Risk It All (Risqué #2) by Scarlett Finn Page B

here.’
    ‘Ok, we can leave it until our next appointment,’ Lyssa said, nodding, but she put her card on the kitchen table. ‘It’s been my experience that these things fester and seep into other areas of victims lives. I tell all of my patients that letting their experience taint their other relationships and the way they live their lives only lets their attacker keep on winning.’
    ‘My attacker is dead,’ Brianna said. ‘The Sniveller isn’t winning anything anymore.’
    ‘That’s what you called him?’
    Brianna nodded. ‘The others called him Skeeve. There was a gang of them, but… he had no power with his colleagues, I think he used women as a way to…’
    ‘Feel powerful?’
    Brianna nodded and let the weight of her head fall. ‘I really don’t want to talk about this.’
    ‘Ok,’ Lyssa said. ‘I really hope that you’ll come back to see me. We can talk about whatever you would like to, there’s no pressure to rush any particular discussion. You’re important to Blaser and I’m marrying his brother, so we should get to know each other.’
    Brianna frowned. ‘We should? Why? Colt hates me. Have you heard the way he talks about me?’
    ‘No,’ Lyssa said, grinning and taking on a sarcastic air. ‘But if he so much as thinks about saying anything negative about you in my vicinity he’ll find himself sleeping in the spare room.’
    Brianna didn’t want to like this woman, but she did. She had never really given much thought to the women that Blaser’s brothers saw in the past. Perhaps that was because he hadn’t spent a lot of quality time with his brothers while they were together, Colt especially.
    Colt had been a cop, married, respectable, everything that Blaser wasn’t. The funniest part of it was that they were twins, yet you couldn’t get two brothers who were more different.
    ‘Colt is a good guy,’ Brianna said, feeling guilty for her outburst. Her emotions were right on the surface these days, being with Blaser and talking to this doctor made a lot of things bubble up from the dark place she’d tried to repress them in.
    ‘He’s a great guy,’ Lyssa said. ‘That doesn’t mean he always makes the best decisions. I’ve treated people that he doesn’t like before. What Colt thinks doesn’t have an effect on what I do, or who I do it with.’ She seemed to consider this for a moment then a smile quirked to her lips again. ‘Professionally at least.’
    ‘Carrie would’ve said the same thing,’ Bri asked. Carrie was Colt’s first wife, she had cheated on him and broken his heart. That Bri had this protective, defensive urge toward Colt with the woman he was engaged to surprised her. Colt was known for giving Blaser a hard time, and as Blaser’s girl she got the brunt of it too because she and her family were blamed for every bad decision that Blaser made.
    She’d often questioned if maybe she was the one to blame for Blaser getting into so much trouble in his youth. After Gary had accepted their relationship his bond with Blaser got deeper and Blaser wanted to be with her, so he put up with or complied with everything Gary wanted. Maybe if Blaser hadn’t been so intent on keeping her happy, and keeping the peace with her brother, he wouldn’t have done some of the things that he did; half of which she didn’t know about at the time.
    Lyssa must have registered her harsh words and the emotions behind them because her head tilted and Bri sensed her intrigue. ‘I would never cheat on Colt. I love him so much you wouldn’t believe… Did you know Carrie?’
    ‘I was at the wedding.’
    ‘Sure, you were with Blaser then.’ She nodded. ‘Were you close with Carrie?’
    ‘No,’ Bri said with an involuntary bark of laughter. ‘Carrie looked down her nose at everyone; the only person I ever saw her getting along with was Ruger.’
    ‘Everybody loves Ruger,’ Lyssa said.
    A chill made her tense and Bri kept her teeth together, fearful that if she let them