Total pages in book: 154
Estimated words: 149209 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 746(@200wpm)___ 597(@250wpm)___ 497(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 149209 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 746(@200wpm)___ 597(@250wpm)___ 497(@300wpm)
Silence.
Is she trying to decide what to say to me? How she feels about my offer? Is she shocked? Upset? Or intrigued?
After a few dozen tense seconds slide by, I risk a peek at her face—and realize she’s fallen asleep.
Damn…
When I look up, I realize that everyone else has gone to bed. The lanai is empty. The house is dark. We’re totally alone. And I don’t want to leave Bethany’s side, so I curl her closer, lay my head back, and shut my eyes.
Slowly, I become aware of sunbeams dancing on my lids. My neck is bent at an odd angle and propped against something hard. I try to move, but I’m too damn stiff to do anything but wince. On the plus side, someone soft—definitely a woman—is curled up beside me, her head on my chest. My arm wraps around her small waist as I press her to my side. At the feel of her, my morning wood becomes more than automatic and nothing less than insistent.
I risk opening one eye, my fuzzy brain scrambling to remember who the hell I spent the night with and where. The sound of the waves crashing on the nearby beach registers at the same time I look down to find Bethany plastered against me. We’re still on the lanai, where we apparently spent all night cuddled together. And even though the sun is up, I’m in no hurry to let her go.
Except…I’m wondering if getting so cozy with her is a giant tactical mistake.
On the surface, I should be pissed at myself for sleeping with the enemy. After all, when I boarded the plane to Maui, I had no doubt Bethany Banks was guilty and needed to pay. Now, nothing is that simple or obvious anymore. Nothing is black and white. She’s human. She’s real. She’s been abandoned, ostracized, and hurt. Some people might use that as a justification not to care about anyone else—and as a rationale to commit crimes. It’s still possible Bethany did that. But the stories she shared about herself and the compassion she showed me last night after hearing about my mom…
Fuck, I’m torn. Who is she really?
I study her as if staring will answer my question. All I see is her pale hair tumbling from its messy bun in a silken cascade down to her plush breasts. Dark lashes lay curled against her rosy cheeks. Soft lips are gently parted in slumber. Her face looks so at peace, she appears guileless, like a sweetly mussed female, not a criminal mastermind.
Appearances can be deceiving.
Still, the Bethany I’m coming to know seems too human to treat hardworking people so inhumanely by scamming them out of their every last dime. For the first time, I’m giving serious consideration to the possibility that she might truly be innocent.
I don’t like this indecisive gray area. My head keeps telling my libido to back the fuck down and stop trying to make it okay to want a criminal. My gut tells my head to stop being so quick to judge.
It’s frustrating to be this unsure what to think.
Maybe it’s time to examine the facts again. I first convicted her mentally because she was my dad’s financial advisor. It seemed logical that she knew where his money had gone and how it had been stolen. But the feds arrested and charged Barclay Reed, not Bethany. She admitted last night that she’d recently encountered her dad’s “unpleasant side,” even admitting she’d made excuses for him. Yes, in the context of his wandering penis, not clients’ financial transactions. Did she really mean both? I don’t know.
It’s possible Bethany was Reed’s accomplice and that she escaped jail time because she’s a cooperating witness. If so, that doesn’t change anything. Helping to commit a crime still makes her responsible. But I keep wondering if she, too, was somehow duped by her father’s scheme.
No clue.
And I’m right back to the beginning of this argument with myself.
Beside me, Bethany stirs, rolling toward the sun as her lashes flutter open. She turns to me, brows knit in confusion before her eyes flare wide with a gasp. “We spent the night out here?”
“Looks that way. I only figured that out when I woke up a few minutes ago.”
“Oh, my god. I had too much wine. I never get drunk and—”
“It’s okay.” I cut into her panic. “You were tired, it was New Year’s, and I twisted your arm into playing that drinking game. How much do you remember?”
“Some…”
Does she recall telling me about her first lover? About the first thing she thought when she looked at me?
“Don’t worry. You didn’t embarrass yourself.”
“If you have to assure me of that, I probably did.” She winces.
“You hungover?”
“No, thank goodness. And I know you’re not because you barely drank. Have you seen anyone else this morning?”