“So you can understand why you trying to get out so soon has me wondering a few things,” I continue quietly. “You just wanted toget in and get out, huh? Get as close to my son as you could so that you could use him for?—”
“No!” she exclaims, her lips parting in shock. “No, God, I would never do anything like that. I–I had no idea what kind of business you were even involved in until I got here, and trust me, I wouldneverhave taken the job if I had.”
“And what exactly have you heard about my business, huh?” I prompt her. “Who have you been talking to?”
“My sister,” she retorts sharply. “She’s a journalist. Said your name has come up in a few of the cases she’s covered recently. And that you’re a supplier for pretty much anyone who needs a gun in this entire city, right?”
I stare down at her for a moment, scanning her face for any sign that she might be lying to me, but I find none. Whatever she is saying she, at least, believes it. And I don’t know if I do yet, because if her sudden desire to leave wasn’t to do with her double-crossing, then what was it about?
“Marsha and I talked about something else too, you know,” I remark, and she swallows hard, throat flexing just a few inches away from me. Her mouth is pressed into a hard line, but there is still something tempting about it, the soft fullness of her lower lip like a pillow where her teeth are pressed into it.
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah,” I reply. “About how we both can’t shake the feeling that you’re hiding something.”
Her cheeks darken, and I know I’ve struck a nerve. She is hiding something, I can tell, it is written all over her face, in the way she has carried herself since she saw me.
“I–it’s not what you think,” she attempts, trying to dissuade me from taking this any further. “It’s got nothing to do with your business, I can promise you that. That’s all that matters, right?”
I let out a mirthless snort. “You think that I’m going to let some woman with a secret around my son like that?” I reply. “I’m trusting you with him every day. And if there’s something that you need to tell me-”
“You don’t need to know,” she pleads with me. “You just–just let me go. Please. I promise that I’m not going to breathe a word of this to anyone, I won’t even tell anyone I worked for you. You don’t have to pay me, I’ll give you all the money back, just let my daughter and I go back to our old lives. That’s the only thing I’m asking for.”
I plant my hands on either side of her, looking hard into her eyes. “Cara,” I warn her. “I’m not going to let you walk out of this room until you tell me what it is you’ve been hiding from me.”
She squeezes her eyes shut, like she is trying to shut out the fact that this conversation is happening at all, but that’s not how this works.
“Cara.”
When I speak her name again, she looks at me, and I can see her chest rising and falling fast again. She would do just about anything to get out of telling me what she is really thinking, but I refuse to let her distract me. She’s not right about my business–it’s not the most important thing to me, not by a long shot. What matters most to me is my legacy, and it lives in that little boy that I’ve entrusted her with.
She glances to the side, at my hand, the one with the spiderweb tattoo. And something finally gives in her expression, whatever she’s been hanging on to finally loosening up.
“I...we’ve met before, Alex,” she confesses finally. “A long time ago now. I don’t think you’d even remember me.”
I furrow my brow. “We’ve met before?”
She nods.
“That night at the masquerade ball,” she continues. “I... I was the woman you took back up to your hotel room. We had sex, you got into the shower, and I left. You have to believe me, Alex, I had no idea it was you when I took the job, I never thought we were going to see each other again, and if I had...”
It all slots into place in my mind. Everything that happened that night—the smell of her, the sound of her voice, her long hair over one shoulder. That’s what my body was trying to warn me of when the two of us encountered each other again, that there was a connection there that I might not be able to put into words.
Because I’ve never forgotten that night, or that woman. For as little as I saw of her face, I could make out every inch of her body, and it has burned itself on to my brain ever since.
When she left while I was showering, I figured that she might have a partner of her own, have been overcome by the guilt of what she had done, or just come to her senses and realized that it was more than slightly crazy to spend a night alone in a hotel room with a stranger whose name she didn’t even know.
But what we shared that night, when I took her on the bed, it’s something I’ve never found since. And I’ve looked,fuck, I’velooked. There have been women since her, but none have come close to the thrill of that night.
And now, she is standing right in front of me, the nanny to my son, with a daughter of her own…
And that, of course, is when it hits me.
9
CARA
I watchhis expression as he takes it all in, and I know it’ll only be a matter of time before he puts all the pieces together. The blood pulses in my veins as I stare up at him, holding my breath, willing this conversation to be over already...
