Page 139 of Resist

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

Vaughn

“Have you seen Ryker?” I ask the first group of people I come in contact with when I make it outside.

“Is everything okay?” Jake, the tech bazillionaire I met earlier, asks.

“Yes.” I force a smile. “There’s just an issue with something in the kitchen I need to ask him about.”

“Last I saw, he was heading toward the pool house,” Jake’s date says.

“’Kay. Thank you.”

I make my way across the grass—frazzled but trying to keep my cool. A few people stop me to talk, but I manage to move on quickly, my eyes constantly scanning for the senator.

But he’s nowhere to be found.

When I enter the pool house, the sound of Ryker’s voice calms me instantly.

“Think what you will,” he says.

He’ll know what to do. He’ll know how to handle this. He’ll help me.

And just as I go to turn the corner, his words stop me in my tracks and knock the wind out of me.

“I only have Vaughn around because of the sex. Nothing more. Nothing less.”

I press a hand to the wall to steady myself, not wanting to believe what I just heard. Not wanting to believe that it’s Ryker’s voice speaking those words.

“Well, you’ve gone to the right place if it’s sex. Lucky bastard. Vaughn’s a madam and a whore all tied into one neat little bow you get to open up one thigh at a time.” The man chuckles, and instantly I know who the owner of that laugh is.

My stomach revolts.

My pulse races.

“You can have her if you want her, Preston. Fuck, I’ll even pay for your time with her.”

I clasp a hand over my mouth as tears sting my eyes—fury and hurt and disbelief fueling their presence—while I try to fathom what I’m hearing. My thoughts stumble out of control as I strain to make out their murmured words.

Time slows down. Stills.

Ryker just outed me—my identity—to a man whose power and reach can damage me the most.

“You’d pay for me, Lockhart? Why the generosity all of a sudden?”

No, not outed me. Ryker did something even worse. He didn’t defend me.

“Senator, even I know when it’s time to share the wealth. Besides, aren’t you the one who has the most to gain here?”

And despite knowing my past, my secrets, he offered me to a man who gets off on using his power to hurt others.

“You let me down, and then you try to soothe me with pussy.” Carter’s chuckle rumbles through the air. “A man after my own heart.”

“I wasn’t aware you had one,” Ryker murmurs, followed by the clink of glass against glass.

“What I don’t get is how’d you manage to corral her?” the senator asks as I stand paralyzed with an indecision I’ve never felt before. Fight or flight. “She needs a real man to put her in her place. Show her who’s boss . . . no offense.”

“None taken,” Ryker says.