Page 4 of Dangerous Love

“She needs a friend, Riley.”

My mouth dropped open, confusion coursing through me. “You might recall that we all agreed I should maintain my distance to keep her away from Cooper and any repercussions from my impasse with my brother?”

“I remember,” Avery said, his tone neutral.

“And that my refusal to give in to what I really wanted was admirable, especially while she was a minor and I was her youth worker. You remember this part too?”

He nodded, his lips flat. “I wouldn’t be asking if we hadn’t tried everything else, Riley. But you’re both adults now, and I’m not asking you to get into anything other than a friendship. We all know you can’t touch her.”

I rolled my eyes. “Right. A friendship.” I marched to the fridge and grabbed myself a water bottle. Once my throat had cooled down, I added, “Have you ever tried to be friends with someone you had feelings for? How do you think that’ll go? Come on, let’s be realistic here.”

“She needs us and there’s no one else, Riley.”

I clenched my fingers around the water bottle, my knuckles whitening. “Do you suddenly not care about my weekly contact with my bloodline? No part of you worries about putting her back in Hal’s crosshairs? Because I sure as hell ain’t prepared to have any goddamn Cooper around her. Not even me.”

Avery paled a bit. “Jarryd’s pretty confident you guys are on top of any bullshit he might be sprouting. Maintaining the happy families pretence is what’s working to keep him at bay.”

“I just want to be ten steps ahead.” I sighed as visions of my brother filled my mind, like heavy rocks sinking to the bottom of my conscience. “And I’m worried about Seth. He’s not doing too well.”

Avery sneered. “No wonder. I think your fucking father might have something to do with that.”

“Exactly. So, forgive me for not wanting a woman I care about to be exposed to it. You know how I feel about her,” I growled. “She’s your fucking sister, man.”

“I trust you with her.”

I shook my head. “Trust me to do what? Not feel anything for her, or not touch her? To make sure I’m the right balance of nice, so I get her back to you, but not too much so that I break her heart again?”

“Yes.”

My water bottle missed his head by a short distance. “Go to hell, Avery. I’m not God.”

“I know that. But you have professional skills that will mitigate any boundary issues.”

“As in, making sure we stay in the friend zone, right?”

Avery’s voice thinned. He ran a hand over his buzz cut, thick lines crinkling the corners of his eyes. “Riley, don’t make me beg. I need her to snap out of whatever the fuck this is and come back to us. And all she needs is a littleguidancefrom you.”

I shook my head, some weird uncomfortable feeling tingling through my limbs. Surely, this couldn’t be what I thought it was. “Let me translate this. You’re really asking me to get into some pseudo-friendship again with your sister, a girl you all but banned me from being with, so that I can steer her in the right direction before she does more damage to her life?”

Avery’s biceps twitched, and he shifted in his chair. It had to have taken some balls for the guy to bring this up. “Riley, cut me some slack. There was a time when you cared about her.”

I closed my eyes, a deep breath settling me.I never stopped.“Okay, so just to be clear. She’s not doing too good, and you reckon that me reappearing in her life like the good old days might help her?”

Avery’s shifting increased, and his jaw clenched as he answered, “I’m asking you to find out what the issues are and help herproblem-solvethem… the right way.”

A deep laugh brewed in my stomach, and when it escaped, it rang out in the room, the irony not lost on anyone. “Avery, you realise we’re talking about your sister, right? Sienna? The ice queen who won’t do anything she doesn’t want to do?”

“The one and only.” Deeper lines appeared on his face, and he slumped on his chair, the wooden frame creaking under his weight.

I softened. The guy didn’t need any more stress by the looks of the road map marring his flesh. I cared about Sienna more than I’d ever admitted to any of them. I wanted to help her. I wanted her safe. But this was playing with fire, and he’d have to be brain dead not to see how his plan could go awry. “How does she feel about that?”

He flinched. I studied the change in his demeanour, and when he avoided my eye contact, I asked again. Avery was as straight as they came, but he’d made a living playing two sides of the same coin, and I wasn’t born yesterday. The cogs ticked in my brain as I processed Avery’s odd request. Then it clicked.

You gotta be joking?My mouth gaped, the realization not unlike an odd déjà vu. What Avery asked of me was tospyon his sister. Bring her back to him like a perfect little coincidence, and then go on my way.

“She doesn’t know, does she?”

He exhaled loudly. “Don’t make me beg.”

---