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“No, no, no, no,” Elle said. “This can’t be happening. You two are far too comfortable with each other.” She pointed a finger at Rachel. “You touched him. You never touch anyone.”
“She touches me all the time,” Ryan complained.
Elle shot him a look of disgust. “She smacks you; she doesn’t touch you. But she’s touching Harvard, and I don’t like what I’m seeing. You’d better not have lost the bet for me, Rachel Ford-Talbot. I will hack your life and give you online herpes if you have.”
“The bet?” Ryan almost choked. “You’re worried about the bet after everything we found out tonight? The bet’s off. We can’t bloody wager on whether they sleep together after this. After finding out that Rachel was… No.” He shook his head. “I’m dissolving the betting pool and taking back my money. I don’t want a payout based on Rachel having sex with Harvard. No. Just no.”
“What?” Rachel lifted an imperious eyebrow at Ryan. “You think Harvard won’t desire me now that he’s seen those photos?”
“What? No!” Ryan’s head turned a vicious shade of red. “It’s just wrong. I feel like my bet is pressurizing you into sleeping with him. I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to be like them.”
Elle paled. “He’s got a point. I’m sorry, Rachel. I meant to lighten the mood a little. If that’s even possible.”
“It isn’t possible,” Ryan said darkly. “There’s no getting away from the fact she was—” He slammed his mouth shut and shook his head.
“Raped?” Rachel asked with a casual air. “Assaulted? Abused? Victimized? Brutalized?”
“Stop, please.” Ryan sounded like he was the one in agony.
“Why?” Rachel pinned him with her dark eyes. “Why should I hide from the words? Why should I be ashamed of saying them aloud? Would a person who’d been stabbed or robbed or shot have the same problem? No. It’s only the victims of sexual assault who’re expected to carry the shame for their attackers.” She reached for her wine glass, noticed it was empty, and got up from the table to fetch the bottle off the counter.
“But he’s right,” Elle said. “This changes everything. Before, it was a bit of fun to bet about the sexual tension between you two. Now it feels like we’re turning sex into something disposable, just like those guys did.”
“That wasn’t sex.” Harvard took the pasta out of the microwave. “Rape isn’t sex. Don’t ever confuse the two.”
“Honestly,” Rachel said. “I don’t care if the silly bet stands or not. I plan on doing whatever the hell I please, regardless. It didn’t offend or traumatize me if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“How couldn’t it have?” Ryan asked, looking pained. “The memories it must bring back. The way it must have affected how you see sex…” He shook his head.
“Ryan,” Rachel said as she returned to her seat, “there is absolutely no way I’m ever going to discuss my sex life with you. I have a therapist. She’s infinitely more qualified than you are to deal with anything I have to tell her, and much more pleasant to talk to. If you want her number, I’d be overjoyed to pass it on. Goodness knows you could use some counseling.”
To his credit, Ryan huffed out a laugh. “Great. I’m glad you’re coping, but I still don’t want any part of the bet. I don’t care what everybody else does, but I’m withdrawing from it and butting out of your sex life. Sleep with Harvard, don’t sleep with him; it’s up to you.”
“Did you hear that?” Harvard said as he placed the plate in front of Rachel. “We have Ryan’s permission to sleep together. It’s just what we were waiting for. You want to skip dinner and head downstairs?”
“How can you joke about this?” Ryan asked.
Harvard held the man’s gaze. “Because I’m not going to tell Rachel how she should deal with an assault that happened to her, not to me. I’m going to trust her when she tells me she’s fine.”
“I’m not ashamed of what happened to me, Ryan,” Rachel said. “The reason I hesitated in sharing those photos is I’m a private person. It’s not like I’ve been ignoring this for years. Believe me, Harry and I tried to find out who raped me, but there was no trail. The room was rented under an assumed name, check in was done remotely, and no one remembers who collected the keycard. If there had been an online trail, Harry would have found it.”
Ryan looked pained. “Why didn’t you let the police investigate? There might have been forensic evidence that led to those shitheads.”
“Yes,” she agreed as she sipped her wine. “I’ll admit, I regret refusing the investigation at the time.”
“What the hell?” Elle snapped at him. “Are you saying this is Rachel’s fault that these guys weren’t caught?”
“No!” Ryan clasped the back of his neck with both hands and let out a frustrated sigh. “I just hate the thought of these bastards getting away with this. I hate that Rachel went through it. I hate that somebody’s using it against her right now. I hate feeling…”
“Helpless?” Rachel raised her glass to him. “Welcome to my world. I hate it too. Which is w
hy I refuse to feel that way. One day, I’ll find out who they are, and I will eviscerate them. Then they’ll discover that I’m not the same girl they toyed with years ago. Until then, I have to do what’s best for Benson Security and for my father’s company, which means doing my job. Elle can take the photos and see if she can find any clues in them, but until we have something concrete to go on, we’re better off focusing on finding TayFor’s thief.”
“So, we’re just going to ignore this?” Ryan said.
“No,” Rachel said. “We’re going to do what I’ve been doing for the past ten years. We’re going to live our lives.”
Harvard took his seat beside her, resisting the urge to wrap his arm around her while she ate. He had the good sense to realize that the boundaries he could push in private weren’t ones she’d tolerate being pushed in public. “We’ll expand our investigation to include finding out who sent the photos. We know they have a vested interest in TayFor, and we know this situation with Rachel is personal for them. What we don’t know is whether the person who’s blackmailing her was involved in the attack, or if they came across the photos some other way.”
