Page 7 of The Risk

Well, not ones that weren’t Hillers, anyway.

Someone sat down next to her while she held a drowsy Charis on her lap. She looked up—into eyes the same color as her own. Chad was watching her now.

"Talk." Her brother could be a bit demanding. Arrogant and bossy. "I know you are hiding something from everyone lately. What is it?"

Chantal shook her head. She wasn't exactly hiding anything. She was doing fine.

They didn’t need to worry about her.

"Nothing, Chad. I'm good. Dad isn't feeling well." Her father was eighty-two. Chantal had been a very big surprise when he'd been fifty-one. Chad had been six years earlier. Her father was eleven years older than Chantal's mother. And he looked it now. "I'm afraid for him."

Chad surprised her when he slipped an arm around her shoulder. Her brother hugged her close for a moment. He couldbe a troll sometimes, but he was her brother and she loved him. "I know. But he's in reasonably good shape for his age. We have to remember that."

Chantal just nodded. She looked up when the door to the interview room opened and Giavonna came out, an annoyed look on her face. Giavonna had gotten that jerk guy for her interview, not the extraordinarily hot Commander Rodriguez. "I don't think it went well for Gia."

"No. She doesn't look happy, does she? This is a bunch of bunk. Bringing us all in like this."

"I know. But... Charlie knows what he's doing." Her eldest brother was next to the man who had been in the interview room with Giavonna.

And it was obvious Charlie wasn't happy.

That man looked toward Chantal. Stared.

Chantal snuggled the baby closer as the hair on her arms stood on end. That guy was seriously creepy. Someone sank into the chair on her left.

Every instinct went on alert when she met Gene's hazel eyes. She immediately forgot about the cop who had obviously been watching her and focused on Gene instead.

What was he doing next to her?

Chantal snuggled the baby close,looking beautiful. He didn't think he had ever seen her holding a child before. Until this moment, he wouldn't have thought she even knew what to do with a kid. Then again, he hadn't interacted much with her since... that incident with Mandy Kirby five or six years ago. What did he really know about the woman next to him?

Gene hadn't meant to overreact that day, but he’d had a few beers—something unusual for him—and Mandy had made it clear Chantal had been saying things she shouldn't. He'd wanted to make a point to Chantal that gossiping and lying weren't to be tolerated.

And he’d been embarrassed she’d seen him out there with Mandy like that. No denying that. Only to find out it hadn't been Chantal who had lied at all.

Genesis had said he'd really hurt Chantal with what he’d said. Gene honestly didn’t remember all of the words he’d spewed at her.

He remembered her face, though.

He probably had hurt her, then. That had been the last thing he had wanted to do. She'd been just a kid. His best friend's kid sister, at that. He’d owed her better than that. Far better.

He'd tried to make amends, but... well, Chantal had spit fire right back at him the next day, saying things herself. Things that had stung. Mostly because they’d been true. He didn’t much like the man he had been becoming back then, and she had told him exactly what she had thought about him and the company he had chosen to keep.

Chantal had latched on to his greatest weaknesses that day and thrown them right back at him. He'd overreacted again, probably because he’d known he’d deserved the words she’d said.

And it had just spiraled from there. Over months.

Until the very sight of her had reminded him of what she had said, what she thought about the man he had been becoming.

She’d told him he’d disgusted her.

That had stung. He had never really forgotten.

He hadn’t meant this rift between them to last for six damned years, though.

Maybe he should have tried harder to make things right with her.

He'd just gotten caught up in his own life since then. He'd broken it off with Mandy and gotten involved with Carly almost right after. Only to have Carly take off and leave Gene holding the bag. The diaper bag, to be exact. His son Calvin hadn't even been four months old at the time.

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