long sigh. “No other drivers, no dangerous conditions, no explanation really. All the reports state is that there were brake marks, but it obviously was too late. They slammed into a tree hard enough that we had to have a closed-caskets double funeral.” He paused, looking past Hadley’s shoulder as if he could see his parents behind her if he just stared hard enough. “Web and I woke up one morning, went down to eat breakfast, gave our parents hugs before they left for the day, and never saw them again. It was like they just disappeared—well, except for the news coverage. Even at nine, we couldn’t avoid seeing all that.”
She squeezed his hand. “That must have been awful.”
“It was.” He shrugged. “But you figure out ways of making things work.”
His admission was like a light bulb going on in a dark room, it explained so much. “All the assumptions…”
“I like to think of it as thinking ahead. You can’t be surprised if you’re already prepped.”
“Does it always have to be thinking that people’s motives are bad?”
“It’s not always like that—only when it involves someone or something that really matters,” he said, his voice rough around the edges.
“Like Web,” she said, glancing back down at her hand in his because she didn’t want him to see the yearning in her eyes.
“And others.”
He didn’t say her name, and maybe it was some wayward hope on her part that he meant her, but when she looked back up at him, something shifted. Her sadness that was always just under the surface gave way to a need to reconfirm that life wasn’t just about hiding the broken parts or anticipating the worst of people. That there could be—was—more. That she could be happy just as she was without having to pretend at all.
It was almost guaranteed that she’d regret this later, but for right now, it was the only thing that mattered. She needed to blast away everything else and let that part take over. There was only one way she knew how to do that without faking it and only one person she wanted to do it with.
Without letting herself double- or triple-think it, she leaned in and kissed him, knowing she was only asking for trouble and she was more than okay with that.
Chapter Fourteen
Will froze. It wasn’t because he wasn’t burning for more—because he fucking was—but because Hadley needed to get away from the memories; the pain of the past wasn’t for show. No one was that good of an actress, hundreds of millions on the line or not. She’d pull back in a second, the regret he’d seen in the coat closet clear on her face, and that would be it. And he’d still be here wanting the woman who meant to take his brother for everything she could. But as she moved her soft lips against his, the tip of her tongue teasing him, begging for more, it got harder and harder to hold on to that. Because knowing it was wrong didn’t change the wanting.
He cupped the back of her head, threading his fingers through her brown hair and breaking the kiss. The move cut into him like an icy wind. “Hadley.”
“We shouldn’t,” she said, her voice soft with an edge of need beneath it.
“No.” Still he didn’t move, the tension holding him in place, his fingers tangled in her hair, her body so close, he could feel the heat of her skin against him.
“But we want to.” She looked up at him through her eyelashes. “At least I want to.”
His cock thickened against his thigh as he white-knuckled his control even as it slipped through his grasp. “You are not alone in that.”
“But we can’t.” Her hands on his chest, fingertips gliding their way over him and leaving nothing but unquenched fire in their wake.
He didn’t mean to bring her closer, to glide his hands down to her hips and slide her over so she was on his lap. Her hands were on his shoulders, straddling him. Somehow, even though he knew exactly how perfectly her softness fit against his hardness, he managed to keep his hands light on her hips instead of pulling her down and grinding her against him.
This would kill him.
She would kill him.
God, he’d die happy.
“It’ll complicate things,” he managed to get out through clenched teeth as he fought against the lust burning him from the inside out.
Her cheeks flushed, desire swirling in her eyes, as she clutched his shirt as if