Page 44 of Reveal

“Yes. I did.” There’s nothing else I can say. No other apology I can give. I take a step forward, timid when I’m never timid. “There are no words I can voice to take away what I did.”

I watch a tear slip over her lashes and slide down her cheek. Just one. A small tell of the hurt that I detonated like a grenade within her.

“He told me he couldn’t wait to sleep with me because you told him how good my pussy felt.”

Her voice may be soft, but those words are like a cattle prod to my temper.

“I’m going to kill that son of a bitch.” My hands fist and teeth grit, and every object on my desk is at risk of being thrown against the wall as I stalk toward it.

All I see is red.

All I feel is rage.

All I know is I hate the fucker more than I ever thought possible, and good thing I’m a lawyer so I know how to post my own damn bail.

“What are you—?” she asks as I grab my wallet off the desk and my jacket. “No!” She emits a sound I want to forever erase from my memory. It’s my name, but it’s part plea, part terror, part everything bad you can imagine as she runs across the room and holds on to my arms, trying to keep me here.

I could shrug her off in a second without any effort, but there is something about the fear in her voice—about the complete hysteria in it—that stops me.

And when I look at her, when I see the trembling of her chin and the tears welling in her eyes, I know there is so much more going on here than what she said. I know she fears losing Lucy, but this . . . there’s even more here she’s not telling me.

“Vaughn.” I put my hands on both of her shoulders, and I lower my head so that we’re eye to eye. “What else did he say to you?”

With each word I can see Vaughn pulling away from me.

“Nothing.”

I can handle her attitude. Her sass. But when her voice trembles, it’s like something inside me breaks with it.

You did that to her, Ryker.

You used someone you loved like a pawn . . . just like your mom used you.

Jesus fucking Christ.

“Vaughn.” I say her name for what feels like the twentieth time in this conversation, but it’s the only way I know how to bring her back to me. “What else did that prick say to you?”

“Leave it be, Ryker.”

She knows me better than that. “You either tell me what he said, or I go find him right now and ask him myself.”

Her eyes flash up to meet mine, and she knows I’m dead serious. She knows I follow through with my threats.

“He told me if anyone found out about our conversation, he’ll make good on the threat.”

“Sounds like something the bastard would say.”

“Don’t give him another reason to come after me,” she pleads. “You can’t confront him. If you did, it would only serve to make him want this more. Knowing he’s screwing me over and sticking it to you, the lawyer representing his wife, will only up the ante for him.”

She’s right, and I hate admitting it.

But there’s more to their exchange. I know there is.

I study her and know there’s more. She already told me about the conversation, so she’s just trying to appease me. Just trying to distract me from whatever else it is that piece of shit threatened her with.

“I won’t confront him,” I say, the words like broken glass scraping against my throat. “But if I don’t, then you have to tell me what else he said to you.” The sudden widening of her eyes tells me my hunch is right. Besides the threat of losing Lucy, there’s something else there.

She shakes her head as if she’s not going to tell me, but words come out. “He knows about my uncle.”