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“But?” I snapped.
“But nothing. You’ve made your position clear. I’ll let Zali know she’s off the project and anything she does going forward is on her own back.”
“You do that.” I flicked my gaze to my phone, about to end the call, but Ezra’s quiet question stopped me.
“What’s she found?”
I sighed, my shoulders dropping with the weight of responsibility that now faced me. “Nearly all of the investors or their next of kin. Bank account details, everything. I have no idea what she’s planning on doing with that information.”
“Refunding the money they invested plus interest,” Flynn explained, catching me off-guard. My eyes snapped back up to Ryder’s, but he didn’t seem surprised. If anything, pride shone back at me. “Zee might not do things conventionally, and she doesn’t give a shit about what laws say, but she has the biggest heart of anyone I know.”
“Oh,” I uttered, unable to form anything more coherent.
“Did he just say pay it back? That’s millions of dollars,” Ezra exclaimed, awe and shock in his voice. “Put me on speaker.” I did, and he repeated his question.
Flynn nodded. “Yes to both.” He sighed and added, “I trust Zee.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t.”
His shrug was one of those what-can-you-do? Ones, and his smile was more of a twist of his lips than humorous. I wanted to reach for him, to wrap him in my arms and protect this beautiful angel from any harm coming to him. I wanted to protect him from getting his heart broken and from any danger he was voluntarily stepping into by even being friends with Zali. “Possibly.”
Ezra’s disembodied voice came through the phone, startling me. I’d zoned out, forgetting he was even there. “The information she has, Flynn…. She couldn’t have gotten it legally.”
“I know,” he answered quietly, his gaze never leaving mine. “Detective, she needs access to the Reserve Bank’s archives. Do you have access?”
“No,” he responded, confusion lacing his tone. “Why would I? And what does she need it for?”
Flynn sighed. “I don’t know. She told me to ask you but wouldn’t give me any information.”
“I’ll make a call and see what I can do. But it’s doubtful, Flynn.”
I ended the call in the ensuing pause, the tension ratcheting up between the three of us standing on the main deck. I had to warn him. I had to try. Flynn wouldn’t survive if he was put in jail. He would be destroyed, his mind and body mutilated beyond repair. I’d been there. I’d seen what could happen.
“Don’t do this, Flynn. Don’t help her,” I begged. “She’s going to ruin your life.”
“I won’t abandon her.” Flynn pursed his lips, his eyes lacking their spark. His shoulders were slumped and his shrug resigned. “But I understand your choice.”
That one sentence was the final nail in the coffin for our relationship. It was over. Done for. A line had been drawn. I couldn’t cross back, and he wouldn’t join me. He’d madehis choice. It was one I’d never had any doubt that he’d make—Zali would always be his first and greatest love. But even that knowledge didn’t prepare me for the soul-wrenching pain hearing those words would wreak.
I rubbed my chest, trying to ease the grief shattering my heart. “I guess this is it, then,” I wheezed, unable to look at him. My gaze landed on the runabout tied to the yacht.
“Ry, can you take us back to the marina, please?” Zali called out from the deck below. “I’ve just been called to an urgent meeting in Sydney this afternoon.”
“Sure. Let me make a phone call to get the jet ready for us, then we can go.” Ryder’s eyes were hard when he turned back to me. “Looks like you’re getting your wish, professor.”
Sixteen
Zali
I
’d been an idiot for thinking that Professor Reid—he was no longer Tristan—would have reacted in any other way. How else would he have dealt with the news that I’d been busy breaking the law to research content for his podcast? He was responsible for my actions in a university context, but it would never come back to him. I wouldn’t let it. But he’d never know that. It was reasonable for him to think that if it ever came to it, I’d sell him out to get myself out of trouble.
He didn’t know me well enough not to jump to the worst conclusion. But fuck me, I wished I’d been wrong.
Why did his leaving have to be so fucking painful?
I’d been living a fucking lie, thinking that this cute little menage we had going on could survive. Smoking-hot sex with two men whom I’d fallen hard for wasn’t enough when one of them was horrified by me. I’d barely gotten the words out telling him to leave before he was racing out the door.
