Total pages in book: 46
Estimated words: 43118 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 216(@200wpm)___ 172(@250wpm)___ 144(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 43118 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 216(@200wpm)___ 172(@250wpm)___ 144(@300wpm)
I’ve risked everything, and I might be about to regret that risk forever.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Jenna
I can’t believe he got here before me. I suppose I should have suspected it in some way. After all, he’s a private detective, and it wouldn’t take a genius to figure out where I would go after finding this file.
But it doesn’t matter. I still have to get to my Dad before he does. I can’t let him threaten my Dad or use this file against him. I’m not naïve enough to think that these would be the only copies, but I can at least try to pre-warn and pre-arm my Dad so he knows what he’s going up against.
“Get out of my way,” I say, my voice sounding braver than I really feel. I can’t believe he would actually try to stop me like this. I should have seen it coming.
Why else would a man like that ever want to sleep with me? He must have thought I was such an easy mark. So easy to trick. So easy to have me falling head over heels for him.
When he found out I was a virgin, he must have known I would fall easily, and he wouldn’t even have to try to hide things all that well.
I feel sick to my stomach.
“Wait,” he says. “Jenna. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the file.”
What is this, some last-minute attempt to get me to hand it back over? “It’s not just the file. You didn’t even tell me about all this investigation we were doing. You lied to me.” I’m not going to bend. Not this time.
“I know, and I’m so sorry,” he says, rubbing a hand over his forehead. “I was an idiot, yes. I thought I could keep you safe. I was going to tell you everything today, just… gently. I didn’t want you to find out like this.”
I scoff. “How convenient that you can claim that now when I’ve already found out,” I say. “What if I had pretended I hadn’t found the file and said nothing to you? I bet you would never have brought it up until you got what you wanted out of it. What was it? Money? Power? Something else? What were you going to use it for?”
“Use it for?” he seems to falter, staring at me and shaking his head. “I was going to use it to try to get your Dad to stop gambling and get him out of trouble. Just like we discussed. All of this was for you.”
“Don’t give me that,” I say, shaking my head in fury. “If it was for me, you would have told me in the first place!”
“It’s not as simple as that,” Hunter starts, but another voice cuts him off.
“Excuse me, what’s going on?”
I turn, and my first instinct is to run to him and cry in his arms. My dad. He’s here. But the thing is, he’s the reason we’re in this mess in the first place.
Even if I want to protect him, it’s still true that he has lied to me and hidden so many things from me. I look at him, and I’m not even sure if I recognize the man that I’m looking at.
And even so – he’s still my Dad.
“Dad,” I say quickly. “Let’s go inside.”
“Why?” Dad asks, squinting at Hunter. “Who’s this?”
“Someone who wants to harm you,” I say. I take advantage of Hunter being distracted by my Dad’s appearance to step right past him, reaching my Dad’s side. “Come on. Let’s go in!”
“Wait!” Hunter says, and even though I’m about to turn and go inside and be safe, something like anguish in his voice makes me pause. “Wait, please. Let me explain. I don’t want to harm you. It’s the opposite. I’ve been spending all of this time trying to find a way to help you.”
I don’t want to fall for it again. Fall for him again. But the way he has that look on his face – the way he’s stretching out a hand, reaching out toward me, and I really do want to believe it.
I know I haven’t just been enjoying sex with him these past few days. I’ve been falling for him, really falling hard, and I don’t want this betrayal to be true.
“We shouldn’t make all of this fuss out here where the neighbors can hear us,” Dad says, and that’s enough to snap me into a decision.
“Fine,” I say. “Come inside. But if you can’t explain this in a way that I fully believe and accept, then you’re out.”
Hunter nods eagerly and sprints forward to open the door for us, and I utter a sincere prayer in my heart that he’s about to show me a reason that we can still be together.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Hunter
I know I only get one shot at this. One shot to prove to her how much I care for her. One shot to show that I haven’t been lying to her and deceiving her for no reason. One single chance to prove that I’m not working against her but rather for her.