you for all these years was taking the easy way out? You’re wrong. So very wrong. Denying my feelings when I knew how you felt about me was a test of the strength of my character. On occasion, it almost broke me.”
“Or maybe it was just a test of your stubbornness.”
He grinned. “That, too.”
I touched his face, his stubble grazing the pads of my fingers. “Be serious.”
He blew a long breath through his nose. “We’re together. Now I’ve finally accepted that my life is meaningless without you in it, I couldn’t let you go even if I wanted to. But I need time to figure out the Elliot situation. Until then, we need to keep this under wraps. Can you give me that, Athena?”
I shook my head. “I can’t give you the time, Ryker, but I can give us time. The way we break the news to Elliot is a problem that we both need to solve.”
His face softened. He tucked my hair behind my ear. “I love you.”
My heart rate kicked up double-time. “You… you do?”
“I do.”
My face crumpled. “I love you, too.”
I flung my arms around his neck, struggling to come to terms with the extent of change that had taken place in a single night. Six weeks ago, I was working in that shitty club watching Hiroto Tanaka paw at those unfortunate, hapless young girls and wondering whether to call his bluff and let him call the police and take my punishment. In the end, though, my choice had brought me here, right into Ryker’s arms.
I drew back. “What did you do to Hiroto? You never told me.”
Ryker grinned. “I hired a PI to dig up some dirt. Turned out he had a mistress who’d given birth to a child, something he hadn’t managed to achieve with his wife. Tanaka had been desperate to have kids, but it hadn’t happened for them. Now, you might expect a disgusting asshole like him to simply swan off into the sunset with his mistress, right? Especially after she’d given him a much longed-for child. Except Hiroto foresaw a slight problem with that plan. See, Mrs. Tanaka happens to come from a very rich, very influential family, and poor Hiroto has expensive tastes. He chose the money over his desire for full-time fatherhood.”
“If he had expensive tastes, what the hell was he doing running a seedy sex club?”
“Access. Although he had a wife at home and a mistress stashed in a two-bed condo, he also had very… eccentric proclivities which he fulfilled with the working girls.”
I pulled a face. Disgusting man. He deserved everything he got. “What did you do?” I asked, already half-guessing the answer.
He waggled his eyebrows. “Let’s just say Mrs. Tanaka is no longer in the dark about her husband’s secret life. She told my investigator she’d been looking for an excuse to turf him out for years but hadn’t wanted to bring shame on her family. I gave her the ammunition she’d been praying for.”
I put a hand over my mouth. “Oh dear.”
“Indeed,” Ryker said, laughing.
“You’re evil.”
“But cute.”
Now it was my turn to laugh. “Ryker Stone, there is nothing ‘cute’ about you. Deliciously hot, but not cute.”
He arched a brow. “I’ll take deliciously hot.”
I snuggled into his arms and rested my head on his chest, feeling safe, and protected, and loved.
“How come the code to your penthouse is my birthdate?”
He trailed his fingertips up and down my spine, sending a scattering of goose bumps over my skin. “Because every time I entered those digits it made me feel close to you.”
My pulse leaped with pleasure. All these years he’d denied me in public, but privately had been a different matter.
“But surely Elliot thinks that’s weird.”
Ryker tilted up my chin. “The elevator can be set with up to five different passcodes. I’m the only one who has that particular code. And you now, of course.”
“Smart,” I said, nodding.
He winked. “That’s me, darling.”
I poked my finger in his ribs. He faux groaned, then hugged me tightly. As I nestled into his side, a memory from my childhood nudged at me, and I had an urge to share the story. I wanted to make Ryker laugh. I loved the sound of his laugh.
“Y’know, when I was about nine, I remember you and Elliot coming home one day after school. You were being all secretive, and I was desperate to be included in your inner circle, but you guys always shut me out. Elliot and I are close now, but back