Page 69 of Resist

“Something like that.”

“So what happens if you fall in love?”

“That won’t happen.” His words are half chuckle, half sarcasm.

“Why not?”

“Because I’ve seen enough marriages crash and burn that there’s no way in hell I’m stepping into that wreckage.”

“I said love, not necessarily marriage.”

“Love is even messier than marriage.”

“What do you mean?”

“Not all marriages are full of love. Some are just . . . an agreement. But when love’s involved, it’s . . .” He blows out a breath in exaggeration.

“So the cases you’ve worked on . . . that’s your excuse? Your reason to justify?”

“Believe me. Don’t believe me. It is what it is. I am who I am. It’s better than pretending I’m something I’m not. That I’m someone I’m not. I’ve tried that. I’ve been burned and still have crazy exes out there because of it. So if you want to know why I use a service, it’s to avoid all of that.”

“I know all about crazies,” I murmur, thinking of the strange text I received earlier that I still don’t know what to make of. You know we’d be great together. That’s all it said. Nothing more. Nothing less. And other than reminding me of a pop song lyric, I wrote it off as someone sending it to the wrong person.

Ryker’s exaggerated sigh pulls my attention back to him. “The last woman I dated . . . the last woman who had me thinking there could be something there . . . she never told me she was married. She never thought it was pertinent to let me know that she had a husband who was gone on a six-month sabbatical to try to win a Nobel Prize. You know how I found out?”

“Mmm?” I murmur.

“Her husband came to me wanting to hire me to file for divorce. He thought his wife was cheating on him. We talked, he paid his retainer, and when we went to draw up the paperwork, there she was on his cell’s wallpaper where it was sitting beside me on the conference room table.”

“Roxanne.” The woman from my research on him.

“Roxanne,” he says with a nod and then a shake of his head.

“Aren’t you afraid he’s going to find out?”

“She’s already threatened that on more than one occasion. But the minute I found out who she was, who he was, that he was now a client and that she’d lied, she and I were over. Besides, she has a caveat in her prenup. If she cheats, then she forfeits her settlement. She can’t tell anyone about us, or she risks losing everything.”

“Lucky for you.”

“It would have been lucky for me if she’d never found me in the first place.”

We sit in silence for a bit.

“Lucy,” he says as he adjusts his legs and leans back on his hands. “Is she your sister’s or your brother’s daughter?”

My laugh is quick. “Nope. This is not a tit-for-tat discussion. This is you talking and me listening and nothing more. Remember? Need to know.”

“She’s your niece. Obviously she’s related to you through a sibling. How is that divulging too much information?”

“It just is. End of discussion.”

“I was just trying to make conversation.”

“You mean you were trying to get answers to the questions you have? Like the other night at The Club?”

“Vaughn,” he says, drawing my name out so it’s an exasperated sigh. “Not everyone is out to get information to use against you.”

“Says the man who blackmailed me into being his sex slave.”