Page 37 of Sweet Poison

“What’s wrong?” he asked his daughter with a frown of concern. It was the catalyst I needed to recover from the shock of finding her in my daughter’s new school.

I rose to my feet and smoothly accepted her offer of a handshake. I stared into her eyes and found anger simmering in the depths.

“Mr. Swift,” she said formally, almost robotically. “Good to meet you.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you too. This is my daughter, Anya.”

My little angel immediately sprang to her feet and stuck out her hand. Instantly, Montana transferred her entire attention away from me and focused it on her new pupil. Treating me as if I were a complete stranger, she smiled brightly at my daughter.

At that point, her father stood. “I have another appointment, but as mentioned earlier my daughter will give you a tour of our facilities.” He turned towards Montana, his eyebrows raised inquiringly. “Everything alright?”

“Of course,” she replied grimly.

“Fine. I’ll see you later. Have a nice day, Mr. Swift.”

Without another word, she went to hold open the door of the office. She remained silent as we walked out of the reception area and onto the spacious hallway of the administrative block. She even pretended not to see me, and I understood that she was probably just trying to recover and regain her composure, or perhaps she was just thinking of how best to ignore me given our history.

Chapter 22

Montana

For a few seconds there I thought I was seeing things. My mind had finally snapped and I was hallucinating. I knew it couldn’t be a Cole lookalike because the girls and I had unanimously agreed that he was one in a billion. There was no one else like Cole.

So it had to be him calmly sitting in my father’s office.

And he had a daughter, which he didn’t tell me about. Although, to be fair it was my great idea to reveal as little about ourselves as possible. Not even last names, as I remember. And when he clasped my hand, I felt so dizzy I was ready to swoon. Thank God, I didn’t. I held my nerve and spoke to his daughter instead. And that worked. I felt slightly more grounded.

Even so, I couldn’t think straight as I walked away from my dad’s office.

Thank heavens, I’d made a list of the places and things to give the new pupil and her parent a tour of on my phone so I pulled it out and went through it.

I stared at it.

The words swam before my eyes. I saw the words Science Lab.

Good idea. It was quite secluded and not currently in use. Given the circumstances, I wanted to be far away from prying eyes so I could try to gather my thoughts.

I turned to go but slammed into an immovable wall named Cole. The impact would have sent me flying if his strong arms had not grabbed my own and kept me upright.

“With or without heels, balance is not your thing, is it?” he noted, close to my ear.

Because I wasn’t crazy, I avoided looking directly into his eyes. Instead, I shifted my attention to his daughter. She was a sweet little thing.

“Are you okay, Miss Moore?” she asked, and I turned around and smiled at her.

I plastered a big, fake smile on my face. “I am. Thank you.”

She held my gaze, and I held hers simply because I couldn’t look at her father, but then she said something that made me even forget he was there for the moment at least.

“You’re pretty,” she said.

I couldn’t believe her compliment because I was, at that moment, a hot, mud-stained mess from working in the field. My gaze flew towards Cole. I couldn’t begin to imagine what he must be thinking. The last time he saw me I was all dolled up. Seeing the real me must be a great disappointment.

He smiled at me, and my heart nearly stopped because even though I had convinced myself I hated his guts he seemed just as beautiful as he had been that night in Stormy City.

“She’s right,” he said softly. “In spite of the mud and all.”

I frowned. What the hell was happening to me? I hated this man.

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