Page 65 of Taming the Wild Cowboy

The high color faded from Brooke’s cheeks.

“How do you know that?”

Mac wasn’t about to rat out Madi Fletcher, so she merely lifted her eyebrows.

Brooke closed her eyes, and it looked as if her lower lip was close to trembling before she pressed her mouth into a flat line. “He was married. He threatened me before his friend picked him up.”

“Threatened you how?”

Brooke didn’t answer, so Mac tried again.

“Did you know he was married?”

“I decided I didn’t want to know.” Brooke stared into her coffee cup. “He was dangerous and charming and bossed me around in a way that no one else did. It was novel to not be treated like a princess. I wanted to experience something grittier. Stupid.”

“And maybe understandable.” Mac had no idea why those words came out her mouth, why she was reassuring the woman who’d lied about her. “Except for that lying thing.”

“I knew I’d made a mistake cheating on Trev. I felt shitty and stupid, and I didn’t want him to have a hint of what had happened, so I said you were the driver.”

“You could have talked to me.”

She shrugged off the suggestion. “I was in panic mode.”

She let out a shaky breath and Mac found that she was actually feeling sorry for the woman. “Why did you break up with him?”

Brooke gave her a curious look, as if the answer was obvious. “The lie,” she said softly. “I couldn’t make a life with him with that between us, and I couldn’t tell him. I was too ashamed.”

“And he would have dumped you.”

Brooke lifted a shoulder. “Maybe.”

“And that didn’t happen in your world.”

“Trev and I wouldn’t have lasted even if I hadn’t …” She exhaled instead of finishing the thought. “I see that now. I kept pushing him along a path he didn’t want to take. He would have rebelled. It was his nature after all.”

“Yet he’s still on that path.”

Brooke gave her a wide-eyed look. “You’re in contact with Trev?”

“I’m working for him. He’s my boss.”

My lover.

He was starting to feel like her everything.

“He knows?”

Mac nodded.

Brooke focused on her cup. “Life has a way of catching up with you.”

“So I’ve found.” Mac opened her purse, pulled out a five and set it on the table next to her cup. “I’m pretty sure he’s never going to say anything to anyone.” Because that was the kind of guy he was. “And that’s what I need from you.”

Brooke’s gaze came up.

“Do not work against me while I job hunt.”

“I’m sorry about—”