Page 98 of I Am Sin

She gets up off the love seat and sits next to me on the couch, thumbing the stubble on my cheek. “Maybe. Maybe not.” She sighs. “I start that new job tomorrow, and I won’t have time for any of this anyway. So once we talk to the investigator tonight, you’re on your own.”

“No different from any other time in my life,” I say.

She checks the time on her phone. “He’ll be here in about ten minutes.”

I open my eyebrows. “That quickly?”

She nods. “My family pays this company a lot of money. They’re on call twenty-four seven.”

Damn. Is there nothing that money can’t buy?

Happiness, I suppose.

Diana’s happy, though. All the Steels seem to be.

Who wouldn’t be with riches beyond anyone’s wildest dreams?

But then I think about that bomb Diana dropped on me about her brothers and her father. They were victims of human trafficking. She didn’t give me any details beyond that, but I can’t imagine it was anything good.

Money can get you a lot of things, but I’m not sure it can fix something like that.

And I’m not sure it can fix my current problem, either.

“You want me to sit with you while you talk to them?”

“No.”

I don’t mean to be so forceful, but if she sits with me, she’ll learn the truth. That my own parents believed the worst of me.

That I learned to believe the worst of myself.

I’ll have to make sure this guy who comes over here will hold what I say in confidence, even from the people who pay his bills.

I open my mouth to say as much when someone buzzes the intercom.

Diana walks toward the door. “That’ll be him. Let’s go.” She presses the intercom button. “Yes?”

“Hi. It’s Alayna Johansson from Infinite Security. Mr. Talon Steel sent me over.”

“Yeah, thank you. I’m his daughter Diana. Come on up.”

“Not a him after all,” I say.

“I guess it’s a her.” Diana’s cheeks flush pink.

A few moments later, a knock on the door. Diana opens it.

Alayna Johansson is gorgeous. Blond and blue-eyed and totally stacked.

Doesn’t even get my blood moving.

“Diana?” She holds out her hand. “I’m Alayna Johansson.”

Diana shakes her hand. “So nice to meet you, and thank you for coming over so quickly. Come on in.”

She steps inside.

“This is Dragon Locke,” Diana says. “He’s the one who will be talking to you.”

---