Page 78 of Power Play

“Went for a jog. Then I had coffee with Dillon,” I said, and the smile dropped from her face. She turned to look out at the water. I stepped up to her side, looking at her. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Tell you what?”

“That you weren’t involved with your dad’s crimes?”

She shook her head. “But I was. I did help him meet players. I did study up on their lives, their stats. I did those things, Liam.”

“Yes, but you didn’t…”

“Fuck them?” she snapped. “Seduce them and fuck them and tell them to invest with my dad. But I did that to you, didn’t I? So why would you believe I wasn’t part of the whole damn scheme?”

My jaw clenched as I replayed for the millionth time the events in my head. I saw her first. The red dress. I stared her down until she approached me. She told me who she was, why she was there. Who her dad was.

Had I been seduced? No. Enchanted? Totally. Had I sent that email to my accountant to impress her? Maybe.

Was that her fault? No.

And all of that bullshit. The money, talk about her dad, all of it was before I stole that bottle of champagne and made the night about us.

“Dillon said you found out the truth about your dad that night in Nashville. Is that why you left so suddenly?”

“Dillon talks too much,” she said and stepped away towards the kids and the petrified limb, but I grabbed her arm. Reeled her in closer. She was stiff but she didn’t fight me. Her jaw was tense as she stared out over the waves.

“Why did you let me believe the worst?” I asked. “Why did you let me treat you that way?”

She pushed her glasses up on her face and scowled at me. “I’m not in charge of your behavior, Liam. You acted like a jerk the second I approached you about my offer.”

She was right. My behavior was hardly her responsibility, but I still felt like a tool she punished herself on.

“If you’d told me…”

“Stop,” she said, shaking her head. “I was never going to tell you. I wish Dillon hadn’t.”

“You were just as much a victim of what your dad did as I was. More so. Worse even than Dillon.” I shook my head. “I think of you in that room with the guys your dad owed money to and… fuck, Kit. You could have been hurt.”

“They weren’t interested in me. They just wanted their money.”

“You must have been terrified.”

She stiffened even more, if it was possible. She was as rigid as the petrified log on the beach. “Dillon really had a lot to say, didn’t he?”

“He was horrified that I brought you here to repay a debt that isn’t yours to pay back,” he said. “And now that I know the truth, I’m horrified too. I’m not that kind of man, Kit. I swear I’m not.”

That forced her to look at me. But her sunglasses kept me from seeing her eyes, and without seeing her eyes, I had no idea what she was thinking. Taking my life in my hands I reached up and pulled off her glasses.

Her eyes were quicksilver in the sunlight. They were wide and unsure. She wasn’t used to forgiveness. Or kindness. Especially from me.

Never in my life had I felt like such a beast.

She blinked up at me. Her skin was pink and freckled across her nose. Her hair, pulled back in a ponytail, curled against her nape. I wished I could reach out and touch it. Stroke the silky wind tossed ponytail in my hand. Hold it in my fist.

For a long breath everything on the beach vanished. The waves, the seagulls. It was just us. Without the secrets she used to protect herself, and the anger I used to protect myself… we were just two people who felt a serious connection.

The most powerful connection I’d ever felt.

She cleared her throat and looked away, over my shoulder at the kids.

“It’s not really something to be horrified about,” she said with a shrug.

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