the information I entered on the applications to make sure I didn’t make any errors.
College. A teaching degree.
I shake my head. The possibility is a little more real now that I’m about to submit my applications. I wonder what a normal life would be like for me? What does that feel like? What is it like to be safe and cared for by someone other than my mom and Samantha?
Maybe I want to take care of you instead.
It’s Ryker’s words again in my head. It’s the tone in which he said it that wraps around my heart—sincere, caring, proud.
This is real, Vaughn. Men like Ryker don’t say shit like that unless they mean it.
He’s already gotten the sex, so there’s no need to make promises and say words he doesn’t mean to get you into bed when you’re already there willingly.
The big question is, Why is this notion causing me such panic? Didn’t I already know there’s so much more between us? Isn’t this why I was so upset about the Hamptons and everything after? Or was I just waiting for it to fall to shit? And when it didn’t, I was subconsciously thinking I’d self-sabotage it so it wouldn’t work.
Because I don’t deserve this. A man who wants to take care of me. Not that I’d let him—not in a million years, because that would mean my independence would be tied to reins—but because this is so different and new, and it scares the shit out of me.
But sometimes good things come by conquering your fears.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Ryker
The club is loud and crowded and the last fucking place I want to be right now after my phone call with Chance. The Dillinger family is at a wedding overseas and won’t be back for the next ten days.
I should go to the gym and work off this rage I feel. At Vaughn’s uncle. At Carter Preston. At the life Vaughn had to live and the secrets she’s had to keep.
So many things still run through my head from my meeting with Stuart. So many what-ifs. So many need-to-knows.
I should go and punch the heavy bag and spar until my arms and legs turn to Jell-O, but hell if I can stay away from the one person who owns my mind tonight: Vaughn.
But when it comes down to it, none of it fucking matters other than . . . I miss her.
“Hey, man,” I say to the bartender when I walk up. He’s tall, with darker skin and a smile that I’m sure earns him legs propped on his shoulders more often than not.
He lifts his chin to me. “What’ll you have?”
I peer at the bottles on the wall behind him. “Gin and tonic. And Vaughn Sanders.”
“I can help you with the first. Not my place to help you with the second.” He gives a laugh, but his eyes fire off a warning that I kind of fucking like, kind of fucking hate. She’s mine to look after, not his.
“Good answer.”
He slides a drink across the bar top to me. “You the prick who keeps hurting her?”
I stare at him as the couple beside us turn their attention our way. The music is loud, but our voices are louder.
“Guilty as charged.”
He eyes me a bit closer, takes in my watch and the quality of my shirt, before pursing his lips and nodding as if he now believes me.
“You here to cause trouble?”
“Nope. Just here to see her. It’s been a long week, a lot of hours, and”—I shrug—“she’s who I want to end my night with.”
He licks his bottom lip and holds up a finger when a waitress calls his name. I glance her way, and it’s the woman who walked out with Vaughn the other night.
“Hey. Hi,” she says when she sees me. “What are you doing here? Oh. Vaughn. Right. Sorry. I’m lame,” she says in a breathless and broken sentence as her cheeks flush some.
“You know him, Mel?” the bartender asks.
She nods. “Yeah, he belongs to Vaughn.”
The phrase makes me smile against the rim of my glass as I take a sip and meet the eyes of the bartender. I raise my eyebrows as if to say, See?
“She’s up in Pod Two. There’s a private party up there. If you catch her now, you might get a second with her away from customers.” He points to the stairs at the left of the bar.
“Thanks, man.”
I head up the stairs at a jog, following the signs for each pod until