Page 143 of A Little Tempting

My spine turns into a steel rod, and I tilt my head, convinced I heard her wrong. “What?”

Pity and regret shine in her eyes as she holds my gaze. “I told his partner you were abused as a kid. That he abused you.”

“Dylan—”

“I know it was stupid,” she rushes out. “I know I should’ve kept my mouth shut, but after he accused you of killing your mom, I couldn’t…”—she shoves her hair away from her face—“I couldn’t sit there and let him manipulate everyone at the table.”

“Dylan—”

“I know you’d never?—”

“Dylan,” I repeat.

Her lips press together, and she lets out all the oxygen from her lungs. “I’m sorry. If I overstepped my bounds or…if I did anything wrong.”

My eyes close from the weight of our conversation as I try to quiet the voice inside my head. The one warning me to lay low. To figure out how to get Dylan off his radar. How to protect her from him. But she fucked up. She did it for me, which I appreciate more than she’ll ever know, but my dad knows how to make life a living hell for people. He knows how to dig up dirt and to plant shit and to manipulate and torture and?—

“Oliver,” Dylan’s quiet voice cuts through the chaos as she places her hand on top of mine. “It’s going to be okay.”

I lean my head against the solid piece of oak behind me and look at the ceiling. “You don’t know him like I do.”

“Tell me about her,” she begs. “Your mom.”

Lifting our entwined fingers, I kiss the back of her hand. “There’s not much to tell.” A bitter laugh rumbles from my chest. “They were high school sweethearts. I was her miracle baby. And then…I took her from him, and he never let me forget it. I grew up across town, but after I found out my mom went to LAU, I dunno. I guess I wanted to be close to her, so I applied and got in. First thing I did was look her up in one of the old yearbooks.” I smile at the memory.

“What did she look like?” she whispers.

“Brown hair. Brown eyes. Beautiful.” I smirk down at her. “Like you.”

A blush hits her cheeks, giving me a glimpse of the wallflower I fell for when we first met. She asks, “So you chose to put up with your dad being within a twenty-minute drive all because you wanted to be close to your mom?”

“It didn’t hurt how coming here pissed him off.”

She laughs. “Wow.”

“Never said I wasn’t an ass.”

“Yeah, you were pretty clear about it from the beginning. But since we’re being honest, what else is on your criminal record?”

Scratching my jaw, I give her the side-eye. “You sure you wanna know this?”

She nods.

“Assault charges for beating the shit out of a few abusive motherfuckers over the years and a DUI after a run-in with my dad.”

“The night before the playoff,” she realizes.

I nod. “Yeah. He recognized my car and pulled me over. Lied about the breathalyzer reading, said it wasn’t working, but since I couldn’t walk a straight line, he had to take me in.” I scoff. “It was bullshit, but it didn’t matter. He’s also gotten me on jaywalking a few times, and, uh,” I pause. “Ithinkthat’s it?”

“You think?”

With a shrug, I admit, “Never claimed I didn’t have a shady past, Pickles.”

“I’d say shitty over shady.”

I laugh. “Thanks for the benefit of the doubt. And now, all my dirty laundry’s been aired, but I have one more thing to add.”

“What is it?” she asks.

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