Текст книги "Sinful Desire"

Автор книги: Lauren Blakely

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Текущая страница: 11 (всего у книги 20 страниц)

Chapter Twenty-Two

“You two know each other?” Sophie gestured from her brother to Ryan.

Ryan nodded as John said, “Yes.”

John went next, pointing to Ryan. “Why are you talking to my sister?” His voice was accusing. The tone was enough to send hackles up her spine.

Sophie held up both hands. “Wait,” she said firmly. “Someone tell me what is going on.”

Ryan pushed back his chair, the wooden legs scraping loudly against the floor. “We know each other because he’s working on a case that involves my family.” He took long strides to her. “My father’s murder.”

Sophie clasped her hand over her mouth. She shuddered, but then blinked when she realized something didn’t add up. “You said you were fourteen when he died?”

“I was,” Ryan said, standing a few feet from her. He pressed his fingers against his temple, speaking the next words as if they pained him. “He was shot in the driveway of our home one night. Both the gunman and my mother are in prison for the crime. The case was just reopened.”

Sophie’s mouth fell open, and the earth ceased rotating as the enormity of his statement rocked through her. Slowly, she let each word soak in. That was a hell of a hand of cards to be dealt. She couldn’t even imagine what he’d gone through, living with that kind of tragedy. To think, she’d once pictured Ryan’s mom missing her husband, not serving hard time for offing him. This was so much bigger, so much heavier.

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry to hear that,” she said, reaching for him, stepping closer, her natural instinct to comfort surpassing all else.

He shook his head. “It’s okay,” Ryan mumbled, his body language telling her he didn’t want soothing.

“I had no idea,” she said softly.

“Of course you had no idea. I don’t really talk about it,” he said, crossing his arms.

“But even so, I feel terrible that this happened to you.”

“Don’t.”

In that one word, she heard a man who didn’t want sympathy. Who didn’t think he needed it. She also understood all his walls—and oh hell, did he have them.

“We reopened the investigation a few weeks ago due to new evidence,” John added, stepping closer to Sophie, flanking her, as if he needed to protect her from Ryan. Perhaps he did.

Because it seemed she hardly knew the man she’d just spent the evening with. But she knew her brother. Her mind galloped over the last several conversations she’d had with John. She spun to face her brother, adding up the clues. “This is the case you’ve been working on?”

He nodded. “One of them. One of the big ones.”

She turned her gaze back to Ryan, and for the first time ever he didn’t look in control. He didn’t appear cool, or confident, or passionate. He seemed rattled, as if he’d been knocked out of orbit.

He also looked like a stranger.

He felt like one, too.

Something clicked in her head. “Hawthorne,” she said under her breath. “Is that why you went to Hawthorne?”

John cut in before Ryan could answer. “He visited his mother on Wednesday at Stella McLaren. He actually passed on some info to me later that day that may wind up being useful,” John said, a bit grudgingly, but still with some gratitude in his tone.

“You don’t do security for the prison like you said?” she asked Ryan as she furrowed her brow. He’d lied. Maybe it was a small one, but it was still a lie.

He shook his head. “The prison’s not a client. I went there to see my mom. She’s been in since I was fourteen,” he said, his voice heavy, laced with shame and sadness.

Sophie felt neither of those emotions. She simply felt…fooled. Here were these men, talking to each other, knowing things, sharing intensely personal details, and she hadn’t a clue. She wanted to experience this moment honestly. She wanted to feel all the things one should feel when learning something like this. But information was coming at her in bizarre ways, rather than through her lover sharing directly, as she’d done with him.

“I have a question, and it’s pretty important, as far as I can tell,” John said, cocking his head and staring at Ryan. “How long have you been involved with my sister?”

“Over a week. I met her the day I went to—”

“That’s why you were at the municipal building?” Sophie asked, crossing her arms. “The day I met you? You were going to see my brother?”

“I didn’t know he was your brother then,” Ryan answered defensively. “I didn’t have a clue you two were connected. All I knew when I met you was that I wanted you.”

John cleared his throat. “I left my phone charger in the guest room. That’s why I stopped by. I’m going to get that right now,” he said then stopped to look at Sophie. “Unless you want me here in this room.”

She waved him down the hall. Once she heard the door to the guest room shut, she spoke. “When did you know the detective investigating your father’s case was my brother?”

He gulped. “When I looked you up before the gala,” he said, and her blood turned to ice. Now that she’d moved beyond the initial desire to comfort him she felt…used.

“Did you pursue me to get close to the investigation?” she whispered, dreading the answer.

He shook his head several times. “No. No. No.”

That was a few too many nos for her taste. “Maybe a little?”

He shoved a hand through his hair and sighed heavily. “Sophie, I can’t stop thinking about you. It’s that simple. It has nothing to do with your brother.”

She held out her hands in question. “Then I just don’t understand why you didn’t tell me.”

He shot her a quizzical look. “Uh, maybe because it’s not that easy for me to say.”

She barely registered his words as the memory of her own admissions reared to the surface. She’d shared so much with him. He’d shared so little. He’d had so many opportunities to tell her. “Ryan, I just went on and on about John and his work so many times. And you knew who he was. And you even made remarks like I bet he has some stories about what he’s seen. You said that on the Ferris wheel,” she reminded him, her near-photographic memory coming in handy. “I just feel stupid.”

“Did you want me to drop this on you on the Ferris wheel?” he asked, his tone turning heated. She could practically feel the frustration burning off him. “That your brother is investigating a fucking murder in my family? Just weave it in as we gabbed about our siblings. Oh, that’s so great that you’re so close with him. By the way, he asked me the other day if my mom happened to associate with anyone new at the time of the murder. Is that what I should have said?” But he didn’t give her time to answer. “We don’t even use the last names we had when we were growing up, Sophie. Everyone heard of us in this town. It was all over the news. Everyone fucking knew us. Our family story was dramatized on prime-time news magazines. Our mom was the cold-blooded husband-killer. And we were the kids left behind—Mom in prison, Dad in the ground, Royal Sinners gang gunman behind bars. We were the poor Paige-Prince kids from the shitty section of town, who everyone felt sorry for,” he said harshly, and she let out a surprised squeak.

She’d heard the story when she was finishing junior high. It was one of the biggest news stories in town at the time. It was pure prime-time scandal. It had even been covered by Dateline-type shows, reenacting it. “That’s you?”

He nodded. “Yes. That’s us.”

He’d lost so much. So incredibly much. A father. A mother. A normal childhood. Everything. Her need for self-protection took a backseat to compassion, and she tried once more. She wrapped her arms around him, and hugged him. “I am so sorry for what happened to your family, Ryan. I’m sorry for what happened to your dad, and to your mom, and to you and your brothers and your sister,” she said softly. He said nothing, but he let her hold him, even leaning into her. He sighed softly, and that sound, that vulnerable sound from this strong, sometimes standoffish man infiltrated her heart and soul. Somehow, in that brief exhalation, she felt him inching toward her.

Not physically. But emotionally. She wanted to be the one for him. She ran her hands through his hair, wishing she could erase the tragedy.

John’s footsteps echoed across the hardwood, breaking the moment. He cleared his throat. “Sophie,” he said, and she separated from Ryan. “Is everything okay?”

She nodded. “It’s fine.”

“Do you want me to stay?”

She shrugged. She didn’t know what she wanted anymore. Everything that had felt so certain before John knocked on her door had been uprooted in seconds. “No. Yes. I don’t know,” she said helplessly.

He pointed his thumb at the door. “I’m going to go wait in the hall. Give you some privacy, but I’ll be nearby if you need me.”

After he left, Sophie looked at the man she’d been falling for. He had the same brown hair, the same blue eyes, the same strong build as an hour ago, but he wasn’t the same because she didn’t know how to see him the same way. “I feel like I barely know you. I don’t even know where you live.”

In a monotone, he said his address.

But it didn’t change anything. Knowing the numbers and the street name didn’t give her any greater insight.

Confusion reigned this Friday night. Maybe she was overreacting to this news. Or maybe she was under-reacting. She didn’t know what to make of this revelation. Was she supposed to be hurt? Or outraged? Feel sympathetic? Care for him?

She had no notion of what to do next.

This new wrinkle was so strange, and her chest was knotted up, her head fuzzy. “I like you, Ryan. I like you so much, and I am falling for you. And I understand it’s not easy to say what happened to your family. I get that, and I wish I could take away the horrors of what you’ve gone though. But aside from that, when I analyze what’s happening with you and me, the reality is this—I’ve been completely open. I told you at the diner about my marriage. I didn’t wait for you to uncover it. I put it all on the table. I told you about my parents, and my brother, and myself. I can’t help but wonder what else you didn’t share, or didn’t say, or didn’t want to deal with when I’ve tried to be forthright with you.”

“Look, Sophie. I don’t tell anyone. I don’t get close enough to tell anyone. But I knew I needed to tell you, and it’s not the kind of thing I wanted to tell you on the phone, so I was planning to tell you tonight. I was starting to at the table.” He waved his hand in the direction of the dining room.

Maybe he had been planning on opening up. But she had no way of knowing if he was being truthful now. She tried a new tactic. “Why was the case reopened?”

“I don’t know. He won’t tell me. I think he thinks there were others involved.”

His words sent her back to the night she left for the gala, and her conversation with John beforehand.

“Talked to some guy today who I’m sure knows something, but he won’t let on what it is.”

“What do you think he knows?”

“Something that would help me find the other guys I think were involved.”

John was her brother, her flesh and blood. He was the man who’d supported her and helped her build her business, who would take a bullet for her. He had a reason to suspect Ryan was hiding something, and she’d be a foolish woman to wave this off and carry on as if nothing had changed.

“I need you to believe me. I wanted to tell you,” he added, and she desperately wanted to trust in his words.

But she’d relied on her instincts before, in her marriage with Holden, and those instincts had been wrong.

Maybe she needed to use her head more. Not her heart. Not her body. “I don’t really know what to think. I want to believe you, but I need to sort this out. I’ve been letting my heart lead instead of my head, and my heart feels pretty foolish and stupid right now.” She walked over to the dining room table, picked up the peach pie, returned to her kitchen, and covered it in tinfoil. Then she handed it to him.

He shook his head. “I can’t take the pie.”

“I need you to. I made it for you. I need some space to think, and I can’t do it if I’m surrounded by this fruit I wanted to give you.”

She showed him to the door.

Chapter Twenty-Three

His grandmother dug her fork into the pie on her plate. She rolled her eyes in pleasure. Moonlight shone through the kitchen window in her home. The clock next to the refrigerator ticked near ten.

“Let me tell you something. You don’t give up a woman who cooks like this.”

“Yeah? That’s the bottom line, Nana? How she cooks?” he asked, and grabbed a fork from a utensil drawer and stole a bite from his grandma’s plate.

She smacked his hand then eyed the pie tin. “Serve your own, young man. This is all mine.”

“That’s all I wanted. One bite,” he said, thinking the sentiment might be apropos for Sophie, too. Maybe all he’d take of her would be the one bite he’d had. Then he’d walk away. It was better like that, wasn’t it? Leave before your heart gets mangled. Enjoy it while it lasts, like this dessert. This absolutely scrumptious, amazing, incredible dessert.

His grandma scooped another forkful then answered his question. “When she bakes like this, yes. You don’t give her up. This pie is divine.”

Funny, Ryan had used that same word to describe Sophie.

Divine.

As well as exquisite. Not to mention delicious.

Sophie was peach pie.

He wanted the whole damn pie.

He wanted all of Sophie.

But what was the point? Tonight’s argument was further proof that intimacy was too dangerous. He had to protect the secrets he’d locked up. When secrets were cracked wide open, you were left far too vulnerable. And when you were vulnerable you could wind up dead in your own driveway.

“Yeah, it is, but…” he said, letting his voice trail off.

“You like her,” his grandma said.

He shrugged. “What does it matter?”

She set her fork down and parked her hands on the counter. “It matters because this is all we have,” she said, tapping her chest.

“It’s not like that.” He tried valiantly to deny that there was anything more to the empty ache he felt right now than missing great sex. “We were just having a good time. Honestly, there’s nothing more to it.”

She screwed up the corner of her mouth. “If it was just a good time, then why are you here?”

“I wanted to bring you the pie.”

“You could have eaten it yourself.”

“Nah, I can’t finish that,” he said.

“Sure you could. You’re a sturdy man. You can handle a peach pie.”

He patted his flat stomach. “Gotta watch my boyish figure.”

She shook her head and rolled her eyes. “You’re not fooling me.”

He held out his hands wide as if to say he was an open book, even though that couldn’t be further from the truth.

“Ryan,” she said gently, walking around to join him on his side of the counter. “I worry about you. You’re so private about everything.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not. You brought me this pie because you wanted to talk, and you have never wanted to talk about a woman before. So I’m saying perhaps you should consider talking to her. Sharing some of your heart,” she said.

“What would I even say?”

“Just talk to her. Tell her why you didn’t say a word. Tell her what’s on your mind. What’s in your heart. Women often like that.”

But did they? He flashed back to Sanders’s wife and her weird glances at the mention of the speeding ticket. He hardly knew how to do what his grandma was prescribing. “Is it even worth it?”

“Is it?” she echoed. “Only you know the answer to that. But Ryan, you think you have to manage everything perfectly because your life spun out of control when you were younger. All our lives did. Here’s the thing you need to see—you can’t control everything, and you also don’t have to. The only things you can take charge of are the choices you make, and if Miss Peach Pie is a choice you want to make, then you should let her in.” She paused then added, “Besides, you’ve never shown up at my house at ten p.m. to talk about a woman. So think about that, my love.”

He wasn’t sure he agreed with her.

Hell, he wasn’t sure about anything. Except tonight seemed to prove it was a good thing he generally didn’t make it beyond a third date.

Just look at the mess he’d made of the fourth one.

* * *

Sophie scrubbed the island for a third time. She would likely go for a fourth, perhaps even a fifth. John finished loading the last plate in the dishwasher. “Look, men are pigs,” he said in a matter-of-fact tone.

She shot him a sharp-eyed stare. “That makes you a pig, too, then.”

He nodded vigorously. “Takes one to know one. Men are horrible.”

She grabbed a dishtowel and swatted him on the shoulder with it. “Stop. You’re being ridiculous. Men aren’t pigs. Not all of them at least,” she said softly. “You’re not. Dad wasn’t. I don’t really think Ryan is either.”

John said nothing, and Sophie returned to cleaning the marble countertop of the island, making sure she scoured each section to a spit shine. She wasn’t trying to erase the evening, or the man. She was merely trying to keep her mind busy, so she’d be less apt to rely on her heart.

Her heart was a puppy, happily trotting in a field of poppies.

That was the problem.

“Does your silence mean you think he’s bad news?” she asked John. She didn’t know anybody else who’d even met Ryan. At least her brother had spoken to him.

“I don’t know enough about him to say if he’s bad news or not,” John said carefully as he poured dishwasher soap into the machine.

“You don’t trust him, though.”

“It’s not that I don’t trust him. I don’t trust anyone.”

She shoved the sponge roughly back and forth, back and forth. The repetitive motion was strangely soothing. “But is your distrust of Ryan more or less than your baseline level of distrust?” she asked in a clinical manner.

“It’s higher, but that’s because we’re talking about you, now. And I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“You think I’m foolish.”

“No,” he corrected as he shut the dishwasher. “I think you love easily. Maybe too easily for your own good.”

“I’m not in love with him,” she said quickly, dropping the sponge and meeting his eyes.

He arched a brow, questioning her with his steely stare. “It sure looked like that. Or like it was heading in that direction.”

“When? When did it look like that?”

“When I walked back out and saw you holding him.”

She shut her eyes as she slipped back in time to those few seconds that felt like a slice of possibility. Her arms around him. His cheek on her shoulder. She opened her eyes and straightened the kitchen some more, placing the clean roasting pan in a cupboard.

“Also, you believe in love so strongly because of Mom and Dad, and you think you’re going to have that,” John continued. “But most of the world isn’t like that. Some of the world is like Ryan’s parents.”

“What happened with them? Beyond the news. Beyond what I could find on the Internet,” she asked as she put more pans away. She was dying to know. Curiosity had her in its grip.

“Soph,” he said in a chiding tone. “You know I can’t say.”

“But you think he knows something that will help you in the investigation? You said that. You said that the night I went to the gala. I know you had to have been talking about him then.”

He huffed. “You’re too smart for your own good.”

“I’m just a good listener. So what do you think he knows? You don’t think he’s a suspect, do you?”

He laughed and shook his head, leaning his hip against the counter. “No. Absolutely not. But everyone has an agenda, and I think Ryan Sloan has his own, which for some reason involves protecting his mother.”

“But she’s in prison. How can he be protecting her?”

“I think he’s protecting things she won’t tell us. But the good news is he told me something that I think will be helpful, if I can just connect all the dots.”

“Can you?”

He shrugged. “That’s the million-dollar question. And you know I can’t say anymore. If I do I’ll compromise the investigation, and all investigations matter, but this one is a big one, Sophie.”

She had a sneaking suspicion John wasn’t merely looking into an eighteen-year-old murder. She had a feeling he was hunting for something that went much wider and bigger.

“And if you do? You can keep the streets safe?”

“That’s always my goal.” He nodded to the door. “I should go. Unless you want me to stay.”

She shook her head. “I’m fine. Just tell me—is there anything about him that you think I need to know? Would I be a fool to see him again?”

He tucked his finger under her chin. “Sophie, I can’t make those sorts of promises or guarantees about anyone. Let alone someone I barely know. What I do know is this—he is focused, and intense, and his mother adores him, and he loved her, too.”

Was that such a bad thing? Was there some law that said you were supposed to become a hater if someone you loved killed? Sophie shuddered at the thought. Was the world that black and white? She had no clue how she would feel in Ryan’s shoes, which was why she didn’t want to judge him.

She said goodbye to John then headed to her closet and rearranged her favorite dresses and fancy shoes.

When she woke up the next morning, her phone bleated loudly—a reminder of her meeting in a few hours with Clyde. She groaned because the man would surely ask her about her date for the fundraiser, and she didn’t know if she had one still.

Or if she wanted one anymore.