Sinful Desire (Sinful Nights, #2)(86)

When he was done, Sophie excused herself for the restroom.

John thanked him profusely. “I know it’s not easy to share all that. But I’m grateful, and this will help. I assure you.”

“Find those f*ckers,” Ryan said, looking him in the eyes.

“That’s my goal.”

“Are you going to talk to my mom about all of this?”

John nodded. “I will, but she usually doesn’t say much.”

Ryan scoffed. “Tell me about it.”

“And I’ll have to coordinate with her attorney, so it’ll be a few days.”

“I’ll be seeing her tomorrow. I’ll keep you posted.”

“Appreciate that.” John extended a hand. “By the way, it’s no secret that I wasn’t thrilled when I found out you were dating my sister. But she’s incredibly happy. And all I ask is that you keep it that way.”

“That’s my goal,” Ryan said, and it was number one on his to-do list.





Chapter Thirty-Five


Sophie understood everything now. Why he visited his mom so much. The way the secrets had twisted over the years, like a string running through a labyrinth. Ryan had kept them all inside his head, locked up tight, clutching like a lifeline the wish of his one living parent.

Sophie’s place wasn’t to judge the guilt or innocence of Dora Prince. The state of Nevada had already done that. But her role, the self-appointed role that she embraced, was to be there for her man.

“I’m proud of you for speaking all those hard and terrible truths,” she said, as the town car driver took them to Ryan’s house after the event had ended.

“I barely know what to think anymore,” he muttered, staring out the window as the streetlights and cars streaked by through his neighborhood.

She dropped a hand to his shoulder. “You were brave to tell him.”

“Hardly,” he said, mocking himself as he turned to look at her. “If I were brave I would have said something years ago.”

She stared at him levelly and shook her head. “You didn’t know what you were dealing with. You still don’t entirely know. That’s why it’s brave. You took a chance.”

When they reached his home, Ryan took a moment to thank the driver and wish him a good night. Once they were inside his house, she grabbed his shoulders, then cupped his cheeks. “You said something now. That’s all that matters.”

He swayed closer to her, his eyes floating closed, his hold on gravity seeming precarious.

“Come with me,” she whispered.

She took his hand and led him to his couch, holding him close. Johnny Cash leapt on the cushion and curled up at their feet. Running her hands through Ryan’s hair, she let him rest his head in the crook of her neck, sensing what he needed right now was a safe landing. She wanted to be that for him. She wanted to be everything he needed.

“I just…Soph…if she…I don’t know.” His words beat out a staccato rhythm of what was said and unsaid.

“I know.” She ran her fingers through his hair. “I know.”

He sighed heavily then pressed his lips to her chest. It wasn’t sexual; it wasn’t the start of something dirty. It was a gesture of the familiar, of comfort, and she was glad he found it in her.

“For so long, she’s said one thing to me. She said she was set up. She said she was framed.” His voice was low and sad.

Her heart ached. It cried for him—heavy, mournful tears for what he had borne all those years. “So you go see her and you ask her. You tell her you need to know for your own heart.”

He shook his head. “She won’t tell me. Talking to her is like pulling teeth.”

She brushed a kiss on his forehead. “Then you find the answer in yourself,” she said, and wrapped her arms around him. He held her tight.

They stayed like that, curled together, him in his tux, her in her dress, nestled snug on the couch, a ball of fur by their feet. They talked more, whispered confessions and admissions, hopes and wishes.

“There were days when everything felt so out of hand. So beyond anything I could ever manage,” he said softly, and for a moment she understood that there was something more to his quest for control in the bedroom. With the way his life had spiraled, she suspected some part of his mind needed the solidity of that kind of dominance—sexual dominance. She kept that notion to herself though, not because it was a secret, but because it wasn’t her goal to psychoanalyze him. Whether that was his reason, or whether he simply liked it that way, she was happy to be on the receiving end.

“It was hard to manage because you carried so much. The weight of so many secrets. The pressure of so many things you should never have been asked to keep to yourself. Forget guilt or innocence or who was framed and not framed. You were fourteen. You deserved to be fourteen, not a secret keeper,” she said fiercely.

Then, when the conversation seemed to unwind, and it was time to move to something lighter, she sat up, straightened her hair, patted him on the leg, and said, “How about you teach me how to play pool finally? I believe that was one of the promises you made when I stayed here last weekend, and pretty much the only one you failed to deliver on.”

A sliver of a smile crept across his face. “I failed to deliver on something, did I?”