Pretty Little Wife(59)

“You used me.”

He froze. A second later his arm fell to his side. “What are you talking about?”

But he knew. The sudden blank expression and slight uptick of his voice gave him away.

She’d thought he was so different, but he wasn’t. “The research. My life. My father. My mother’s suicide.”

His hand closed over the back of his chair. “I can explain.”

Sure, now he wanted to explain. How convenient. “That you’re a piece of shit? No need. I get that.”

His fingers tightened. “Be careful.”

“Of what?” When he didn’t speak, she tried to spell it out. To make sure they were on the same plane. “Threats? Really, Ryan?”

He blew out a long breath and visibly regained control. Gone was the tight frown line on his forehead. His hand no longer held the leather in a suffocating clench. “Okay, let’s calm down for a second.”

Déjà vu slapped her across the face. The calming voice. The gaslighting. Aaron had used those tactics. He’d excelled at them. She hated the nonsense even more coming from Ryan because she’d expected better of him. “Now you want to placate me?”

He reached over and closed the blinds, blocking out the sun and plunging the room into shadow. “We shouldn’t do this here.”

He chose this battleground when he refused to respond to her. “Are you afraid I’m going to yell? Embarrass you?”

“The research isn’t what you think it is. I’m sure you’ve blown this into something bigger, but—”

“Aaron said the same thing to me.”

Ryan’s head snapped back. “What? You’re comparing me to your asshole husband?”

She would not be sidetracked. Not until he admitted his plan and where he thought she fit into it. “They. Found. Your. Notes.”

“We started working together, and you had this background . . .” He winced. “There was no grand plan. It just happened.”

“Sure it did.” She felt hunted.

“It’s what I do, Lila. I hear about cases, get interested, and dive in.”

She didn’t waste one second waiting for the apology that would never come. “Is that the entire explanation? Like having a big brain excuses you from being a jackass?”

“I’m writing a book. You knew that.”

She grabbed on to the bookcase to keep from throwing things. “You left out the part where it’s about my family.”

“No.” He held up one finger, like he might do to a child. “It’s about the connection between upbringing and crime and—”

“I don’t care.” She didn’t need a lecture. All she wanted— craved, really—was a few minutes of honesty. “Admit the truth. Spell it out.”

She let the quiet stretch between them. After a lifetime of filling in the blanks and letting things slide because that was easier than feeling anything, she could not let this go.

Ryan shifted his weight from foot to foot right before he started talking again. “It’s background. This is not a big deal.”

Funny, because it meant everything to her. “You lie with such ease that I wonder what other bullshit you’ve dusted off, packaged, and sold to me in some other form.”

He shook his head. “Right back at ya, babe.”

The return of the flippant tone meant they’d skipped from subterfuge—finally—to something real. “I told you about my upbringing. I never thought you’d have the balls to use it for a book.”

“What about the rest? Like, the snooping we’ve never talked about?”

“What are you saying?”

“You wandering around my office.” His gaze shifted to his bookshelves. “You think I don’t remember? More than once you insisted on meeting me here. You studied my shelves, looked through my books. I thought you were paging through, burning time.”

Her heartbeat thumped in her ears. “I was.”

He pulled out one book. The book. The one with the case from years ago that had taught her how to rig carbon monoxide through the air-conditioning vent.

“What were you really doing? Maybe studying? Learning how to take care of Aaron once and for all?” Ryan asked when he clearly thought he knew the answer. “Learning about how to kill and hide the body?”

“You’re unbelievable.”

“Is it that outrageous?” He shoved his chair to the side and stepped up to the desk, right across from her. “I used you? Fine. Guilty. Maybe I did. The opportunity was right there, and I grabbed it.”

“I’m an opportunity now?” Whatever pang of guilt she’d felt for tangentially implicating him by paging through a few books disappeared in a hailstorm of anger.

“But I’ve been wondering if you used me, too. The questions about my work. The interest in my field.” With his fists balanced on the desk, he leaned forward, getting his face closer to hers. “You stalked me.”

The ego . . . how had she missed it before?

“I answered the phone when you called about buying a house months ago. It’s what I do, genius. I suck up to people for a commission.” Months ago she didn’t know Aaron was a monster. She wasn’t looking for a way to stop him. That morphed over time.