Reveal (Wicked Ways #2)(9)

“Fucked up.”

“You’re goddamn right you did!” I scream at the top of my lungs, and I hate when my voice betrays me by breaking.

“I was . . . there are things I can’t explain, Vaughn. Things that would betray my client’s confidentiality, but in that moment, I decided to use his obsession with you to my advantage and—”

“His wife is your client?” I ask, knowing it doesn’t help one bit if she is or isn’t.

Ryker just stares at me. I don’t know how I rationalized that the twenty-four hours would make seeing him easier—that my heart would be more hardened, my emotional reaction dulled—but it’s just the opposite. I want to hug him and hit him and hold on to him and demand answers, all the while hating myself for wanting any and all of it.

He purses his lips and darts his gaze away before coming back to mine. “It was more than that. It was—”

“Answer the question. Is his wife your client?”

“I can’t say any more. Just like you, I have a career to protect. Just like I was trying to protect you.”

I emit a laugh laced with the waver of tears, the emotions overwhelming me and drowning out what he’s really said.

The woman Ryker took on as a client—the surprise client he said being with me encouraged him to take—is Carter’s wife? There’s so much irony in the fact that she’s the reason he supposedly threw me to the wolf.

“So you can use me, but you can’t tell me. Makes perfect sense,” I say, sarcasm dripping from my every word.

“Christ. Just listen. Please. He was threatening me. Then you. I was trying to play his game with him to see what it is he wanted. I was—”

“Me! He wanted me!” I scream, my voice breaking right along with my heart. “And if he didn’t, now he sure as hell does.”

“No, Vaughn. No. You don’t—”

“Just stop! Please. Stop.” Each word takes more effort than the last.

He takes a step forward, and I take one back as I stare at him and see so many things I love but at the same time feel so many things that I hate.

“This is never going to work,” I whisper as if I’m afraid to say it.

“What do you mean? Why can’t it? I know I—”

“It won’t. Neither of us will ever give up the part of ourselves we need to in order to make this work. We don’t trust. We love with conditions even when we think we aren’t. We—”

“That’s bullshit.” He walks a few more feet into the living room, shoves a hand through his disheveled hair, and then exhales a long and frustrated sigh before turning back to look at me.

“No, it’s the truth.” For the first time since he walked through my door, I acknowledge the tears coursing down my cheeks, but I won’t let him see them. I turn my back to him and shove them away.

“He said he had dirt on you, Vaughn.”

Everything in me stutters to a halt: my heart, my breath, my thoughts. When I turn to face him, my armor is firmly in place. “Of course he does. With your confirmation, he now knows who I am. You outed me.”

I watch my words hit him like a one-two punch. First the denial and then the recognition of what he did when he should have already realized how devastating that part of the conversation alone is for me.

“Vaughn . . .”

“With your offer, he now thinks I’m available to the highest bidder. He can now blackmail me seven ways from Sunday, Ryker, because not once did you deny who I was or defend me or even find a way to stop the conversation. Nope. Not you. Ruse or not, you played right into his hand and used me as a pawn in your high-stakes game.” I stiffen my spine. “Just like your mother used you with her husbands.”

The muscle in his jaw pulses as he grits his teeth. “It’s not—you don’t understand. He made the connection on his own. If I’d have argued, it would have made it worse. He’d have gotten off on the fact I was trying to protect you. My lack of reaction was for the best—Christ.” He hangs his head, and I hate that the part of me that loves him actually feels bad for him.

And then I get a grip and find my justified anger again. “For the best?” My voice escalates with each word. “For the best for you? Or for the best for me? Because I saw a whole lot of you in there and not the other way around.”

“How could you think I’d mean all that shit? How could you think I’d purposely hurt you? After everything we’ve talked about? After everything we’ve gone through? How could—”

“Because you said the words to my face without flinching, that’s why!” I shout. “For the briefest of moments, I thought maybe there was something going on—that you were playing some kind of game—and all I could do was stare at your side and beg you to make the ‘hang loose’ sign.” I shove my hand out in the sign with my thumb and pinkie sticking out and middle fingers against my palm.

“Vaughn,” he groans my name.

“But you didn’t. Not a sign, not an anything.”

“I’m supposed to remember some silly thing you and Lucy do in the midst of everything that was going on?” He throws his hands out to his sides in frustration. “And I did give you a sign. I was trying to tell you without him knowing. I worked in there about you saying no. I brought up our word—defining—to try to remind you of what I had said the last time I saw you . . . to let you know—”