I Belong to You (Inside Out #5)(23)

“That’s not good,” she murmurs.

“But it’s nothing we haven’t dealt with before,” Crystal points out, “with all the money and power that runs through the gallery.”

“And even one of my ballplayers, who took a payoff from a pro team long before he went pro,” my father says.

“Just tell me what you need to tell me,” my mother says, her attention on me.

“Before Ava’s escape,” I continue, “her defense team was desperate to counter her confession, which they claimed was made under duress, and driven by me.”

“You? Why you?”

“They changed their story a number of times. First, Ava said she confessed to protect me.”

She gasps. “Do you mean—”

“Yes. She accused me of killing Rebecca, but the police have cleared me and they now have proof of Ava’s guilt.”

“And?”

“Her legal team threw out a lot of random nonsense when trying to get the murder charge dropped. Everything from a sex scandal, to a sex club, Rebecca blackmailing me, and Ricco saying I set him and Mary up to shut him up when he had almost figured it all out.”

My mother sits up. “What? Do they actually believe you’d ruin our business to set him up?”

“Easy, Dana,” my father says. “Easy.”

“Nothing is getting ruined,” I assure her.

“In fact,” my father adds, “Larry Prescot called me today to express concern and relay how pleased he is with Crystal.”

“I’m finding in general, as we talk to people and explain things,” Crystal adds, “they become more supportive, not less.”

“Ricco’s trial is in January, so we’ll have to endure his accusations then. In the meantime, the press keeps trying to make headlines with all the nastiness Ava’s defense threw out before her escape.”

“Like a sex club and sex scandal.”

“Nothing anyone can prove. It’s just talk.”

“Nothing they can’t prove,” she repeats. “Is there a sex club?”

I draw a breath and let it out. “It’s a cigar club to the public.”

“So there is a club.”

“Elite. Expensive. Members only.”

“And your role is?”

“I own it.”

She turns to my father. “You knew?”

“Not before this Ava fiasco.”

At his reply, she glances at Crystal. “And you?”

“Mark warned me,” she says. “He never let me get sideswiped, so I never missed a beat when questioned.”

My mother’s gaze comes back to me. “What kind of sex club?”

“Elite—”

“You said that.”

“BDSM and fetish.”

Her hand goes to her throat. “Do you have a club here?”

“No. That was never an option and it still isn’t.”

“And Rebecca and Ava were members?”

“Yes,” I reply.

“What else do I need to know?”

“Ricco had a stalkerlike obsession with Rebecca. The police suspect he helped Ava escape because he thought she was innocent, and that I killed Rebecca. There’s now speculation that Ava is missing because he found out the truth and killed her.”

“So, we have press now. We’ll have press again when something turns up on Ava, and again during the trial.”

“That about sums it up.”

She stares forward, and it’s as if she’s shutting a door, withdrawing from me and everyone in the room. “I need to rest now.” Defeat laces her words and radiates off her.

I did this to her. I made her hell deeper and darker. “I’m not going to let this hurt Riptide,” I promise. “I won’t let that happen.”

She looks at me, her bottom lip trembling in a way I have never seen before. “I said I need to rest, Mark.” She looks forward again.

I suck in a breath, fighting the icy knot in my chest. She thinks I’m going to destroy everything she’s worked for. But deep down, I knew she’d think that. I knew she never truly trusted me. It’s a big part of why I left New York.

Pushing to my feet, I leave and go to the library, and walk straight to the double doors at the back of the room. Opening the door, I step onto the balcony, the bitter cold gusting around me. I do exactly what I did last night and walk to the rail, pressing my hands to the cold steel. She believes I’ll let her down. This city, this world I’m in now, is all about a past where failure nearly destroyed me before. Instead, it destroyed someone else. It’s happening again, and this time, the someone else is my mother.

“Mark. It’s freezing. Come inside.”

At the sound of Crystal’s voice, I squeeze my eyes shut. She’s too close to all of this—to me. I’d send her away if it wouldn’t destroy my mother. “Go home,” I say, needing to think.

“No. You can’t stay out here and—”

I turn to her sharply, noting the way she hugs herself, shivering against the cold, and I harshly snap, “I said, go home, Ms. Smith.”

She stiffens, sucking in a breath. She blinks once, then twice, before the same expression I’d seen in the library crosses her face, followed by a moment of panic. As if she knows I’ve seen it and she doesn’t want me to. Then she wordlessly departs. I squeeze my eyes shut again and tell myself it doesn’t matter. Better she be angry or hurt now, than dead or burned alive in the hell I’m living.