Charity Case - The Complete Series - Piper Rayne Page 0,253

girl really doesn’t want someone to love her for her? Even if she protests that she’s not looking for love.

Shelving those thoughts before I get carried away, I scan the outdoor gathering and notice Allie a few feet away poking her finger in Wyatt’s chest.

“I hope there’s not trouble in paradise already,” I say, nodding in the newlyweds’ direction.

He follows my line of vision and shakes his head. “That’s just them. They’re hot and cold.”

We dance in silence for another minute before I ask a question that’s plagued me since I started to develop feelings for him. “Why did you decide to become a divorce attorney?”

He glances behind me and I’m not sure who or what is there, but I’d bet that it has something to do with his answer.

“A lot of reasons. One being the money. I know it sounds bad, but I was a poor kid from a poor town. I scraped by to earn my degrees, sometimes working three jobs. I knew I couldn’t defend criminals and be a defense attorney, and with the divorce rate rising every year I felt it was a safe bet at a successful career.”

He waits for my response, but I don’t really have one. What can I say? I grew up never having to worry about money. Jobs? Well, I worked for my father—he made me the businesswoman I am, but it’s not like he made me punch a clock. My rent was paid, groceries delivered to my door. Once my trust was released, it sat in a bank account for me, reserved in case the stock market plummeted.

“Not so noble now right?” His smile says he’s teasing. “I guess I still hold a lot of resentment about my dad leaving my mom and me behind to fend for ourselves. That’d be reason number two if I had to pick one.” He draws back studying my eyes. I can’t judge him because he’s lived a life without everything I took for granted.

“Okay.” I rest my head on his shoulder, my face cradled into his neck. His cologne does crazy things to my libido.

“That’s it?” He tucks our hands tighter between us, his cheek resting on the top of my head.

“I just wondered.” I shrug.

“Do you have an opinion on my answers?”

“Nope.”

“So I give you a few orgasms and you don’t fight me on anything anymore?” His chest vibrates with a laugh. “What happened to my little firecracker?”

I shake my head and close my eyes. “Don’t get used to it.”

He stiffens for a moment but relaxes as Carrie Underwood hits a high chord. “Why did you start RISE?”

I blow out a breath. “That’s a long answer.”

“We have time.”

A few more couples join us on the dance floor and another slow song starts up. Straightening my head, I stare up into his eyes. Can I trust him?

The angel on my right says he’s trusted you with seeing where he came from.

“You’re going to think I’m a spoiled brat.”

His hand leaves my hip, dragging along my body until he cradles my cheek. “Never. Come on.” He nods for us to leave the dance floor.

A few minutes later, we’re ducking through trees and shrubs hand in hand. Roarke’s got a bottle of champagne in his free hand and we walk until we reach a clearing and end up at a dock. The moon casts a mirror image on the soft ripples in the lake. A few fishing boats are tied up along the dock, nothing compared to the yachts that filled marinas I grew up around.

The wooden planks whine as we sit down and hang our feet over the edge, each of our shoes laying at our sides.

As flawlessly as I’d expect, Roarke opens the champagne bottle, suds exploding out and dropping down into the lake.

“Crap, usually I’m better at that.”

I laugh and my head falls to his shoulder. “I kind of like it that you’re not as perfect as you appear.”

His eyebrows crinkle as he looks over to me. “I’m far from perfect.”

If I was an honest woman, I’d tell him that to me he’s perfect. Other than the part about him representing my ex, but I’m trying to see past that.

“You seem like you’ve seduced a lot of women in your day. Always a gentleman in public, but the way you know your way around a woman’s body...” Even in the moonlight, I spot the slight flush to his cheeks.

“I’m glad my act is working, but there isn’t an enormous list of women