Free If I Trust You (If You Come Back To Me #4) by Beth Kery

entering the lobby while talking on his cell phone. She mumbled an apology and soared out of the hotel toward the parking lot. Just before she slammed her car door shut, she heard Nick call out to her again. She ignored him, her brain awash with anxiety over what she’d just heard.
    By adding me to his will, Lincoln cut Nick’s inheritance? she thought numbly. Nick had just mentioned the genetic testing to Nick Kellerman so coldly, as though something that had become crucially important to her very identity was a business factoid to be shared and bartered.
    She’d made a mistake by being honest with him. Thank goodness she hadn’t yet broken her word to Marc and signed anything at Nick’s request. By the time she pulled into Cedar Cottage’s drive, her heart was beating a rapid, furious tempo against her breastbone. She sat gripping the wheel for half a minute after she shut off the car, trying to calm herself, willing the queasiness in her belly to diminish. Again, her appetite had been poor this morning, and now she was paying for it. She opened the car door, gulping in the cold, fresh air coming off the lake.
    “Deidre.”
    She swayed next to her car, glancing back. Nick was getting out of his sedan. She’d been so disoriented she hadn’t noticed him pull in behind her. He was coatless, and his expression was tense.
    He slammed his car door shut and stalked toward her. Something volatile felt like it was going to explode from her chest. She raced through the yard and up the front steps of Cedar Cottage, nearly making it to her front door when Nick caught her elbow. She spun around and yanked at her arm, but he held firm. Words burst out of her throat like she’d been storing them under pressure.
    “I can’t believe you told him about the testing! I told you that in confidence.”
    “You never asked me to keep it a secret, Deidre,” Nick said, towering over her.
    She struggled to inhale. She felt like she’d been slugged back in that lobby and she was still recovering from that blow.
    “Why didn’t you tell me that Lincoln had cut your shares in DuBois and his inheritance to you when he included me in the will?”
    “I wasn’t trying to keep it from you,” he said, vapor from his breath billowing around his mouth. “I thought it would have been obvious, that I was previously his sole heir.”
    A tear of frustration and anger landed on her cheek, seeming to freeze against her skin. “A lot of things aren’t obvious to me, Nick. You’ve accused me in the past of taking advantage of Lincoln when he was vulnerable, and yet you have no problem at all doing the same to me. You know I don’t know very much about business. You know I’m...confused after everything that has happened to me in the past few months,” she said furiously. “I let down my guard to you last night, and you take the information and use it for your own means—”
    “Deidre—”
    “Get away from me, Nick,” she seethed, throwing off his hold and shoving her key in the lock. He grasped both of her shoulders at once in an iron-strong hold. She felt the pressure of his body against hers from behind.
    “I didn’t mean to upset you or betray a confidence,” he breathed out quietly from just above her left ear. She went still, shivering uncontrollably at the sensation of his chin brushing her hair as he spoke. “The fact of the matter is, the truth is going to come out as soon as you receive those test results. You weren’t planning on keeping the results secret, were you?”
    “No, of course not.” Her voice vibrated with anger, but she didn’t move away from him.
    “This is crucial information to me, as well as John Kellerman.”
    Deidre turned the key and plunged into the warm kitchen. She immediately headed toward the living room, sensing that Nick was behind her and wanting to escape. How could she have spilled her guts out to him last night? The only thing he cared about was that damn company and all the power and money