Page 28 of Settling the Score (The Karma Club #4)

Maybe her friends were showing her that love – even when you’ve been badly hurt in the past – was something she shouldn’t give up hoping for. Not with Aiden, and not with Chuck, but with someone. One day. When she was ready.

‘Sienna’s taking me for a test drive,’ Chuck said, arm casually draped around her shoulders.

‘On the dance floor,’ she clarified, at the shocked expression on Bella’s face.

‘Riiiight.’ Olly laughed, and Sienna’s cheeks flushed pink. She thought about reiterating that they were just going to dance, but what would the point have been?

‘You are seriously?—’

‘Incorrigible,’ he interrupted with a sideways grin. ‘Yeah, you’ve said that before.’

‘And I meant it.’

‘I like it when you use big words.’

‘You act like such a jock,’ she said, stopping when they reached the edge of the sand and letting him link his arms behind her back. He smelled super masculine, all citrussy and spicy. ‘But you’re so much more.’

‘Am I?’

She frowned contemplatively. ‘Why do you do that?’

‘What do you think I’m doing?’

‘Hide behind jokes. You have this whole stupid persona going on. It’s like you’re trying to keep everyone at a bit of a distance.’

His eyes flicked to hers and for a second – the briefest second – she felt like maybe she was seeing the real Chuck Daly. But then he threw his head back and laughed. ‘Leave it to a lawyer to read into things more than necessary.’

‘I’m not a lawyer, I’m a law student.’

‘Same difference.’

‘Not really, and I have the bank balance to prove it.’

Again, something shifted in his gaze, but it was gone in an instant. She could have sworn she saw confusion, or sympathy, or maybe a mix of both.

‘How long ’til you graduate?’

‘A couple of years. I’m only studying part time – I have a mortgage. A job. A sort of step-daughter,’ she said, smiling to think of Melanie. ‘But I’ll get there.’

‘And then what?’ he prompted, asking Sienna a question she hadn’t fully formulated an answer to, even for herself.

‘I’ll be a lawyer, like you said,’ she replied, taking a page out of his book and keeping her tone intentionally light.

‘What kind of lawyer? Working where?’

‘Criminal defence law, but I’d really like to work in a pro bono team.

An innocence project, sort of thing. I know how hard it can be to get a fair hearing, for some people.

So much of it comes down to money. Circumstance.

And it really shouldn’t. The law should always be applied reasonably, equally, and fairly. ’

He was quiet, absorbing that. The music changed, another mellow, bass-y song filling the salty air.

‘As to where,’ she said, with a heaviness she’d been wrangling with for some time. ‘I don’t know. Leaving Ashbury Falls is hard to imagine. I mean, my whole life is there. But the opportunities to do what I want to do are kind of thin on the ground.’

‘Yeah,’ he said. Thoughtfully, though. Distracted.

She waited, sure he was going to add something else.

The music seemed to make the air pulse, the beat of it accentuated by the gentle slapping of the waves against the shoreline.

It was a perfect night. The sky was the inkiest of blacks, and the stars glittered and shimmered, almost as if they were, themselves, dancing in the heavens.

‘You know, it’s not something I make a big deal of, but I have this thing.’

‘Thing,’ she prompted. ‘You know, you make that sound like it might be forewarning me of some kind of venereal disease. Or that you have a foot fetish or something.’

He laughed, holding her a little tighter.

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of a movement and glanced that way, almost on autopilot, then shivered when she saw Aiden.

He was talking to Blake, but she had a very strong feeling that he’d just been watching her, and had looked away to avoid making eye contact. Her body tingled.

‘Nah, I mean, a charity.’ Chuck rushed to add, ‘It’s not a big deal. I don’t really advertise it.’

‘What kind of charity?’

‘We help people escaping domestic violence. Part of that involves offering legal aid – for whatever they need. Could be help with their will, or custody, or separating assets, or it could be more serious, depending on circumstance. I know it’s not exactly what you’re talking about, but we do offer the opportunity to work from home, provided there’s a week every month spent in the office. ’

She stared up at him. ‘Are you offering me a job?’

‘I’m just saying, you could think about it.’

She blinked quickly. ‘Why don’t you advertise the fact you do this?’

He shrugged.

‘That’s not an answer.’

He smiled, but for once, it was lacking his trademark carelessness.

‘Then I become the story. I don’t want that.

This isn’t something that needs to be spotlighted.

We do good work, behind the scenes. We help people that need to be helped.

I have other ways of grandstanding and getting my ego stroked. ’

‘Wow.’ She stopped dancing so she could stare up at him. ‘You’ve really surprised me, Chuck Daly.’

‘I aim to please.’

She ignored the double entendre. ‘It’s an incredible cause.’

‘Yeah.’ His voice was rough. ‘I mean, I know a bit about it.’

She frowned. ‘The law?’

‘DV. It’s – something Blake and I, you know, have in common.’

The penny dropped and a burst of sympathy exploded through her as she understood what he was admitting.

‘You grew up in an abusive house?’

He nodded once.

‘I’m so sorry to hear it.’

He lifted his shoulders. ‘I got out.’

‘Still,’ she said, a little unevenly. ‘I know that kind of thing can leave scars for a lifetime.’

Unbidden, her gaze drifted across to Aiden and Blake, locked in conversation.

They were both smiling though, looking happy.

Content. Only a handful of people could understand the pain that was just beneath the surface.

The hypervigilance that had arisen because of the way their father had been to them, as small boys, and their mother, all their lives, until Aiden and Blake had used their God-given talents to flee to safety.

‘I’m okay,’ he said. ‘I dealt with it. First team I joined in the majors got me to see a shrink. I hated the idea at first. Talk about a waste of time. Except, it probably saved my life.’

‘How so?’

‘There’s a lot to deal with, when you come out of that.

The guilt, at not being able to stop it.

The grief, because even when someone hurts you, or hurts someone you love, you still kind of love them.

It’s crazy, but you can hate and love someone all at once, and you have to just kind of learn to sit with that.

Accept it, don’t fight it, don’t try to change it. ’

She nodded slowly, and of course, thought of Aiden, and how for years, she had loved and hated him. Different circumstances, similar outcome.

‘There’s fear, too, of turning into what you hate most in the world. And a few defensive mechanisms, like humour,’ he said with a droll smile, ‘used to cover up whatever you might actually be feeling.’

‘Well, I’m glad you told me,’ she said.

‘You’re easy to talk to. Blake thinks the world of you, you know.’ He looked over his shoulder, then back at Sienna. ‘I suspect his brother does, too.’

She pulled a face. She did not want to talk about Aiden with Chuck. Or anyone. It was too complicated.

‘Hey.’ She changed the subject swiftly, because her insides were feeling all jammed up by this conversation, her skin starting to get clammy when she thought about how long she’d known Blake and Aiden for, and what both men meant to her. ‘I’ve got a question.’

‘Okay.’ He shrugged. Another song started to play. ‘Shoot.’

‘How does it work, the whole tech bro thing?’

He laughed. ‘That’s your question?’

‘What’s wrong with it?’

‘Well, it’s a bit nebulous.’

‘Oooh, look at the dumb jock using big words.’ She grinned. ‘Careful.’ She lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘You’re starting to sound like you have more than two brain cells to rub together.’

‘Well, we can’t have that now, can we?’

‘So?’

‘I mean, it’s not like there’s a club. It’s business. I run a business. I just happen to invest in tech start-ups.’

The hairs on the back of Sienna’s neck stood on end. ‘Yeah, I thought so. And do you know other guys who do the same thing?’

‘Well, yeah, obviously.’

‘Have you ever heard of someone called Harvey Peterson?’

Chuck stopped dancing for a minute, then started up again. ‘Yeah. Why? Do you know him?’ A frown flitted across his face briefly.

‘Not personally.’

He let out a low whistle. ‘I’m glad.’

‘Why?’

‘He’s an A-grade asshole,’ Chuck said, confirming everything Sienna already knew and felt about the guy.

‘Why?’ she asked urgently, leaning forward a little, because she needed to hear this.

‘Apart from the fact he stiffed me on a deal a few years ago?’

She shook her head.

‘I’ve just heard… some things. He’s not a good guy.’

‘That much I know.’

He stopped dancing again. But it didn’t matter.

Inside, Sienna was all swirly, the possibilities opening up before her like a freaking rainbow bridge.

After spending almost a year trying to work out how to get revenge on a rich, privileged, Silicon Valley tech genius, and drawing a complete and utter blank, she felt like she might actually have the beginnings of a way in.

She just had to work out how to capitalise on that.

‘How do you know?’

Her eyes were rounded and reflected the glow of the moon when they met his.

‘I can’t say right now,’ she admitted softly.

‘It’s not my story to tell,’ she explained, ‘and I need to check with the person whose story it is before I go into it with you. But… can I count on your help, if I can think of a way to take the bastard down a peg or two? And make him pay for some of the very not nice things he’s done in the past? ’

‘Nothing illegal?’ he prompted. ‘No daggers at midnight? Shovels by morning?’

She rolled her eyes. ‘If I wanted to do something illegal, I probably would have done it by now.’

‘Okay,’ he said, shrugging, like it was easy. ‘Count me in.’

And Sienna’s heart could have damn near burst out of her chest. The way Paige had been wronged was one of the worst, most violating things that could happen to a person, and Sienna would be damned if she’d let the guy get away with it.

She couldn’t wait to tell the others. Not tonight – they’d all had too much champagne.

And maybe not even tomorrow. The focus needed to be on the wedding.

But as soon as possible, she’d call an emergency meeting of the Karma Club and plotting would begin, in earnest.