Rich Dirty Dangerous (Bad Billionaires 3)

Cavan wasn’t some passing fancy, for me. He never had been. He wanted me to take time, to be sure. That ache was the answer.

He was doing his own sorting. I knew because we talked about it all the time. He’d mended things with Devon and reconnected with Max. He’d become friends with both of their girlfriends. I’d been estranged from Mom for seven months, but he’d been estranged from Devon for ten years. They had their own healing

to do, especially after the tragedy of their mother’s murder. And now Cavan was doing the traveling he’d always wanted, seeing the places he wanted to see. He was letting go of his guilt and his pain. It wasn’t just me that needed to search my soul.

My phone rang, and I jumped, my heart beating. It was Cavan, as if he was reading my mind.

“Dani,” he said when I answered.

For a second the world vanished, and there was only his voice, and everything made sense again. The ache hurt harder, became almost pleasure. No man would ever, ever make me feel the way Cavan Wilder did, just by saying my name.

“Hi,” I said.

“What are you doing?” I couldn’t hear anything else on his end of the line—no voices, no traffic. I wondered desperately where he was.

“I’m trying to study,” I said.

“Yeah? And why aren’t you succeeding?”

I only ever had the truth to give him. “Because I’m thinking about you. And fending off passes.”

There was a second of silence on the other end of the line, hot as white coals. “Well, that pisses me off,” he said.

“Then come home,” I shot back.

“What did you say to him?”

“That I’m married.” I looked down at my hand again. “What do you tell the women who make passes at you?”

“Dani, no one makes passes at me.”

“I don’t believe you,” I said. I could picture him—he sometimes sent me photos. He looked a little scruffy again, though not as scruffy as he’d been in the Black Dog. He still wore jeans and t-shirts, but he looked different—his face more open, more relaxed, though it contained some of the reserve he’d never get rid of. Instead of looking serious and mysterious, he looked like a guy who could walk into a bar and have every woman climbing over him in seconds. Which they probably did. Damn him. “Some cowgirl is probably eyeing you right now, getting ready to make her move,” I said.

“If she is, she’s going to be disappointed. I’m married, too.”

“Do you wear your ring?” I asked him.

“Of course I wear it.” The question seemed to puzzle him. “Where is this coming from, Dani?”

“I want you to come home,” I said. “It’s been six months. I know why you left, and in a way you were right. But six months later, I don’t know where you sleep every night. And I still don’t like it.”

He was quiet for a minute. “I sleep alone, sweetheart,” he said.

“You probably do.” I scrubbed my forehead, looking out at the rain. Even in my worst jealous mood, Cavan had never given me a reason to doubt him, just like I’d never given him a reason to doubt me. Deep down, I didn’t think he was fucking anyone. “But I don’t know it. I was leaning on you before—expecting you to fix everything. I see that now. But I’m not doing that anymore. I want you here, Cav. I just do. It’s driving me crazy.”

I wished I could see his face; I couldn’t read his silence. If I could see him, I could read what he was thinking. I knew his face so well. “Dani, I called for a reason,” he said.

Something about his tone made my spine go stiff. “What reason?”

“I have news about McMurphy.” He paused. “Baby, he’s dead.”

I blinked stupidly, wondering if I was losing my mind. “What?”

“The club was doing a deal,” Cavan said. “Automatic weapons. They were trying to get them over the border, and they got caught. Apparently, they started shooting. The cops fired back. Two dead. One was McMurphy.” It was his turn to listen to my silence. “I’m sorry, Dani.”

I nodded, even though he couldn’t see me. I was sorry, too. For what, I had no idea. Maybe that McMurphy was dead. But then again, if he knew I was sorry, McMurphy would laugh at me from wherever he was. “He always said he wanted to live fast and die young,” I said.

“I know.”