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“I assume it wasn’t always your ambition to . . . whatever all this entails.” He waved absently.
“I kind of fell into it. I liked the risk, and the payoff isn’t bad either.”
“Fell into it?”
I gripped my tumbler tighter. This wasn’t a story I’d ever told, and one I wasn’t 100 percent sure I even wanted to share. Especially not to someone I didn’t trust. My mouth opened anyway.
“My father is a contractor. For as long as I can remember, I went to the job sites with him as his helper. His little shadow.” I waited for Drew to make a snide comment or shoot me a look of condescension. It didn’t come. “I’d do anything for my dad. He supported me in everything. If it weren’t for him, I would’ve never made it as far as I did in skiing.” I didn’t think about the past often, yet it lurked on the fringes, and when it did make an appearance, I felt a strange tingly feeling in my chest.
“Exactly how far did you make it with skiing?” Drew asked.
“To the Olympic trials. I made the team, took a nasty tumble in practice, and blew out a knee. The end.” I shrugged as if it made no difference, but I’d felt devastated. So many years of practice, of dedication, of pain . . . thrown away in a moment. I’d lived in a lonely tomb of misery for years. No one had understood what it had been like. But as I looked at Drew, I saw darkness flash in his eyes. Drew understood? How was that possible?
“Have you been back on the slopes since?” No apology. No look of pity. No hollow reassurance.
“After I’d healed enough to try.” I quirked my lips. “It’s hard to put into words, but the second my skis hit the snow, I knew it was over. I’d never be as good as I had been. It just didn’tfeelthe same.”
“Makes perfect sense.” I stared at him while he absently sipped his whiskey. “What about your dad? Where does he fit into the equation of Sonya the Hustler?”
I opened my mouth to get defensive and then clamped it shut. Why bother denying the truth? “He cut corners with his business. He’d order too much material for a job and instead of returning the excess, he’d keep it and tell his customers he’d used it on their job and bill them for it.” I swirled my drink. “I didn’t know this until I was in high school. Dad thought one day I’d want the business he’d built, so he showed me some of his methods.”
Drew’s jaw ticked, but he said nothing. There was no reason to get into this. I was where I was. I liked it.
“Keep going.”
I sighed. “There’s really no—”
“I want to hear this, Tigress.”
I toleratedbabyandsweetheartfrom other men as a means to an end, otherwise hating the endearments. But something about Drew’s nickname softened me. I liked it more than I cared to admit. Liked the little buzz of electricity it gave me.
Caving, I continued. “Winter break during my senior year at college, he needed my help on a ‘huge’ project. He didn’t have to ask twice. I was all over it, already planning on working for him while I was home anyway. Dad got caught cutting corners on the biggest job he’d ever had.”
Drew’s face clouded. “And what did he ask you to do to fix it?”
“I think you’ve got a pretty good idea. The man had no idea I was my father’s daughter, and I seduced him.” I propped my cheek on my palm. “It’s really too bad I had to cut it short. He was a generous man. Had incredible taste—”
“Skip to the end, Sonya,” he growled.
“But I was just getting to the good stuff,” I protested, fighting a grin.
“I beg to differ.” In all honesty, I hadn’t thought Dad had wanted me to sleep with the man. Just tempt.Surely, no father prostituted his daughter to make a buck.Most didn’t anyway.
I huffed out a long breath. “Fine. Did I mention he was married? Well, he was. So it didn’t take but a few compromising pictures. The business associate agreed to forget about what my dad had done as long as he made it right, which he did. And we forgot our little affair.”
“You loved the thrill,” he surmised.
Where was the judgmental look? The grimace of disgust? I’d just told him I seduced a married man for blackmail, and Drew almost looked . . .proud? “I did,” I admitted. “I think that’s why my dad did it too. It was the possibility of getting caught, and when he didn’t, it just snowballed.”
“So he knows what you’re up to? A chip off the old block?” I frowned. “I’m not judging either of you.”
“I know.” Picking up my drink, I poured some down my throat. “He can’t live with what he asked me to do—feels guilty about it even now—so we don’t really talk that much.” I shrugged. “Probably better that way.” That sounded hollow, even to my ears.
“What about your mom?”
Pain stabbed at the already open wounds of my past. “Dad made me promise not to tell her what he’d done. I can’t lie to her about it, so we don’t speak either. She thinks I’m busy with work.”
I missed her, especially after seeing Drew with his mother and the way she forgave him. But hope was a dangerous thing, something I could ill afford.
