Page 31 of Forbidden Heat

“Not exactly. He had his own rescue planned, but we horned in and took it over. We practically had to hold a gun to his head to keep him from coming with us, mind you. But this operation was too dangerous for anyone but a military strike team.”

The SUV — because that’s what we’re riding in — pulls up outside a ranch house in what, in the dark, looks like a normal neighborhood. Carlo helps me out and escorts me inside.

A handful of men are in the living room, including Cam. It’s a shock to see him; his face is lined, and the flecks of gray in his hair seem to have multiplied in the last few hours.

He starts toward me, then stops, clearly registering my body language and the fact that I’m not exactly rushing to be in his arms. The other men catch the mood. “We’ll give you some privacy,” Carlo says, and they all go off to another part of the house.

Cameron takes another step forward, his eyes scanning me. When they land on my arm, his face goes hard. I look down to see multiple sets of bruises and red marks where I was manhandled. As soon as I register their existence, they start to ache.

“I’m taking you to a doctor.” He says it with barely contained fury, and I don’t react at all. A few hours ago I would have been moved that he cared so much.

Crossing my arms carefully, I say, “I’m not leaving with you.”

“You’re — what?” He tilts his head, his eyes narrowing like he can x-ray me and figure out what’s wrong. “Haley, what happened?”

I’m so cold inside, it feels like I’ll never be warm. “Is my father dead? My mother?”

“No. They’re safe. As soon as we get you patched up, you can talk to them.”

The hurt, paranoid part of my brain says he’s just using that to lure me away. I didn’t really want to have this out here, with all these other people around, but I guess we have to. “I heard you, Cameron.”

“Heard me what?” Then he runs back the tape in his head to what happened just before I disappeared, and awareness flickers through his eyes. “Haley—”

“You bought me? Like I’m some kind of whore? Not a cheap one, at least, for fifty million dollars, but fuck, Cam!”

He scrubs his hands over his face. “You didn’t hear what you think you heard.”

“I heard enough. You hate my father!”

“I don’t have a lot of respect for him right now. There are reasons for that.”

“Which you didn’t tell me.”

“He’s your father!” Cam snaps. “I wasn’t going to trash the man to you.”

Part of my brain keeps pointing out that he’s making a lot of sense. Is one of the rules ‘Cameron is always right?’ I say stiffly, “Maybe you’d better explain your version of things.”

“Yes, and I will. I promise. But not here. You need to see a doctor for that arm.”

I don’t move. “Haley,” he says. “I’m the same person I’ve been since you came to my home. I’m not some Jekyll and Hyde.”

There he goes, reading my mind again. “Give me the short version now.”

Cameron sighs. “All right. Your father owed money to the mob.” He ignores my gasp and keeps going. “They threatened you, and he sent you to me for safekeeping. After that night I locked you in the study — which, by the way, was a team of mercenaries hired by the mob to come in and kidnap you — I made your father tell me everything, and I promised to help him.”

“The mob? The freaking mob?”

“Yes.”

“I’m gonna kill him.”

His mouth curls up a little. “I think you’ll have to get in line for that.”

“So you were helping … that’s what the money was about.”

“Yes. And I was yelling at him, which you apparently also overheard, because he decided not to stay in the safe house where I’d stashed him and your mother. He had this clever idea that they’d make their getaway to Europe and be safe.”

“Because … the mob is afraid to fly? It doesn’t know people in Europe?” I can see, albeit reluctantly, why Cameron was so frustrated with my father.

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