Reveal (Wicked Ways #2)(5)

“Just make sure she’s defiant. I love it when they fight.”

“Not going to happen.” I hear Vaughn’s voice before I see her, and every single part of me dies a miserable and painful death at the sound.

NO!

How much did she hear?

This is bad.

Fuck.

So goddamn bad.

Fuck.

She has to know that I’m lying.

Fuck!

Beside me, Carter turns to face her. He more than likes what he sees—his dick already dipping into her before he’s even touched her—and I force my hands to release the fists they’ve curled into.

“I fucking want her,” Preston murmurs beneath his breath so only I can hear it, his fingers fidgeting as if they’re itching to touch her.

What the hell am I going to do now? I take a beat as my mind spins and my thoughts tumble out of control.

I fucked up big time. Played the game, and now I’m so fucking far into it, I can’t back out. There’s nothing I can do but make sure Carter thinks it’s true. All of it. That I’d offer her up to him. That I buy his bullshit sex, power, and fear theory. That I need to know what he has on her to save us both from her later.

Sell the goddamn lie, Lockhart.

But at what cost?

I take a sip of my drink and set it down with a clink on the bar top before swiveling on my barstool to face her.

And I know the cost. It’s all right there in front of me, and it takes every goddamn thing I have to meet her eyes.

But so is protecting her. So is making sure Carter can never hurt her.

Sell the lie.

Make Carter believe you. Make him think he holds the power. Make him believe you’re going to help him get back what’s his.

But fuck if it’s not going to be the hardest thing I’ve ever done, as she stands there with hurt, shame, defeat, and defiance written all over every part of her.

Asking forgiveness is my only option now since it’s way too fucking late to ask her for her permission to do this.

At least that’s what I’ll tell myself to get through this. To ignore the tears welling in those aqua eyes and the trembling of her bottom lip.

Sell the fucking lie.

“Vaughn.” Look at me, Vaughn. Look at me and see the truth. That I’m playing him. That I’m . . . fuck, just look at me. “Perfect timing. Were your ears burning, babe?”

“Make it happen.” Another murmur by Preston. I stare at Vaughn but nod ever so slightly to let him know I will.

“Babe?” she says, her voice colder than the goddamn polar ice cap. “Babe?”

“Yeah.” The word feels like acid on my tongue.

“I’m not yours to share.”

“You took the money, so technically, you’re mine to do with as I please,” I say, more than aware that Carter’s paying attention to my every word while each one she hears sounds like a bullet hitting her. Goddammit, Vaughn. Look at me. See me. I would never . . . but there’s a little quiver of her bottom lip that all but makes me want to throw in the towel on this charade. But he has something on her.

Think, Lockhart.

Bring her back.

Let her know.

“It’s not like you’d say no to me,” I say, waiting for her to hear the words, for her to remember our battle of wills when we first started this thing between us, for her to see that I’m trying to tell her this is not what it seems. All the while letting Carter think I’m pulling his put-a-woman-in-her-place bullshit.

“I don’t—I can’t—how . . .” She fumbles over her words, much like her expression morphs from one emotion to the next.

“Did you really think I had changed this much for you?” I ask as Carter chuckles with a college-frat-boy arrogance that says he’s enjoying this. And fuck if I don’t die inside a little when the first tear slips down her cheek. I scramble to figure out how to bring her back to the us she knows. To realize the me she knows would never do this. “Did you really think I want something permanent? Something that can be defined? That you were the exception?”

There’s a glimmer of lucidity in her eyes. For the briefest of seconds, I think she hears me. I think she sees through this bullshit situation and takes it for what it’s worth . . . but then she says my name.

“Ryker?” It’s a goddamn plea full of hurt and confusion and you’re such a fucking asshole.

What makes it almost worse is the senator at my side, groaning like my hurting her is making him fucking hard. I force a swallow down my dry throat and know there’s no turning back now. I’ll sell the damn lie, and then I’ll do everything in my power to bury the motherfucker.

“You did, didn’t you?” I say and nudge Carter. But this time she doesn’t respond. She just stares at me with doe eyes and parted lips as her spine straightens some. “Vaughn?”

“No!” She yells the lone word, but there is so much sewn into her tone that I know she believes all this.

I sold the lie so damn well I hurt the one person I care about the most.

Our eyes lock, and the devastation in hers all but kills me. When she runs out of the pool house, it takes everything I have not to chase after her and explain.

I stand from my stool, my moral compass way off the charts as I realize what I just did to her.

To us.