Page 124 of The Truths that Deceive

Smith sits up a little, and apart from the drip and the bandage on his arm, he looks utterly delicious. So close and so far, and?—

“Thing is, you can’t see your brother, not for a while.” He sighs. It’s so soft, so full of heartbreak I want to cry. And I know whatever he’s going to say won’t hold a happy ending for me. Not the one I secretly want, that new shiny delicate thing. “You’re not going with the CIA.”

I stare at him.

“As far as they’re concerned, you died in the car explosion with Riley and Brown.”

Maybe there is happiness in reach, that special secret one. Maybe?—

“And you and me?”

“I’ve got a life, Calista,” he says, not looking at me. “It’ll take a week, so you’ll have to lay low, but you’ll stay with Eva, or at least at her place. Once you know where you want to live, where you want to be, we’ll get you a new ID, a new history, name. Any country, anywhere.”

“Do… do you have any feelings for me?” I blurt, trying not to let my voice tremble. Trying not to let the lump in my throat morph up into tears.

He still doesn’t look at me. “Live your life.”

The anger flares and snaps. Not for the plane and his manipulations to get me to do what he needed, but this. I’m fucking furious and hurt, and?—

“You’re a coward, Smith. A no-good coward.”

I squeeze my eyes against the sudden blur and burn, willing myself not to cry.

And then I turn.

I walk out.

Eva from Cuba is waiting, and I don’t speak to her. I just keep going, out the door.

The sooner I have my new everything, my broken heart and I can move on.

And never see him again.

The lying fuck.

Chapter 35

Smith

She’s dead.

Calista Juniper Price is dead.

On paper.

I sigh and pace my Manhattan penthouse, waiting… waiting… not for Calista, because she’s with Jones. Learning all about her death, about how her life as she knows it, is over.

It’s been a week and my heart hasn’t stopped aching.

Fuck me, I’m falling apart.

It’s been a week and I went shopping for a fucking wedding gift to send Orion and my kid and came back with other… things. One, in particular.

Probably the ache and the weird shopping shit is lack of constructive things to do, people to kill.

I need an assignment, something good, hard, dangerous. I need to go and get fucking laid.

Only problem with that last one is there’s no one I want.

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