Busted

“Well. No.” Tucking his thumbs in his pockets, he rocked back on his heels, eying her narrowly. He couldn’t quite tell how to take this mood of hers. Not at all. But he wasn’t tracking this line of thought she had, either. “It’s not like I’m dating her.”

“You should probably rethink if you want to date me.”

“Why the hell would I do that?” he snapped. Now he was getting pissed.

She stormed over to him and poked him in the chest with a finger. “You think about what the headline on some of the gossip rags will read like if this goes anywhere, hotshot? I have. Learn the scandalous secrets behind the girlfriend of Trey Barnes, publishing’s golden boy.”

“I’m not anybody’s golden boy.” Capturing her wrist, he held it in his grasp when she would have tugged away. He hauled her up against him, using his free arm to wrap around her waist. She glared up at him, but it did something to the ache and the anger forming inside him when she didn’t pull away. Trying to hold that anger in check, he half growled, “And for the record, I don’t give a damn what any gossip rag says about me. We lived through all of that shit growing up. You think I care?”

“But most of that was probably just gossip,” she said, her voice rising. “They’d have a field day digging up things about my past . . . and then there’s Kiara. This isn’t gossip, Trey! It’s reality.”

She jerked her hand away and the venom, the remnants of horror in her voice caught him so off guard that he let her go. Her eyes shot hot, brutal sparks at him and then she spun away, her strides erratic and jerky.

She fumbled as she tied her robe, then, as though the admission had chilled her to the bone, she rubbed her hands up and down her arms.

The roaring in his ears faded as the seconds ticked by. His hands felt empty.

“Ress.”

“Don’t,” she said, her voice low. “Just . . . don’t. I need a minute.”

Slowly, she lowered herself to sit on the edge of the bed, arms crossed protectively across her chest as she huddled in on herself. It hit him then, how she waited, the way she’d looked at him. Like she was braced for some violent blow.

And that was what she’d expected.

She really thought he’d push her away over this.

She needed a minute? No, he thought. That wasn’t what she needed at all. Slowly, he crossed the floor and knelt in front of her. She flinched and tried to pull away.

He reached out and caught her behind the knees, holding her in place.

“Whatever it is,” he said slowly, waiting until she lifted her chin and met his eyes. “Whatever it is . . . she did it. How can it be your fault?”

An erratic breath escaped her and then she shoved past him. He ended up on his butt while she moved to grab her wine. Sighing, he levered himself onto the bed and watched as she tossed back half the glass.

“Yeah,” she said, her voice thick and scathing. “She did it. But she never would have gotten involved if it hadn’t been for me . . . and I’m the one who turned her in.”

She turned back to face Trey now and her eyes glittered with tears—both rage and misery shone there. In that moment, he couldn’t think.

“She got herself in a mess of trouble and there’s no denying that. But that’s not going to make a difference when push comes to shove and Neeci asks why her mama is in jail—and I have to tell her the truth.”

“Ressa—”

“Shut up!” She hurled the glass. It shattered, the glass splintering on impact. She barely noticed. “You don’t know, okay? You don’t . . . you can’t . . .”

Droplets of wine clung to her lower legs. Bits of glass sparkled around them as he rose. He crossed to her, sidestepping the glass. He caught her, ignoring as she tried to jerk away. “Be still,” he growled.

“What do you know!” she half shouted, half struggling as he dumped her on the bed. “You got this perfect family . . . movie star brothers, perfect parents. Since when in your perfect life has anything ever gone wrong?”

The second the words left her mouth, she stilled.

Trey stared at her.

Slowly, he backed away. Glass crunched under his feet and pain shot up his foot. Turning away, he looked at all the glass while her words echoed through his head.

My perfect life.

“Trey, I . . .”

“Where do you keep your dust pan and broom?” he asked, the words sounding oddly wooden, flat.

“Trey, listen . . .”

“Where?”

“Shit, I . . .”

He turned his head.

“There’s one in my bathroom closet,” she said, turning her head and staring toward the window.

He barely remembered the next few seconds, barely remembered the sweeping up the glass, dumping it in the small trash can inside her blue and silver bathroom. The bloody red streaks on the floor had him stilling and he frowned, staring at it until he realized it was coming from his foot.

He sat on the toilet and stared at the sole of his foot, the small, jagged bit of glass barely visible.

“Let me help.”

He ignored her as he tried to catch it between his thumb and forefinger.

My perfect life.

She nudged his hands aside and he averted his gaze as she used a pair of tweezers to pull the bit of glass out. The small pain barely fazed him and he took the pad of gauze from her when she would have pressed it to the cut.

“I’m sorry.”

He just shook his head.

“Trey, look, my head is all messed up. I . . .”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said brusquely. He caught sight of the neat little first-aid kit she’d put on the counter. He flipped it open and found a bandage.

“Trey. Look . . .”

“It was a bad idea,” he said shortly as he dragged on the rest of his clothes. “Coming over here like this. I’ll go. We’ll . . . talk. Sometime.”

He was down the stairs and halfway to the door when she shouted at his back. “It was my fault!”

The misery in her voice froze him. He wanted to be gone, wanted to leave and just . . . hell, he didn’t want to go home. He thought maybe, just maybe, he actually wanted a drink. No. No, he wanted to get drunk, even craved that oblivion.

But he knew better.

He just stood there and waited.

“She . . . I . . . she was like my little sister. Her mama—Mama Ang—she’s the one who got me off the streets. She saved me,” she said softly. “Kiara was . . . she was like my sister, you know. We lived here, in this beautiful, nice house . . .”

“This was . . . it was Bruce’s house. I bought it from Mama Ang a few years ago. Bruce was Kiara’s stepfather, but they never got along well. When he died, he left the house to Mama Ang. He gave me the Mustang and some money, left his other car to Kiara and some money—a lot of it, really. But it was held in trust. She couldn’t get it unless it was used for college. Once she turned twenty-five, she would get twenty thousand a year for the next five years, but . . .” Ressa sighed, the sound shaky and soft. Tired. “She hated it. Didn’t know why I got the car and money, but she had to wait. She was three years younger than me, still in school. I’d already started college . . .”

Her voice trailed away.

“Fuck. If he knew . . .”

Turning, he found her standing in the middle of the room, arms once more wrapped around herself. “If he knew what I was doing, he wouldn’t have given me shit,” Ressa said, her voice harsh.

Now she looked up at him. “Seven years ago, I was arrested on suspicion of prostitution.”

*   *   *

He just stared at her.

Those blue green eyes had gone blank and she couldn’t read anything from him.

When he just stood there, silent, she lifted a brow. “What . . . Don’t you have anything to say?” She moved into the living room, unable to keep watching him. For a moment, she just stood there, her chest aching as she took in the world that she now lived in. A world that she didn’t really deserve. Hearing the creak of a floorboard, she moved farther into the room and settled down on a wide, fat chair. Bruce had bought it for Mama Ang, placed it right here in this spot by the fireplace so she could read. He’d ended up using it more than she did.