“Why else would I hit you? Are you fucking serious?” I ask, incredulous, tossing up my hands in sheer frustration. “We have sex, after months and months of us refusing this thing between us. Here I am thinking that finally, finally, for once in my life I’m going to be happy. For once, I get to win instead of losing all the time. That for once, you’re going to stop refusing to be with me because I work for you.” I fight against the tears, refusing to let him see my emotions, see how much this breaks me. “Only I find out now that you had sex with me out of, what? Rage? Because you think I’m behind . . . something . . . that I’m not fucking behind.” I go to turn away.
“You are not going anywhere.” He grabs my wrist.
Heat and tension radiate through me as I look down at his hand and then look at him. All the warmth and affection I once felt for him no longer lives inside me, only the cold sliver of betrayal. “Let go of me,” I warn, breaking into pieces, leaving my heart and soul in ashes by his feet. “Right now.”
Perhaps it’s my voice, or even my expression that makes him pause and release my wrist. But I see something different now. I’ve broken through his hard shell. There’s a crack in his rage. It’s confusion, but there’s so much anger he can’t see clearly.
“Who do you know at that tabloid?” he asks, tucking his hands into his pockets. “You must know someone there, and that’s why you’re doing this. Is it loyalty to someone else?”
“Loyalty? What?” I need to get out of here, I’m very close to breaking down in front of him, my throat squeezing tighter. “I don’t know anyone at any tabloid. I don’t even read them for fuck sakes.” My heart is pounding, my palms are clammy. I spin around and move to the front door.
I don’t even get two steps forward before he’s there, placing a hand on the door, setting his fierce glare on me. “Is it the money? Is that why you would do something like this to me? Because you are in debt or something.”
“No,” I bite off.
His nostrils flare. “Have I done something to you to cause this type of betrayal?”
“No.”
“Have my friends burned you somehow? Do you have history with any of them?”
“No.”
“Have I hurt you?”
My breath hitches, and all I can do is stare at him. “You’re hurting me now.”
“Before now,” he retorts, brows furrowed tight. “What have I done before now to make you betray me like this?”
I’m not sure if it’s the fact that I’m a second away from sobbing at his feet, but my breaking point is reached. “Please, Gabe, hear me. I don’t need or want your money. I have no loyalty to anyone at the tabloids. You didn’t cause me to do this. Your friends didn’t cause me to do this.” I take a step forward and say as sternly as I possibly can, “Because I didn’t do this! I. Am. Not. Selling. You. Out. To. The. Tabloids.”
Silence falls.
Heavy silence.
Then, he leans into my face. “You’ve burned me in all the ways you can burn a man. You owe me the fucking truth.”
I inhale deeply, clenching my fists at my sides. “You want the truth?” I ask slowly.
“You owe me that.”
I step in even closer, getting right into his face. “I would never, ever do anything to betray you. That is not the way my heart works. I’m loyal to the very end. I don’t know why you think I’ve done this. But you’re wrong, it’s not me.” I stare at him, and for a second, I can’t hide how much his doubt hurts. Nor can I hide what he’s done to me today, and how that’s ripped apart my heart, which has been ripped apart far too many times already.
He releases a loud breath through his nose, and then everything dominant about him softens. For one second, pain ripples across his features. And it’s pain that affects me on every level, because I’m feeling the same heartache. It’s the type of hurt that is felt deep in the soul, changing how a person perceives the world, building walls to protect the person they used to be.
Taking my cue to leave, I reach for the handle on the door. Just as my hand squeezes the door, I’m grabbed around my middle and tossed over Gabe’s shoulder. “Put me down, right now, Gabe,” I shout.
“I’m afraid I can’t do that.” He opens the door and steps outside, and I hear a bunch of men laughing off in the distance. He locks the pub’s door and pauses. “Besides, you already hate me,” he adds without the fierceness I heard before, “so I can’t make things any worse than they already are. I need answers on this, McKenna, and I’m going to get them.”
Gabe
Twenty-five minutes later, I pull up to Blackwood Security, Ryder’s company. Once a chocolate factory, now headquarters of the multi-million-dollar security detail company known to provide protection to senators, celebrities, and government officials. I’d opted to drive my white Audi A5 instead of my bike since I doubted McKenna would agree to come. I’m not proud that I forced her into the car, but I’m done treading lightly. I need answers, and her reactions aren’t lining up. I’d expected her to ’fess up the second I confronted her, not adamantly deny involvement.
There’s no question McKenna is behind this. Ryder was sure. Maybe she’s an expert liar, but I know Ryder will get the truth out of her, one way or another. Because between him and his team, they are experts in unearthing dirty little secrets. They not only have the expertise but they also have the technology and the hacker to dig into anyone’s life and discover what they’re hiding.
This mess needs to be put to bed. I must put this tabloid shit behind me once and for all. Not only for me, but for my friends who went through hell because McKenna put goddamn bugs in my pub.
I park the car next to Ryder’s bright blue Ram truck in the rectangular parking lot, with only five other vehicles, and turn off the ignition. Then I dare to glance next to me and address McKenna, “If what you say is true, and you are not the one selling me out, then you have nothing to hide and will come in there with me.”