Hard Rules (Dirty Money #1)(58)

“Here we go,” Shane says, placing the hardcover menu on the table in front of me. “How about a drink?”

“I better not. I’m a lightweight and I might not make it home.”

“A drink it is,” he says, placing his phone on top of the menu. “Room service is programmed in my numbers. Call down and order my regular egg white omelet and whatever you want. I’ll get the drinks.”

I twist around to follow his progress to the bar behind me. “I feel like I’m invading your privacy tabbing through your phone.”

“If I was worried about it,” he says, casting me a sideways look as he opens a glass decanter. “I wouldn’t give it to you.”

I wouldn’t give it to me is the problem. Trapped in a huge lie and falling for a man who is swimming in a sea of those very same monsters, I leave the phone on the table, and wait for what turns out to be his quick return. “Cognac,” he announces, claiming the spot next to me, and setting two glasses on the table, before giving me a curious look. “You didn’t order the food, did you?”

“Let’s just drink,” I say, picking up a glass and downing the sweet, potent liquid.

“Emily,” he says, softly, setting the glass on the table. “What’s wrong?”

I’m lying to you and I need to be honest in every way I can, I think, but I say, “We were talking about trust. Remember?”

“I remember,” he says, his tone cautious now.

“Okay then. Confession time. When I said I could never forgive you this morning, I’d already forgiven you. I just thought I had to do that to keep you away.”

“And you did that why?”

“There are things in my life I can’t and won’t involve you in.”

He reaches over and strokes a lock of hair behind my ear. “What if I want to be involved?”

“You barely know me.”

“But I want to know you.” His voice is low, a silk caress on my raw nerve endings. “I’m not going to press you now, but when you’re ready, you can trust me.”

“It’s not that simple.” And oh how I wish it were.

“I’ll make it simple.”

But he can’t make this simple and I quickly change the subject, before he doesn’t let me. “Your mother cornered me at the office tonight.”

His reaction is to down his drink, refilling it, and hands mine back to me. I follow his lead, emptying my glass, a fog begging to take over my brain. “Whatever that is tastes good but I better stop before I forget how bad of a drinker I am.”

“Tomorrow’s Saturday,” he says. “And I’ll take care of you. Have another.”

“I don’t need to be taken care of, Shane.”

“Tonight, with me, you do. Trust me enough to let that be okay.”

“Trust. There you go with that word again. You keep saying it.”

“I guess I do.” He empties his glass again.

Now I give him a curious look. “You haven’t asked what happened with your mother.”

“What happened is, my father refuses to let me tell her the cancer has moved from his brain to his lungs.”

“Brain?” I gasp, setting down my glass. “He has brain cancer?”

“Yes. And after six months of knowing, it still seems unreal.”

“How can he have complete mental clarity if it’s bad enough to have moved?”

“Complete mental clarity?” He laughs without humor. “That’s debatable. What happened with my mother?”

“I don’t want to tell you now.”

“Nothing can shock me with my family.”

“I’m not so sure but okay. She offered me fifty thousand dollars to stick it out with your father through his illness and report to her on all of his activities.”

He pauses with the glass to his lips, lowering it to ask, “And what did you say?”

“My answer was no and she thought I was crazy, especially when I told her she could fire me.”

“And she said?”

“That I’m not fired and for me to have a good weekend. I’m not sure if she was testing me or really trying to use me.”

“Why did you decline? That would have paid for a good portion of law school.”

“That’s not how I want to pay for school. Unless you want me to help her? Because unless you tell me otherwise, the only person I’m giving information to is you and I’ll do that directly.”

“Don’t give her anything,” he says, his statement all but confirming he doesn’t trust his mother, but then he turns around and sideswipes me with, “I’ll pay you the money.”

Insulted and hurt, I’m on my feet in an instant, the blanket falling away, but he shackles my wrist, dragging me down to the couch. “Fuck you, Shane,” I hiss, twisting around to face him. “I can’t be bought with sex or money.”

“I didn’t mean it like that. You were loyal to me and I want to take care of you.”

“I told you. I don’t need to be taken care of.”

“And yet you took care of me by texting me that tip about Nina and refusing to feed information to my mother that could go to my brother. How is it wrong of me to want to protect you?”