RUIN(22)

"Get the goods?" Apparently hiring a private investigator constitutes the need to use their distinctive lingo. "What?"

"Shit." She scrolls her finger over her phone. "I should call Noah. Shit."

"Lex." I reach across the table to pull her phone from her grasp. "You've already said a lot. Please just tell me what the hell is going on."

Her eyes scan my face. "Noah was worried about you. He wasn't sure of Ben."

It's a start but none of this is news to me at all. "What did he do? He hired a private investigator?"

"The guy did an extensive background check on Ben. There's financials in there, employment stuff, everything."

It's intrusive. "Why would he do that?"

"It was for you." She points her index finger at my hand. "He did it to make sure Ben was good enough for you."





Chapter 16




There's that saying about being stuck between a rock and a hard place and it's never made any sense to me until this moment. Let's say that Noah is the rock and Ben is the hard place. I'm staring into his face right now and the good part of me wants to tell him that Noah has his entire life summarized in a reasonably thick manila folder. The other part of me, that's the part that wants things to stay the way they are right now, is telling me that there's no harm in it. Noah is just taking care of me, which is touching in a way that would be sentimental if it wasn't so inappropriate.

"Spit it out, Kayla." He runs his lips across my forehead.

"I swallowed it all after you came," I say into his chest.

I feel the laugher roll through his strong frame. He pulls me even closer. "You're everything I'm ever going to need in my life."

"I saw Alexa yesterday." I'm siding on the hard place. "We talked about you."

"I saw Noah," he whispers the words into my hair. "We talked about you."

I know. I need to bite the curiosity I'm feeling in the ass and not ask what they were discussing. I have to. I need to just tell Ben that Noah investigated him. He deserves to know that his brother knows everything about him. I'd want to know if someone pulled up that much sensitive information on me.

"What did you say about me?"

Who am I kidding? I'm not going to be able to think straight until I find out what they talked about.

"Noah told me you're a good friend to him," he says without any reservation. "He told me he likes hanging out with you."

"He told me that too," I offer back. That resulted in a net gain of exactly zero. "Is that all he said?"

"Why?" I can hear the amusement in his voice. "Maybe we talked about private things."

I lurch up off his chest so I'm facing him directly. I arch a brow. "Private things?" I try not to crack a wide grin. "You two weren't even on speaking terms a few weeks ago. I highly doubt you talk about private things."

"We're brothers." He traces his finger along my brow. "Actually, we're twins. We share a lot of private things."

He's not smiling. This has moved effortlessly from teasing into something more serious. "How are things between you two?"

"New." He darts his tongue over his bottom lip. "We're still working on figuring things out but no one was punched during lunch so we're off to a good start."

Ben and I have never discussed what happened in Noah's hospital room the night he was stabbed. He knows that I know. He has to know that Noah shared a great deal about their broken connection with me during all the time we spent together. "Do you feel good about things between you?"

"I feel really good about things between my brother and me."

It's there again. I don't think about it as much as I did when it was fresh and pressing against every part of my heart. It's the last bit of doubt that has held onto me and now is the point in time when I can finally let it go. "You're not going to leave me now that you and Noah are working on things, are you?"

His breathing stops as his hands reach to cup my cheeks. "I will never leave you. There is nothing in this world that can take you away from me. If you didn't want me anymore, you have to be the one doing the breaking up. I'm here to stay."

"I don't want that," I whisper into his mouth. "I want you to stay."



***



"If I told you I love you would you say it back to me?" He's standing in the doorway, his hands resting above his head against the wooden doorframe. I can see the outline of his muscular frame. He's shirtless. He's only wearing sweat pants and nothing else.

I pull my hand to cover my mouth. "Not yet. I need to tell you something first."

He doesn't move from where he's standing. I can't make out his face. The room is too dark. "What is it, Kayla?"