“Sorry,” Sloan told her, looking slightly chagrined. “I shouldn’t have—”
“It’s okay,” she interrupted. “Besides, from the look on James’s face I think he already knows.”
“I have an excellent poker face.” He sounded slightly put out, and she couldn’t help but smile a little.
“Maybe I just figured you were too nosy not to do some snooping.”
“Nosy? Snooping?” Now he definitely sounded offended.
“Got you pegged, doesn’t she?” Sloan added.
She looked at him, worried he was upset. But he was grinning.
“I am not nosey,” James added.
“Uh-huh,” she said skeptically. “But you did look into my finances, didn’t you?”
Shame filled her. What an idiot she’d been to trust Eddie.
“Kinley, look at me,” Sloan commanded. She kept her gaze on her hands in her lap.
“Kinley, look at me.”
Damn it. That was his Dom voice. Trying to hide her growl of impatience, she raised her head.
“Didn’t do that reluctantly, did she?” James asked, sounding amused.
“Kinley, those debts were not your fault.”
“I was an idiot; I signed everything he told me to. I was so stupid, and he knew it.”
Sloan leaned forward and cupped her face between his big hands. “Not stupid. Say that again and you’ll be over my knee, and I won’t care that we’re not alone, understood?”
He’d spank her in front of James? Her eyes widened as he nodded again. Of course he would. She swallowed heavily.
“I could find him, you know,” James said easily. “Send someone to put a heavy word on him.”
He could? Of course he could. This was James.
“No,” she said shakily. “I don’t . . . I don’t want anything to do with him again.”
“You wouldn’t have anything to do with him.” That sounded almost like a promise.
She shook her head. “It’s not your problem.”
She ran her hand over her face tiredly. If she’d felt exhausted before, she felt completely drained now.
She looked at the two of them, they seemed to be speaking to each other without words.
“Stop that,” she said fiercely.
Both of them turned to her with nearly identical looks of innocence. It almost made her forgive them. Almost.
“I know the two of you are just trying to protect me. And I really appreciate it. I do. But what happened between Eddie and me . . . I don’t want to revisit it. Okay? I just want to work off my debts. Which will happen faster now that I’m not paying rent or groceries or bills.” She sent Sloan a sharp look. She’d argued fiercely against that, but he’d refused to allow her to contribute at all. “I’m not a charity case.”
Sloan narrowed his gaze. “Never said you were. But you are going to stay home this week, maybe longer, until we catch this guy. This is non-negotiable, Kinley.”
James cleared his throat. “Perhaps it would be best if I left. Weren’t the two of you headed to the club?”