RISKY PLAY (RED CARD #1) BY RACHEL VAN DYKEN Page 0,22

a team picture.

I sighed in relief when each picture I pulled out was in perfect condition.

The sound must have been the pictures hitting each other? I reached in and jerked my hand back as a piece of glass sliced my two fingers.

I sucked the blood and then winced as more blood poured down my palm.

With a curse I jumped to my feet and turned blindly toward the hall to run to the bathroom.

“Doing some recon?” Slade tilted his head, his eyebrows shoved together in an angry slant while he put his hands on his hips like he was guarding me from leaving the room.

I gritted my teeth. “No, actually. Matt said to help you unpack the less personal boxes and your possessed dog made a run for the tower and it fell and—”

“Are you this competent at all your jobs?”

I glared. “I’m competent at everything.”

“Are you, though?” he hissed.

I took a step back.

How dare he!

He actually smiled like it was funny.

FUNNY that we’d had sex.

Funny that I hadn’t known what I was doing.

Comical.

I looked away, my fingers throbbing as I collected blood in my palm. “I’ll just finish up tomorrow.”

“Finish up tonight,” he said with a shrug. “Just don’t break anything you can’t afford to replace.”

I bit my tongue.

It stung hard enough to remind me not to mouth off.

Not to tell him I had a sixty-million-dollar trust fund from my grandfather. That I was a socialite. That before his face graced covers of magazines—it had been mine.

Granted, it was a horrible picture of me crying at the altar, but still.

I checked my watch.

“Am I boring you?” He wiped his face with his hands. That was when I noticed the exhaustion, the dirt covering his cheeks, and the flash of anger in his eyes that hadn’t been there before. As if I was the reason he was upset.

I frowned and then shook my head. “No, sorry. I have dinner plans, so I’ll go ahead and unpack a few boxes, and then I’ll be on my way.”

His jaw tensed.

How had that made him even more pissed?

“I, um, made you a casserole, but if you want to go to a boring dinner with great wine, you’re more than welcome to come with me.” I was waving the white flag, being generous. Maybe he just needed to get out, needed friends, laughter.

I couldn’t believe this was the same man I had met.

I refused to believe it.

He let out a humorless laugh. “You know? I have to admit that’s clever. And I’m so tired it’s almost tempting to say yes. We’d go to an expensive restaurant where you’d most likely be seen, get your picture taken, the friends you invited suddenly can’t make it—perfect plan, right?”

I frowned. “No, actually, that’s not what—” I bit my tongue again, then sighed. “You know what? Never mind. Invitation taken back.” I turned around, completely forgetting about my injured hand before reaching for a box and jerking my hand back as the cuts reminded me with burning intensity that they were still there.

“Why the hell are you bleeding?” His hands were on my hips before I could say anything, and then he was turning me in his arms, pulling my injured hand away from my body and examining it with such care that I almost stopped breathing. He leaned down and blew across the slices of marred skin.

“Come on.” He pulled me into the adjoining bathroom and lifted me onto the counter like I wasn’t diseased anymore. Maybe instinct had kicked in. Maybe he was going to snap later and he was just warming me up.

He was causing very severe trust issues in my heart.

Slade pulled out a first aid kit and some witch hazel wipes. He ran the wipes down my fingers then grabbed some antiseptic, gently rubbing it across the cuts.

I jerked in pain.

“Sorry.” He said it like he meant it.

I stared at him like he’d lost his mind.

And he stared back like he wanted me to help him find it.

Too soon, the moment was gone as he wrapped my fingers in Band-Aids and then cleaned up the mess.

We locked eyes. His swirled with uncertainty, mistrust, so much pain I wanted to reach out and pull him in for a hug, but given his recent behavior he’d probably think I was trying to sleep with him. So I went for “Thank you” instead.

He nodded his head once. And then left me sitting there on the bathroom countertop wondering how to merge the two versions of him into