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It can’t be. Sure, she slept with someone else’s husband. That’s not a crime, though it is disgusting. Especially withMarcus Parker, but . . . human trafficking? The Missy I knew wouldn’t have been able to stomach it.
But . . . the same Missy I knewalsowasn’t deranged and sinister. Or hooked on some illegal concoction that makes people eat each other.
That night flashes back across my mind. The night Mason came and brought Marcus to take Missy away.
The night I kissed him. If I think about it for a moment, I can still feel the way his calloused hands felt against the smooth bare skin of my legs, my back. The way his fingers gripped the roots of my hair, pulling on the strands like he couldn’t get me close enough.
A shudder rolls through me, but I readjust in the chair to hide it.
Mason doesn’t need to know I still think about that night. Or the way he tasted like nicotine, whiskey and sweet, sweet temptation. Like a bad man who would do all the right things for a good girl.
—Or that I still have that damned flannel.
“Ifit’s true,” I mumble, “then I can’t help her. I’ll turn her in because it’s the right thing to do.”
“And you could do that? To your sister?”
I don’t like what he’s implying, but I ignore it. As if I’m not strong enough.
“Doesn’t sound very loyal of me, does it?”
“Doesn’t sound veryHannahof you,” he corrects.
“Maybe you don’t know me as well as you thought,” I challenge.
“Oh, little doe, I know you very,verywell.”
Holy shit.
My cheeks flame and that burn in my core amplifies.Little doe. It’s been years since he’s called me that, but even now, it has the same effect it did back then. My stomach tightens and I get all these crazy ideas in my head before I brush them to the side and remind myself that Mason and I are nothing more than unwilling partners in a battle between families.
And then I remember the way he completely cut me off after that night.
“It’s done,” I say quietly after a long, harrowing silence. “You’re in the green for the month by fifteen thousand and some change, though I don’t know if that number’s really correct because the rest of the months might be wrong.”
“Can you . . . “ he pauses when I turn around in the chair to face him. It feels like looking into the eye of a hurricane. “Can you look at the rest of them?”
I cock a brow at him.
“Are you giving me free rein to fix stuff?”
His jaw ticks.
“Yes.”
Finally. Some common ground.
“I’ll move the computer out there and you can go through all of it. I just . . .”
“It’s okay. Sometimes math is easier for some, and cars are easier for others.”
That actually seems to work because he nods solemnly.
“Hannah . . .” he starts to say something else, but he cuts himself off while I wait on bated breath. Is this where he finally gives me whatever information he was able to find out about Missy? Or is this where he apologizes for being a ghost of a dick for almost two years?
Unfortunately, neither.
“Were you able to find anything out?”
