Overture (North Security #1)(33)

His voice goes subzero. “What were you going to do with the file, Samantha?”

That was the easy part, wasn’t it? Only we never got that far. “We’d blackmail him, make him leave the boys alone, make him resign his position.”

A low growl. “Did it occur to you that he might have bought your silence a different way? By hurting you? Threatening you? Killing you?”

My stomach turns over. “We would have been careful.”

The long pause that follows makes me think of every bad thing that could have happened to Laney or Cody. If anything would happen to me, I know that Liam North would blame himself.

“Careful,” he says, his voice hollow. “There is no amount of careful that would be good enough. How dare you risk your life like that? Do you know what I would do if you—”

Shock makes me breathless. “You risk your life all the time. You send men and women to risk their lives for North Security. But I can’t do the same thing?”

“No, goddamn you.”

I flinch from the venom in his voice. “That’s not fair.”

“Life isn’t fair, Samantha. That’s something Cody and his teammates already learned, and it’s something you’re going to have to learn, too.”

“So you aren’t going to do anything to help?”

“It’s not my business.”

Acid rises in my throat. “What if you had said that about me?”

Something dark moves through the forest of his eyes. “I didn’t.”

“What’s so different between me and Cody? Why would you help me but not him?”

“Don’t ask me that, Samantha.”

“No! I’ve had enough of being quiet, of being the good little girl who does what she’s told. If you won’t help him, I’m going to.”

A harsh laugh. “Don’t push me. I’m about two seconds away from locking you up.”

Indignation and a strange secret desire rise inside me. The indignation wins. “You can’t lock me up. I’m an adult now.”

“Almost an adult. And as I said before, almost doesn’t count.”

He makes me so angry, there may as well be steam rising from my ears. I clutch the pillow tighter, wondering about whether I should throw it at him. But then I would lose my shield.

I don’t know why a twelve-year-old girl he’d never met mattered to him when a boy who lives in the same city doesn’t, but I’m not above using that to my advantage. “What if I ask you to?”

He freezes. “Ask me to what?”

I stand up from the bed and take a step closer to him—and almost, almost touch him. “You can use my violin money. If you buy the video, he won’t be able to hurt you.”

“You want this from me?”

A solemn nod.

The closet light flicks on, blinding me. His body blocks it, and then he’s getting dressed right in front of me. Worn jeans pulled on over his briefs. A T-shirt covering his abs. I’ve never watched him get dressed before, but there’s something studiously casual about his movements.

As if he’s hiding a black hole of emotion.

I’m wearing a tank top and panties, the same as I do every night. The same as I was when I walked in here, but I feel more exposed now that he’s wearing regular clothes.

The closet light casts his face in sharp contrast, the stark handsomeness of his features abutted against pure dark. “I’m not going to give that man a single goddamn cent, but if I did, it sure as hell wouldn’t be your violin money.”

There’s a boulder in my chest, crashing left and right. “You’re going to do it?”

“I’m going to do it,” he says, his tone grim, and I can’t shake the feeling that something powerful is in play, more than a guardian doing a favor for his ward.

“Tomorrow?” I ask.

He gives a low growl of assent. “Tomorrow.”

“You’re not… mad. Are you? About what happened?” I can’t quite look back at the bed where we were. I have only the fleeting impression of rumpled sheets. Sheets that had held Liam’s muscled body.

“At you? No.”

Acid rises in my throat. Oh, he’s going to blame himself. “Liam.”

He ties a knot with hard, efficient movements and stands. “You’ll stay here where it’s safe until I have the video. I’ll have Josh watch you. No sneaking out again.”

Such a parental thing to say. “You didn’t do anything wrong,” I tell him, earnest, desperate to save what I’ve already lost. I can feel the grains of sand between my fingers. “You didn’t hurt me. You only—”

You only bit me.

A humorless laugh is my answer. “The coach is abusing his power. You were the one telling me how wrong it is, how I should stop him. How is what I did on that bed any different?”

“Because I wanted it.”

He shakes his head, turning away from me. “That doesn’t matter.”

His broad back will be the last thing I see of him, on the one night he sees me as more than a child. I can’t let him leave this way. I’m done letting him tell me what to do. “It matters.”

I’m standing in his bedroom, my bare feet rooted to the ground. He’s in the doorway, his whole body tense as if he needs to flee. Well, maybe he does. Maybe he can’t handle what he wants or what I want. Maybe he can’t handle me, but I’ll be damned if I let him think he’s doing this for my own good.