Chapter Twenty-Nine #2
Richard sits back, crossing one leg over the other and linking his hands together.
“I hope you understand this isn’t me being cruel.
This is me protecting my son. From what I’ve heard trouble follows you around.
You’ve been back in town for less than two months, and you’ve already been a victim of arson. ”
The hair on my neck pricks because how does he know that?
“I don’t like things that don’t make sense, Lola. Never have. Setting fire to your shop sign seems awfully specific, doesn’t it? It made me wonder what you could have done to piss someone off quite so royally.”
Richard’s cool eyes pierce into me. Gone is the man who greeted us with a sparkle in his gaze. This version of Richard is vicious.
“The fire was just kids messing about,” I say past the sea-urchin in my throat.
Richard smiles, a manipulative thing. “I don’t think it was, and I don’t think you do either. Why else would you have paid that little visit to the motorcycle club?”
The sea-urchin drops to my stomach. Sharp edges scraping at my insides. The SUV I saw outside the Vipers’ clubhouse flashes in my mind and realization hits me hard. “Your PI, he wasn’t looking for dirt on Roman.” He was looking for dirt on me.
“Merchant always finds the most interesting information.” Richard sits forward and folds his hands together on the table. Each movement precise. Calculated. “Tell me, Lola, does Roman know you framed a man?”
My stomach sky dives. I have to grip the edge of my chair to stop from teetering forward as the blood rushes from my head. I’ve never actually heard anyone say it out loud and it’s like my brain glitches.
Slowly, the puzzle pieces click into place. Max telling me the messages from the unknown number were sent from London. That feeling of being watched.
Richard keeps talking but I disassociate, hearing his words like I’m outside my own body.
“No. Of course he doesn’t know. I imagine Roman’s the last person you’d want to find out. Well, maybe not the last. The police probably take that spot.” He says it so casually, like he’s not wielding the power to utterly destroy my life.
I wet my cracked lips and curl my fingers around the stem of my wine glass. “Is that a threat?”
Richard’s face pinches. “Please, Lola. I’m not in the business of threatening people. I have no need to. I do, however, strongly suggest you let my son go. If Merchant were to share the information he found, I would hate for Roman to be dragged down with you.”
Pressure builds under my eyes. It feels like my heart is stuck upside down, all the blood pumping in the wrong direction and sucking the oxygen away. “You have no evidence,” I murmur, more to myself than to Richard.
He sits back and arches a single gray brow. “Come now, Lola.”
I realize too late that this is the man Roman warned me about. I fell into his web and now I’m stuck, sticky threads tightening around me.
I want to hiss at him, to throw his false kindness back into his smug little face. That’s what teenage me would have done. She’d have thrown her drink on his million-dollar suit and told him to take his blackmail and shove it up his ass.
I shouldn’t do that. I should be sensible and mature and grown up.
This man has the power to ruin me. And yet…
I’m not sure I care. Maybe I never stopped being that reckless kid because I don’t let it lie.
I don’t keep quiet and do what I’m told.
No. I force a casual shrug and say, “So do it. Tell the world I’m a criminal, then you can sit back and watch as your son visits me in prison.
That won’t hurt your perfect little image at all. ”
Richard’s nostrils flare.
I hold still, staring at him and praying to the universe that he can’t tell I’m bluffing.
Completely and utterly bluffing, because Richard’s right, Roman is the last person I want to know about what I did.
He’s the only one who hasn’t ever judged me, hasn’t ever told me that I’m too much, that I’m trouble.
I don’t want to prove him wrong, but I know that’s what would happen if he found out.
He’d look at me in that exasperated, disappointed way and I would crumble.
Richard opens his mouth but before he can say anything, Roman’s hand settles on my back.
“Sorry about that. I got him out into the car, but we should probably go.” Roman squeezes my shoulder. I barely feel it.
Richard stares at me for a moment, cool blue eyes ice picks in my skin.
I stiffen, an infinitesimal amount really, but it’s enough for Roman to pick up on. He looks between his father and me, the lines of his jaw sharpening. “What did you say to her?” he asks, his voice lower than I’ve ever heard it.
I flinch and stand up. Cupping Roman’s cheek with trembling fingers, I draw his face back to mine. “Let’s just go.”
He hesitates, looking back at his father who sits there, casually sipping his wine.
“Please, Roman,” I say, because I can’t stay here any longer. Not when Richard is about two seconds away from telling Roman what I did.
I want to shove the fancy napkin in his smug mouth. I want to go back in time and scream at eighteen-year-old me for what she did. But mostly, I want Roman to take me home.
His beautiful face scrunches around the eyes. He wants to stay, to interrogate his father until he knows what happened, but the panic must show on my face because he looks down at me and his shoulders drop.
“Don’t send me another job offer and call off your PI,” he says, locking eyes with his dad one last time. “I’m done.” Then he twines his fingers through mine and draws us away from the man who just threatened me.
A shiver wracks my body as we step outside. The cool night air biting at my exposed back. I’m surprised I can feel it given how numb I’ve gone.
Roman shrugs off his jacket and slides it over my shoulders. He brushes my hair back from my face and tilts my chin up. “What happened? Did he hurt you?”
I hug the lapels of his jacket around me and shake my head. “I’m fine.”
“You’re not.”
Tears sting my eyes. I refuse to let Richard Banks blackmail me, which means I need to tell Roman what I did six years ago. I should say it now, rip it off like a band-aid, but I can’t bring myself to form the words.
I’ve loved Roman for so long it’s hard to remember a time I didn’t. But after that party on the beach, I never thought we would happen.
I grieved the loss of him that night, and every night after that, curled up in bed in hostels with sticky floors and thin walls.
When I tell him what I did he won’t look at me the same.
He’ll have undisputable proof that I am not the good person he thinks I am.
And maybe it’s not fair, but I waited years to call Roman mine, and I just want to have this, to have us, for a little longer. “Please, Roman. Just take me home.”