Page 93 of Resist

“Thank you for last night, Ryker.”

“You mean two nights ago.”

“Yeah. Sure. Whatever.” Was it really two nights ago? Has that much time passed? Because I can still feel his lips on my skin. I can still feel where his stubble scraped between my thighs. I can still feel every ache of desire when I should feel guilt instead.

“Atlantic City is a long way to go out of the blue.”

Mental whiplash hits me suddenly. “Did you follow me?” Every part of me is riled by the idea . . . and yet how . . . ?

“Where did you go?” he demands.

“You already know, so why are you asking?”

Anger bubbles up inside me.

“What were you doing there?” he asks.

“None of your business.”

He had me followed.

“You are my business,” he asserts, the arrogance in his tone only adding fuel to my temper.

He invaded my privacy.

“I’ll ask it again: What were you doing in Atlantic City, Vaughn?”

“Don’t ask questions you don’t want answered,” I say, trying to avert and dodge telling him the truth by pissing him off in kind.

“What don’t I want answered? What’s that supposed to mean? Out and about with another client? Is that what you’re trying to tell me?” he asks, his voice suddenly chilled, when moments before it was a mix of concern.

“Need-to-know basis, Lockhart.”

“Must have been a big client for you to just up and leave my bed and climb into his.”

“Fuck you.” There is so much venom in my voice right now it hurts my own stomach. But I did this to myself. I led him down this path so my past stayed private . . . and now I must stomach the fallout that comes with it.

“Mmm.” It’s all he says. It’s all he has to say to tell me he truly believes I might have been with someone else.

I should tell him the truth. I should hang up. I should walk away from this argument where it stands before we say things we can’t exactly take back. These are all things I should do, but I don’t. There’s something about Ryker Lockhart that challenges me to defy rationality, and once again he has me there.

“Ryker . . .” I didn’t mean what I just said. I’m scared to open up and tell the truth. I’m scared to want you as much as I already do. I’m—

“Who’s James?”

And it’s that word, that name, that stops me dead in my tracks. Is Ryker somehow connected to my uncle? Has this whole thing been a ruse by him to pull me in—his demands and his ultimatums and his blackmail—to get back at me somehow for my uncle?

My mind spins and churns and thinks thoughts that aren’t possible.

Are they?

“How do you know that name?”

I feel like I’m going crazy. Like the earth has stopped but my head is still spinning.

“You mumbled it in your sleep.”

I fight the sob that I want to emit. I hold it back because if I were in my right mind, I’d know there was no chance after all of these years that he’d come after me—what for, anyway?—but for the briefest of seconds I was petrified. Just like I was that night so long ago.