Last Name - Dr. Rebecca Sharp Page 0,60

fingers pressed underneath my chin, raising my face back to him.

“I told my family, Carrie,” he rasped, startling me with the truth.

“What?” Why? Why would he do that?

“I told my mom and my brother the truth about my father—about what he did.” His jaw clenched and I knew that conversation hadn’t been easy. “I told them about the men he’d borrowed from. I told them how they threatened me and our family. I told them about the card counting and being… unwelcome… in Vegas.” He exhaled. “And I told them about the affair.”

I dragged in a painful breath. “Why?”

“Because I love you, Carrie Bishop. Because I want to be with you,” he declared, the words slowing the whole world to a stop around us.

He loved me.

James Arden loved me.

Love and longing suspended in the space between us. Heavy. Monumental. But so easy to breathe in.

“And what my father did already cost me and my family so much, I won’t let his mistakes cost me my happiness, too.”

My mouth parted as my heart beat erratically with his confession. His words started a chain reaction inside of me, the one that called for adventure. For risk. The one that began to spin the wheels and roll the dice because this was a hand—or a heart—worth taking a chance on.

Betting on his love was worth any risk.

“Are they okay?” I murmured.

I caught the flicker of a smile at my concern. He’d just confessed his undying love for me and I was worried about his family.

But I knew he wouldn’t have it—or me—any other way.

“They are…” He paused. “They’re hurt, but not crippled. At this point, after so many truths have come to light, they are more saddened by the choices he made… but even that is less than how they feel knowing I tried to fix them and bear them alone.”

I nodded, not surprised by his answer at all.

“It’s hard, Carrie,” he went on. “It’s a hurt I wished to spare them from. A stain I was worried would ruin them.”

“And now?” I breathed out.

“Now, I’ve realized I’m not the only strong knucklehead in this family,” he groused and a quick laugh escaped me. “I’ve realized that they’ll be okay—we’ll be okay. That we’ll come out of this cleaner and more tightly knit than before, and that’s what we’re all focusing on.”

I braved a smile, part of my heart elated that he’d removed the last walls separating him from his family.

The other part though latched onto everything he’d sacrificed to make a name for himself, to build the company to the standards he valued… and it hurt because I never wanted to be the reason anyone questioned that.

“You’ve worked so hard to build your reputation,” I told him. “I don’t want to be the reason it becomes tarnished. And Lynn was right, people will—”

“Lynn was a liar,” he snapped. His hands slid up and cupped my cheeks, making sure he held my attention as he continued, “Lynn told you what she wanted you to believe, but it wasn’t the truth—not all of it. Yes, my father had an affair with an employee, but that employee was Lynn.”

My eyes bugged wide. “What?”

“She was the one he was sneaking around with. I wasn’t getting her where she wanted to be fast enough,” he said with a grim nod. “I’d started to realize the kind of person she was and began to pull away. So, she set her sights on my father.”

“Oh, God…”

“I broke it off with her and a few months later was when he had the heart attack, and after that is when the real story began to unfold,” he explained. “I tried to let it go. To ignore her and keep moving on with my life like I assumed she was… until it became clearer and clearer that she wasn’t moving on… she was just trying to get back what she’d lost.”

A hand in the Arden fortune.

“Does Suzanne…” I held my breath.

“She knows now,” he said tightly. “There was a small confrontation on the boat. Lynn… made it clear the reasons she’d become friends with Suzanne, to get closer to me, to work her way into our family and fortune.”

“Oh, God.” I cupped a hand over my mouth. “And Suzanne…”

“Pushed her into the lake.” He smirked.

I stared for a moment, wondering if he was kidding, and as soon as I realized he wasn’t, couldn’t stop the laugh that erupted from my chest. A dunk in the cold lake was the very least of