“I see.”
The battle waging inside Polly was quite apparent to Austin. She hated the casual manner in which he spoke about ruining men, understandable considering what Reitman had done to her fathers. But the steady rise and fall of her chest, the constant rewetting of her lips, told Austin she had an appreciation for the game. Fuck, her legs looked extra spreadable in the sunlight. That same light would make her nipples shine like rubies if he sucked them. It would be so easy to distract them both with sex, postpone the inevitable just a little while longer.
You owe her more than that. Deep breath.
“What do you have on him?” Polly asked, dragging him back to the present.
“You don’t want to know, sweet. You don’t need to.”
Austin set down his already-empty glass, more than a little shaken by the protectiveness unfurling within him. There was more at stake here than ruining his chance at being with Polly again. He didn’t want her sullied by the knowledge of how his world worked. The things he’d done were vile. They had no goddamn business touching Polly or making a home inside her remarkable mind. But he’d come this far, and she wouldn’t let him skate if he backed off now.
“Reitman used Darren’s brother’s connections to gain entry into the large-scale investment community,” he said. “And with the threat hanging over his head, the brother had no choice but to make introductions. It wasn’t long until Reitman found his mark.”
Austin swallowed the cement coating his throat, felt the weight drop into his stomach. “His mark is Isobel Pierce, the woman Derek spoke about this morning in the meeting. Her last name is different from when I…knew her. It used to be Klausky, but she’s divorced now, you see.”
Some of the color drained from Polly’s face, the transition made all the more drastic by the luminous sunlight. “You know her?”
“I knew her.” Austin paced to the bed and dropped down onto the edge, running stiff fingers through his hair. “Polly, this is one fucked-up story. I’d rather you go on thinking I’m simply a cheat with an unforgivable ego. I’d rather you think of me that way than know for certain I’m a monster.”
The silence that fell was ear piercing, but she ended it mercifully after a minute. “I don’t want to be like everyone else, looking at you and seeing whatever illusion you choose to project. Tell me.”
Already knowing the outcome would be Polly walking out on him, Austin’s courage was pathetically low, but he held on to it with an iron grip. “I started off in Brighton, making suckers out of tourists with a basic shell game. That’s all it was ever supposed to be. Supplementing my allowance while alleviating the boredom that plagues most sixteen-year-olds.” He clasped his hands together between his knees. “A man approached me one afternoon and asked for a game. I don’t know what it was about him, but I refused to give him a go. He would have taken my winnings, I was sure of it.”
Restless at the memory, wishing he could go back in time and warn his past self of what lay on the horizon, Austin stood and blew out a breath. “He convinced me to pack it in for the night and we talked. He showed me monte and some other easy moneymakers.” Finding the right words was hard, having never explained what drew him to the life. “Until then, every day was the same. Gray skies. School uniform. The same conversations each night at dinner. And then there was this person, telling me I could make it on my own. See everything. That I had the right disposition and aptitude to be a self-made man. A…con.”
Austin watched as Polly replenished her drink, crossing to his empty glass and filling it, too. As she closed the distance between them to hand him the whiskey, Austin’s blood turned heavy in his veins, pumping with scorching need. He took the drink in one hand, grabbing her wrist with the other. “You know I could stop talking right now and use my mouth for something far more interesting.” His thumb pressed down on her fluttering pulse, inhaling her lemonade scent like a junkie. “I know you wore that lace for me. Want to watch me use my teeth to get through it to what’s beneath? I’ll rip it off your * little by little until your sweetness is fair game for my tongue. All you have to do is take your skirt off, lie down, and call me your good boy.”
She pitched to the side before righting herself and stepping back from him as if he’d already torn off the mask and revealed what lay beneath. Perhaps he had. Being censured for his past sins had never felt more vital than it did right now. Polly was the only one who could do that for him. Would she?