Busted (Barnes Brothers #3) (26 page)

Then, before she could chicken out, she finished in a rush. “I think there’s something I need to tell you anyway.”

*   *   *

Trey felt like he’d just gotten off one of the coasters at Busch Gardens—he’d gone up, then down, then up . . . and he was about to crash down again, he knew it. The adrenaline high he’d been riding on was about to give out, too.

They were downstairs now, in her kitchen, because she’d wanted a glass of wine. She’d offered him one, but his mind was already spinning and he knew better than to try alcohol now. So maybe he’d been able to have a beer with his brother—even if he’d done it to challenge himself.

He wasn’t going to push his luck, considering the look in Ressa’s eyes.

She stood on the far side of the room, a glass of the red wine in one hand, her gaze on the floor. She opened her mouth, closed it. Then abruptly, she said, “Let’s go back to my room.”

Once there, he gathered up his clothes, tugging on his jeans. He had a feeling this wasn’t going to go well and if he was right, he wanted to be able to just get dressed and leave.

He didn’t know what she was going to say, but it wasn’t going to be fun.

He’d seen that look too many times—it was the look that said,
I’ve got bad news and you’re not going to like it
.

Besides, bad news and being naked just didn’t mix well together. There was something about being dressed that just made hard news a little more tolerable, he decided.

Taking any kind of bad news naked was just a double punch to the gut.

Apparently, she agreed. She pulled a black robe over the sexy blue sleep shirt she wore, but she left the robe untied and the black framed her goddess-like body as she started to pace.

“I . . .” She pursed her lips and blew out a breath. “Look, this isn’t the easiest thing to tell you. It’s not something I generally talk about much. There’s not really a graceful way to work this into a conversation. If all we’d had was Jersey, then it wouldn’t matter. But now . . .”

He just waited as she looked down, her shoulders slumped, the coils she’d twisted into her hair falling to shield her face.

Slowly, she looked up and took another breath, deeper this time, like she was gathering herself.

Her eyes were solemn.

She looked like she was braced for a blow.

What is this?
he wondered.

A taut, heavy silence stretched out, and then finally she threw the words out, almost like a challenge.

“My cousin is in prison . . . and it’s my fault she’s in there.”

Trey just stared at her.

She crossed her arms over her chest and started to tap her foot. “Did you hear me?”

“Yeah.” He hooked his hand over his neck, rubbed the muscles there for a minute, and then he stood up, moving to stand in front of her. “Is this Neeci’s mom?”

“Yes.” She lifted her chin, almost in challenge.

“Okay.” Then he scowled. “Well, I guess it’s not okay—it’s got to be hell on you all, but . . . I don’t see what this has to do with us.”

She just stared at him for a long moment and then she tossed half the glass of wine back, like it was pure moonshine. “Are you serious? Didn’t you
hear
me?” she asked when she was done. She thumped the glass down with so much force, he was surprised it didn’t break. “My cousin is in jail—we were like sisters and
I
am the reason she’s in there and you don’t see what it has to do with us?”

“Well. No.” Tucking his thumbs in his pockets, he rocked back on his heels, eying her narrowly. He couldn’t quite tell how to take this mood of hers. Not at all. But he wasn’t tracking this line of thought she had, either. “It’s not like I’m dating her.”

“You should probably rethink if you want to date
me
.”

“Why the hell would I do that?” he snapped. Now he was getting pissed.

She stormed over to him and poked him in the chest with a finger. “You think about what the headline on some of the gossip rags will read like if this goes anywhere, hotshot?
I
have.
Learn the scandalous secrets behind the girlfriend of Trey Barnes, publishing’s golden boy
.”

“I’m
not
anybody’s golden boy.” Capturing her wrist, he held it in his grasp when she would have tugged away. He hauled her up against him, using his free arm to wrap around her waist. She glared up at him, but it did something to the ache and the anger forming inside him when she didn’t pull away. Trying to hold that anger in check, he half growled, “And for the record, I don’t give a damn what any gossip rag says about me. We lived through all of that shit growing up. You think I
care
?”

“But most of that was probably
just
gossip,” she said, her voice rising. “They’d have a field day digging up things about
my
past . . . and then there’s Kiara. This isn’t gossip, Trey! It’s reality.”

She jerked her hand away and the venom, the remnants of horror in her voice caught him so off guard that he let her go. Her eyes shot hot, brutal sparks at him and then she spun away, her strides erratic and jerky.

She fumbled as she tied her robe, then, as though the admission had chilled her to the bone, she rubbed her hands up and down her arms.

The roaring in his ears faded as the seconds ticked by. His hands felt empty.

“Ress.”

“Don’t,” she said, her voice low. “Just . . . don’t. I need a minute.”

Slowly, she lowered herself to sit on the edge of the bed, arms crossed protectively across her chest as she huddled in on herself. It hit him then, how she waited, the way she’d looked at him. Like she was braced for some violent blow.

And that was what she’d expected.

She really thought he’d push her away over this.

She needed a minute? No, he thought. That wasn’t what she needed at all. Slowly, he crossed the floor and knelt in front of her. She flinched and tried to pull away.

He reached out and caught her behind the knees, holding her in place.

“Whatever it is,” he said slowly, waiting until she lifted her chin and met his eyes. “
Whatever
it is . . . she did it. How can it be your fault?”

An erratic breath escaped her and then she shoved past him. He ended up on his butt while she moved to grab her wine. Sighing, he levered himself onto the bed and watched as she tossed back half the glass.

“Yeah,” she said, her voice thick and scathing. “
She
did it. But she never would have gotten involved if it hadn’t been for me . . . and I’m the one who turned her in.”

She turned back to face Trey now and her eyes glittered with tears—both rage and misery shone there. In that moment, he couldn’t think.

“She got herself in a mess of trouble and there’s no denying that. But that’s not going to make a difference when push comes to shove and Neeci asks why her mama is in jail—and I have to tell her the truth.”

“Ressa—”

“Shut up!” She hurled the glass. It shattered, the glass splintering on impact. She barely noticed. “You don’t
know
, okay? You don’t . . . you can’t . . .”

Droplets of wine clung to her lower legs. Bits of glass sparkled around them as he rose. He crossed to her, sidestepping the glass. He caught her, ignoring as she tried to jerk away. “Be still,” he growled.

“What do you know!” she half shouted, half struggling as he dumped her on the bed. “You got this perfect family . . . movie star brothers, perfect parents. Since when in your perfect life has anything
ever
gone wrong?”

The second the words left her mouth, she stilled.

Trey stared at her.

Slowly, he backed away. Glass crunched under his feet and pain shot up his foot. Turning away, he looked at all the glass while her words echoed through his head.

My perfect life
.

“Trey, I . . .”

“Where do you keep your dust pan and broom?” he asked, the words sounding oddly wooden, flat.

“Trey, listen . . .”

“Where?”

“Shit, I . . .”

He turned his head.

“There’s one in my bathroom closet,” she said, turning her head and staring toward the window.

He barely remembered the next few seconds, barely remembered the sweeping up the glass, dumping it in the small trash can inside her blue and silver bathroom. The bloody red streaks on the floor had him stilling and he frowned, staring at it until he realized it was coming from his foot.

He sat on the toilet and stared at the sole of his foot, the small, jagged bit of glass barely visible.

“Let me help.”

He ignored her as he tried to catch it between his thumb and forefinger.

My perfect life.

She nudged his hands aside and he averted his gaze as she used a pair of tweezers to pull the bit of glass out. The small pain barely fazed him and he took the pad of gauze from her when she would have pressed it to the cut.

“I’m sorry.”

He just shook his head.

“Trey, look, my head is all messed up. I . . .”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said brusquely. He caught sight of the neat little first-aid kit she’d put on the counter. He flipped it open and found a bandage.

“Trey. Look . . .”

“It was a bad idea,” he said shortly as he dragged on the rest of his clothes. “Coming over here like this. I’ll go. We’ll . . . talk. Sometime.”

He was down the stairs and halfway to the door when she shouted at his back. “It
was
my fault!”

The misery in her voice froze him. He wanted to be gone, wanted to leave and just . . . hell, he didn’t want to go home. He
thought maybe, just maybe, he actually wanted a drink. No. No, he wanted to get drunk, even craved that oblivion.

But he knew better.

He just stood there and waited.

“She . . . I . . . she was like my little sister. Her mama—Mama Ang—she’s the one who got me off the streets. She saved me,” she said softly. “Kiara was . . . she was like my sister, you know. We lived here, in this beautiful, nice house . . .”

“This was . . . it was Bruce’s house. I bought it from Mama Ang a few years ago. Bruce was Kiara’s stepfather, but they never got along well. When he died, he left the house to Mama Ang. He gave me the Mustang and some money, left his other car to Kiara and some money—a lot of it, really. But it was held in trust. She couldn’t get it unless it was used for college. Once she turned twenty-five, she would get twenty thousand a year for the next five years, but . . .” Ressa sighed, the sound shaky and soft. Tired. “She hated it. Didn’t know why I got the car and money, but she had to wait. She was three years younger than me, still in school. I’d already started college . . .”

Her voice trailed away.

“Fuck. If he knew . . .”

Turning, he found her standing in the middle of the room, arms once more wrapped around herself. “If he knew what I was doing, he wouldn’t have given me shit,” Ressa said, her voice harsh.

Now she looked up at him. “Seven years ago, I was arrested on suspicion of prostitution.”

*   *   *

He just stared at her.

Those blue green eyes had gone blank and she couldn’t read anything from him.

When he just stood there, silent, she lifted a brow. “What . . . Don’t you have anything to say?” She moved into the living room, unable to keep watching him. For a moment, she just stood there, her chest aching as she took in the world that she now lived in. A world that she didn’t really deserve. Hearing the creak of a floorboard, she moved farther into the room and settled down on a wide, fat chair. Bruce had
bought it for Mama Ang, placed it right here in this spot by the fireplace so she could read. He’d ended up using it more than she did.

Mama Ang hadn’t been able to sit in it since the day she’d found him in it—lifeless. That big heart of his had just stopped.

Aware of Trey’s watchful gaze, she crossed her legs, taking her time to smooth down the robe. Then she met his eyes.

“Are you just going to leave it at that or are you going to explain?” he asked, his voice oddly calm.

“What’s there to explain?” She shrugged lazily. “My senior year of college, I was arrested for prostitution.”

“How about you tell me whether or not you were guilty—and if so . . .
why
?”

The question—both of them—caught her off guard.

She’d expected him to just walk.

That was why she’d done it. It would be easier. That was why she’d tried to keep him at a distance ever since that morning in New Jersey. She’d felt herself on this slippery hill that very morning. Or maybe she’d been slipping even before then.

She wanted to protect herself—that was even why she’d told Travis. If
he
went and told his brother and Trey pushed her away, then she could blame him. If he walked without her explaining, then she could still blame him.

But now . . .

Lowering her head, she caught the end of her belt and started to twirl it around her finger. “No,” she said softly. “I was willing to do plenty of things for money, but I wasn’t a whore.”

Even though she didn’t hear him, she knew he’d crossed over to her and she caught her breath, not daring to move. When his hand brushed her cheek, she continued to stare at her fingers, worrying the black silk.

“Why don’t you just tell me, Ressa?”

Because when you walk away, it’s going to be because you know the truth . . . and it won’t be anybody’s fault but mine.
She swallowed around the knot in her throat. The ache in her chest threatened to choke her.

“I had the money from Bruce,” she said softly. “But it was just barely enough. I was working at a fast-food place, up until midnight, cramming for all these classes . . . trying so hard to
keep up. It seemed like everybody else around me was having a good time and there I was, struggling just to hold my head above water. December rolled around and Mama Ang called, wanted to take me and Kiara to Florida for a vacation over the break, but I couldn’t go.” She shrugged. “I tried to act like it wasn’t a big deal, but my job . . . they wouldn’t let me have the time off. I’d just started and all. I was in my room, sulking, and my roommate came in. She was always out—dressed like Cinderella, and I thought she must have had one hell of a Prince Charming, because she’d come back with gifts and she was never hurting for money. Her parents weren’t loaded or anything—they had a dairy farm up in Indiana and she was there on scholarship, just like I was.”

Resting her head on the back of the couch, she thought of the last time she’d seen Hannah. She’d looked just as scared, just as miserable as Ressa had felt. “Hannah asked me if I’d like to maybe stop working so hard. She knew how I could get enough money to cover my books and everything that my scholarship wouldn’t cover—plus still have money left over. I told her to get the hell out. Figured she was talking about drugs and I’d finally gotten clear of that. Took a long time to get away from everything my dad had done—the mistakes I’d almost made. But she laughed. It wasn’t drugs. Wasn’t anything illegal. Was usually even fun. She told me I could do a trial run, even.”

Sighing, she looked back at him. “Hannah was an escort—there was a teacher’s aide who’d set it up. About fifteen girls from that school and a community college a few miles away. It was easy money. I’d get anywhere from two hundred to five hundred dollars just to spend an evening or a day with some guy who didn’t want to go to a party by himself. A few times, I’d fly to some event—there was one in New York, one in Miami. I’d make more on those. It seemed like a dream come true.”

Unable to sit there any longer, she got up and moved to the fireplace. The hearth was empty and cold. The mantle held pictures—a few of Mama Ang and Bruce, a couple of Kiara from high school but most of them were of Neeci.