Rich Dirty Dangerous

by Julie Kriss

  “I heard you on the phone.”

  He nodded. “Max is putting money in my bank account.” He raised his eyes to mine and held my gaze. “A lot of money. And you’re taking some.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t think—”

  “End of story,” he said. “I heard you. You’re not my woman. That’s clear.”

  I put my fork down. It had been a gut reaction, my denial of those particular words. But what was last night? I’d been his woman then, at least while we were naked. What if his plan was to leave me?

  Cavan continued, “But you’re still stranded, with no funds and nowhere to go, and you’re taking my money to help yourself out. Conversation over.”

  I bit my lip, thinking. The hard truth was that I was broke, and I needed cash to get me by. But as soon as I landed on my feet, I would get a job. I’d treat this as a loan; I just wouldn’t tell Cavan that. “Okay,” I said to him. “Thank you. But money doesn’t solve all of our problem.”

  “No,” he agreed. “That’s why when we leave here, we’re going to Vegas.”

  “What for?”

  “Why does anyone go to Vegas?” he replied. “To get married.”

  My stomach dropped. “What?”

  “Married,” Cavan said again, as if we were discussing the weather. “You and me. Legally wed. It’s the best solution.”

  For a second I was so shocked I couldn’t speak; I just stared at him. “You’re insane,” I finally said.

  “I’m not, actually.” The crease appeared in his forehead as he assessed my reaction. “It’s a means to an end, Dani. Don’t be alarmed.”

  I pushed my plate away. I wasn’t hungry anymore. “And how exactly is it a means to an end?”

  “If you’re my wife, McMurphy isn’t going to want you anymore,” Cavan said. “It’s all about possession with him. If he sees you as mine, then he’ll no longer see you as his.”

  “That’s because I will be yours,” I said. “We’ll be married.”

  That got me a ghost of a smile. “You know what year it is?” he said. “You won’t be anybody’s. We’ve established that. You don’t have to take my name, and you don’t have to live with me. Hell, at the moment I don’t even have anywhere to live.”

  I sat back in my seat. I had the feeling this wasn’t the whole story. “And that’s it?” I asked him. “We just get married for McMurphy’s purposes? That’s all?”

  His gray eyes flicked away from mine, then back again. “There’s more,” he said. “That guy last night. He could have gone after you, but he didn’t. He came after me.”

  I didn’t like to think about that. It had been awful, waking up to the sound of bikes outside my door, Cavan gone. I’d fallen asleep so happy in his arms. “He saw you,” I said. “He didn’t come after me because he didn’t see me.”

  “Dani, he knew where we were,” Cavan said. “He knew what room we were in. He came for me the minute I walked out the door. If he wanted you, he could have walked right in and got you.”

  I swallowed, trying not to think of some strange biker walking in and yanking me naked out of bed. The fact that Cavan had been targeted didn’t make me feel any better, either. We were lucky it had been only a warning. I had come so close, so horribly fucking close, to losing him. “What are you getting at?” I asked.

  He looked at me calmly, and then he dropped the bomb. “If anything happens to me, as my wife you get it all.”

  Everything stopped.

  “You have got to be fucking kidding me,” I said.

  He didn’t flinch, just held my gaze with eyes gray as steel. “You think I’m kidding you, Dani?”

  “I—” He was serious. He was actually serious. I scrubbed a hand over my face. “I don’t want your money.”

  “Yeah?” Cavan said. “Well, I don’t want it either. But if I die, I want to know you have it. That you’re going to use it to get on a plane and get out of Dodge. Or hire lawyers to put McMurphy away. Or take some time and go to school. Whatever you want.” He leaned forward across the table. “Dani, think of it as an insurance policy. If the shit hits the fan, you can go to Devon. Show him your marriage certificate, and there’s no way he won’t take you in. I let him down ten years ago, but you never did. I know my brother. He wouldn’t let my wife stay in danger.”

  “You asshole,” I said in a low voice, suddenly angry. “You’re talking about dying. About dying.”

  He shook his head, his eyes hard. “It was always a possibility.”

  He was right. Damn him, he was. McMurphy was fully capable of murder when he was this enraged; I knew it better than anyone. When I’d left with Cavan I hadn’t been thinking past the next hour, the next four hours, the next twelve hours—and neither had he. We’d been living by getting to the next rest stop, the next town—the next bed, at least on my part. Because beyond those things, it could all be over.

  And he was still thinking that way. That we would try to make it further down the highway, but one of us might not get there. And the odds were, the person who might not get there was him.

  That was true. All of it was technically right. But last night had happened, and I’d been to bed with him—in all the ways that mattered. I’d done things with him, felt things with him, that I’d never imagined I could have. I didn’t want to think only about the next hour anymore. I didn’t want to think about the fact that he might leave me. I was mixed up—I didn’t know what I wanted, but it wasn’t that.

  Cavan reached across the table and took my hand. He gripped it in his, just hard enough to make me feel it. “Don’t be pissed at me, Dani,” he said, his voice low and intense. “Just tell me straight up what you’re thinking. Even if it’s to tell me to go fuck myself. We’ve come this far, but we can’t get any further if we’re fighting. It has to be you and me.”

  I looked at him. Scruffy, tired, unromantic asshole—he was still so beautiful it hurt my eyes. His hand was warm on mine, his grip sure, his reach making his forearm flex. Behind him, waitresses served breakfast to tourists and truckers as the sun came up. For a moment, everything hung in the balance.

  Him and me. Married.

  I had the feeling there was something more to this crazy idea, something he wasn’t telling me yet. The question was, did I trust him enough to believe in him? To follow him anyway?

  There had been guys before McMurphy. I’d stayed a virgin, but I’d played around. And I definitely had a type: the bad boy. The guy who was a little bit wild, who broke the rules. My mother had raised me to stay away from boys like that, probably from her own experience, so I’d taken pleasure in rebelling. Bad boys were my weakness.

  The fact that those same boys always treated me like dirt was lost on me—I didn’t take the warning. I thought the right woman could change them, make them different. Until I learned my lesson in the hardest possible way with McMurphy, who took everything from me, made me hate myself, put his boot heel in my thigh, and called me a slut while he did it.

  I understood it now. Bad boys were a bad idea. Bad boys were pain and nothing else.

  Yet here I was, with Cavan Wilder.

  He should be the type. He had no family; he lived with a motorcycle club. He didn’t date. He didn’t break rules, because he barely even acknowledged that rules existed. He’d run off with me after a single conversation, and he’d defied a man who was hell bent on killing him without a second thought. He only owned jeans and worn t-shirts and boots, and he didn’t shave. After what I’d been through, I should be running away screaming.

  But I wasn’t. I didn’t want him to leave me, and I didn’t want him to die, and it wasn’t because I was desperate or because he was my type. It was because he was him.

  He was still holding my hand, watching me think it over. Waiting.

  He was a bad boy maybe, but he’d showed up in that parking lot and saved my life. He hadn’t judged me. He listened to me; he paid attention to me. He’d dropped everything, risked his life, been attacked. He was offering me
money and protection and asking nothing in return. Even the sex had been about my pleasure. He was my white knight.

  I found my voice. “You told me,” I said, “when we first left, that you were doing this for yourself, and not for me. Was that true?”

  “Don’t ask me that,” he said.

  “Why not?”

  He frowned. “Because I don’t know the answer.”

  “And what do you get out of all of this?” I asked him. “It looks like I get money and protection. What do you get?”

  “I know that if McMurphy or one of his goons kills me, it wasn’t for nothing. My money goes somewhere useful. I know that I did at least one good thing.”

  That was a good answer, but it wasn’t enough. “And you get sex. Right? Is that the deal?”

  He laughed, and I knew he was remembering last night, just like I was. “Sweetheart,” he said, “what’s going to happen between us is going to happen whether we’re married or not.”

  “So would this marriage be in name only?” I asked.

  His gaze darkened, and I felt my heart speed up. “I don’t think we should lie to ourselves. Do you?”

  I still wanted him so badly. Last night hadn’t even been close to enough, and he hadn’t been inside me yet. No, we would probably fuck, and I would enjoy it. But we didn’t have to be married for that.

  “If we do this,” Cavan said, “and everything works out, we can get a divorce if you want. You won’t get a contest from me. This isn’t about owning you, Dani. It’s a piece of paper that protects you for as long as we need it to. And if you want out, you get out. What do you say?”

  I stared at him. I’d come in this man’s arms while he whispered in my ear. I had his ink on my skin. I’d been awake with him. I didn’t want to let another man touch me like that, put his hands or his mouth on me. I didn’t want to let another man do the things I wanted Cavan to do. That I’d practically begged him to do.

  And I’d be fucked if I was going to watch him drive off into the sunset with divorce papers, ready to find someone else.

  I wanted Cavan Wilder, my white knight, for as long as we had. And it was my lucky day, because that was exactly what he was offering me. I didn’t care if there was more he wasn’t saying. Maybe I should please myself for once.

  I nodded, and I watched him smile. “Okay,” I said. “You have a deal. Let’s get married.”

  Seventeen

  Cavan

  It hadn’t been much of a proposal. I’d done that on purpose, made it businesslike and unromantic, because I didn’t want her to have any illusions. If Dani secretly wanted a pretty wedding with lace and flowers, that was not what this was. I wanted her to agree to it—needed her to agree to it—but she had to understand what marriage to me would be.

  Protection, pure and simple.

  You didn’t tell her the rest of it, a voice inside my head said as we got on the road to Vegas.

  I scrubbed a hand over my face and focused on the road. No, there were things I hadn’t told her. But I was tired, and this wasn’t over yet. She’d see I was right. I just had to get us into the city first.

  We were getting close; the traffic into Vegas was congested, slowing to a crawl. Dani had put her sunglasses on and taken off her shoes, sitting cross-legged in the passenger seat, gazing out the window, thinking. The future Mrs. Wilder.

  She’d agreed, which was crazy. Now we just had to go through with it.

  “Cav,” she said, breaking the silence. “Look.”

  She nodded at the rear view mirror. I checked it and saw four bikers a few cars behind us in traffic. They were hanging back, taking their time, but they were close on our ass.

  “You recognize anyone?” I asked Dani.

  She moved closer to the mirror, raising her sunglasses and squinting. The guys had helmets and sunglasses, but she gave it her best try. “No.”

  “Probably the local club, then,” I said. “It’s bold. This is Lake of Fire territory.”

  “It’s another message, I think,” she said. “They’re telling us they know where we are, but I’m sure they don’t plan to do anything. Even McMurphy wouldn’t be that crazy.”

  She was probably right. Just showing their faces and their cuts in Lake of Fire territory was a provocation, since the clubs were rivals, but it wasn’t enough for the Lake to take retaliation. McMurphy knew where the line was; he’d push it, but he wouldn’t cross it. Not with Robert Preston’s daughter in Robert Preston’s territory.

  I didn’t change my route and leave the highway. There was no point. The traffic was moving slower and slower, and there was nowhere to go anyway. Vegas was only half an hour ahead. “We’ll wait it out, and keep an eye on them,” I said.

  She nodded and put her sunglasses back on. “They’ll tell McMurphy we’re in Vegas,” she said. “I know him. It’s going to drive him crazy, wondering what we’re doing here.”

  “He’ll find that out too, soon enough,” I said. “I won’t even have to call him. These guys are going to do all the work for us.”

  She looked at me. “You really think this will work? If we get married he’ll leave me alone?”

  “You know him better than I do,” I replied. “What do you think?”

  She thought about it and looked back at the mirror, watching the bikers. “I wish I could see it. His reaction,” she said. “I never want to see McMurphy again, but I’d like to see that. Someone telling him that you and I got married. It would be funny if it wasn’t so scary. I worry about you, though.”

  “Don’t worry about me,” I said. “I’ll be fine.”

  “Considering you’re making plans for when you get killed, I’m a little skeptical,” she said, her voice tight.

  “I told you, it’s an insurance policy. I’m going to try my hardest not to get killed. Though if I actually manage to live, you don’t get to become a billionaire. You just become a billionaire’s wife.”

  “Stop it,” she snapped. “This wedding was your idea. I’m not marrying you for your money.”

  “You should,” I said. “It’s pretty much all I’m good for.”

  “If you keep talking like that, I won’t marry you at all,” she said harshly. “And don’t you dare fucking die.”

  I shook my head. She had no idea what a fuckup I was, how I had hurt people, the disappointing things I’d done. But I had no desire to get into the pointless shit show that was my life up to now. I just had to stick to the plan. “They’re leaving,” I said to her, nodding at the rear view mirror.

  Behind us, the four Black Dogs were taking the exit, peeling out of traffic and heading back south. One of them was probably the same guy who had clocked me last night. I hoped his balls still hurt.

  Ahead, a sign told us we were entering the Las Vegas city limits.

  “They’re gone for a little while,” I said to Dani. “They don’t want to push their luck in Lake territory, but they won’t go far. We have a few hours. Let’s hurry the fuck up and get married.”

  Eighteen

  Dani

  When your father is a murderer and you have an unhealthy penchant for bad boys, you don’t think much about weddings. Maybe I had a fantasy or two as a little girl about a white dress and a nice husband, but the boys I picked when I was older disabused me of that pretty fast. And with McMurphy, marriage was the last thing on my mind. When I thought about the future at all during those seven months, I figured I’d be an old lady until he found a replacement and kicked me out. It was what he’d done with the old lady before me, and the one before that. Romance wasn’t McMurphy’s forte.

  It wasn’t Cavan’s, either. I knew what he was doing; I wasn’t stupid. He was trying to make this as unromantic as possible so I wouldn’t get attached to him. Well, too bad—and way too fucking late.

  I wanted him. That was why I’d agreed to this. I didn’t need a church and a puffy dress, I needed him.

  We had to stop at a bank when we got into Vegas so he could get some of the cash Max had sent
him. “We need a hotel, and then we’re going shopping,” he said.

  “You can’t use a credit card?” I asked, pulling my sneakers back on.

  “I don’t have a credit card. Never have.”

  I stared at him, surprised and a little amused. “Cav, you’re going to be a terrible billionaire,” I said.

  “Yeah, I know.” He frowned. He was the only person I knew who would find the idea of being suddenly rich annoying, like a stone in his shoe. “I’m going to fucking suck at it. That goes without saying. I’ve never owned a house, and this car cost me eight hundred dollars cash because the owner owed the club a favor.”

  I opened my door. “I don’t know much about it, but at least I have a credit card, even if it’s maxed out. You’ll have to pay taxes and stuff.”

  “Yeah, I don’t do that either,” he said.

  I laughed. “I think you’re going to start. The IRS is going to be happy to see you. You know, your brother can probably help you with these things.”

  But he shook his head. “First things first,” he said. “Let’s get some money.”

  It didn’t take him long at the teller, but when he finished he had a lot of money. A stack of cash. I’d never seen so much money at once, and it made me nervous. “Put it away,” I said, folding his hand over it and pushing his hand toward his pocket. We were standing in the bank parking lot with people walking by.

  It was his turn to watch me with amusement. “You’re not going to be a good billionaire either if you’re afraid of a little money.”

  “That isn’t a little money,” I said, but he was right. I felt like we’d just robbed the bank, or done a drug deal. We both had to figure this out. “Let’s just get a hotel. Not on the strip, either. Nothing fancy. And no Elvis, or whatever they do for weddings here.”