By Request Collection April-June 2016. Оливия Гейтс

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СКАЧАТЬ here to hurt you. I swear. I want to help.” He looked down, then shook his head before facing her again. “Whatever you think of me, you need to listen because you could be in real danger. Please, Annie. I’m begging you.”

      God, this was so hard and, again, she’d brought this agony on herself. Was this what the rest of her life would be like? One giant mistake after the next? Because when she looked at Tucker, she saw the same man from this morning. From last night. From the bathtub in the Hilton. His eyes were pained, his brow furrowed.

      And she wanted to believe him. Again.

      All the energy drained out of her. Over two years of fear, of being so careful, of loneliness and regret. She’d lived a shadow life, and when she’d finally dared go into the sun, she’d been burned.

      “Fine. We’ll go inside.” She nervously touched her hair, which brought a memory she’d now sooner forget. “I’ll tell you what you want to know, but you’ll be disappointed. Whatever you or Christian were hoping to find out, I don’t have it. I’ve got nothing.”

      He walked with her, his hand hovering near the small of her back before he brought it, fisted, to his side. During the short trip to the cabin, he repeated the gesture three times.

      She wasn’t sure if she should laugh or cry. Mostly because she had no idea what it meant. Her instinct, still, was to trust him. Maybe it was some kind of reaction to his family. She’d never been attracted to Christian, not like she was with Tucker, but she’d foolishly trusted him. Christian had been clever and a smooth talker. Though they hadn’t even discussed being more than business associates.

      Thank God. One was more than enough.

      The cabin smelled like matzo balls and chicken soup. She wanted to throw it all out, clear the air of any traces that reminded her of their night in Kalispell. Instead, she pulled out one of the wooden chairs and sat down, her hands folded on the tabletop. “What did you come here to do?”

      He got out a couple of sodas and opened the cans, putting one in front of Annie. He sat close enough to see her well, probably so he could look into her eyes and figure out when she was lying. She wouldn’t tell him anything but the truth, though. She was done with the secrets and lies. They’d caused her enough pain.

      “I came to see for myself if you were Leanna Warner,” he said. “The website photo was a bit fuzzy, and you were turned away from the camera.”

      “You must have confirmed it was me five minutes in. Why didn’t you call the authorities?”

      He shifted in his chair, drank some soda. “You didn’t make sense. I was expecting someone else, even after I realized you were the woman Christian claimed ruined his life.”

      She blinked at the slightly disdainful way he said his brother’s name. And he’d used the word claimed. It was nothing for her to be pleased about….“What does that mean?”

      “I was looking for an embezzler. Someone who would steal money from charities. I thought I had managed to make some pieces fit when I took into account that you’d only skimmed the profits. What kind of thief leaves the original investments? That part was confusing before I left Dallas. Meeting you, some pieces fit. But not enough.”

      “Maybe because I didn’t embezzle anything.”

      “I know that now,” he said, and couldn’t be more matter-of-fact. “Hell, I knew before now.”

      “When?”

      “Did I know you weren’t guilty? The first day.”

      She shook her head. It hadn’t been a trick question, but it told her that he wasn’t being entirely truthful. The first day? Did he think she was that stupid? Well, yeah, he probably did, because that’s how she’d played things.

      “I didn’t say I thought You were innocent.” His brows lifted, his gaze steady. “Not guilty is different.”

      Annie thought for a moment. “You believed I knew something and kept quiet.”

      “Actually, after I met you, my theory was that you did embezzle the money, but you were coerced.”

      “That’s still stealing.”

      “Yes, but with mitigating circumstances.”

      She broke down and picked up the can of soda he’d brought her. Her hand still shook, but her mouth was dry and she needed the liquid. Maybe he was telling the truth. He could’ve given her a fluffy answer.

      “Look, I’ve had someone working on what happened to that money. He’s good at what he does, and he’s thorough.”

      “And?”

      Tucker took in a deep breath, wiped his face with his hand before he let it out. “I’ll tell you everything, but first, I have to understand something. Why did you run?”

      Her face filled with an all too familiar heat. More than any one thing that kept her awake at night, her skipping town was the worst of it. “I didn’t even know anything was wrong until I got word I was going to be subpoenaed by the district attorney. I thought it was a joke, until I checked the accounts. All the investment interest, dividends, were gone. I’d made a client’s deposit the week before, and the account had been in perfect order.

      “I freaked. I had raised all the original funds and made promises about the rate of returns. So I went to an attorney, an old college friend. I told him what had happened, that I had no idea how the money had been taken or by whom.”

      “Did you ask Christian?”

      She stared at Tucker. “Of course I did. He was more freaked out than me. He told me he was calling the Securities and Exchange Commission, the trade commission, the CEO of the brokerage. He swore he’d get to the bottom of this, no matter what.”

      Tucker nodded slowly. “Sorry, go on.”

      She drank more soda and realized she wanted water, but she couldn’t seem to move. “My attorney made some phone calls. Because I hadn’t been served yet, or accused of any crime, he didn’t have to report me. Anyway, he told me that the D.A.’s office was out for blood because it was charity money missing. The embezzlement had even hit the papers, although it seemed everyone’s attention was on Christian. He was the most logical suspect, but they didn’t have an obvious paper trail.

      “There was no question I would be included in the investigation. My lawyer didn’t think it would matter that I had nothing to give the D.A.”

      “What does that mean?”

      “He said that in the end, someone would go down for the crime, and if it wasn’t Christian, it would be me.”

      “But there was no paper trail leading to you, either.”

      “I had no way of knowing that. By then, I was completely shut out. Christian wasn’t returning my phone calls, and when I finally did get through using a friend’s cell, he hung up on me. I had no access to the computers or the accounts. It was a nightmare.”

      Annie stood, able to move at last. Never had she hated the size of the room more. It felt too much like a cage. “It was my own fault, though.”

      “Wait—”

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