Sinful Desire

by Lauren Blakely

  Sparks swooped through her, and she was damn near ready for another round. But she also enjoyed talking to him, and they’d had a nice chat over dinner. He’d spotted a wedding photo of Holden and her, and had even remarked how pretty she looked. If he’d felt any tension or jealousy over her friendship with her ex, he didn’t let on, which made her happy. He’d asked about Holden’s work, and she’d shared more details, mentioning that he was helping with the upcoming fundraiser.

  “I’m getting together with Holden tomorrow to go over some details, and truth be told, we’ll probably do some shopping, too. We’re both partial to the Grand Canal shops,” she said, as if divulging a naughty secret.

  “This sounds strange even as I say it, but I hope you have fun shopping with your ex,” he said, bemused. She laughed, delighted that he could accept her friendship with Holden so easily.

  “Tell me more about your company, and what it’s like working with your older brother,” she said.

  As he talked about his work, and both the joys and pitfalls of working with a sibling, a realization slipped to front and center in her mind.

  She liked him. A lot.

  No, that wasn’t it. It was way more than like.

  She was falling for Ryan Sloan. That was what the sparks in her belly were. They weren’t sex butterflies. They were falling for you butterflies.

  Ryan set down his fork and cleared his throat. “So, there’s something I’ve been wanting to tell you.”

  Her shoulders tensed instinctively. Nothing good ever came from those words. “You’re married?” she asked, panic seizing her. She wasn’t sure why that was the first thing that came to her mind. But she was sure something bad was about to come out of his mouth. Especially given where her own mind and heart had just gone.

  He laughed and shook his head, and his response made her feel the tiniest bit better. “No. It’s about—”

  But his words were cut off by a knock on the door. She stood up quickly. “It’s probably just a delivery or something. Dry cleaning maybe,” she said, and walked to the door. She peered through the peephole and beamed when she saw her brother.

  She turned to Ryan as she opened the door. “You can meet John.”

  Ryan’s face froze, and so did her brother’s when he made eye contact with the other man in the room.

  John said her lover’s name like a hiss.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  “You two know each other?” Sophie gestured from her brother to Ryan.

  Ryan nodded as John said, “Yes.”

  John went next, pointing to Ryan. “Why are you talking to my sister?” His voice was accusing. The tone was enough to send hackles up her spine.

  Sophie held up both hands. “Wait,” she said firmly. “Someone tell me what is going on.”

  Ryan pushed back his chair, the wooden legs scraping loudly against the floor. “We know each other because he’s working on a case that involves my family.” He took long strides to her. “My father’s murder.”

  Sophie clasped her hand over her mouth. She shuddered, but then blinked when she realized something didn’t add up. “You said you were fourteen when he died?”

  “I was,” Ryan said, standing a few feet from her. He pressed his fingers against his temple, speaking the next words as if they pained him. “He was shot in the driveway of our home one night. Both the gunman and my mother are in prison for the crime. The case was just reopened.”

  Sophie’s mouth fell open, and the earth ceased rotating as the enormity of his statement rocked through her. Slowly, she let each word soak in. That was a hell of a hand of cards to be dealt. She couldn’t even imagine what he’d gone through, living with that kind of tragedy. To think, she’d once pictured Ryan’s mom missing her husband, not serving hard time for offing him. This was so much bigger, so much heavier.

  “Oh my God, I’m so sorry to hear that,” she said, reaching for him, stepping closer, her natural instinct to comfort surpassing all else.

  He shook his head. “It’s okay,” Ryan mumbled, his body language telling her he didn’t want soothing.

  “I had no idea,” she said softly.

  “Of course you had no idea. I don’t really talk about it,” he said, crossing his arms.

  “But even so, I feel terrible that this happened to you.”

  “Don’t.”

  In that one word, she heard a man who didn’t want sympathy. Who didn’t think he needed it. She also understood all his walls—and oh hell, did he have them.

  “We reopened the investigation a few weeks ago due to new evidence,” John added, stepping closer to Sophie, flanking her, as if he needed to protect her from Ryan. Perhaps he did.

  Because it seemed she hardly knew the man she’d just spent the evening with. But she knew her brother. Her mind galloped over the last several conversations she’d had with John. She spun to face her brother, adding up the clues. “This is the case you’ve been working on?”

  He nodded. “One of them. One of the big ones.”

  She turned her gaze back to Ryan, and for the first time ever he didn’t look in control. He didn’t appear cool, or confident, or passionate. He seemed rattled, as if he’d been knocked out of orbit.

  He also looked like a stranger.

  He felt like one, too.

  Something clicked in her head. “Hawthorne,” she said under her breath. “Is that why you went to Hawthorne?”

  John cut in before Ryan could answer. “He visited his mother on Wednesday at Stella McLaren. He actually passed on some info to me later that day that may wind up being useful,” John said, a bit grudgingly, but still with some gratitude in his tone.

  “You don’t do security for the prison like you said?” she asked Ryan as she furrowed her brow. He’d lied. Maybe it was a small one, but it was still a lie.

  He shook his head. “The prison’s not a client. I went there to see my mom. She’s been in since I was fourteen,” he said, his voice heavy, laced with shame and sadness.

  Sophie felt neither of those emotions. She simply felt…fooled. Here were these men, talking to each other, knowing things, sharing intensely personal details, and she hadn’t a clue. She wanted to experience this moment honestly. She wanted to feel all the things one should feel when learning something like this. But information was coming at her in bizarre ways, rather than through her lover sharing directly, as she’d done with him.

  “I have a question, and it’s pretty important, as far as I can tell,” John said, cocking his head and staring at Ryan. “How long have you been involved with my sister?”

  “Over a week. I met her the day I went to—”

  “That’s why you were at the municipal building?” Sophie asked, crossing her arms. “The day I met you? You were going to see my brother?”

  “I didn’t know he was your brother then,” Ryan answered defensively. “I didn’t have a clue you two were connected. All I knew when I met you was that I wanted you.”

  John cleared his throat. “I left my phone charger in the guest room. That’s why I stopped by. I’m going to get that right now,” he said then stopped to look at Sophie. “Unless you want me here in this room.”

  She waved him down the hall. Once she heard the door to the guest room shut, she spoke. “When did you know the detective investigating your father’s case was my brother?”

  He gulped. “When I looked you up before the gala,” he said, and her blood turned to ice. Now that she’d moved beyond the initial desire to comfort him she felt…used.

  “Did you pursue me to get close to the investigation?” she whispered, dreading the answer.

  He shook his head several times. “No. No. No.”

  That was a few too many nos for her taste. “Maybe a little?”

  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.”

  She held out her hands in question. “Then I just don’t unders
tand why you didn’t tell me.”

  He shot her a quizzical look. “Uh, maybe because it’s not that easy for me to say.”

  She barely registered his words as the memory of her own admissions reared to the surface. She’d shared so much with him. He’d shared so little. He’d had so many opportunities to tell her. “Ryan, I just went on and on about John and his work so many times. And you knew who he was. And you even made remarks like I bet he has some stories about what he’s seen. You said that on the Ferris wheel,” she reminded him, her 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. She 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, that’s so great that you’re so close with him. By the way, he asked me the other day if my mom happened to associate with anyone new at the time of the murder. Is that what I should have said?” But he didn’t give her time to answer. “We don’t even use the last names we had when we were growing up, Sophie. Everyone heard of us in this town. It was all over the news. Everyone fucking knew us. Our family story was dramatized on prime-time news magazines. Our mom was the cold-blooded husband-killer. 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 she let out a surprised squeak.

  She’d heard the story when she was finishing junior high. It was one of the biggest news stories in town at the time. It was pure prime-time scandal. It had even been covered by Dateline-type shows, reenacting it. “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. Her need for self-protection took a backseat to compassion, and she tried once more. She wrapped her 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,” she said softly. He said nothing, but he let her hold him, even leaning into her. He sighed softly, and that sound, that vulnerable sound from this strong, sometimes standoffish man infiltrated her heart and soul. Somehow, in that brief exhalation, she felt him inching toward her.

  Not physically. But emotionally. She wanted to be the one for him. She ran her hands through his hair, wishing she could erase the tragedy.

  John’s footsteps echoed across the hardwood, breaking the moment. He cleared his throat. “Sophie,” he said, and she separated from Ryan. “Is everything okay?”

  She nodded. “It’s fine.”

  “Do you want me to stay?”

  She shrugged. She didn’t know what she wanted anymore. Everything that had felt so certain before John knocked on her door had been uprooted in seconds. “No. Yes. I don’t know,” she 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, Sophie looked at the man she’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 she 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 the street name didn’t give her any greater insight.

  Confusion reigned this Friday night. Maybe she was overreacting to this news. Or maybe she was under-reacting. She didn’t know what to make of this revelation. Was she supposed to be hurt? Or outraged? Feel sympathetic? Care for him?

  She had no notion of what to do next.

  This new wrinkle was so strange, and her chest was knotted up, her 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 say what happened to your family. I get that, and I wish I could take away the horrors of what you’ve gone though. But aside from that, when I analyze what’s 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 didn’t share, or didn’t say, 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 she had no way of knowing if he was being truthful now. She 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 her back to the night she left for the gala, and her 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 her brother, her flesh and blood. He was the man who’d supported her and helped her build her business, who would take a bullet for her. He had a reason to suspect Ryan was hiding something, and she’d be a foolish woman to wave this off and carry on as if nothing had changed.

  “I need you to believe me. I wanted to tell you,” he added, and she desperately wanted to trust in his words.

  But she’d relied on her instincts before, in her marriage with Holden, and those instincts had been wrong.

  Maybe she needed to use her head more. Not her heart. Not her 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.” She walked over to the dining room table, picked up the peach pie, returned to her kitchen, and covered it in tinfoil. Then she 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 fruit I wanted to give you.”

  She showed him to the door.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  His grandmother dug her fork into the pie on her plate. She rolled her eyes in pleasure. Moonlight shone through the kitchen window in her home. The clock next to the refrigerator ticked near ten.

  “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?” he asked, and grabbed a fork from a utensil drawer and stole a bite from his grandma’s plate.

  She smacked his hand then eyed the pie tin. “Serve your own, young man. This is all mine.”

  “That’s all I wanted. One bite,” he said, thinking the sentiment might be apropos for Sophie, too. Maybe all he’d take of her would be the one bite he’d had. Then he’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, amazing, incredible dessert.

  His grandma scooped another forkful then answered his question. “When she bakes like this, yes. You don’t give her up. This pie is divine.”

  Funny, Ryan had used that same word to describe Sophie.

  Divine.

  As well as exquisite. Not to mention delicious.

  Sophie was peach pie.

  He wanted the whole damn pie.

  He wanted all of Sophie.

  But what was the point? Tonight’s argument
was further proof that intimacy was too dangerous. He had to protect the secrets he’d locked up. When secrets were cracked wide open, you were left far too vulnerable. And when you were vulnerable you could wind up dead in your own driveway.

  “Yeah, it is, but…” he said, letting his voice trail off.

  “You like her,” his grandma said.

  He 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.” He tried valiantly to deny that there was anything more to the empty ache he felt right now than missing great sex. “We were just having a good time. Honestly, there’s nothing more to it.”

  She screwed up the corner of her mouth. “If it was just a good time, then why are you here?”

  “I wanted to bring you the pie.”

  “You could have eaten it yourself.”

  “Nah, I can’t finish that,” he said.

  “Sure you could. You’re a sturdy man. You can handle a peach pie.”

  He patted his flat stomach. “Gotta watch my boyish figure.”

  She shook her head and rolled her eyes. “You’re not fooling me.”

  He held out his hands wide as if to say he was an open book, even though that couldn’t be further from the truth.

  “Ryan,” she said gently, walking around to join him on his 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? He flashed back to Sanders’s wife and her weird glances at the mention of the speeding ticket. He hardly knew how to do what his grandma was prescribing. “Is it even worth it?”