Page 34 of Fully Loaded

She fought the smile that wanted to win over her face. “Something very heavy.”

“Obviously.” He rocked his arm across her midriff. “Come on, hon. Nothing good will come from us not talking about it.”

She rolled her eyes to the ceiling. “I’m not sure I have the energy for one of your ‘talks.’” The man knew how to beat a dead horse, which was one of the reasons they’d always had difficulty communicating. She was one to let things die. He had to get his point across over and over.

“Look, I know you don’t want to get back together. I get that. But I hurt you, and the fact that my actions caused you to hate me for this long bothers me.”

“All right, fine. Yeah, I’m pretty pissed about that heist.”

“Because I cut you out of the deal.”

“Yeah. Fifty grand, which you knew I needed to get Sebastian off my back—and Serena’s.”

“You know how dangerous Domenico Vitali was. He raped women for fun. Could you imagine what he’d do if he caught someone who looks like you stealing from him?”

Stealing from the Italian mobster definitely would have been her most dangerous heist—next to the bioterrorism one she’d stumbled into. She remembered Brock’s warnings vividly, but it didn’t matter that his fear for her might have been legitimate. The fact that he’d cut her out without so much as a courtesy call spoke volumes about his priorities.

“So that gave you the right to move up the date of the heist by a week, lie to me about where you were going, and execute the heist without my knowledge? The heist I planned, I might add.”

He grimaced. “My motive was to protect you. I didn’t say I went about it the right way.”

“But that’s what you did.”

“I offered you the money. You know I hated Sebastian and how he guilted you and Serena into doing his dirty work. I never would have left you high and dry.”

“It’s the principle of it, Brock.” They’d had this conversation right after the incident, and pointing out the obvious was beyond redundant. “And don’t act like bringing on James didn’t have anything to do with you cutting me out.”

He stiffened. “Is that what you think? That because I brought him in last minute, I had to give him your share?”

“You must think I’m stupid. We didn’t need him.”

Brock’s eyes widened and he shook his head. “We needed all the manpower we could get on a job of that magnitude.”

She sat up, and the covers spilled to her waist. She snatched them up to her throat and scowled at him. “We had four other people besides us. He convinced you to do the job sooner, didn’t he? Just be honest, for god’s sake.” Her accusations spit out rapid-fire.

Brock rolled onto his back and scrubbed one hand over his forehead. “He didn’t convince me.”

“But?” she insisted.

“But there was a better window that came up sooner.”

“And you jumped on it and decided not to tell me because . . . ?”

He sat up, bringing his face inches from hers. “Because I didn’t want to risk getting caught.”

She glowered at him. “What do you mean?”

“You were so intense then. Don’t you remember how anxious you were? Serena was pushing you to quit stealing, your uncle called you every day for more and more cash because your aunt was in the hospital for one thing or another.”

Emptiness filled her. “You didn’t trust me.”

He cursed and shifted his gaze to the window and then back to her. “I had a bad feeling that you were under too much pressure. Had I known you would have hated me for it and never forgiven me, I never would have done it. I would have scratched the whole fucking gig and never looked back if I’d known I’d lose you.”

She stared at the gold diamond wallpaper and rolled his words around in her head. He curled his arm around her back and rested his chin on her knee.

“Say something, Dani.” The weight of his words, honest and painful, surrounded her.

“It hurts. It hurts that you didn’t confide in me and that you went behind my back. I thought”—she cleared the moisture that clouded her throat—“I thought we were closer than that.” She flicked a tear from the corner of her eye and hoped he hadn’t seen it. The guilt softening his eyes told her he had. “Other than Serena and Peyton, you were my best friend. I lost you that day.”