My fingers stilled. “Do I want to hear it?”
Ryland was silent for a moment.
Then finally, he exhaled.
“Yeah. Yeah, you do.”
His words filled me with impossible hope. “But what will I pay you with? Since we’ve already slept together.”
Ryland chuckled, a low sound that rumbled in my chest. “You’ll think of something, Allie cat,” he murmured into my hair.
Biting back a smile, I settled closer into the warmth of Ryland’s embrace, letting his scent envelop me. My eyes were shut in seconds.
***
I awoke hours later, finding Ryland’s heavy arm draped around me. As I idly traced the veins on his muscled forearms, I wondered where we were headed from now.
Were we going to be a couple without the relationship status?
Or was it just an exclusive friends-with-benefits arrangement?
I didn’t know what was going to happen with us, but I knew I wanted to try.
Looking around his bedroom, I noticed that my portrait was facing the wall. My cheeks heated when I remembered what Ryland had told me he would do to it.
If only I had been there to watch.
I looked up into his sleeping face again. Most people probably looked peaceful in their sleep, but not Ryland.
A slight notch had formed between his brows as he slept, and his jaw was tight with tension, as if he was managing problems even in his dreams.
Proud, lonely man.
I stroked his face lightly, wishing I could do something for him.
Maybe I could.
A week ago I had tried gathering information about Estelle to protect me and Karin.
What if I tried again, this time for Ryland as well?
I bit my lip as I considered the idea. Since his office wasn’t where he kept his stuff, the other alternative had to be his apartment.
Specifically, his study.
I waited a minute to make sure that Ryland was truly asleep.
Then gingerly, I crept from under his arm, slid out of the bed and put on the shirt he’d discarded, and padded down to the study.
I hesitated outside.
This was definitely an invasion of privacy. But if I was doing it for Ryland’s sake, it should be fine, right? It wasn’t like I was snooping for nefarious reasons.
I wasn’t quite convinced by my own explanation, but I turned the handle and pushed my way into the room anyway.
Ryland’s study was as neat at the rest of his apartment. I turned on the lights, feeling guilty as I headed over to the documents laid out on his desk.
But the moment I saw what those documents were, my guilt vanished, replaced by shock.
What the hell?
I picked up the piece of paper my gaze had snagged on, a photocopy of an old article I had seen before, a decade ago.
“Tragic Accident: CEO and father found dead…”
I grabbed more documents from the desk, scanning through them quickly.
My panic mounted as I read, and I pressed the my knuckles against my teeth to stem the nausea.
There were records of witness accounts of Dad’s accident that day, stacks of notes on Californian law for manslaughter, and memos from various lawyers’ offices.
The last one chilled me to my core.
The blackmail email from Estelle Valentine.
“Oh my god,” I whispered, my hands shaking. “Oh my god.”
A sound came from behind me then, and I spun to see Ryland standing by the doorway, watching me with a stunned expression.
It should have been a tender scene, me wearing his shirt, him wearing only his wrinkled grey slacks, his hair all messed up from our sex earlier.
But it wasn’t.
It was my worst nightmare come true.
“Ryland,” I whispered. “What’s all this?”
The moment I saw Allie standing in the last place I wanted her to be, her pale face staring back at me, I knew I’d fucked up in a way I never had before.
This wasn’t something I could fix with a counter-offer or a new round of negotiations. This had permanent consequences that could actually ruin the rest of my life.
Ruin me.
Because I knew that before the night was over, Allie Beckett would be out of my reach, this time for good.
“Ryland,” she said again. “I don’t understand...”
Her face was so heartbreakingly beautiful. She looked so damned fragile and vulnerable, surrounded by the mountains of evidence telling her that I was the one who had brought her world crashing down around her all those years ago.
But what damned near broke me was that even now, there was still some part of Allie that believed that I could make this right. Her eyes begged me to say something to make all this go away. Even now she still thought of me as a fucking hero.
But I wasn’t.
I never was and never would be, and now she knew.
That fact killed me.
I watched stonily as Allie held up a slim folder of papers. Her hands were shaking so hard the file almost vibrated.
“What’s this?” she said unsteadily.
I knew by memory what the papers said, word-for-word, because I’d been through them thousands of times over the years.
It was the records of the correspondence between me, Cam and our lawyers about our problem with Estelle.
I told Allie so.
“And this problem,” she choked, “does it have something to do with my father’s accident?”
My throat worked. I couldn’t bring myself to say what needed to be said, but then I didn’t need to.
The answer was in the silence.
It was almost funny. I could broker mergers between empires, create and destroy companies whenever I wanted, but I’d also forgotten the most important thing.
I couldn’t bring a man back from the dead.
How had I thought I could fix this?
How had I convinced myself that I could have Allie, even without strings attached?
We were over before we even started. I would never be able to wash myself of the blood that stained my hands.
Hands that I should never have put on her.
My hands clenched into fists at my sides, but I forced myself to say the words.
“Your father didn’t die in an accident. He was murdered.”
The file slid from Allie’s fingers and fell to the floor.
“You’re lying.” Her eyes darted, and she licked her lips. “I read the coroner’s report, and the case was in the papers…”
“They were falsified.” I held her panicked gaze. “Estelle bribed the coroner. The four of us knew about it,” my jaw tightened, “but we kept quiet.”
“Why?” Allie whispered, looking horrified. “What did my father ever do to you?”
Nothing.
Horace had been a selfish bastard while he’d been alive, but he did nothing that deserved death.
And we’d helped Estelle butcher him.
We fucked up from the start, the four of us. We had full run of the town thanks to our families’ influence, and we took advantage of it. This was the culmination.
I looked away, unable to meet Allie’s gaze.
“Estelle was in debt,” I said tightly. “She’d always had a problem with gambling, and finally she wiped out everything she had, and owed money to the wrong kind of people. Horace already paid off her debts twice, and he wouldn’t have done it a third time. So we came up with a plan for her.”
Allie stared at me with a stricken expression, her fingers twisting my shirt that she was wearing. She had already pulled out a button, but she didn’t notice.
“We told Estelle to threaten suicide,” I rasped. “We arranged everything—where she would confront Horace, how she would act, and in return, we’d get a share of the money if she pulled it off.”
I forced myself to look at Allie.
“And I got hold of the shotgun for her.”
“Oh no.” Allie shook her head slowly,
pressing her hands over her mouth. “No.”
“We were in Theo’s private room when it happened. We were—”
I broke off, scrubbing my hands over my face.
How the fuck could I continue? We had been laughing and drinking when Horace was killed.
We’d thought it was a fucking game, had even sprinted to the scene to catch the sick show.
It was only until we got to Horace’s study that we realized Estelle’s real intention.
She’d wanted to get rid of him from the start, and like idiots, we’d helped.
The scene was still fresh, even after ten years—the smell of cigar smoke and blood, the strangely peaceful posture of Horace slumped face down on his desk as though he were taking a nap instead of just having his face blown off. The blood that pooled on his mahogany desk, colored the same dark red as the wood that I hadn’t noticed it at first.
The nausea when I did.
“None of us knew Estelle had her own plans,” I forced the words through my clenched teeth. “She didn’t just want to pay off her debts, she wanted everything Horace had. And he had just written a statement willing everything to her. We were the scapegoats to take the fall if things went south.”
“I don’t believe you.” Allie wrapped her arms around herself, as if she wanted to disappear. “He was cleaning his guns, a-and there was a bullet left. And the police ruled it an accident. It’s just not possible.”
“Isn’t it?” I bit angrily, feeling pissed off at the world. “It was a small town, Allie. With enough money, anything can be done. Lies can be buried. Estelle bribed the policeman in charge of the case, and she even got hold of the weapon to blackmail us with. It was only through dumb luck that Theo was the only one who didn’t handle the gun. The other three of us have been waiting for the ax to fall ever since.”
Some part of Allie had to know that I was telling the truth, but still she shook her head, her eyes shiny with tears.
“You wouldn’t have done that,” she said stubbornly, tears clogging her voice. “You would have gone to the police with the truth, I know it. I know you.”
I didn’t.
Fuck me, I didn’t, but now I wished I did. Anything to take away that look on Allie’s face once she really saw me for what I really was.
I thrust my hands into my hair, pacing like a caged animal.
“I’m not the guy you think I am,” I grated. “I wish to hell that I am, but I’m not. I stayed quiet—all four of us did, and we all had our reasons. What you said at the art exhibition was right. We picked apart your father like vultures. Theo wanted his money. Cam wanted his business partners. Gabriel wanted the influence that came from our rise in power.” I looked up, meeting her stunned gaze directly. “And you know exactly what I wanted.”
“Profits for your company,” she whispered, finally seeing. “You wanted your father’s approval.”
“And I got it. Just by staying quiet, I got everything I wanted. The person you think I am doesn’t exist, Allie. It’s just me. Only me, and everything I have is built upon your father’s death.”
I didn’t know why I said it so uglily, twisting the knife like I was trying to hurt her. Maybe some part of me wanted Allie to hate me for it, as punishment for all the shit I did.
I took one step towards her.
She shrank back from my outstretched hand, as if my touch was poisonous.
“My father was murdered, and you did nothing,” she breathed, her beautiful face twisted in anguish, her grey eyes bright with tears. “You got him killed, and then you stood by and did nothing.”
“I wanted to go to the police,” I said hoarsely, as if that meant anything. “Cam, Gabe and I, we all wanted to, when we finally saw how fucked up it was, but Estelle had the gun by then, and Theo chose to take her side—”
“So you let her go. My father was murdered, and you let his killer walk free to protect yourself. And then ten years later, you had the nerve to come to me. You lied to me some more, and then you slept with me!” Allie pressed her knuckles to her mouth, stifling her crying. “You’re a monster. You’re a fucking monster.”
Her words hit me like a punch.
“Allie—”
“Don’t touch me!” Allie stumbled back from me. “Don’t you fucking touch me. I can’t believe I trusted you.”
I stared at her twisted face, at the tears streaking down her cheeks, feeling like my guts had just been ripped out.
I wanted Allie to stop crying, but like the selfish asshole I was, I wanted more for her to take back her words. I didn’t want her to mean them, didn’t want the adoration in her expression crumble away to nothing.
I could only watch as the light dimmed from her eyes.
“I don’t want to see your face ever again,” she whispered.
Allie blindly brushed past me, and I couldn’t even stop her. I had no right to.
There was no way out of this now, no scenario where I could ever make up for what I had taken away from her.
I yelled, spinning to launch my fist into the wall behind me. White hot streaks of pain shot up my arm, blinding me for a split second.
All this while, I had been lying to myself with bought time. If Allie had rose-tinted glasses on, I had been pulling the wool over my own fucking eyes.
It had only been a matter of time until she knew.
A matter of time before she ran away from me.
And now, I’d finally lost her.
The front door slammed as Allie escaped from my apartment, and I leaned back against the wall like a drunk man, slumping to the floor in defeat.
I once read before that a person’s life was like a book that could be divided into chapters.
For me, the chapter that changed the course of my book the most was Dad's accident.
I barely remembered Mum's funeral, being only three when she's passed, but Dad's stood out in my mind like a pen stroke across a piece of paper.
It had been more than just a chapter in my life, though. If I had to choose a word, it would be an alteration, because neither Karin nor I were the same after that.
The sky on the morning of his funeral had been strangely sunny, without a single cloud to mar the blue. If Dad had known, he'd probably have been offended that it wasn't a dramatic thunderstorm instead.
Our town had turned into a mini Malibu that weekend as business tycoons and CEOs from states and countries over flew in for the funeral. It was the most excitement San Juan had seen in years.
Those famous people all came armed with the appropriate words of sympathy for the three teenagers and one fiancée that Horace Beckett had left behind.
There had been some dabbing of eyes, some dutiful sniffling, but otherwise, the whole event seemed more like a social gathering than a funeral.
The bulk of my time was spent welcoming the never-ending stream of well-wishers, some of them acquaintances, some of them distant relatives who had come out of the woodwork hoping to inherit.
None who truly cared.
Estelle herself had played the part of grieving partner to perfection, looking pale but beautiful in her black mourning clothes. Karin had been a wreck, and Theo was nowhere to be found. His friends had been missing too.
All but Ryland Wyatt.
Ryland had worn all black that day, making him look older than his eighteen years. He didn't speak to anyone, just silently paid his respects by my father's coffin.
I caught his gaze for a split second when he turned to leave, and it had been filled with regret more real than anything I'd seen that morning.
At that moment I'd felt less alone knowing that there was someone else who shared my grief.
I never dreamt that ten years on, I'd discover the real reason for that look in his eyes.
After Ryland had said the words that brought my world crashing down around me, I'd run straight back to the apartment and woken Karin, who had been back from the club.
Then I'd grabbed an overnight bag, blindly shoving in my essentials
and clothing. Karin had been confused, but she got packing once I begged her to save her questions for later.
We were out of the apartment in less than five minutes, and half an hour later, we arrived at a budget motel in Brooklyn.
It was just like all those years ago when we first came to this city. I was still the same frightened runaway at twenty-seven as I had been at seventeen.
I bit my bottom lip hard, trying to stem my tears as I hugged my knees and huddled on the lumpy double-bed that had seen better days.
Karin came out from the shower then, piling her damp hair on the top of her head and perching beside me on the bed.
“Are you okay?” she asked softly.
I shook my head, not trusting myself to speak.
“Talk to me.” She took my hand, squeezing once. “What happened? Did you and Ryland fight?”
I wished it were that simple. Everything seemed so easy just hours ago. Even our argument over Marlon da Silva seemed trivial compared to this.
“You know how Dad died in the accident?” I whispered.
My sister nodded slowly. “He was cleaning his guns.”
“No.” I released a shaky breath. “It wasn't an accident.”
She stilled. “What do you mean?”
Nausea rose in my throat, but I forced myself to tell her everything Ryland had said to me, not leaving a single thing out. My heart broke with every word, and from Karin's stark expression, so did hers.
“I don't believe you,” she whispered, her face white as a sheet.
“I'm so sorry, K, so sorry…”
The dam inside me broke the moment the first tear fell, and uncontrollable, painful sobs wrenched from my chest.
It had been easier to stay silent and not say a word. Voicing it made everything painfully real.
My fingers clenched around Karin's arm as she crouched beside me, her own body shaking with the force of her crying.
We held on to each other, mourning the father we had but never knew. The father who had been taken from us before we could know him.
When I awoke again, I was staring up at a water-stained ceiling. The sky was pale grey past the flimsy curtains, and the sound of rain filled the room.
Karin was curled up beside me on the bed, like we used to sleep back in our old apartment before I met Ryland.
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