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She shrugs. “The fund is growing. That’s what’s important, not my feelings. Believe me, no one wants to hear that I had to leave everything and everyone I knew behind, rely on strangers I share blood with, and take a job where I can’t use my education. The victims have been through worse. I get it. I live with the shame that all this horrible stuff happened on my watch. And disillusionment because the father I thought I knew didn’t live up to the pedestal I put him on as a kid.” She caresses my face. “But I’m bouncing back. This won’t beat me. He won’t because I won’t let him. And some good has come out of all this. I’ve gotten to know my brothers and sisters. I feel like I’m actually a part of a family now. That’s something I’ve never really had. And you…you’re the brightest spot in my life. Thank you for listening and understanding. Thank you for believing me. I need the solace of a safe place, and I’m so blessed that I’ve found it in your arms.”
Stab me in the heart. She couldn’t have made me feel any more unworthy and guilty if she’d tried.
I can’t confess now. She needs reassurance, comfort. I have to show her I’m someone she can believe in. If I tell her that my father was one of her clients and that I came after her for “justice,” I’ll only add to her sense of betrayal and disillusionment. I’ll hurt her—maybe beyond repair. But I can’t go on keeping the truth from her forever, either.
What the fuck am I going to do?
I’ll work on that—after I’ve reassured her.
“I’m here for you. Whatever you need, sweetheart… I want to help you.” I kiss her, a tender press of my lips to hers that’s so bittersweet, and hold her tighter when she cuddles into my arms. “Will your dad be back for that video he wants? What is it?”
She tenses. “That’s another way he used me, and I didn’t want to believe it—until the obvious stared me in the face. Shortly after his arrest, he came to me and said Lund was being vengeful and bribing people to pin this crime on him. He swore his old crony had fabricated evidence, drummed up false witnesses, and poisoned the FBI against him. I believed it because after the man found out that Dad had gotten his baby girl pregnant, Douglas came screaming into the office and threatened to get my father back if it was the last thing he did. So, still believing Barclay was innocent, when he asked me to dig up blackmail material on the federal prosecutor, I should have said no…but I didn’t. The video was supposed to be the backup plan to the backup plan. He swore we’d only use it if nothing else worked. But I know now that Dad’s own actions have put his ass in boiling water, and he wants me to take that video to James Braden, the prosecutor”—she clarifies—“and deliver it…ahem, ‘personally’ to let him know we mean business.”
“I can’t believe he has the audacity to assume you’d lift a finger to help him, much less sleep with someone.”
“Well, like you heard him say, I’ve never let him down. And Dad never likes a task done halfway.” After an acid smile, Bethany turns quieter. “It doesn’t matter, though. I don’t actually have the video.”
“Why did you tell him you did? And why didn’t you cuss him out for everything he’s done to you?”
She sighs. “Because if I told him I didn’t have the video, he’d only berate me for failing him and hound me until I fix his problem. I don’t want to deal with him, and since he never bothered to tell me the truth, I don’t feel that I owe him any semblance of honesty in return. And I didn’t cuss him out because, first, he wouldn’t have heard it. Sociopaths don’t feel guilt. They can pretend to, but they don’t actually empathize with anyone else’s emotions, you know? And second, I’ve been called a man-eating shark. Which I can be.”
“I heard you talking to your father. You were so…snappy and forceful, almost commanding.”
“With Dad you have to be, or he runs you over. But I can’t outshark him when he’s the one I learned from, so I didn’t even try. Instead, I went with misdirection. By the time he realizes I lied to him about the video and about James Braden’s upcoming ‘promotion’—which will be an utter shock—it will be way too late.”
And Bethany will have gotten a bit of revenge of her own.
I’m proud of her. She’s slaying her dragon in her own clever way, and I love that.
I love her.
After another gentle kiss, I hold her close. Soon, I’ll tell her the truth, when the time is right. She deserves that. For now, I’m going to support her and believe in her the way her father should have. Once we get past the inconvenient truth about how we met, I will never give her a reason to doubt me again. Then I’m going to ask her to spend her future with me. If she’s happy here in Maui, I’ll give up my business in North Dakota. I’ll also find some way to make my brothers accept her. I’m so in love with her I’ll do just about anything to keep her by my side.
