Page 26 of The Last Dance You Saved
Not Fallon. She stepped into the library instead, scrutinizing the way Rafe and Adam were hovering around me like men fighting over a prize. “What’s going on? Who is she?”
“No one,” Rafe said just as Adam said, “A friend.”
A scoff erupted from Rafe. “She is most definitely not a friend.”
“I-I don’t understand,” I choked out, heart hammering inside my chest.
“Like hell you don’t,” Rafe said, and when he looked down at me, I was amazed by the hurt I saw. It was as if I’d stabbed him in the back. “How much did you think you could get? How much is he paying you?”
My cheeks flushed because it was the same insinuation he’d let drop the day before. My shock and confusion turned to anger. I stepped to the side, attempting to put distance between me and him and the wave of mixed emotions he was searing me with. “I’m not being paid by anyone. I’m only here to help.”
He snorted in disbelief. “If you’re here to help anyone, it’s Puzo, and I’m not going to let you.”
“Puzo?” Adam’s voice was as confused as mine. “Lorenzo Puzo?”
Rafe’s gaze settled on Adam with the same intense scrutiny he’d shot at me. Adam cleared his throat and also gave Rafe a wider berth. I took a tiny step toward the door, and Rafe’s cold look landed on me again. “Care to come clean, Sadie? Care to tell us all the truth? Or do you just want to take it as a loss and run back to your employer?”
“What is going on here?” Lauren’s voice was sharp and concerned as she entered the library and stood behind Fallon. “Are you okay?” The question was addressed to me, but it was her daughter who answered.
“I’m fine, Mom, thanks for asking.” Fallon whirled around and flew out the door. Her booted feet were loud on the wood as she stomped down the hallway and up the stairs.
Lauren’s eyes followed her daughter, more pain slashing through them before she turned them back to the three of us standing in a wide huddle. “Rafe? Adam? What’s going on?”
“Why the hell is she here?” Rafe demanded, looking between the siblings.
Adam cleared his throat. “Not that it’s really any of your business, but her family is part of the Eastern Dude Ranchers’ Association. We’re exchanging ideas. She’s here to see our wedding business and give us ideas on how to convert the estate into a resort.”
For two seconds, I thought Rafe might believe Adam, but then his expression darkened. “Even if that were true, it wouldn’t matter. I’ve already told you we’re not spending another dime on this godforsaken place.”
Lauren came closer, saying, “We have options, Rafe. Just listen to Sadie. If we invest and do this right, we’d likely be profitable again in four years at most.”
“Invest with what? No bank is going to lend you a penny. So I suppose you want me to usemymoney? You think I should steal frommybusiness to try to save a dinosaur that should have gone extinct a decade ago? No. Absolutely not.” He said it with a finality that brought tears to Lauren’s eyes.
“Goddamn you. He’d never sell! He’d be looking for any way to save the ranch. Any. Way.” She pushed the heels of her palms into her lids.
“And what makes you think I actually care what he’d want?” Rafe’s voice was harder than I’d ever heard it, devoid of any emotion. Once again, I’d stepped into the middle of something ugly. This time, whatever was going on with these three people felt deeper, larger, and darker than whatever existed between Rafe and Lorenzo. Pain and betrayal practically flashed like a neon sign between them.
I was confused and intimidated and pissed all at the same time. I took another step farther away from Rafe, darting a look toward the door and wondering how long it would take me to pack up and leave.
I could talk to Adam over email. I didn’t need to be here to finish these discussions any more than I needed to be in Vegas for the ones with Lorenzo. I’d wanted to come and discover for myself the truth of what had happened. I’d hoped to clear my conscience enough to move forward with my plans for the jewels, but now, all I wanted was to escape the nastiness zipping between these people.
As I passed Lauren, she reached out and touched my shoulder. “Please. Please don’t leave. Let me talk to Rafe and Adam. Give us a night. I’m sorry we put you in the middle of this. We don’t normally behave like animals.”
Rafe’s grunt of disapproval contradicted her, and she glared at him.
“Please,” she said, addressing it solely to me.
“She’s not staying.” Rafe’s voice was glacial and so damn certain that it spiked the contrary, dig-my-heels-in-and-stay-the-course side of me. The one that had me walking without a cane even though the doctors hadn’t been sure I would. It made me want to stay just to prove Rafe couldn’t send me away like he’d tried to send his teenaged daughter. Prove that whatever he thought about me wasn’t true. That the only truth that existed was the attraction zipping between us even with his cold disdain and my irritation shimmering between us.
Lauren raised her chin. “Regardless of what you think, Rafe, this is still Fallon’s home. My home. You don’t get to say who stays and leaves. It isn’t yours! You exchanged it for a few million dollars that buried us in debt. You were the one who left and started us on this downward spiral. So the last thing you get to do is kick a guest out of this house.”
I risked looking at Rafe and saw her words had struck some inner wound. Pain lanced through his expression before he covered it, the same raw pain I’d seen in Lauren all day, and my heart lurched at the sight of it. A stupid need to soothe them all filled me, to ease the pain, to smooth the angry waves that swam between them.
It wasn’t my place, but my entire life I’d played that role. Teasing Ryder or Maddox or both when they were ready to punch each other into the ground. Laughing at Gemma’s primness in order to smooth the sting of her tattling on them. At the bar, I was the one who stepped up to ease customer arguments before they turned into a brawl rather than Ted, the bartender.
But one look at the scowl on Rafe Marquess’s face, and I couldn’t imagine him ever wanting me to play that role for him. He didn’t need anyone in that role because he made rash judgments and stuck to them like dung beetles to a cow patty, regardless if it made him into an ass.
An ass who still made my skin flicker with the heat of desire.
