Every Little Thing (Hart's Boardwalk 2)

“Bailey, can I get you anything?” Dahlia stood in the doorway to my office.

The worry in her eyes made the tears in mine spill over.

“Oh, sweetie.” She rushed over and bent down to hug me tight.

I held on and lost it completely.

Moments later Dahlia pulled away and I was hauled up out of my chair. Through confusion and blurry vision I barely recognized him. His familiar cologne and his strong embrace penetrated.

I sank into Vaughn, crying into his neck as he hushed me while gently rubbing my back.

“Princess, please,” he begged. “Stop. It’s going to be okay.”

“It’s not!” I sobbed, not caring what a mess I was. “This is my home and Ian Devlin is going to come in and make my life hell and then try to take it from me and I might let him if he starts trying to change things and drive me insane and I just don’t know if—”

“Stop, stop.” Vaughn pushed me from him, his grip on my upper arms almost bruising. “No one is taking anything from you.” He looked back at Dahlia, who stood with tears in her eyes. “Can you give us a minute?”

She nodded and left the room, closing the office door behind her.

I sensed a new tension in Vaughn. “What? What is it? What happened?”

He let go of me to pick up papers he’d settled on my desk. He handed them to me and I stared at them, still confused. The words on the paper started to make a little sense. “This is a contract. For Vanessa’s share?”

“I bought it.”

“What?” What the hell did that mean? “What?” I repeated.

“That was her plan all along.”

“Explain from the beginning.”

“When I left here after you said you didn’t want my help . . .”

I winced at that. “I hurt your feelings, didn’t I?”

He gave me this sardonic I’m a man, I don’t have feelings look, but I knew. I’d unintentionally hurt his feelings.

“I’m an asshole.”

Vaughn grinned. “You’re not. You were just upset. While you were talking with your family I started to think, why would Vanessa warn you about the dinner tonight with the Devlins? Why give you a heads-up?”

My God, I hadn’t even . . . Vaughn was right. That made no sense. Why give me time to find a way to stop her? And then, staring up at my handsome, very wealthy boyfriend, it hit me. “You.”

His expression was grim. “Me. She wanted a counteroffer.”

Nausea rose up inside of me. “She used me to get to you.”

“Bailey—”

“Oh, God, no, Vaughn, I won’t let you do this.” I stood up, holding the contract out to him. “I won’t let her manipulate you like this.”

“It’s done,” he said firmly. “And I won’t be talked out of it.”

As he took hold of my wrist and tugged me into him, the contract crushed between us, I felt something building inside of me, something huge and overwhelming and terrifying.

“My lawyer is going to draw up another contract in the morning. I’m handing the shares back over to you.”

“No.” The word was out of me before I could stop it.