Let's Misbehave Read Free Page B

leaned back in his chair. “I’ve grown up, Val. It happens.”
    “Growing up happens, but we’re talking a complete metamorphosis.” Her gaze narrowed. “When was the last time you let the tiger out?”
    He put a hand over his abdomen where he’d had a physical representation of his inner beast tattooed when he’d been at the height of his stardom. The tiger lay dormant now, but it stirred in its cage, waiting for the opportunity to escape. “The tiger was a boy’s macho fancy. It doesn’t really exist,” he lied.
    “Of course it exists. You’ve just caged it.”
    He drew on his patience, because he loved her. She was the only family he had. “You know what I’m trying to accomplish. You know that my opponents, particularly Thomas Kane, try to defame me every chance they get. I have to be above reproach.”
    Valerie pouted. “I miss my partner in crime. Remember when you used to actually go out ? You never go out any more.”
    “I go out all the time.” He crossed his arms. “I went out to dinner last night.”
    “With your dull political friends.”
    “I have political friends because I’m in politics,” he explained with exaggerated patience.
    “It’s your worst trait, too.”
    “That I’m a Member of Parliament?”
    “ Yes. ”
    “You know what I think?” he asked.
    “What?”
    “That you and Joan are having another spat and you’re taking out your frustrations on me.” Valerie and her girlfriend Joan had a tempestuous relationship that stemmed from Joan wanting it all and Valerie pushing her away. Valerie’s family had no idea she was living with a woman, either. Personally, he thought Joan was a saint for putting up with Valerie’s fear of commitment.
    “You may be a MP, but you don’t know anything, Merrick Graham.” She tossed her long brown hair over her shoulder. “But that’s okay, because that’s why you have me. I’m staging an intervention. I’m going to save you from yourself.”
    He raised his eyebrows. “I didn’t realize I was in danger.”
    Putting her hands on his desk, she leaned forward. “I remember what day it is today.”
    He felt sucker punched, right to the middle of his chest. He’d had years of practice schooling his emotions, and still he felt them leak.
    They never mentioned what today was out loud. For thirteen years, they’d had an unspoken agreement that no one spoke of this black anniversary.
    Valerie stood over him, a Valkyrie bent on breaking him. “Michaela wouldn’t have wanted this, Ricky.”
    “I’m not Ricky anymore.” Pushing back from his desk, he stood. “And you don’t know what Michaela would have wanted.”
    “Yes, I do.” Valerie stood toe-to-toe with him, refusing to back down. “She was your sister, but she may as well have been mine, too. I loved her as much as you did, and I can tell you without a doubt that she’d have hated to see you the way you are today.”
    Yes, but Michaela didn’t have that luxury, because her life had ended tragically.
    As if knowing where his thoughts were headed, Valerie grabbed his shoulders and shook him. “Her death wasn’t your fault. You have to stop blaming yourself for it.”
    Guilt and regret welled in his throat, and he had to swallow a couple times before he could speak. “I know it wasn’t my fault, but we both know I could have prevented it.”
    Tears glistened in Val’s eyes. “Anyone could have prevented it. I could say the same thing. Michaela could have stopped it from happening by waiting for us instead of leaving that party on her own. But she didn’t.”
    She hadn’t, and she’d paid for it. There was footage of her attack from the cameras in the underground. Eight minutes—it’d taken her eight minutes to bleed out. She could have been saved if there’d just been someone there.
    While she’d been bleeding out, he’d been partying with groupies who’d thought he was a god.
    Some god, letting the person he loved most in the world die.
    He was going to