“Wait.” She dug in her heels. “This is it. This is the answer to both of our problems.”
Reece glanced back at her like she’d lost her mind. And maybe she had, but since Jason, goddamn him, was determined to force her hand, she couldn’t see another way out of this mess.
“Give us a minute?” she asked Elvis. He nodded and both he and his assistant slipped away.
Reece whirled on her. “We’re not getting married.”
“Just hear me out, okay? I know it’s nuts. We’re east and west. But you need the blackmail threat to go away and if we’re married, those pictures and video become sleazy. No longer blackmail material. You can secure your business deal and then we can get it quietly annulled and go our separate ways.”
He opened his mouth. Closed it again. Opened. Closed. Like a fish gasping for breath. Finally, he shook his head and muttered, “It would solve my problem, but what’s in it for you?”
Oh, bugger. She hadn’t thought this far ahead. She should have known he’d not go blithely along with such an insane plan without asking questions first, but how much to tell him?
What’s in it for me, you ask? Well, if we do this, I can unobtrusively get all up in your business, give Jason the information he wants, and maybe, just maybe, he will finally let me go.
Yeah, no. The truth was 100 percent out of the question. She bit down on her lower lip, glanced toward the door, and settled on a version of the truth. “I, uh, kinda need money.”
His eyes darkened and he shrugged off the hand she’d set on his arm. “I should have known.”
“I’m sorry. I wouldn’t ask but I…” Okay, deep breath and spit it out. “I lied to everybody. I, um, kinda own The Bean Gallery.”
“You what?”
“Yeah. Surprise.” She tried for a smile, but it withered under his blistering stare. “I borrowed money from some bad people and bought it when the owners put it up for sale in November, then I told Eva I got a job there.”
Reece pinched the bridge of his nose. “Let me get this straight. You bought a business when you have zero management experience?”
She shrugged. When he put it that way, it did sound ridiculous, but she was a fast learner and until the arson, The Bean Gallery had been doing just fine. “I thought it would be a good way for me to go straight and do something right for once, but now it’s gone and I don’t have a way to pay back the money I owe.”
God, her stomach hurt. The lies came much too easily now.
“Shelby…” Clearly exasperated, he dragged a hand through his hair, tousling the neat strands. “What about insurance? Surely you had the store insured.”
“Yes, but the people I borrowed from…” She motioned to the door behind them and let Reece draw his own conclusions about why Jason had been following her. “They’re not content to wait for an insurance payout and as long as there’s an arson investigation going on, I’m not going to see a dime.”
Reece said nothing for a long time. “So the man chasing you…?”
“Yes. That’s why.” It was the truth. Mostly. Or at least a version of it. But, God, she needed Reece to believe because this half-truth was her only way out. “They sent him after me. I…think they want to make an example out of me.”
“You think?” he demanded. Then after a beat of silence, asked, “How much?”
“One hundred thousand.”
“Jesus Christ, Shelby.”
“C’mon, your car’s worth more than that. It’s pocket change to you.”
He rubbed the back of his neck, sighed. “How bad are these people?”
Oh, God. She didn’t want to tell him.
His eyes narrowed. “Shelby?”
“They’re…” She winced. “The Headhunters.”
“The motorcycle gang? Are you fucking kidding me?”
“Mom used to date one of their guys.” Another half-truth. She was digging herself into a deeper hole, but she couldn’t tell him the full truth and wasn’t that the story of her life? “I grew up around them, and they seemed like a safe bet.”
“A safe bet? Jesus. You wouldn’t know safe if it bit you on the ass.”
“And you wouldn’t know spontaneity if it smacked you upside the head,” she shot back.
Reece made a low grumbling sound in his throat and paced away from her. A few seconds later, he whirled back. “The Headhunters are a criminal organization, no different than the mob. Would you have borrowed the money from the mob?”
“No! Of course not. I have a brain.”
His expression clearly asked, Then why the fuck don’t you use it? But to his credit, he didn’t say it out loud. “They’re absolutely going to make an example out of you if you don’t pay up. That’s their M.O.”
“Yeah, not a newsflash. Why do you think I’m running from them? I like my legs unbroken, thank you very much. Even more than that, I’d really like to keep breathing for the next fifty or so years.”
“All right,” he said abruptly, startling her.