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  “Talk to me, Teresa.”

  “I’m trying.”

  When her voice cracks, something inside me does, too. I don’t know exactly what’s coming, but I know it’s bad. Bad enough that her teeth are chattering and she’s swaying on her feet. “Come here,” I rasp, compelled to wrap my arms around her, no matter what she’s about to tell me. “Come here.” I step forward, holding out my hand. “You look like you’re freezing.”

  My cell phone goes off and she jumps, backing away. “Will…”

  I glance down and find the name of my associate in New York flashing on the screen. With a hollow chest, I slide my finger across the screen and hold it to my ear. “What is it?”

  “Mr. Caruso. Can you talk?”

  He’s asking if I’m alone. Meaning the information he has is sensitive. Enough that he’s pretty positive I don’t want anyone around when he relates it. My heart wakes up with a vengeance, firing around my ribcage in every direction. “Yeah.”

  “I’ve obtained the travel records for Miss Valentini.” It’s made clear by Teresa’s sudden wheeze that she can hear every word being spoken. My instinct to comfort her is resounding inside me, but I’m cemented to the ground, waiting for the axe to drop. What the fuck is this? “She was in New York as recently as last week. I still couldn’t connect her with any of your competitors, but…on a hunch, I ran a cross check against another, older report I compiled for you.” My stomach plummets, because I know from his tone which report he’s speaking about. Disbelief plows into me like a semi truck. “The one—”

  “Jesus. Don’t say it.”

  “I’m sorry, sir.” He pauses. “I called in a favor with my contact at the NYPD. Teresa Valentini’s father is a past associate of your father. Quite well known, in fact, for leaving their ranks roughly a decade ago. He’s since passed away, but I have a hard time believing Miss Valentini arriving in New York, then appearing in Texas with you, is a coincidence.”

  So did I. In the beginning, I was suspicious as hell, questioning every move she made, every word out of her mouth. Until I stopped. Until I couldn’t hear my own common sense over the volume of my stupid heard pounding for her.

  I hang up, refusing to listen to any more damning information. Jesus Christ, I’m an idiot. A crashing sound starts in my ears, the white noise accompanied by a stab of broken glass in my chest…but when I look down, there’s nothing there. Only my numb hands that don’t look familiar. Betrayal tightens them until my knuckles are white and it’s so familiar. So fucking familiar. Wanting to make someone happy and only getting played in return.

  “Will. Listen to me.”

  Her tearful voice tries to intrude on my rage, but I refuse to hear the suffering in it. No, I only want to increase that suffering until it amounts to even a fraction of mine. Nothing. This woman felt nothing for me and all the while I was falling in love with her. “What did my father offer you, Miss Valentini?” She flinches at my use of such a formal address. “Why would you make a deal with the devil?”

  When she walked into the kitchen, she was so comfortable in her panties and T-shirt, but now she tries to shield herself with useless hands and I shouldn’t ache watching it. I shouldn’t want to wrap her in a blanket. Goddammit. “I-I was going to tell you everything this morning—”

  “Well, here’s your big chance.”

  She squeezes her eyes closed, seemingly against the chill in my voice. “My job was to bring you back to New York. Back to the business, before it fell apart without you. That was all. There was no money involved. Will, please listen. He has my br—”

  My chest is being crushed between two spiked walls and they close in tighter with each new confession. All her phony hesitation over us returning to New York together was a sham. None of what happened between us was real. None of it. “Back to the business. Before it fell apart.” Confusion pierces the edges of my misery. “Why would he give a shit about my company?”

  “He…” She swipes at her damp cheeks, confusion beginning to dawn in her eyes. “In some backwards way, he wants you to succeed. Doesn’t want you to throw it all away. That’s what he told me.” A shudder catches her. “That’s the only way I could justify this to myself.”

  “That’s bullshit, Teresa. There has to be another reason. Didn’t you stop to think that this man who makes a living off the backs of honest people—this man who lied to me for thirty-two years—could be lying to you, too?”

  “Yes. I did. I did.”

  “Well, why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Because you’d hate me. Because he sent someone to follow us.” She sniffs. “He was back in Dallas and I saw him again on the highway. If I told you the truth and you freaked out or left me behind, he could have reported it—”

  “There was someone watching us?” She nods slowly and a buzzing starts in my head, the sharp tip of violence spearing me. “Of all things, you should have told me we were being followed, Teresa. You knew what your safety meant to me, but you’d already taken away the privilege of ensuring it.”

  Her shoulders sag. “No. Please don’t think of it like that.”

  I barrel straight through her plea. I don’t want to hear it. She could have been hurt and I would have been in the goddamn dark. “Is he here now? In this fucking place?”

  “No,” she rushes to say. “No, I think he’s gone. It was probably just to scare me into…”

  “Into screwing me over faster.” The lifeblood in my veins freezes over and I’m just fucking numb. “Into screwing me, period. Christ. That’s how you planned to get me back to New York, isn’t it?”

  Nothing moves. This time and place is frozen, along with my blood. Except for Teresa, who shrinks in on herself, cupping her elbows. “I wasn’t going to sleep with you. I was just going to…go far enough that you followed me east. But you’re you. And I couldn’t…I-I couldn’t…I didn’t know you’d get to me this way. Every time you touched me it was real. We were real.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  She sinks down to her knees slowly, knuckles crammed to her mouth and I lurch forward to catch her. Old habits I need to kill hard. She doesn’t want this thing between us—it was just a job to her. I’m a job. She conned me—and she is still trying to dupe me with this wounded act. Still lying about how she feels. I’m not going to make myself more of a fool by letting her know my feelings haven’t faded by one fucking degree. That they never will.

  That truth only serves to strengthen my anger. None of it was real for her, but it was for me. She knew that. She knew how I felt and used it against me to do my father’s dirty work.

  “I’m sorry about everything,” she whispers. “Can we please find out what Silas really wants together? Can we…fix this together?”

  “No.” The need to lash out rises up and swims in my head, turning my stomach. “You knew how I felt about him. You had to know that when I found out—because I was always going to find out—that I’d shut your game down fast enough to make your head spin.”

  She reacts like she’s been slapped, but sobers fast, putting her hands out in an imploring way, inching forward on her knees. God, I hate her down there. I hate it and love it at the same time. “He has my brother.” Her sob is anguished. “You…I haven’t told you everything about my family, but if you knew what my parents did to get away from Silas, you would understand why I was scared enough to-to risk hurting you.”

  Light tries to pierce the fog around me—maybe even hope—but it’s too late. I’m enshrouded in thick blackness. Back in that nauseated state I was in before leaving New York. How did this happen so soon? How did I let it happen? “If I haven’t convinced you by now that I would have moved mountains to help you, Teresa, this was nothing but a waste of time.”

  “Don’t say that. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  “A little late for that, baby.” Despite my harsh words, optimism dances across her face at me calling her baby. Seeing her optimism sparks my own and I need to douse it. Need to. Bef
ore it grows and I forgive her. Before I open myself up for being burned a third time. No more. I’m done. And I need her to be done, too, so the avenue back to her is closed for good. Ignoring the buzz of warning in the back of my head, I pick my wallet up off the counter and take out all the money inside, tossing it on the ground in front of her. “Guess it wasn’t such a fantasy after all.”

  I turn away from her shock and pain before it can force me down to my knees to apologize. I almost do, though. I come so fucking close because she’s dug herself a home inside me and her suffering is unacceptable.

  “Will, please. Please don’t call him. If he knows I told you, he could hurt my brother. Promise me.”

  The fact that she’s asking for promises now—after everything—makes it possible to force my armor into place and command myself to register nothing. Nothing as I snap on Southpaw’s leash and walk out the door, focusing on one task at a time. Keep moving. Get the medicine. Keep breathing. It’s all I can do when I’ve had the heart ripped out of my chest.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Teresa

  A knife twists in my gut as I stare down at the money on the floor.

  I can’t move.

  At least until a sob wells up, the force of it tipping me backwards onto my ass.

  What have I done? What have I done?

  Shit. Oh God. Deep down, I didn’t expect him to react this way. Which I realize is ridiculous. Utterly stupid. But I honestly believed when I told him Silas had my brother, he would snap out of it and understand I had no choice. I did have a choice, though, didn’t I? Will was right. He has given me every reason to confide in him, despite his father’s increased threats and my trust issues with men. Will proved himself. His reward was my betrayal.

  Every single part of me hurts. My face is blazing hot and covered in tears, but lifting my hand to wipe them away seems like more of an effort than I’m worth.

  No. Screw that. That’s not right.

  I’m worth more than the pile of money mocking me on the ground. If I’ve learned anything during my time with Will, it’s that. Or my self-worth was always there, but I needed a little push to recognize it. I need to concentrate on that newfound confidence now. I can collapse later. I can mourn the man I’ve lost with my bad decisions and fears, but not right now. Not when my brother is still in danger and my only hope of saving him just stomped on my heart and walked out the door.

  I try to stand up, but my muscles shake and I drop down again onto my butt. Tears streak down my cheeks, carrying loss and nerves over the task ahead…but looking at the money piled on the floor, I’m…humiliated. Yeah. Wasn’t that the point? He wanted to hurt me and he has. He has. He turned what we did together into something ugly to get me back. Whether it was done with malice or purely out of damaged male pride, it hit the mark. Hard.

  Taking a deep breath, I replay that image of him tossing down the money and I hold on to it. Tight. I disregard the conflict in his eyes and remember only the curled lip, the cold way he turned his back. The fire it lights inside me is what I need to get off the floor. Slowly. In degrees. My legs don’t want to work, but I force them to support me as I walk to the bedroom. Momentum and adrenaline kick in within seconds and I’m packing like a mad woman, shoving things into my suitcase, ripping my cell phone charger out of the wall and donning the first available pair of pants. In the process, I step on one of Southpaw’s chew toys and very nearly falter, but I keep going. And going.

  Until I’m out the door.

  *

  Will

  Ending up in the vet’s office so soon is not the plan. Southpaw has more time. We were going to live every day like it was his last, until it actually was. His last. We aren’t supposed to be in a quiet, beige room, waiting for another man in a white coat to tell me he’s got a limited amount of time. I don’t need to hear the words again. Don’t need them to rip me wide open when I’m already walking around like I’m half dead.

  Southpaw is sitting on the floor between my legs, his head resting in my lap. He senses I’m fucked up and it shouldn’t be that way. I should be able to get my head together and get through this appointment for him—after all, I’m the one who lost his medicine…while pulling him and Teresa out of the rapid.

  An arrow of doubt attempts to break through my defenses, but I harden myself further, letting it bounce off. Teresa was lying to me the entire time we were together. Nothing is going to change that. Not even the selfless act of jumping into the river.

  Right before she almost drowned saving my dog, she’d turned down my offer to fly her back to New York. Why? Had she actually felt guilty?

  No. She was just that good. I’d walked away from that conversation twice as determined to make her let me in, which was probably her intention. Little did I know I was nothing more than a means to an end from the moment we met.

  A memory of her face as I emptied my wallet on the floor makes my skin feel like it’s covered in ice. I shove the heel of my hand into my right eye, trying to get rid of that final, devastated image of her, but it won’t budge. Goddammit.

  Sometimes you throw a solution a dartboard when you’re trying to do the right thing for someone you love. I’ve done that for my brother, thinking I was acting out of love. I thought love meant the randomness didn’t matter. Turns out, it matters a lot.

  More of that earlier doubt starts to pop up, but I swipe it away, like pawns off a chessboard. Teresa’s sore spot might be her brother, but I’m not going to accept that bullshit excuse. She came into my life under false pretenses and maneuvered me to her liking. It might have seemed real—more real than anything in my life—but it wasn’t.

  I can’t forget that.

  To my left, the door opens and in walks the vet. I can barely manage an acknowledgment, the goddamn memory of Teresa on her knees is biting into my brain with razor-sharp teeth. “His meds,” I force out. There’s a sense of urgency closing around my throat with every passing second, but I have no idea why. I have no reason to be anywhere. Still… “I just need the meds so we can go.”

  “I need to speak with you, Mr. Caruso. About those meds.” The vet looks somewhat incredulous as he studies the file in his hands. “Southpaw doesn’t need them.”

  The gut intuition that Teresa has no doubt already bailed hits me—hard—but the vet’s words knock me even further off balance. “What do you mean he doesn’t need them?”

  “Before we could prescribe medication, we needed to contact your vet in New York to get Southpaw’s records. It was highly unusual of your vet to diagnose Southpaw without having the test results back from the lab, but I have to agree with him, Southpaw’s condition seemed clear. I’m not so sure I wouldn’t have drawn the same conclusions.”

  Time slows to a halt. “What are you saying? Is he…”

  “Originally, the lump on Southpaw’s front right paw was diagnosed as a malignant melanoma. Because of the placement, Southpaw likely spent some time agitating the area by scratching at it or using his teeth to bite the affected area, leading to pretty visible infection. I’m guessing that’s what led to the misdiagnosis. The medicine he’s been taking relieved him of the infection, thankfully, so he’s left with nothing more than a benign melanoma.” I can hear his smile stretching wide, the air is so quiet around me. “Southpaw needs surgery. There’ll be some recovery time. Lots of rest and a dip in his appetite. But the good news is he’s not…” He lowers his voice to a whisper. “Dying. Your vet in New York has been leaving messages at your office for the last couple weeks. He was relieved to know you’d finally be getting the news.”

  Knots upon knots untie inside me with such a swiftness, the unexpected relief would have knocked me on my ass if I wasn’t already sitting. The reprieve of darkness is so fast I’m immediately suspicious. “But he’s been sluggish, on and off. I—”

  “That’s not unusual. The area is likely tender or sore, especially with all the running around he’s been doing. A few weeks after surgery, he’ll be good as n
ew.”

  “Holy shit,” I choke out, pulling my dog up onto my lap. He comes happily, wagging and panting, letting out a bark when I wrap my arms around his neck. Every time I’ve held him over the last month, I’ve wondered if it was the last time. Not having to speculate on that anymore is like being pumped full of helium. “Holy shit, buddy.”

  I’ve fallen through a trap door and I’m floating, no gravity to pull me down. My dog isn’t dying. He’s going to be fine. My dog isn’t dying. But I hit bottom hard when I look around, needing to tell Teresa the news…and she’s not there. She’s gone.

  *

  I’ve just been handed a miracle. That’s the only reason I’m holding on to the possibility that Teresa will be inside the hotel room when we burst inside. She and I? We’re not finished having this argument—not by a damn sight. I have more to say. She was supposed to scream back at me this morning, not fall onto her knees like a stringless puppet, dammit. That’s the only reason I drove here at one hundred miles an hour.

  To go another round.

  But I know the moment I open the door that she’s gone. The money is still scattered on the floor. The plane reservation I printed out earlier remains untouched on the entry table. There’s no life inside, just a shell of a place that she had the nerve to make feel like home. When that last iota of optimism dries up, panic stomps all over the barrier I’ve erected.

  If her brother is in New York, that’s where she’s headed.

  Will, please. Please don’t call him. If he knows I told you, he could hurt my brother. Promise me.

  My stomach rises up in rebellion. She failed to do the job my father gave her. She’s returning to New York without me. Empty handed. That puts her in danger—and I sent her right into it. Alone.