Page 56 of The Charmer's Gambit
Right. I hadn’t gotten to that part yet. “Remember how I mentioned being closer to my brother’s best friend than to my brother?” At his nod, I continued. “His name is Mark. He’s the one who helped me escape Ryan the first time.” I shivered at the memory. The pain. Will settled in front of me, his knees braced on either side of mine like a protective cage, shielding me from my past. I pressed into him, craving his gentleness.
“I told you he, R-Ryan, preferred emotional over physical pain, but the day I left . . .” I coughed again to settle the uncertainty stirring inside.I’m safe. “That, well, that was the first and only time he knocked me out.” I cradled my stomach on instinct, and Will observed the move. “He slapped me first, forcing me to the ground, and then he kicked me so hard that he cracked my rib and knocked the wind out of me. Then he . . .” I rubbed my neck.
“He choked you,” Will murmured.
“Yes. It was one of his favorite forms of . . . of . . . pain. But this time he didn’t let go, and when I woke up, he was gone.” It’d been the most horrifying experience of my life, not being able to breathe and seeing that dead look in his eyes that said he had no intention of ever letting me go. I thought he was going to kill me that day. And when he didn’t, I vowed never to be in that situation again.
“I can’t even remember what set him off, something about me working too many hours, but I’d never seen him so angry. I called Mark that night, told him I needed help, and he picked me up. He never asked any questions, but he knew, and he offered me his apartment as a safe haven. He’s with the FBI, or so he says, and travels a lot. It worked for a few days until Ryan found me. I still don’t know how, but I suspect he followed me home from work.”
I shook my head, not wanting to digress. “Anyway, I’ve told you the rest, about how he has never accepted that we’re nottogether. And as you can see, he still feels I’m his.” I waved to the flowers again.
“And Mark is checking to see if Ryan is in Paris?”
“Yeah. He has access to certain resources, hence why I think his FBI cover story is bullshit.” Not that it was relevant to this conversation—well, not much anyway. “I called him when I saw the flowers. He gave me a card with this mysterious number to call if I ever needed him after what happened three years ago, and I didn’t know what else to do, so I used it.”
“It was the right thing to do, although I’m still not quite sure what he’s going to do.”
Despite the direness of our conversation, I had to smile. “I never know what Mark’s going to do, but I trust him.”
Will considered me for a long moment and nodded. “Then I’ll trust him too.”
“What?”
“If you trust him, I trust him.” So simple, so earnest. “Now, what else did he say?”
“Uh, he ordered me to tell you because you have resources, and he felt comfortable enough with that to not be on the next flight here.” I frowned on that last bit. I’d been so caught up in the “Tell Will”part that I hadn’t considered his flippant comment about hopping a flight to France. Such a Mark thing to say.
“I like him already,” Will murmured. “And he’s right. I need to make a few calls, but I want to go about our day as if none of this happened.”
I started. “Excuse me?”
“If Ryan is in Paris, then we need him to assume it’s business as usual between us. It’ll keep him calmer, and, hopefully, rational, which is a term I use lightly in his regard.” The face he made would have provoked a laugh from me if it weren’t regarding Ryan. “We’ll keep our routine,” he continued. “We’llgo shopping, do a little sightseeing, and maybe have dinner somewhere. He’s not going to make a public scene, because he’s a politician who knows better than that. So we enjoy our day, the best we can, and don’t let him spoil your first trip to France.”
“You’re serious.”
“Very.”
“You want me to pretend like I don’t have an insane stalker of an ex hunting me down?”
“Yep.”
“And if he pops up?”
“You let me deal with that.”
I started to shake my head. “You don’t understand, Will. His family has connections to all sorts of people and government organizations, and I don’t think they are all legal.” Some of the family friends I met while we were dating did not strike me as the type of friends Ryan made in the Boy Scouts.
He leveled me with a look. “You think I’m afraid of an influential family?”
Right. Okay. “But the Mershano family owns an international business. Ryan’s entire livelihood is built on the back of politics, which isn’t the same. They don’t fight fair.”
Will snorted. “Trust me, they’re more alike than you realize. I’m not afraid of him, Rachel. He might have a slew of friends, but I do, too, and, darlin’, when it comes to you, I’ll never fight fair.”
The look in his eyes when he said those last few words was so fierce that I couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. Holy shit. I couldn’t decide if I liked that look or if I should fear it. Intensity poured from him as he continued to study me, letting me see the harder side of him that hid beneath a veneer of charm. This was the man groomed by an influential empire, the one who ran in similar circles to Ryan.
I swallowed. That look served as a reminder of how alike they could be and also demonstrated how different they were from one another. Ryan luxuriated in his family money and hadn’t worked a hard day in his life, while Will fought for everything he owned despite having access to an easy way out. One opted for politics, while the other chose to challenge himself to try something new.
“Okay,” I agreed.
