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Without even thinking, I put my hand over his, like putting my palm on a fire. Small explosions blasted through me and I wanted more. Unwittingly, I wrapped my fingers around his palm, feeling the calluses and warmth. The life.
His eyes flickered shut for a moment, as if he felt it all, too, and he just couldn’t bear it.
“I talked to my dad,” I whispered, the words spilling out of my mouth like water from a fountain. “He told me what he did. Your father’s address and everything. Threatening your family. I understand why you left and I understand why you kept your Dad a secret when you came back.”
Tyler’s throat bobbed and I could hear his breath sawing out of his lungs. The world had shrunk down to us. To the air between us. His eyes and my need to touch him.
“Will you tell me about finding him?” I asked.
He closed his eyes and pulled his hand away from mine, leaving my palm cold and empty. “You don’t want to hear about it, trust me.”
“You’re wrong,” I breathed, and grabbed his wrist, my fingers on his pulse. “I want to hear everything about the last ten years. Talk to me,” I said, tilting my head, trying to smile. “I used to have to beg you to shut up, remember?”
His lip twitched.
“It was like you’d never talked to anyone before,” I said, laughing. “Some nights, I’d just put the phone on my pillow and take a little nap.” A lie, we both knew it. I’d hung on his every word.
“I’d never talked to anyone like you,” he said, his eyes roving over my face. “Never to anyone who listened like you.”
“I’m listening now,” I said. “Tell me how you found your dad.”
After a long moment his thumb brushed my hand and his fingers curled around mine, holding my hand in his palm like a little bird. “He was in Vegas, just like your father said. He’d just won a big purse and he loved showing me what a big man he was. He let me move in and within six months the money was gone. He’d been kicked out of most of the games in town, so I started to play to support us, keep us off friends’ couches.” He shrugged. “We’ve been a happy little family ever since.”
It hurt me, that sarcasm, because it didn’t even begin to hide the pain.
“I’m sorry, Tyler,” I said, and he held up his hand.
“Whatever happens, from now on, no more apologies,” he said. “We were kids. Your father was wrong, I was wrong. And maybe, just a little bit, you were wrong—”
“Me?”
“Talking about giving up law school?” Tyler tsked his tongue.
“My decision,” I said. “Not yours, not my father’s. Mine.”
“You’re right. That was up to you,” he said, waving his hands and absolving me of guilt. He wasn’t joking. Again, the fact that he didn’t hold a grudge just killed me.
Was there a chance? A real chance that this man was as good as I wanted to believe? Was the truth, the shining, diamond-hard truth buried under dirt and distraction, that he was a rare man? One who deserved my love and respect? My adoration?
There was only one way to find out. I had to try.
“Then no more lies,” I said. “I won’t apologize anymore, but you can’t keep anything from me anymore.”
TYLER
No lies? I thought, my stomach bottoming out.
Like, I found a priceless stolen gem in my grandmother’s attic? A gem that could implicate my whole family in who knows what kind of mess?
You can trust her, I thought, desperate because the weight of this gem was growing slightly intolerable. But one look at her face, so earnest, so firm and beloved, and I knew I could not get her wrapped up in this.
This gem was Notorious O’Neill business all the way.
“Is that so hard?” she asked. There was a smile on her lips, but I could see the balances in her eyes, the way things were tipping out of my favor the longer I waited.
I’d call Carter, should have done it yesterday. The two of us could figure this out. Make a plan. Ditch the diamond someplace where no one would ever find it.
She would never know.
“No lies,” I said, and nodded. “I can do that.”
Luckily the waiter showed up with a tray of food.
“Miguel!” I called, waving him away from the girls.
The smell of cheese and bacon and pickles wafted up from the foil-wrapped treasures in front of us and Jules dug in. Her appetite had always been one of those things I loved about her. Watching her eat food had turned into one of the more erotic aspects of our relationship. I didn’t even want to guess the number of ice cream cones I’d watched that girl demolish.
“Oh,” Juliette groaned, and my body went hot. The woman even made a cheeseburger sexy. “Oh, that’s good.”
