Tucker

Roth examined her bruised arm.

“Tucker’s a dead man,” he rumbled.

“He just saved you the trouble of doing it yourself,” she quipped.

Like he had in the penthouse, his hands dropped away immediately. This time, he even stepped back as if she’d threatened him in some way. His perpetual stony expression had morphed into one of severe disquiet. She wasn’t certain with his dark complexion, but it looked like he’d paled slightly.

“I’ve never hit you,” he said quietly.

“So far, no, but we both know you have a fondness for choking and promising to hurt me.” She looked at the unsightly splotches on her arm. “These look worse than they feel. They’ll fade. The way you choose to hurt me is far more permanent and will echo in my mind long after we’re done.”

She turned her back on him to fetch her jacket. The sound of her zipper sounded obnoxiously loud in the throbbing silence.

“What did Tucker say to you?”

“Nothing you haven’t,” she said, tossing her tangled hair as she crossed her arms over her chest. “That I’m a slut who doesn’t know how to keep my legs closed, that I ruined his life, and he’s still dealing with the consequences of me breaking off the engagement.”

His temper, which had been snuffed out when he released her, returned with a vengeance. “He's going to regret he was ever born.”

She gave a one shoulder shrug. “A confrontation like that was inevitable. If not him, then one of my father’s business associates would have—”

“No one would have dared. The only reason Baldwin did it is because he’s stupid enough to believe there’s nothing more that can be done to him. He’s wrong.”

“I knew my father and Parker had a falling out, but I didn’t know Dad forced everyone to choose a side,” she said quietly. “Tucker thinks it put his father in an early grave.”

“That’s not on you.”

“Isn’t it? So many people were affected by my choice."

She examined the man she had risked it all for. Who she had courted so much ridicule and shame for. Seven years later, she still didn't understand him. Doubted if she could trust him... and had finally accepted that he would never love her back. She averted her face as her eyes watered. One choice led them all to so much misery. Things would have been better if she and Roth never crossed paths. Over time, he would have made his way into her father's good graces and she would have lived an uneventful life as a Baldwin. That was preferable to this...

**This is a raw draft of Bitter Sins. Please do not share or distribute.

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