Page 66 of Infinite

“Working for the Cougars has been the one place I’ve always looked good,” she agrees quietly. “When my father goes, I’ll look bad again. Even if I go to be by his side, my family will never paint me as the devoted daughter who returned home to dutifully hold her daddy’s hand when he left the earth.”

“Does this mean you’re thinking about seeing him?” I ask. Shit. I really don’t want her to.

“Only because I think I should.”

“Why do you think you should, Becca?” It’s a lousy thing to ask someone whose father is dying. But this man shaped her into the woman she is, not with a kind hand, but with a twisted and cruel mind. Wilton Shields was never a real daddy. Not like the one Becca deserved.

“Because, no matter what, he’s still my daddy.” She swallows hard. “Do you want to know something terrible about me? Something only Trin knows?”

“I want to know everything about you,” I promise.

She makes a sound, this one more reminiscent of a choked sob. I loathe it. She doesn’t deserve this agony.

“I’ve wished my daddy dead more than once.”

Her words are final, like the door being slammed hard in a rude stranger’s face. Except, I understand why she says them.

“He is a sick man. So angry at life. A man who’s ignored all the good around him, because nothing was ever good enough. I thought his death would be the only way to free myself from this disgusting hold he has on me. But now, I don’t know what to think. It’s easier to turn my back and walk away. Goodness, Hale, it’s probably the healthiest thing to do. But now that his death is quickly approaching, I don’t think I can.”

“Then don’t. We’ll go together.”

Her breath trembles. “Baby, you know you can’t come with me.”

“I don’t know that. I want to be with you, Becca. No matter what happens, I don’t want you to go through this alone.”

“Hale, it may be too soon to tell you this, but with you at my side, I feel like I can do almost anything. But this . . . this is the one thing I can’t do with you.”

I drag my hand through my hair, wrestling with what to say. “I’m not going to push you. I won’t be that man. But I’m here for whatever you need, with your family, with all the shit out in Charlotte. Whatever you need, I’m here for you.”

“Thank you,” she says. “I . . . I miss you.”

“I miss you, too.” I almost say I love you. Almost. As much as I’m feeling it, I’m worried it’s too soon for us. But given the years I have with this woman, it’s not too soon to feel it.

I love Becca. I’m not sure when it happened but it did. I loved her first as friend. But I loved her as something more from that night we first kissed and our bodies fell against the sand.

I disconnect and call Mason. “How are we doing?”

“Really good,” he says. “I was just about to call you.”

“Yeah?” I stop in the middle of pacing. After my conversation with Becca, I thought I’d have to run a marathon to keep what she said from eating me alive. “How good?”

“Neesa was cleaning up some files, skimming through your contacts, that kind of thing. She saw something suspicious on an account and alerted the team. Turns out, someone broke into your system and altered your records.”

“Who?” I ask. “Don’t tell me it was the Feds.”

“It wasn’t them, because we’re the ones who brought it to their attention.” I can’t see Mason, but I can picture him smiling. “Neesa, this amazing woman you call your PA, looked back at your schedule the day the file was uploaded. You couldn’t have possibly done it. Turns out, you were attending some dinner at the Met.”

“Are you sure?” I ask.

“No, but Neesa is. She keeps a detailed log of all your calls to her. She’s produced copies going years back to when you first hired her.”

I grin. “I told you she’s the best. Now, tell me about the log.”

“Neesa doesn’t just write out what you say, she writes specifics surrounding the conversation. The log indicates you called her right before the sit-down dinner, complaining about all the dickheads that where there and asking her to set up a meeting with Tim Bradly from the Giants, since he was looking to invest. She wrote down the date and time and then set something up in your calendar. When we went back to look at the time you called and what you wanted—”

“It was the same time someone broke into my system,” I finish for him.

“Exactly.”

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