Travis doesn’t trust his wife. Lander doesn’t trust Travis. And now Lander has just given me what I need to make sure that Travis doesn’t trust Lander either, if he ever did.

It’s the trifecta of family dysfunction.

It’s going to make it so much easier to do what I need to do.

chapter ten

By the time we leave the restaurant we’ve each had a cocktail and shared the bottle of red. The streets of New York seem to have a warm, hazy glow and the honking of horns and growl of engines almost sound musical. I have to resist the urge to clap my hands in time, adding my own harmony to the city’s symphony. Lander gestures to his limo. “I’ll take you home.”

I shake my head. “Not necessary.”

“It’s no trouble.”

I look up at him, into his perfect smile, at the little crinkles that are just now beginning to form at the corners of his eyes. They make him look . . . kind.

Again there’s that stab of guilt. Of course, it’s just an illusion. The kindness, the decency . . . It’s a trick of the light, like so many other good things in this world.

I swallow the moment of weakness as I slip my arms around his neck. “It’s not necessary, because I’m coming home with you.”

The crinkles deepen as his smile expands, his hands wrapping around me, pulling me into him so I can feel my breasts push into his rib cage, his breath in my hair.

“I like you, Bell. Why is that?”

“Because we’re two of a kind, Lander.” It might be true. He hides his ruthlessness as well as I do. His is tucked inside the corners of the friendship he offers and concealed inside his sleeve like a magician’s trick. Now you see it, now you don’t.

First I’m the upright rich kid who’s a little out of his element in a dive bar, and now I’m the guy beating the shit out of a Hells Angels prick.

Now you see it, now you don’t.

I shudder in his arms. I’ve studied, practiced, and prepared for this fight. Lloyd, the PA I’m about to replace, the one who now spends his day in an orange jumpsuit picking up trash on the side of the highway, he’s part of my history now. And there are others, other men I have quietly torn apart in my journey here . . .

. . . here to this battlefield . . .

. . . here, wrapped up in Lander’s embrace.

Lander is the first worthy opponent I’ve ever engaged with. He’s the first one who has surprised me. He’s the first one who’s inspired even an ounce of guilt.

And weirdly enough, he’s also the first one who has ever made the game fun. Really, really fun.