Page 3 of The Inquirer

Accusations flew, and my temper built…until she hit below the belt.

“Planning to make me a villain in your little movie? The bitch who dared to ask questions about the great Traylor family? Maybe even throw in how my stepfather fucked me. Everyone likes a bit of sex in their entertainment.”

She opened the door and said one final thing.

“Or maybe you think I was lying about that too. Don’t worry, no one else ever believed me either.”

All the anger drained out of me, taking my strength with it, and I dropped into the nearby chair.

What the hell had just happened?

A week.

It’d been almost a full week since Nyx had walked out of my hotel room, and I hadn’t seen or talked to her since. I honestly doubted I’d ever hear from her again, and I should have already been moving on, forgetting about her.

It wasn’t like we’d actually been in a relationship, and just because I’d been hoping that was the way it would go didn’t mean that’s what she’d thought too. And even if she had thought it, it didn’t matter now.

She’d lied.

How could I believe anything she’d said?

I’d turned things over in my head more than once, trying to decide how much of what she’d done and said had been true.

Meeting me at the airport?

I didn’t see how she could’ve purposefully run into me since I hadn’t known I’d be dropping off a guest at the airport until Nyx’s flight had already been on its way here. But maybe she’d intended to have some sort of ‘chance’ meeting with me already and just took the opportunity that me being at the airport brought.

Then there was the fact that she’d made the first physical move. At the time, I thought it’d been because she was attracted to me, but in the past, I’d learned the hard way that I wasn’t as good a judge of that as I’d once thought.

I sighed as I turned off my shower. No good was going to come out of me going over it all again. I needed to get my head out of the clouds and focus on my work. Not my riding lessons, since I’d gotten through those more or less fine, but my real work. I really had needed a job when I’d come to the ranch, but choosing to apply here had come with secondary motives.

One positive thing I could say about the blow-up with Nyx was that I wanted to stay busy. Throwing myself into work would be a good way to do just that.

After drying off, I draped the towel over my shoulders and used the end to dry inside my ears. I was still doing that when I stepped into my bedroom and discovered a naked woman in my bed.

And not just any naked woman either.

It was her.

“What the hell are you doin’ here?”

Two

Nyx

Alcohol.

“You know a decent bar?” I asked as I shut the cab door. “I don’t need anything fancy, but I don’t want a dive either.”

“I know a place.”

As the driver took us back down to the road, I was tempted to close my eyes, like that would block out the image of that naked brunette standing in the doorway and telling me that Bradyn was in the shower. It wouldn’t. I knew from experience that eyes open or eyes closed didn’t matter. Some shit just stuck in your head, and it was usually the stuff you most wanted to forget.

I’d been lucky, in a way, being put into juvie before I’d gotten hooked on negative ways to cope with my past. The juvie part hadn’t been the lucky thing. It’d been the fact that I’d been put in a room with Kaimi, who’d already done the whole rebellious thing and learned from it. She’d made sure I knew that I needed to learn how to deal with shit without drugs or booze. Not that drinking was a bad thing, just that I shouldn’t rely on it. And I never had.

Right now, though, I was too fucking tired to try to work through it in my head. Maybe after sleeping it off and dealing with the hangover, I’d realize how much better off I was now. I’d come back here because of the Huxleys and their connection to the Douglasses. All of their connections to the Traylor family. I hadn’t been sure how well I’d be able to handle dealing with Bradyn’s family if things with him had still been…confusing.

There was nothing confusing about a naked woman.

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