Page 91 of The Lies We Told Ourselves

Thankfully, he found his common sense at that moment as Camden scrambled back to his feet with a sob and sprinted for the barn doors. Val darted forward, snapping at his heels and then barking as she came to a stop in the door, watching him running for the driveway.

“Good girl,” I told her, fussing her ears when I reached her side. “We don’t know what you’d catch if you put something like that in your mouth.”

I heard Reece snort out a laugh, and I turned back to face her to make sure she was all right. Finding her bent over and clutching her sides as she laughed wasn’t exactly what I’d been expecting.

“Oh my god, I think he actually peed himself,” she said, pointing at a wet patch on the barn floor that definitely hadn’t been there before.

I wrinkled my nose in disgust, knowing I’d have to clean that up because there was no way I was adding insult to injury and letting Reece do it.

She came to my side then, tipping up onto her toes as she kissed me on the cheek. “Thank you,” she murmured, her hands clasping my shoulders as she laid her head against my chest. “Do you think he’s actually gone?”

“Yeah, for now at least.”

Even Camden wasn’t stupid enough to not eventually figure out that we hadn’t sent anything to his father and that we didn’t actually have anything to send. Hopefully, he’d be so busy trying to cover up his tracks that it would at least buy us enough time for my father’s guy to find something.

“I used to hope that he’d leave me alone when he found someone else to torment, but I don’t think I’m as okay with that as I thought I was,” Reece admitted. “I can’t stand the thought of him doing what he did to me to some other woman who thought she could trust him.”

“I know what you mean,” I told her as we both walked out of the barn to head back into the house.

My adrenaline was dropping, and the throbbing in my arm was working in time with the pounding that had started up in my head again.

“Do you really have a guy in the city?” Reece asked, her face wrinkling in an adorable frown as we walked up the porch steps.

“My father does. Xander set it up. He’s confident we should have something by the end of the week.”

I didn’t miss the relief on her face. Part of me was actually intrigued about what this guy had been up to that he was so worried about. He didn’t seem like he had enough smarts to be into anything that illegal.

But I’d grown up in the same world he had, and I had a feeling that the threat of being cut off would be enough to make Camden feel like the world was about to end.

We just needed to find something that was big enough to cause a scandal.

Reece didn’t look so confident, but surely the fact that Camden had beaten up his girlfriend would be scandal enough. I’d just prefer that we didn’t have to involve Reece and that my father’s guy could find something worse.

I wasn’t so sure what it said about me that I was hoping this guy was out there ruining someone else’s life as well.

I hated seeing her like this. Doubting herself and worrying about a guy who should have had the sense to leave her alone. I was here now, and there was no way I’d let him hurt her ever again.

“I need a favor from you,” I told her as I steered us through the house toward the stairs.

Reece looked up at me with her beautiful blue eyes, and I fought the need to push her against the wall and kiss her senseless right there.

“You see, Xander tells me that if I’m going to recover, then I should be in bed. I can’t remember what the second part of those instructions was. Head injury, remember.” I pointed at my stitches and then shrugged in the universal what can you do motion. “So, for the interests of my health, I think you should accompany me upstairs and help me figure out how to stay in bedall day long.”

She chuckled, but at least it had the smile back on her face.

“Well, if it’s in the interests of your health, I don’t see how I can refuse,” she said, backing up to the stairs with a telling smile on her face. “Now, what could we do that could keep you distracted?” She tapped a finger against her lips as she pretended to think and then, before I could say anything, she turned and darted up the stairs with a giggle.

I was powerless but to chase her.

Just like I hoped to for the rest of my life.

Because if there was one thing I was willing to dedicate my life to, it was giving this woman every little thing she could ever desire, inside and outside of the bedroom.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

REECE

Booker and I spent that afternoon lying in bed and trading stories about our childhoods in between soft kisses and gentle caresses.

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