BIG: (A Bad Boy Stepbrother Romance) (31 page)

The swim back was less scary, maybe because she was deliriously happy—enjoying her own rebirth—or maybe because she’d already done it and knew she wouldn’t drown.

They redressed, ate, and just as she thought he might be taking her hand to lead them to the sorely under-used mattress, he slung his backpack over his shoulder and led her into another tunnel in the caves.

The further down they went, the hotter she got, and the cool air that hit her when they emerged into another cavern did nothing to turn down the heat coming through the ground.

She wasn’t entirely shocked to see the lava pit at the entrance to another tunnel further down.

“Is this where you made the ring?” She squeezed Ric’s hand and grinned up at him.

“You have to ruin the romantic surprise, don’t you?”

“Sorry.” She shrugged, edging towards the lava pit. “This thing isn’t going to spit, is it?”

“No. It’s low-energy. Like Pele in Hawaii. But yeah, I made your ring here.” He picked up a brand by the side of the pit and a little disc that looked like a mold. “I made the ring not knowing whether you’d wind up wearing it or not.” His smile flickered and died. “There was no guarantee.”

“There is now.” She smiled up at him but he didn’t smile back.

“I have one more confession to make. God, I wish I didn’t.” His face remained stony as he reached into his backpack and hauled out some sheets of paper.

“What’s going on, Ric?” Her heart fluttered, telling her she couldn’t take much more, and she knew it.

“There’s something I have to show you. I screwed up, Leesa.”

“Please don’t let this be another test,” she said under her breath, but he heard her.

“It’s not a test. Not for you, at least.” Ric’s voice had dropped so low it was almost a whisper.

It would be so nice if her world could just stay on its axis for more than a few hours at a time. Annalesa took the papers he handed over, her fingers numb. A heavy rock sat in her gut, making her feel nauseous. She glanced over the information on the papers several times but couldn’t take it in, distracted by the cold crawling through her veins.

If she was reading it right—and she wasn’t sure she was—these papers would force her to hand over her entire Ryker stake to Ric and Arensen.

She re-read again. Still the same.

Annalesa looked up at him, dumbstruck.

“It’s not how it looks,” Ric whispered.

“No?”

“Leesa—”

Annalesa pulled away from him as his hand approached her shoulder and strode across the cave to the far skylight, determined to focus on what she was reading.

Glancing through, it seemed like a standard buy-sell agreement, which would oblige Ryker to buy her shares back if they moved in a direction she didn’t like as a minority shareholder. But why the hell should he be so worried about that?

She read further down, in the small print.

The papers also entitled Ric or Arensen to buy her shares back by force if the company was changing direction, and she refused to sell out or give them support on the board.

She couldn’t stay still, pacing the cave and scrunching the papers in her fist.

He put me through all of this so I could prove
he
could trust
me?

There were
so
many things wrong with the set-up she didn’t know what to be mad about first.

“Leesa—”

“Don’t ‘Leesa’ me!”

“I wasn’t going to go through with it.”

“Go through with what?”

“Pushing you off the board.”

She gaped at him. “And why the hell would you want to do that? Is all this part of your complete inability to distinguish between revenge and justice?”

Ric couldn’t look at her. “I brought the papers with me to burn.”

“Well, thank you, but I’m not sure a ritual burning’s going to make me feel any better about this!”

Ric looked like he was going to yell back but sighed hard, his hands on his hips. He dropped his head forward, clearly trying to get a grip on himself.

Eventually he met her eyes across the cavern. “This is really complicated.”

“This is complicated?” she scoffed. “
This
is complicated? We’ve gone a hella long way past complicated here! We passed complicated about a zillionty miles ago!”

“But you don’t understand.”

“I understand perfectly.” She glared at him. “You needed my shares for a vested interest. You need a majority vote for something—for what, I don’t know—but that much is obvious. This isn’t brain surgery. Did it ever occur to you that you could just
ask
me, Ric? I know what Ryker Arms means to you! Or didn’t you
trust
me enough?”

“Okay, the truth. I was supposed to get you to sign.” He dragged his hands down his face. “It was part of the plan. The... revenge. These papers. I was going to get you to sign and then...”

“Then dump me. Heartbroken and penniless.”

“It’s not that clear—”

“Oh yes, it is—crystal!”

“You could forgive me Jenny and Ryan, but not this?” His jaw clenched. “Is the money that important to you?”

“Fuck the money! And fuck you!” She turned to face him, screaming.

“Listen, I’m
not
asking you to sign them.” Ric crossed the cavern towards her, treading like each footfall might send him crashing through thin ground into a bottomless pit. He stopped in front of her, his fists opening and closing. “I want to burn them. Consequences be damned. Don’t you see? This is the last thing... I swear to fucking God, it’s the last goddamned lie, and I want it in ashes. I don’t want anything left between us anymore.”

“Why didn’t you tell me before? When you told me about Jenny and Ryan?”

“I wanted to do it here.” He nodded at the lava. “With you. Hopefully, after you’d accepted my proposal. But I would have done it anyway, myself, if you hadn’t. I didn’t think the money stuff would mean so much...”

“You’re beginning to make me regret saying yes.” It was a cold, awful thing to say, and he winced—but she didn’t care. “The money doesn’t mean a damned thing, by the way. But your lack of trust in me does. What do you need a majority vote for? What’s going on?”

“Some of the board members want to move Ryker in a different direction, and Anders doesn’t approve. Neither do I, actually. Dad convinced most of these board members that their recommendations for Ryker’s extended military involvement were a little premature. But in the last couple months, well... some of them started voicing their political opinions more... loudly.”

“So you need my shares to make sure you’ve got a majority vote when you need one?”

“Not just yours, but yeah.” His shoulders drooped, like the weight of the world was on them again. “Yours is the last. And it will make the majority. But I can’t. I won’t.”

“Well, how kind of you.”

“Look, when Anders asked me to do this, he knew I hadn’t talked to you in ages. He thought I hated you—hell,
I
thought I hated you. It fit nicely into my little plan to... God, I’m an asshole. To take you down—to hurt you, like you hurt me. Like I... like I
believed
you hurt me.”

“
Anders
asked you?” She narrowed her eyes at him. “There have to be more shares floating out there up for grabs. Why does he need mine? Can’t he go after those, if he’s so determined?”

“No, he can’t.” Ric’s voice was hoarse, his gaze full of sorrow.

Then Annalesa remembered Ric telling her about Anders getting shafted out of his own inheritance after spending a lot of money trying to keep control on the Ryker Board.

He was out of money.

And options.

She was their last hope at getting a majority vote.

“Does he know you won’t get my shares?”

“I haven’t told him.” Ric grimaced. “He thinks he’s made his financial sacrifice and now he wants me to make mine.”

“Me.
I’m
the sacrifice.”

“Not anymore.” He sighed. “Look, Leesa... Anders is hurt. He half raised me, you know? Dad’s great but... he’s not around a lot. And his choices in women—at least until he met your mother, and I’m pretty sure she picked him, not the other way around—have been kind of questionable.”

Annalesa cringed at that.

“Anders has put his neck on the line for me so many times, and now he’s just trying to protect the company. And he has no idea about us, so he doesn’t understand why I’m hedging.”

She sighed and dropped down onto a rock, wondering if it might be any solution for her to go to a board meeting, but she wouldn’t have a clue which end was up with the Ryker business, and wouldn’t know one military body’s agenda from another’s. She got her board papers, sure, but she was way too busy with the gallery to—

“Ric?” Annalesa’s head came up sharply. “Tell me the truth—was the gallery a ‘gift’ to distract me from all the stuff going on with Ryker Arms?”

Again, he couldn’t look at her.

“Oh for fucksake.” She cradled her head in her hands. “How am I supposed to know what’s real and what isn’t? You did all of this supposedly so I could prove myself to you—when you’ve been lying and stringing me along the whole way!”

“I know.” He looked sick at her words. “I didn’t think you could ever forgive me—but you did. Leesa,
you said yes.
It was just this one last thing...”

“Straw that broke the camel’s back,” she snapped. “They have that saying for a reason.”

“The more time we started spending together, the more I realized I was in love with you.” He knelt in front of her, grabbing her hands. “I knew taking your shares would be a mistake, but my fucking ‘diabolical plan’ starting taking on a life of its own, and the further into it we got, the more in love I was, the harder it became to tell you the truth.”

He lowered his head to her knee. “I’d already put you through so much. I was afraid you’d turn and walk away forever if I told you about the shares, after Jenny and Ryan and...”

“Enough.” She put her hand on his head, taking a deep breath. She knew vulnerability when she saw it and it was all over Ric’s face. She didn’t want to see it there.

“I love you, Leesa.” Ric’s voice was strangled. “I fucked up. I know I fucked up. And I’m doing my best to make it right again.”

“Get up, Viking.” She squeezed his fingers. “Begging doesn’t suit you.”

He stood, shaking badly.

“Swear to me.” She looked up at him. He towered over her. “There’s nothing else you’re not telling me.”

“I swear. No more secrets.” The rigid lines of his face softened. “Is this you saying you’ll still marry me?”

“Yes.” Tears welled over and he looked pained as he leaned in to wipe them from her cheeks. “Just burn those papers before—”

Ric grabbed her, pressing his lips down on hers, kissing her hard, pulling her against his front. His kiss was urgent, almost frenzied. She let him get his relief out of his system, losing herself in the way his hands travelled up her back and laced into her hair at the nape of her neck. He stroked her as his lips and tongue gradually became less forceful. She looped her arms around his waist, stroking the tip of her tongue over the surface of his. Eventually, she rested her face against his chest and kissed it before pulling away.