RULE Release Day!

RULE

“What in the ever-loving fuck is this?”

Her voice grated on my nerves, pulling me out of a restless sleep. I shifted, every muscle in my back spasming.

“Don’t tell me you slept here,” Rhyan scolded, her footsteps heavy as she moved to the windows.

A moment later, I was blinded by the morning sun.

I grunted and pushed to a sitting position, silently cursing the hard fucking couch.

“It’s morning, and we’ve got shit to do,” she announced as though I didn’t already know that based on the harsh sunlight beaming me in the face.

I leaned back, dropping my head against the wall and closing my eyes.

“Why did you sleep here? Where’s your wife?”

“Why can’t you shut up?” I grumbled in response.

“You don’t pay me to be quiet.”

“I will if you’ll shut the fuck up.”

Rhyan laughed. “Seriously? Problems in paradise?”

“Get me some fucking coffee,” I snarled, eyes still closed.

“Get your own fucking coffee,” she said snidely as she walked out of my office.

I took a few deep breaths, then forced my eyes open. The world came into focus, and the sun wasn’t quite so harsh. I glanced down at the couch and silently cursed the damn thing. My body hurt like I’d gone ten rounds with a heavyweight and lost. I was getting too fucking old for this shit.

“Are you drunk?” Rhyan shouted from the other room.

I didn’t bother answering her. She knew I wasn’t. I didn’t drink. Not because I didn’t long for the void I could find in the bottom of a bottle. At times, I craved it more than air. The same way I craved nicotine. But I knew from experience a bottle wasn’t going to solve problems, only cause more. I’d witnessed it on more than one occasion, and while I was clearly a glutton for punishment—marrying a woman who tempted me in a way no other ever had just so I could save her from her ruthless bitch of a mother was proof—I wasn’t a fucking moron.

“Why are you here?” Rhyan asked.

Again, I didn’t answer. I wasn’t about to tell her I’d come here last night to eliminate the risk of fucking Laikyn. I’d wanted to. Fuck, I’d wanted to. And despite my one-and-done rule, I probably would’ve still been fucking her right now because I knew the moment I let myself have her, I would never want to let her go.

There’s a rule about love. To have it, you have to be willing to be hurt. I’m not willing.

Laikyn’s words had been on repeat in my head since I dropped her off at the house, claiming I had business to tend to. I was trying to imprint those words in my brain because she was right. If you opened yourself up to love, you risked getting hurt. I’d spent my entire life avoiding situations that would open me up to the pain. I’d had more than enough for a lifetime. I damn sure wasn’t inviting more.

Until her, I’d never questioned it. Never had the desire to have something of my own. But I felt a connection to her. Like magnets. Her north was attracting my south, and there was nothing I could do. The force was too strong. It was eerily similar to what I felt for Jinx. Thankfully, Jinx wasn’t the sort who needed validation. He didn’t harp on me about the future or what it meant when we were fucking. When we were together, we simply were.

But it wasn’t the same with Laikyn. With Jinx, I knew I would get his friendship in return. I knew he would be there for me because I was there for him. Not as lovers but as friends. Laikyn had made it clear she wanted one thing from me, and though I wanted to fuck her, I could no longer promise I wouldn’t get pulled into her. I refused to do that. For both our sakes.

“Here.”

I took the white mug Rhyan held out to me—the one that said Fuck Off. I mean, good morning—sparing a glance her way. “Where’s Jinx?”

“On his way in.”

“Good. Did he get what I needed?”

“He did. Did you get what he needed?”

I exhaled heavily and got to my feet. “No. Not yet.”

“Until you get that, we can’t get any firm answers.”

I was well aware. Not that I needed a DNA test to prove that Laikyn Quinn was Jeremiah Montgomery’s illegitimate daughter. There was a paper trail that documented that. However, Jeremiah was dead, so proving to Knox Montgomery that she was his sister did require proof. Mostly because the man was going to have to part with a portion of his ridiculous fortune, and without hard evidence, he would merely laugh in her face. Which meant stealing a hair from her hairbrush wasn’t going to cut it. I needed a blood sample or a cheek swab, and since the latter would be a dead giveaway, I had to get creative.

“Have you told Creed yet?” Rhyan asked.

She was referring to my knowledge that Creed’s good friend Knox Montgomery had a long-lost sister.

“No.”

Rhyan’s hands landed on her narrow hips. “Why the fuck not?”

Because the man I considered my brother would ask questions I wasn’t ready to answer. As it was, he would doubt the validity of my claim. He was friends with Knox Montgomery, and this would look like some desperate attempt at extortion if I came at him without documented proof. I mean, how could it not? At the very least, it would look like I devised some convoluted scheme to deceive a man out of millions, perhaps billions. What were the odds that I would find a woman who was the illegitimate love child of a man whose son so happened to be a friend of a guy I grew up with? It sounded far-fetched, even to me.

“When does she get access to her trust fund?” Rhyan asked, leaning her shoulder against the doorjamb.

“Ninety days from the date of the marriage,” I told her, relaying the terms verbatim.

“And you’re positive she doesn’t know?”

“Yes.”

“But her mother does.”

It wasn’t a question because Rhyan knew some of it. I’d never told her the details, but we’d been watching Monica set Laikyn up with numerous guys since Laikyn’s twenty-second birthday, so it only made sense that Monica knew.

“She knows enough.”

“Dumb it down for me, boss.”

I perched on the corner of the desk, took a sip from the mug, then set it down and exhaled heavily. “When we were doing background on Monica after she approached me about…” I waved a hand, not willing to dredge that shit back up.

“You don’t have to remind me. Go on.”

“It took some serious digging and a stroke of pure luck, but Jinx came across a trust set up in Laikyn’s name. I was arguing with Monica about the stunt she pulled, and I brought it up in the heat of the moment.”

“Oh, shit.”

Yeah.

“Tell me you didn’t give her the details.”

“I didn’t. But she paid someone to dig into it.”

After all, it involved an obscene amount of money, so it only made sense that Monica would take an interest. Especially in her current financial situation. It wouldn’t do well for the world to discover that she was flat broke. It wasn’t easy for a woman who raked in millions to make movies to end up damn near penniless with very little to show for it.

“And…?”