Page 49 of Reveal

“I want to know every goddamn thing there is to know about Vaughn Sanders.” My feet move from one side of my office to the other. They haven’t stopped moving, seeing as I keep replaying my meeting with Carter over and over in my mind.

“I thought you told me to hold off on stripping her bare.”

“Yes. No. Fuck!” My voice is sharp off the walls as the image his words evoke pisses me off even more. “I didn’t. I don’t.” My own reason wars against my rage. “Just fucking do it.”

“You sure?”

I think of the hundreds of reasons why I should back down. The fact that I want Vaughn to tell me her secrets herself. The need for her to. To know she values us enough to let me in further. The fact that Stuart digging into her past is a violation of her privacy when I’ve already done enough to hurt her.

And then I think of the one reason to find it all out: so I can help protect her.

“Yes.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Don’t argue with me,” I snap.

“No, sir.”

“I want to know everything there is about her. Anything that can be used to blackmail her, coerce her, all the way down to the size of her goddamn panties.”

Stuart is silent for a beat. “Okay . . .”

“Financials. Past, present.” My hand hurts from clenching so hard, but hell if it’s not Carter Preston’s neck I’m imagining it wrapped around.

“Even the no-go areas you held me back from before?” he asks.

“I need to know about her past,” I state, giving him the go-ahead to give me more information about one James Sanders.

The man we found who lives on the outskirts of Greenwich in a house he’s upside down in. And besides hoping his dick had rotted off for what he did to Vaughn’s sister, I didn’t allow myself to know much else.

“So either you want to royally fuck her over, or she’s the one.”

He could have sucker punched me and I wouldn’t have been so surprised by his words. “What the hell are you talking about?” I part laugh, part look around the room like a paranoid mess.

Stuart’s chuckle fills the line, and he was just added to my shit list. “I’ve never seen you like this before. You’re passionate about your clients—about getting what you need to win in court . . . but, Ryk, this is a whole next level.” I can all but hear him shrug. “That tells me she means something to you. Either you’re spooked and need to know her skeletons to make you shit or get off the pot when it comes to taking things further with her in the relationship department . . . or you’re not spooked and someone is fucking with her. In that case, have mercy on their souls.” His matter-of-fact tone resonates. The words he says with it even more so.

“Maybe the answer is that it’s a bit of both.” I don’t expect to give him an answer. That’s not my style. But he’s probably the closest thing I have to a friend, and I can’t take the words back.

And lucky for him he keeps his mouth shut, because his words reverberate loud and clear and knock loose truths I’m not sure I want to acknowledge. If I do care about Vaughn and she finds out I’ve ordered this invasion into her privacy, I’m the asshole who’s snooping. I’m the jerk who is suddenly a creep and is beyond reason. But if she never finds out because I charge in to save the day on a white horse behind the scenes, then isn’t the risk worth it?

I’ve already done enough to fuck with her. I’ve already screwed up. It’s my job to try to make it right the best I can—and this is the only way I can think to do that. To protect her. To make sure no one else can come after her if Preston sets his bullshit in motion.

“Just get me what I want, Stu.”

His laugh fills the line. “Sure thing. But, uh . . . do we need to have a talk about how committing a felony would ruin your law career?”

“I’m well aware.”

“Then maybe you should stop thinking about murdering whoever the fuck it is you’re thinking about hurting.”

“Nah. I’m finding great pleasure in using my imagination.”

“I’ll get on it.”

“Thanks.”

When I hang up the phone, my eyes veer to the door Vaughn walked out of the last time I saw her, and my thoughts come back to her as well.