His Best Friend's Sister

She didn’t want to do anything that might hurt Oliver or Chloe. She didn’t want to hurt anyone anymore.

“Renee?” He came back down the stairs and stood before her. When he lifted his hand and cupped her cheek, she knew she should pull away. It wasn’t right to let him care for her.

It wasn’t right to care for him.

“I’m sorry,” she said. Sorry for all of it.

“It’s been a long day,” he said, misunderstanding. And, fool that she was, she wasn’t strong enough to correct him. “Let me show you to your room. You need to rest.”

And even though she knew she shouldn’t, she leaned into his touch and asked, “Will you be here when I wake up?”

His thumb caressed her cheek so tenderly that she had to close her eyes. When was the last time someone had touched her like they cared? Chet Willoughby had not been capable of tenderness unless it benefited him directly. Nothing about her presence here benefited Oliver, directly or indirectly. She was nothing but a risk. And yet he was still being kind to her.

She almost exhaled in relief when his hand fell away, breaking that connection. But then he set down her suitcase and the next thing she knew, she was cradled in his arms. “I’ve got you,” he said as he carried her up the stairs. “It’s all right. I’ve got you.”

All she could do was rest her head against his shoulder. It wasn’t all right. It might never be okay ever again.

But right now, he had her.

And that was good enough.

* * *

Somehow, Oliver got Renee’s heels off her feet and her legs swung up onto the bed without thinking about her bare skin against his palms too much. He couldn’t get her under the covers, so he laid her on the bed, where she promptly curled on her side and shut her eyes.

Blankets. He hurried into the next room and grabbed the coverlet off the bed. By the time he made it back, she was breathing deeply and her face had relaxed.

He tucked the blanket around her shoulders, pausing only when she sighed in her sleep. But she didn’t stir.

He could feel his phone vibrating in his pocket—he left the sound off because the chimes interrupted his thinking. Bailey was undoubtedly forwarding him news articles. Oliver should get some work done. He’d need to smooth ruffled feathers from canceling his meetings this afternoon.

Especially the one with Herb Ritter. Ritter had been in business with Lawrence Energies for close to thirty years. He was mean and crotchety and, unfortunately, a damned good oilman. And he’d been Milt Lawrence’s best friend ever since the Lawrence family had relocated to Texas, which only made things worse. It was bad enough he had to manage his father, but also dealing with Ritter felt like a punishment. And the hell of it was Oliver had no idea what he’d done to deserve it.

He’d kept his promise to his mother. He ran the family business and kept his father from going completely off the deep end and Chloe as much in the loop as he could and Flash—well, no one could tell Flash a damned thing. Oliver managed the damned rodeo instead of doing something for himself. Even if he wasn’t sure what that something might be anymore.

He did his job and kept his word. Wasn’t that enough? Would it ever be enough?

But even this urgency wasn’t enough to pull Oliver away from Renee’s bedside.

God, she was beautiful. Tired and worried and pregnant, but beautiful all the same. He wished he could go back to Clint’s wedding all those years ago. If only he’d struck up a conversation. If he had reconnected with her then, maybe he would’ve been able to spare her some of this heartbreak.

He brushed a strand of hair away from her forehead.

His phone vibrated again. Crap. He leaned forward and brushed the lightest of kisses against her cheek before he forced himself to walk away.

He had eighteen emails waiting for him by the time he got rid of his tie, grabbed a beer and sat down at his desk. The cold, heartless truth was that he did not have the time to take care of Renee Preston-Willoughby. He was running a major oil company, overseeing expansions into solar, wind and hydropower—expansions that he had fought his father for and finally won. And the damned All-Stars had just kicked off.

Business that required his full attention.

Will you be here when I wake up?

That heartfelt plea was the only reason why he was sitting in his office at the ranch instead of heading right back to his office in downtown Dallas.

She had asked.

This was only until she was settled in, he reasoned. She hadn’t even seen the kitchen yet. He wasn’t comfortable leaving her, not until he was sure she would be all right. He couldn’t abandon her.

So he would stay.

* * *

Two hours later, Oliver had a much better grasp on the Renee situation.

It was a hell of a mess. Preston Investment Strategies was accused of bilking investors out of over forty-five billion dollars over the course of twenty years. Renee’s father, Darin Preston, had been in jail for the last two months, unable to make bail since his wife had run off with the remaining money. Clinton Preston was also in jail, although it appeared that negotiations for his testimony and a lighter sentence were ongoing. Chet Willoughby, Preston’s son-in-law, had committed suicide four and a half months ago. It didn’t appear that the public had made the connection between that suicide and the pyramid scheme until Clint and his father had been arrested, along with most of the other people who worked at Preston Investment Strategies.

Bailey was thorough in his research. In addition to articles from the Wall Street Journal, Business Insider and CNNMoney, he also forwarded articles from the New York Post and even the Daily News. Those articles were filled with sly quotes from friends and acquaintances, all taking swipes at Renee and her mother. It only got worse after Renee’s mother disappeared. It seemed there was an open debate as to whether or not Renee knew that her family was corrupt or if she’d been too dim to figure it out. Either way, the pieces were not flattering. Neither were the pictures posted with them. Awful paparazzi shots, catching her with red eyes, making her look far more pregnant and jiggly than she was in real life.

Disgusted, he stopped reading the articles because they were only pissing him off. How the hell had this happened? How had Darin Preston managed to get away with this pyramid scheme for this long? How had Clint—a guy Oliver knew was a good guy—allowed himself to be sucked down to these levels? It didn’t make sense. None of it did.

His phone buzzed insistently. He picked it up—hell. His father was calling.

“Yeah, Dad?” Oliver said, closing the windows on all of the information Bailey had sent him.

“You done pissed off Herb Ritter, boy,” his father drawled in a thick Texas accent. “I thought you knew better than to do that.”

Oliver rolled his eyes. His father had been born and raised in New York City, although his family did come from Texas. Oliver’s grandfather Mitchell had abandoned Texas when Lawrence Oil Industries—the forerunner to Lawrence Energies—had made him a multimillionaire.

Milt had lived in New York full-time until he was in his forties. Before thirteen years ago, he spent no more than a few weeks in the fall in Texas every year. The Lawrence family had maintained a house here for tax purposes and because this was where Lawrence Energies was based—but his father was not a Texan.

He sure liked to pretend he was, though. “I’ve made my apologies to Ritter,” Oliver said, keeping his voice level. “We’ve already rescheduled the meeting.”

“That’s not going to be good enough.”

Oliver gritted his teeth and decided to change the subject before this call devolved into a shouting match. “Dad, have you heard about Darin Preston?”

Milt was silent for a moment. “That con man? I never did trust his get-rich-quick schemes.” He paused, making a low humming noise in the back of his throat. He always did that when he was thinking. “Wasn’t he in the news recently?”

“He was.” Oliver didn’t want to tell Milt that Renee was asleep upstairs. He had promised her privacy, after all.

It was the only thing he could promise her.

“Why do you ask?”

Oliver decided to hedge the truth. “I had a strange message from Clint. It seemed he was helping his father scam people.”

“Now, that’s too danged bad,” Milt said. “Clint was good people. And his sister—what was her name?”

“Renee.”