“What shall I do with him?” Dad asked me.
Leo was the man who’d ordered Parker’s murder. I knew exactly what I wanted.
“I don’t want him breathing,” I said, my voice flat. “Ever.”
A ghost of a smile flitted across my dad’s face. “That’s my girl,” he said softly.
My dad opened the door to a waiting limo and I slid inside.
I felt numb. Parker was dead in my apartment, in my bed. My dad seemed to be exactly what Ryker had said he was, and I’d grown up blissfully oblivious. My body was broken and bruised, and my soul … my soul had died back in that apartment with Parker.
“Take me to Ryker’s,” I said to my dad. Ryker needed to know what had happened … and that Parker was dead.
I didn’t ask if Dad knew where Ryker lived. I had a feeling he did. And sure enough, forty minutes later, we were pulling up to Ryker’s house.
The truck was in the driveway and the lights were on.
My dad walked me to the door. It flew open almost immediately.
“Sage,” Ryker said, looking surprised. Seeing my dad, his brow creased in confusion, then he got a good look at my face. His jaw tightened. “What happened?”
“Your job happened,” my dad said. “Leo Shea thought he’d use Sage to get to you. Fortunately, I was keeping a closer eye on my daughter than you were.”
Ryker said nothing, though a wince crossed his features.
“Leo’s left town,” my dad said. “I trust the police won’t devote a tremendous amount of resources looking for him?”
“No,” Ryker rasped, and I knew he understood what my dad wasn’t saying.
“Excellent. Then we have an understanding. I’ll continue to allow you to see my daughter, against my better judgment, but she asked to come here. However, if you continue to take such poor care of her, you and I …”—he paused meaningfully—“will have a problem.”
Ryker didn’t flinch at the threat, but I elbowed my dad.
“Stop,” I chastised him. “Go on and go. I’m exhausted.”
“All right, honey.” He brushed a kiss to my forehead. “Get something on that eye.”
He walked away and I fell against Ryker, tired to the bone and too heartbroken to cry. He pulled me gently inside and closed the door behind me.
I took a deep, steadying breath. “There’s something I have to tell you,” I began …
Sage Reece almost lost the two men she loves:
tough cop Ryker and sexy businessman Parker.
But when a beautiful, cunning woman from their
past returns, Sage must make the most
dangerous play of her life …
Please see the next page for a preview of
Play To Win
Available
from Piatkus in Spring 2016
PROLOGUE
Parker and I have been sleeping together.”
The words fell with the force of a bomb against Ryker’s ears as he stared at the woman he loved. Shock had turned his muscles to stone and he couldn’t move, could barely breathe.
This couldn’t be happening. He couldn’t possibly have understood her correctly. She was lying, or this was a really bad joke—
“I’ve been in love with him for a while,” she continued as though completely unaware of the stake each word was driving into his chest. “And he loves me, too. We were going to tell you before, but …” Her words trailed away and she shrugged.
“But what?” he asked, his voice like a rake on gravel.
“But I love you, too,” she said, tears filling her eyes but not yet spilling over. They clung to her lashes like diamonds sparkling in the sun. “And I don’t want to lose you.”
She moved closer until she stood within a hairbreadth of her abdomen touching his. Lifting her hands, she placed her palms on the bare skin of his chest. Ryker squeezed his eyes shut, his senses assaulted by her—the heat of her touch, the smell of her skin, the brush of her hair against him as it stirred in the breeze.
“We can be happy, the three of us,” Natalie said, her voice a soft murmur of sound. She pressed her lips to his skin, and against his will Ryker’s cock twitched, hardening from her mere touch.
“Parker put you up to this, didn’t he,” Ryker said. That was the only explanation. The woman he knew was sweet and trusting. She’d believe anything Parker told her. God only knew what he’d said to seduce her and make her think they were in love.
“Parker’s your best friend,” she said, her lips moving against his skin. “The three of us together … just think about it.”
But Ryker had stopped listening. Grasping her upper arms so tightly she gasped, he pushed her back so he could see her eyes.
“Tell me the truth,” he growled, trying to keep his temper in check. “Parker filled your head with all this crap about the three of us, didn’t he? He said whatever he had to in order to get you into bed. You love me. You want to be with me. Right?” He shook her slightly before he stopped himself. “Tell me!”