Risky Play (Red Card #1)(20)

I gritted my teeth. “No, actually. Matt said to help you unpack the less personal boxes and your possessed dog made a run for the tower and it fell and—”

“Are you this competent at all your jobs?”

I glared. “I’m competent at everything.”

“Are you, though?” he hissed.

I took a step back.

How dare he!

He actually smiled like it was funny.

FUNNY that we’d had sex.

Funny that I hadn’t known what I was doing.

Comical.

I looked away, my fingers throbbing as I collected blood in my palm. “I’ll just finish up tomorrow.”

“Finish up tonight,” he said with a shrug. “Just don’t break anything you can’t afford to replace.”

I bit my tongue.

It stung hard enough to remind me not to mouth off.

Not to tell him I had a sixty-million-dollar trust fund from my grandfather. That I was a socialite. That before his face graced covers of magazines—it had been mine.

Granted, it was a horrible picture of me crying at the altar, but still.

I checked my watch.

“Am I boring you?” He wiped his face with his hands. That was when I noticed the exhaustion, the dirt covering his cheeks, and the flash of anger in his eyes that hadn’t been there before. As if I was the reason he was upset.

I frowned and then shook my head. “No, sorry. I have dinner plans, so I’ll go ahead and unpack a few boxes, and then I’ll be on my way.”

His jaw tensed.

How had that made him even more pissed?

“I, um, made you a casserole, but if you want to go to a boring dinner with great wine, you’re more than welcome to come with me.” I was waving the white flag, being generous. Maybe he just needed to get out, needed friends, laughter.

I couldn’t believe this was the same man I had met.

I refused to believe it.

He let out a humorless laugh. “You know? I have to admit that’s clever. And I’m so tired it’s almost tempting to say yes. We’d go to an expensive restaurant where you’d most likely be seen, get your picture taken, the friends you invited suddenly can’t make it—perfect plan, right?”

I frowned. “No, actually, that’s not what—” I bit my tongue again, then sighed. “You know what? Never mind. Invitation taken back.” I turned around, completely forgetting about my injured hand before reaching for a box and jerking my hand back as the cuts reminded me with burning intensity that they were still there.

“Why the hell are you bleeding?” His hands were on my hips before I could say anything, and then he was turning me in his arms, pulling my injured hand away from my body and examining it with such care that I almost stopped breathing. He leaned down and blew across the slices of marred skin.

“Come on.” He pulled me into the adjoining bathroom and lifted me onto the counter like I wasn’t diseased anymore. Maybe instinct had kicked in. Maybe he was going to snap later and he was just warming me up.

He was causing very severe trust issues in my heart.

Slade pulled out a first aid kit and some witch hazel wipes. He ran the wipes down my fingers then grabbed some antiseptic, gently rubbing it across the cuts.

I jerked in pain.

“Sorry.” He said it like he meant it.

I stared at him like he’d lost his mind.

And he stared back like he wanted me to help him find it.

Too soon, the moment was gone as he wrapped my fingers in Band-Aids and then cleaned up the mess.

We locked eyes. His swirled with uncertainty, mistrust, so much pain I wanted to reach out and pull him in for a hug, but given his recent behavior he’d probably think I was trying to sleep with him. So I went for “Thank you” instead.

He nodded his head once. And then left me sitting there on the bathroom countertop wondering how to merge the two versions of him into one that made sense.



“Hey, baby girl.” My dad pulled me into his embrace while my mom took one look at me and handed me the glass from her hand. It was champagne. Because that was all she drank. Champagne. We had wineries everywhere, but she said champagne had always made her feel more mysterious. She was quirky and adorable, and the minute my dad had set his eyes on her he’d known they were meant to be. Maybe that’s why I jumped head over heels for Slade. I thought it was possible for me too.

My first mom died when I was a baby, but Lilah had been my mom since I was a year old, the only mom I really remembered.

I kissed her on the cheek and downed her glass.

Her eyebrows shot up. “That bad?”

“Worse. Actually.” I sighed and held my glass out.

She poured. “I hope you have a driver.”

“I’ll steal one of Dad’s.” I winked at my father, who was already digging into the calamari and piling it onto my plate.

We’d always had money.

But love was held to the highest standard, that and respect; money was there to change others.

Not us.

I smiled as my dad reached for my mom’s hand and kissed it, all the while using his free hand to shove a plate of food in my face.

I gave him a look, then dove in.

“So, how’s the job?” Dad asked in the casual tone that meant in about five minutes he was going to ask me to come back to work.