Sinful Desire (Sinful Nights, #2)(56)

“Look, Sophie. I don’t tell anyone. I don’t get close enough to tell anyone. But I knew I needed to tell you, and it’s not the kind of thing I wanted to tell you on the phone, so I was planning to tell you tonight. I was starting to at the table.” He waved his hand in the direction of the dining room.

Maybe he had been planning on opening up. But she had no way of knowing if he was being truthful now. She tried a new tactic. “Why was the case reopened?”

“I don’t know. He won’t tell me. I think he thinks there were others involved.”

His words sent her back to the night she left for the gala, and her conversation with John beforehand.

“Talked to some guy today who I’m sure knows something, but he won’t let on what it is.”

“What do you think he knows?”

“Something that would help me find the other guys I think were involved.”

John was her brother, her flesh and blood. He was the man who’d supported her and helped her build her business, who would take a bullet for her. He had a reason to suspect Ryan was hiding something, and she’d be a foolish woman to wave this off and carry on as if nothing had changed.

“I need you to believe me. I wanted to tell you,” he added, and she desperately wanted to trust in his words.

But she’d relied on her instincts before, in her marriage with Holden, and those instincts had been wrong.

Maybe she needed to use her head more. Not her heart. Not her body. “I don’t really know what to think. I want to believe you, but I need to sort this out. I’ve been letting my heart lead instead of my head, and my heart feels pretty foolish and stupid right now.” She walked over to the dining room table, picked up the peach pie, returned to her kitchen, and covered it in tinfoil. Then she handed it to him.

He shook his head. “I can’t take the pie.”

“I need you to. I made it for you. I need some space to think, and I can’t do it if I’m surrounded by this fruit I wanted to give you.”

She showed him to the door.





Chapter Twenty-Three


His grandmother dug her fork into the pie on her plate. She rolled her eyes in pleasure. Moonlight shone through the kitchen window in her home. The clock next to the refrigerator ticked near ten.

“Let me tell you something. You don’t give up a woman who cooks like this.”

“Yeah? That’s the bottom line, Nana? How she cooks?” he asked, and grabbed a fork from a utensil drawer and stole a bite from his grandma’s plate.

She smacked his hand then eyed the pie tin. “Serve your own, young man. This is all mine.”

“That’s all I wanted. One bite,” he said, thinking the sentiment might be apropos for Sophie, too. Maybe all he’d take of her would be the one bite he’d had. Then he’d walk away. It was better like that, wasn’t it? Leave before your heart gets mangled. Enjoy it while it lasts, like this dessert. This absolutely scrumptious, amazing, incredible dessert.

His grandma scooped another forkful then answered his question. “When she bakes like this, yes. You don’t give her up. This pie is divine.”

Funny, Ryan had used that same word to describe Sophie.

Divine.

As well as exquisite. Not to mention delicious.

Sophie was peach pie.

He wanted the whole damn pie.

He wanted all of Sophie.

But what was the point? Tonight’s argument was further proof that intimacy was too dangerous. He had to protect the secrets he’d locked up. When secrets were cracked wide open, you were left far too vulnerable. And when you were vulnerable you could wind up dead in your own driveway.

“Yeah, it is, but…” he said, letting his voice trail off.

“You like her,” his grandma said.

He shrugged. “What does it matter?”

She set her fork down and parked her hands on the counter. “It matters because this is all we have,” she said, tapping her chest.

“It’s not like that.” He tried valiantly to deny that there was anything more to the empty ache he felt right now than missing great sex. “We were just having a good time. Honestly, there’s nothing more to it.”

She screwed up the corner of her mouth. “If it was just a good time, then why are you here?”

“I wanted to bring you the pie.”

“You could have eaten it yourself.”

“Nah, I can’t finish that,” he said.

“Sure you could. You’re a sturdy man. You can handle a peach pie.”

He patted his flat stomach. “Gotta watch my boyish figure.”

She shook her head and rolled her eyes. “You’re not fooling me.”

He held out his hands wide as if to say he was an open book, even though that couldn’t be further from the truth.

“Ryan,” she said gently, walking around to join him on his side of the counter. “I worry about you. You’re so private about everything.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not. You brought me this pie because you wanted to talk, and you have never wanted to talk about a woman before. So I’m saying perhaps you should consider talking to her. Sharing some of your heart,” she said.

“What would I even say?”