Page 58 of Forbidden Game

“You can’t do that.” Her tone softens.

I hop off the fence and come up to her, leaving inches between our chests, and she sucks in a breath. “I like you, Sydney Lake. I’ve liked you since the moment I met you, and I’ve spent the last five years pushing those feelings aside because I care about you, because you drew a line in the sand, and I respected that. But I don’t want to wait anymore. I’m tired of ignoring this thing between us, of playing this forbidden game.”

I lift my hand to cup her jaw. Her eyes shine with a myriad of emotions, and I see her trying to process everything. I see the little wires connecting and buzzing in her mind as she tries to make sense of everything I’ve said.

Her lips part and her breath hitches, the words stuck in her throat. But the panic takes over and she steps out of my touch, bending down to kick off her heels and grabbing them before making a run onto the beach.

This girl has a worse fight-or-flight response than me.

“Seriously, Sydney? Can you stop walking off?” I call out to her. But she’s already meters ahead of me, stalking through the sand.

I look down at my shoes and curse before removing them and rolling up the bottoms of my pants.

The beach is sparingly empty; the nearest people look like little dots in my vision. The wind has picked up, and the afternoon tide pushes and pulls against the sand, rising higher with each crash. Sydney stops right where the coarse pebbly sand turns soft and wet. I come up next to her, letting my feet curl into the cold dampness below.

My confession hangs in the air, but we stand in silence, letting the soft caw of seagulls and the crash of the waves sing around us.

Eventually, she lets out a sigh.

“Why didn’t you tell me about the apartment?”

“Pardon?” I turn my head to her, but she continues to stare out into the horizon.

“My apartment. I’m paying a fraction of the rent.”

“I told you, I got a deal from the owner.”

“You’re the owner.”

Well. Fuck.

How’d she find that out? I’d purchased it through a shell corporation so no one could link it back to me and it would be free of any Covington constraints. I could count on one hand the number of people who knew about it. That’s why it had been so easy to convince Syd to move in.

“Right, that.” I rub the back of neck.

“Parker.” She finally tilts her head to peer up at me with an unamused look, but there’s some warmth hidden underneath, and with that comes hope.

“Look, you were staying in that shitty apartment in a dangerous suburb. I wasn’t going to let you just live somewhere like that when there was something I could do about it.”

Her jaw drops. “It wasn’t that shitty, and the neighborhood wasn’t that dangerous.”

“Sydney, I literally saw someone get robbed outside your apartment that night I dropped you off.”

“Okay, it wasn’t the best area. But I’d just moved here and had no money.” She averts her gaze.

“I know. That’s why I told you there was an open apartment in our complex with a reduced rate, because I knew it was the only way I’d get you to agree. It had already been a chore getting you to trade your deathtrap of a 2005 Volvo for the Tesla, and that only worked because I made Jackson tell you it was a company car.”

“Oh my God,” she whines into her hands. “They were right. It’s not even a company car. I don’t even drive it, Parker!”

“I mean, it is safer having Francis drive you.”

“You’re insane. Why would you stick your neck out so far for me when you barely knew me?”

“Because from the moment I met you, I knew there was something special about you, Sydney. I told you, I’ve always liked you. And it might make me a total knobhead, but I wanted to look after you in whatever way I could until you came around.”

A gust of wind sends her hair tumbling around her face, and I reach forward to tuck a loose tendril behind her ear, admiring her beauty. There is a light smattering of freckles across the bridge of her button nose, so faint that you can only see them when the sun hits her skin. The cherry scent of her gloss is faint, but it is one I have memorized so keenly that I can recognize it even under the salty ocean spray. It’s a blessing and a curse that I know she tastes the same.

Her fawn-like eyes widen, and I lose myself to the silver sea swirling with hesitation inside.

---