Parker kept a tight rein on control even though he wanted to lash out—not at her, but at himself. He’d made a goddamn mess of things, and in the process he’d hurt her. A horrible, ironic outcome considering he’d planned this trip with the specific goal telling her how much he craved her.

“I can’t take you home now,” he said, working to keep his frustration out of his voice. “It’s too late for the jet to take off. But if you still want to leave in the morning, we can be gone as early as eight.”

“Good,” she said. “Plan on it.”

The plane was in the hanger now, and she moved to the open exit door without waiting for him, then started down the stairs. By the time he caught up with her at the hired car, the driver had already opened the back door, and she’d slid into the slick black Lincoln.

When he joined her, she started to slide the rest of the way across the bench seat to open the opposite door and get out. “I think I’ll sit up front.”

“No,” he said, pressing his hand to her thigh to still her. She looked at his hand, then at his face, her eyes cold. “Stay,” he ordered, in a voice that allowed no argument.

He saw her swallow, then watched as she fastened her seatbelt, then leaned back, her arms crossed over her chest as if in protection. From him.

Slowly, he took three deep breaths, trying to temper his emotions and calm his mind.

“I assume we’re going straight to the hotel? I’m really not in the mood for dinner or jazz.”

“The Ritz-Carlton,” he told the driver, who lifted a hand to his cap in a silent salute, then pulled out of the hanger and headed toward the heart of the city.

They drove in silence, and it was only when there were miles of distance between them and the airport that he said, “I was nineteen when I walked away from my father’s money.”

She continued to stare straight ahead, but her posture shifted almost imperceptibly, and Parker hoped that meant she was listening. “My sister-in-law had filed for a restraining order against my brother. It turns out he was beating the shit out of her.”

Now, she turned toward him, and there was no question but that he had her attention. “My sister was married to a man like your brother. Watching her suffer and making excuses…” She trailed off with a shake of her head, then drew in a fresh breath and continued. “I swore I’d never let that happen to me. It escalates. It always escalates. First sign he’s trouble, and that’s the end as far as I’m concerned.”

“A good policy. But not your sister’s, I’m guessing.”

She shook her head. “No. She got out, but she stayed too long. She—she’s not the same woman she used to be. She has sharp edges now. And a lot of scars—the kind you can’t see, but they’re there.”

He nodded. He knew the kind of scars she meant.

“What happened with your sister-in-law? Did she get out?”

“She filed for divorce and she pressed charges. Assault. Battery. Rape. My family’s powerful, and the money—well, my father could have funded a thousand defenses and not even made a dent in our financial wherewithal. My father might be a prick, but he’s a brilliant one.”

“Defenses,” she repeated. “You’re saying that your father financed your brother’s defense. Even though he attacked and raped his wife? Or was she making stuff up to try for a settlement?”

“I saw her in the hospital,” he said, closing his eyes to block the horrific memory. “She wasn’t faking.”

“Your father couldn’t see that? Couldn’t believe that his son would do that?”

“Oh, he believed it. He just couldn’t let something that sordid soil the family name. After all, the little tramp was messing with our family. That meant we had to destroy her.”

She licked her lips. “We?”

“Or so my father insisted. The family had to stick together. My mother, my sister, me. Even though my brother had always been a violent son-of-a-bitch, because he had the Manning last name, the wagons had to circle.”

“What happened?”

“My brother got off without even a slap on the wrist. My sister-in-law got her divorce and not a single dime. I’m pretty sure she was fine with that, so long as she was free. My mother sank further into her shell, and my older sister and I cut ties with the family. Permanently.”

“But—” She cut herself off, and he could practically see the questions churning in her mind. “But everyone says you used your family money to get your start. That’s how PCM Enterprises was funded.”

“No.” The word came out sharper than he intended, but he’d worked his ass off to make that dream a reality and while he could deal with the general public having the wrong idea, he needed Megan to understand the truth.

“I inherited some money from my grandfather. Most people would say it’s a lot, but in my family it’s a pittance. But it’s all I took with me. That money, my clothes, and a few books.”

“Is that when you moved to LA?”

She was listening intently now, and he tried not to react. Tried not to show how much he hoped they were over the roadblock that he and his idiocy had thrown in their path.

“I ended up at UCLA, and while I was there I invested pretty well.” That was an understatement. He’d quadrupled his money when he sold his interest in a biotech company, then did essentially the same thing a few years later, once he was out of college.

After that, he’d invested a portion of his money conservatively, but used the bulk of it to get PCM Enterprises off the ground. Initially, it was based in Los Angeles, but as he grew more and more disillusioned with the crowd he hung with, he made the decision to move back to Texas. Not to Houston where his parents still lived, but to Austin, where he’d gone to high school at a private boarding school.

“The rest,” he concluded, after telling her as much, “is history.”

They rode in silence for a while, thoughts churning in Parker’s head. Memories of a time not too long ago when he’d still been living in LA. When he’d distanced himself from men like Carlton, and yet their paths had still intersected, not in small part because Carlton was the kind of man who was drawn to money and power. He had just enough of both to be dangerous, and not enough to truly understand either.

And at the time, Parker was still enjoying all the perks that his bankroll got him, not yet realizing that when he breathed in that life, the reason he felt so damn suffocated was because he was living in a vacuum. And nothing survives like that.

Looking back, Parker despised the man he’d been in Los Angeles, at least in those early years. Megan had known him then, or at least tangentially, and it bothered him that she surely remembered the Parker from the past—the one who would have just plowed forward without thinking about what Megan might want, the one who went through women and money like candy—and only now was getting to know the Parker he’d worked so hard to become.

He wanted to say something, to explain how much he’d changed. But they’d arrived and the Town Car was pulling to a stop. Before the valet could open the door, he took her hand, relieved when she didn’t pull it away.

Maybe—just maybe—he’d managed to crawl part of the way out of the doghouse.