Her total surrender undoes me like nothing else, and I lose all semblance of mastery and coordination. I can’t stop myself from pouring into her, becoming one with her. Falling even more in love with her.

  A small eternity passes before my head stops swimming and I catch my breath. The second I withdraw from the swollen clasp of her body, she tears away from the railing and whirls to me, throwing herself into my arms. She presses an inexpert, anguished kiss to my lips. I feel wetness on her cheeks.

  Worry kicks me in the gut. “Sweetheart?”

  “I’m fine,” she croaks.

  I know she isn’t. Nothing about this situation is, either. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

  She nods. “I’m worried. I need to tell you everything. Just…please don’t think the worst of me.”

  Bethany fears I won’t like her confession, and maybe I won’t. But the irony of this situation doesn’t escape me. She’s definitely not going to like what I have to admit in return. But I can’t lie to her anymore. If she’s really decided to share her truth with me for the good of us, I need to do the same.

  By mutual agreement, we shower. We kiss slowly, heaping affection on each other as if we’re both anxious about what will happen next. When the water finally turns cool, I reluctantly cut it off. Dread churns in my belly. What if this really is the end? What if she tells me a story that perfectly explains away all my doubts…but she can’t forgive my deception?

  After she tosses on a thin blue nightgown, she climbs into bed. I’d rather have her naked, the way we’ve been sleeping the past few nights, but I sense the garment is the security blanket she needs right now.

  When I ease onto the mattress beside her, I resist the urge to close my eyes. Sure, I’m exhausted. No surprise after a long, busy shift and two killer orgasms, but what happens in the next ten minutes might decide the rest of my fucking life.

  “Come here.” I open my arms to her, glad for the opportunity to hold her. “Talk to me.”

  She slides in willingly and lays her head on my chest. “Please try to keep an open mind, okay?”

  “Of course.” Will she do the same when it’s my turn? Or if she says she’s guilty, will it even matter to me anymore?

  “Have you ever heard of Barclay Reed?”

  Here it comes… Everything inside me tightens. “Yes.”

  She doesn’t look surprised, probably because this story has been all over the news. “He’s my father, and he’s probably going to prison for scamming people out of something close to a billion dollars. No doubt, Paul Daniels told you that.” She draws in a quivering breath as she tries to brace herself.

  I shrug. He didn’t, but I don’t want to derail what she has to say with a technicality that’s not important now.

  “Did he also tell you that I was Barclay’s right-hand woman?” She nods. “I was the face of Reed Financial. Dad kept a few clients of his own, like Douglas Lund. Clients who had a lot of money and predated me joining the firm. But most he had shifted onto my plate. I managed the investment strategy for the entire organization. I looked at every client every week—sometimes every day—and made recommendations about what to invest, as well as when and where. I said when to buy, when to sell, and when to get out of the market and take shelter in bonds or other low-risk investments.”

  I gape. She was in charge of everything? “People trusted you with their money and… Are you telling me you had a hand in taking it?”

  “No. God, no. I’m trying to explain how everything went so wrong. Our organizational roles are what allowed the theft to happen. I have a securities’ license, but my father insisted on maintaining control of all actual transactions. He said it kept him familiar with where his clients were in their wealth-management plan and allowed us to have a system of checks and balances, which was especially important when I was fresh out of school and my knowledge about managing people’s money was still mostly theoretical. So my job encompassed more of the day-to-day operations—client meetings, risk assessment, and trade planning. He managed the organization itself and handled the execution of the clients’ investments. I could check the balance of any portfolio simply by logging in to the software we had built about three years ago. I didn’t see the funds, just tracked their growth or loss electronically. So I had every reason to believe they were exactly where I suggested he invest them.”

  Is she saying her father duped her, too?

  “So…you advised clients, took their capital, and recommended the strategy, but your dad actually handled the money?”

  “Exactly. But ten months ago, I was working late one Thursday evening. It was, maybe, eight o’clock. Dad poked his head in my office and told me to leave. Not like he gently urged me to go home because it was past dinnertime, and I’d been working killer hours for months. He literally ordered me to get the hell out of the office. He looked nervous.”

  “So you left?”

  She nods. “Even if I was his ‘favorite’ offspring, as he liked to call me, he never quite let me forget that I was the illegitimate one. Most of his clients saw me as his brilliant investment strategist, whom he was probably banging. A few knew the truth, the ones I liked and trusted. Some of them, I really miss. They felt like friends.”

  Does she count my dad among those few? If so, why didn’t she answer her phone that fateful day?

  Her expression turns sad. “But I knew how most people viewed me. Sure, it irked and upset me. Sometimes that perception even undermined me, but my professional life was tied to Dad’s. Until I truly proved my worth in financial circles, no one was going to believe I wasn’t his something-something at the office since he had a reputation as a man-whore and I couldn’t prove my ancestry. It would have been my word against his. And I knew he could be a real bastard…but he was my father. I never thought he’d stab me in the back.” Tears well in her green eyes. “He did. And I didn’t see it coming because some part of me always wanted his approval, was always trying to overcome being his bastard daughter, even though that was his fault, not mine.” The silvery drops fall down her cheeks in wet paths in the moonlight. “I sound pathetic, like a stupid girl with Daddy issues. But I was accustomed to him and I thought I knew him well enough to believe that, on some level, he cared.” She drags in a breath. “Anyway, since bad moods were nothing new, I didn’t question him. I just picked up my things and left. After that, things started getting weird.”

  “In what way?”

  “He told me to cool down on the trades for a while, said he was flipping some funds around so he could protect them during what he thought would be a turbulent time in the market. When I pressed him, he admitted that he was moving money around because his wife was threatening to divorce him, and he didn’t want Linda to have half of his wealth. It wasn’t until a few months later, and only after he installed a safe in my condo and stuffed it full of his most incriminating files, that I realized he was actually offshoring not just his personal funds but the whole organization’s. He’d moved ninety-five percent of it to the Caymans without anyone knowing. He was positioning himself to take the money and disappear. But then Linda tried to serve him with divorce papers before he could finish what he started. He fled to Maui to evade her. Somehow, the FBI got suspicious—I think Douglas Lund had something to do with that—and they started investigating.” She laughs bitterly. “I defended my father for so long. I knew he was a selfish asshole, but even I was surprised he had so little compunction about stealing from clients. It hurt that he lied to me. But the worst part was that everything he put in my safe made it look as if I was the guilty one. He tried to set me up to take the fall.”

  Her voice trembles. Her face looks so solemn. Maybe I’m a stupid schmuck, but I want to believe her.

  If she’s telling the truth… God, the enormity of Barclay Reed’s dirty deception hits me square in the gut. It’s so horrific it almost doesn’t compute. My father would have done anything to make me happy and help me succeed. I was stubborn and I didn’t always want his advice. Sometimes I refused to do something his way without first trying my own, but he would never, ever have plotted to throw me under the bus to save himself.

  The cynic in my head reminds me again that she could be lying…but if she wanted to con me into believing how innocent she is, wouldn’t she would have spoon-fed me an elaborate story up front? Why would she have waited days and sobbed through the explanation that seemed equal parts blunt and self-critical?

  I have a choice to make. But right now, I only see one. I’m putting my faith in Bethany. I’m choosing her.

  As I hold her shuddering body against me, the implications of her tale hit home. He used Bethany’s brain, pimped out her body, and took advantage of her need for his attention and approval—for a fucking decade—then tried to throw shade her way so he could escape both his wife and prison in one fell swoop.

  Barclay Reed left a lot of victims in the wake of his appalling scam, but Bethany was the ultimate one. He betrayed her as a human being, a boss, and a father.

  I wish I hadn’t merely eavesdropped on their conversation earlier. I wish I’d killed him.

  “Oh, sweetheart. I’m so sorry. That must have hurt so damn much. But the FBI cleared you, right?”

  “They wanted to arrest me on principle, but the feds declined to file charges. It was touch-and-go for a while. I spent so much money on attorneys… Finally, they stopped viewing me as a suspect, but everyone else is still suspicious. Everyone. Paul Daniels? I can’t convince him that I had nothing to do with his money disappearing because I was the face of Reed Financial. Whenever he’d call in the past, I could tell him at the touch of a button what was happening with his money. So in his mind, I not only knew the funds had been swindled, I was in on it. No amount of logic has convinced him otherwise. It’s been that way with so many of my clients and their families…”

  Including me. I’m part of the reason she’s crying now. Paul Daniels approached Bethany head on. He demanded information and repayment…and yeah, he was an absolute insulting douche about it. But at least he didn’t lie to her.

  I did.

  “I can’t tell you how many desperate calls and emails I had to ignore on advice from my attorneys since anything I said could and would be used against me…”

  Which probably explains why she never answered any of my questions or accusations.

  “It’s been a lot to handle. But I tried to do the right thing. An attorney friend of mine, Kathryn, helped me set up a nonprofit corporation for the victims and their families. I donated a hundred thousand dollars to the fund. I had to do something. The victims have suffered so much at my father’s hands, and I didn’t see what was happening in time to stop it. The money I gave isn’t much in the face of what Barclay stole, but was all I had to offer. I’d love to give more once the feds unfreeze my accounts, but I don’t have much liquid cash left.”

  I’m stunned. Despite everything Bethany has been through, everything she probably realized she would go through in the future, she gave up the financial security she had to help others. How many people would do that? How many would bother while they were having to work so hard to simply survive?

  “That’s an amazing gesture, Beth. Incredibly selfless.”

  “I had plans to do more, like fundraising with corporations I’ve worked with over the years. When I started soliciting donations before I left San Diego, I quickly realized that everyone viewed my attempts to help as either a stunt to deflect my guilt or another greedy money grab. So I stepped aside and let Kathryn manage the fund.” She closes her eyes, looking as if she’s fighting tears. “The investments are growing nicely since I’m quietly managing everything in the background, but donations have become a lot brisker without my involvement.”

  And Bethany feels rejected. I hurt for her. She’s been used, betrayed, and snubbed at every turn. And still, she chose to give back to others. I’m not convinced I would have been half that altruistic.

  I wish like hell I could erase all that for her and make her happy. But I don’t have a magic wand, so I simply hold her tighter. “I’m sorry, Beth. Nothing has been easy for you.”

  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.

  Chapter Ten

  “Help me,” I say to Ash later that morning.

  He and Samantha stopped by our new place to lend a hand, and now the ladies are in the kitchen, checking out the appliances. She’s really different than Ash’s usual squeezes, and they seem comfortable together. Vaguely, I wonder if the sex is happening yet. Interestingly enough, my guess is no. Sam is going to make him wait after the way he chased Montana’s tail, and I kind of respect her for that. But that’s not what I wanted to discuss when I dragged my pal outside to grab the last of Bethany’s clothes.

  “What’s going on?” Ash frowns. “Did you tell Beth who you are?”

  “No, and before you say anything, I know I’ve got to soon. But I have to find some way to make sure she doesn’t completely hate me afterward. Yes, I created this stupid-ass mess, but I’m in love with her.”