I’ve ever told about James. He’s it. And now all of a sudden Carter knows the name and throws him in my face?

  Did Ryker tell Carter? Was this another little secret divulged in the Hamptons that Ryker thought would have zero repercussions in his game when in fact it would have momentous ones if it fell into the wrong hands?

  A simple phone call would allow me to ask the question and clear up any confusion. I pick up my cell, unblock Ryker’s number, and contemplate hitting send.

  The problem is, I’m not quite sure I believe the answers I’m already getting about what happened that night, so who says I will believe what Ryker tells me this time?

  Another high tonight being with Ryker followed by the ultimate low of right now.

  He’s not good for you, Vaughn.

  He’s not good for you, regardless of how he makes your heart feel.

  In fact, maybe being with him is even more dangerous because of it.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Ryker

  We need to talk at some point. About Saturday night. About us. About everything.

  I stare at the text I sent Vaughn and pinch the bridge of my nose in frustration at her lack of response. She’s read it. I know she has. But fuck if she’s picking it up to text back.

  We’re on day two here of radio silence. Two days where I’m left with the memory of how incredible her body felt, how she had that wounded look in her eyes, how it took everything I had to let her walk out, all while feeling how fucking cold her silence is.

  “Mr. Lockhart?”

  “Mmm?” I don’t even look toward the phone on my desk when Bella’s voice booms through it, because I’m completely distracted by Vaughn when I should be working.

  “There’s a Ms. Sanders here to see you.”

  Now that’s a way to get a man’s attention.

  “Send her in.”

  I’m already at the door to my office and opening it before I hear the click of Vaughn’s heels on the floor.

  Office sex.

  Maybe that’s what she’s here for.

  But that thought flies painfully from my mind the minute I see her. She looks nervous. Her head may be held high and her shoulders square, but she looks at me only briefly before averting her eyes.

  Fuck.

  What now?

  “Vaughn?”

  To what do I owe this surprise?

  What the hell is wrong?

  God, you’re fucking gorgeous.

  All three thoughts run through my mind, but none of them are voiced as I step forward and press a kiss to her lips in greeting. I’d lose myself in her right now if I could, but her hands pressing against my chest tell me that sure as hell isn’t going to be happening.

  “Hi.” She offers a tight smile and then skirts around me and into my office.

  She’s all business. This is not good.

  I shut the door behind me and then take a deep breath as I turn around to face her. Her back is to me. She’s looking out the windows like I’m prone to do, but hell if I look like her. The pencil skirt is a charcoal gray, and it highlights every damn curve of that body of hers. Ones I’ve run my hands and mouth over. Ones I’m desperate for again.

  Her pale-pink sweater is soft and off the shoulders, and her hair cascades in waves down her back.

  I stare at her for a moment longer, partially because I’m enjoying the view and partially because I’m putting off hearing whatever it is that was so important she showed up at my office for.

  “Vaughn?” I ask again. My oxfords on the floor moving toward her are the only other sound in my office.

  She turns to face me, and her eyes tell me everything I’d feared. “I can’t do this again with you.”

  “Do what again? Talk with me? Be with me? Do what with me?” I demand, my mood going from cautious to defiant in a matter of seconds.

  “No matter what seems to happen between us . . .”

  “What?” I reach out to touch her and get pissed when she steps away so I can’t. “We have a good time? We enjoy each other’s company? What the fuck am I missing here, Vaughn?”

  “Nothing.” She shakes her head, eyes wild with emotion I can’t decipher. “We just . . . we’re not good for each other.”

  “That’s total bullshit and you know it.” But there’s something about her—the way she’s keeping her distance, the stiffness to her body, her refusal to meet my eyes—that tells me she’s goddamn serious. I turn on my heel and walk away from her, hand running through my hair and a disbelieving laugh falling from my mouth. I need alcohol in here. A whole goddamn fifth of it, to be exact. What the actual fuck? “Ah, it all makes sense now.”

  “What does?” At least for once there’s confusion in her voice.

  “You showing up here at my work.” I turn back to face her. “Let me guess, you figured I’d have to be professional and not make a scene when you walked in here and told me we’re over.”

  “We never really were together to begin with.”

  Every part of my body tenses at her crap answer. “And you’re lying through your teeth.” I take a step back toward her. “You think I’m not going to cause a scene because this is my office? You think I’m just going to let you walk away without a fucking fight? News flash, Vaughn . . . I fought too damn hard to get you, then to win you back after I fucked up, so no, I refuse to listen to you tell me otherwise. I told you to take whatever time it is you need. Two days isn’t nearly enough unless you already knew we were over before you walked out of my place. So tell me you need more time. Tell me you’re still confused and angry at me, and I’ll believe it. But say we’re over again, and I’ll let everyone on this floor know what I think—loud and crystal fucking clear.”

  “Ryker . . . please . . . just let me go.” But this time when she speaks there is something in her voice that catches my ear. The same thing that has me looking a little bit closer, regardless of how much my chest constricts in doing so, and I notice the tears welling in her eyes and the tremble of her bottom lip.

  A chink in her damn armor. She doesn’t want to tell me we’re over any more than I want to believe her.

  “What the fuck is going on here? You’re hiding something from me.”

  “No. I’m not. This just
can’t be.” She starts to skirt around me, and it takes everything I have not to reach out and keep her there.

  “Don’t walk away from me when I’m talking to you!”

  “And don’t you think for a second you can tell me what to do,” she counters, hair flying over her shoulder, jaw clenched.

  “I’m not in the mood for your games.”

  “My games?” she screeches and throws me off guard when I shouldn’t be. “My games? You’re the one who did this to me. All of it. And you tell me I’m playing games?”

  “What the—?” I stop and try to figure out what she’s talking about. My hands are on her shoulders, and I’m all but shaking her to force her to look me in the eyes. “Did what to you, Vaughn? What the hell have I done to you besides fuck myself over by falling in love with you?” Words that should be said with kindness come out in a frustrated rage. Truths I don’t want to voice, and now I can’t take them back.

  And she just stands there with her head shaking to reject my words, eyes wide with a hint of fear, and fuck if I don’t hate myself right now for everything I feel: rage, desperation, love, desire.

  How can you swear you’re not cut out for a relationship and love in one breath, then with the next fight so goddamn hard to keep it?

  What is this woman doing to me?

  I scrub my hands over my face and take a deep breath to calm the fuck down. To force myself to cool my temper so I can keep her here instead of pushing her farther away.

  “What is it, baby?” I all but plead with a voice as soft as I can make it. “Tell me why you’re walking away when you don’t want to.” She averts her eyes, confirming there’s something more. “I can’t help you unless you tell me what happened. I can’t understand why the other night meant nothing to you until you do.”

  Come on. Talk to me.

  “Carter paid me a visit after I left your place.” Her voice is soft, but her defiance is mounting.

  That’s definitely not what I expected to come out of her mouth.

  “What do you mean, Carter paid you a visit?”

  “Just what I said.”

  “Why? For what? That fucking asshole better not have touched you.”

  “Does it matter if he did?” Her voice rises. “You invited him into my personal life. You gave him everything he needs to destroy me.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” My confusion is turning into anger, and it’s not her fault, but fuck if I can keep it at bay.

  “He threatened my adoption of Lucy. With outing me. You name it.”

  I stare at her, blinking as her words hit me straight in the solar plexus. “He what?”

  “He threatened me. Told me I have to give him what I have on him. My last defense to protect myself . . . and if I don’t, he’ll ruin me.”

  “I don’t unders—”

  “How can you understand? How can you stand there and know what it feels like to be told that it doesn’t matter if you do or don’t do what he says because you owe your body to him in an apology?” I swear to God, when her voice wavers, I fucking hate myself. “And that’s why your apologies mean shit, Ryker. The damage was already done the minute I left the pool house.”

  “He actually said he was going to cost you the adoption?” I’m trying to wrap my head around this, around the balls that fucker has. I have to focus on one thing at a time, or else the rage over it all will cloud more than my judgment. It will cloud my rationality to the point that my ass will end up in jail.

  And that’s not the half of what I deserve.

  Her eyes well, and she just shakes her head in response.

  “Please. Just go step by step through everything.”

  “He said it would be a shame if Lucy’s social worker found out about Wicked Ways. How am I supposed to take it if that’s not a threat?”

  I try to justify my way out of this. I try to tell myself he could have threatened her even without our meeting because he already wanted her desperately.

  But you hung her out there like a carrot for him to chase after.

  “Vaughn.” Her name is a sigh. An apology. An I can fix this when I don’t even know where to start. I reach out to hold her hand, and she yanks it back as if my touch will break her.

  “Don’t.”

  “This wasn’t—I didn’t mean—Fuck.” I pull on the back of my neck. I scramble for explanations—for anything—because what the fuck was he thinking.

  “Like I said,” she murmurs, “this—we—can’t be. It’s bad all around.”

  She starts to walk away again, and this time I do grab her arm to prevent her from walking out. “We’ll fix this. I’ll fix this.”

  “It can’t be fixed!” she screams as her body shakes with anger.

  “It’s a harmless threat. He wouldn’t dare follow through with it.” I’m looking at her but thinking about murdering him. “Men like him get off on their power. On making women fear them. It’s like a goddamn drug to him, so he showed up to your house to lay the groundwork. To make you scared. To make you feel like you have to turn over whatever you have on him so he doesn’t have to worry about it coming to light.”

  “You don’t understand, Ryker. He came to my house. My house! Him and his security detail and—”

  “It’s part of his plan. He told me himself that night. Use sex and fear to gain power. Use the power to get what he wants—”

  “And yet you still used me when you knew that? When he told you this?” She shakes her head, her mouth lax, her eyes blinking away the tears that I’m now afraid have morphed from tears of hurt to anger.

  I want to go to her, pull her against me, use the heat of her skin to reassure myself that I can get us back . . . but for the first time, I’m not so fucking sure, because she’s right. He told me that shit, and I still did what I did. I still used the woman I love, even if it was in good faith . . . I still did this to her.

  “Yes. I did.” There’s nothing else I can say. No other apology I can give. I take a step forward, timid when I’m never timid. “There are no words I can voice to take away what I did.”

  I watch a tear slip over her lashes and slide down her cheek. Just one. A small tell of the hurt that I detonated like a grenade within her.

  “He told me he couldn’t wait to sleep with me because you told him how good my pussy felt.”

  Her voice may be soft, but those words are like a cattle prod to my temper.

  “I’m going to kill that son of a bitch.” My hands fist and teeth grit, and every object on my desk is at risk of being thrown against the wall as I stalk toward it.

  All I see is red.

  All I feel is rage.

  All I know is I hate the fucker more than I ever thought possible, and good thing I’m a lawyer so I know how to post my own damn bail.

  “What are you—?” she asks as I grab my wallet off the desk and my jacket. “No!” She emits a sound I want to forever erase from my memory. It’s my name, but it’s part plea, part terror, part everything bad you can imagine as she runs across the room and holds on to my arms, trying to keep me here.

  I could shrug her off in a second without any effort, but there is something about the fear in her voice—about the complete hysteria in it—that stops me.

  And when I look at her, when I see the trembling of her chin and the tears welling in her eyes, I know there is so much more going on here than what she said. I know she fears losing Lucy, but this . . . there’s even more here she’s not telling me.

  “Vaughn.” I put my hands on both of her shoulders, and I lower my head so that we’re eye to eye. “What else did he say to you?”

  With each word I can see Vaughn pulling away from me.

  “Nothing.”

  I can handle her attitude. Her sass. But when her voice trembles, it’s like something inside me breaks with it.

  You did that to her, Ryker.

  You used someone you loved like a pawn . . . just like your mom used you.

  Jesus fucking Christ
.

  “Vaughn.” I say her name for what feels like the twentieth time in this conversation, but it’s the only way I know how to bring her back to me. “What else did that prick say to you?”

  “Leave it be, Ryker.”

  She knows me better than that. “You either tell me what he said, or I go find him right now and ask him myself.”

  Her eyes flash up to meet mine, and she knows I’m dead serious. She knows I follow through with my threats.

  “He told me if anyone found out about our conversation, he’ll make good on the threat.”

  “Sounds like something the bastard would say.”

  “Don’t give him another reason to come after me,” she pleads. “You can’t confront him. If you did, it would only serve to make him want this more. Knowing he’s screwing me over and sticking it to you, the lawyer representing his wife, will only up the ante for him.”

  She’s right, and I hate admitting it.

  But there’s more to their exchange. I know there is.

  I study her and know there’s more. She already told me about the conversation, so she’s just trying to appease me. Just trying to distract me from whatever else it is that piece of shit threatened her with.

  “I won’t confront him,” I say, the words like broken glass scraping against my throat. “But if I don’t, then you have to tell me what else he said to you.” The sudden widening of her eyes tells me my hunch is right. Besides the threat of losing Lucy, there’s something else there.

  She shakes her head as if she’s not going to tell me, but words come out. “He knows about my uncle.”

  If I thought she’d shocked me telling me about Carter showing up to her house, this sure as shit just pulled the rug out from under me. “What do you mean he knows about your uncle?”

  He told me that night he had dirt on her. I thought he was bluffing—just a big ego trying to play the part. And this is how you failed her, Lockhart. You used her but never got your end of the bargain. You used her even when you knew about her past. Even when you knew how much it still torments her now.

  “Did you tell him?”