Page 43 of The Truths that Deceive

I start chopping the potato. “Kintsugi.”

“What the hell is that?”

This time my cheeks burn. It’s my little hobby and I never share it. Not because it’s anything to be embarrassed about but because… I don’t know, because it doesn’t fit.

“The Japanese art of fixing broken ceramics with gold.”

“Hmmm.”

“Hmmm what?”

Now he shrugs. “Just hmmm.”

“Just how ancient are you?”

This time his gaze catches on my mouth and I press my thighs together as slow heat builds there, because that look is like fucking. “Thirty-nine. Me and my old dick are too old for your little fantasies.”

“And your daughter is twenty-three.”

“Yes.” He moves away and finds a bottle of what looks like golden rum and he pours two glasses. Smith puts one next to me and downs his and refills it. “I was sixteen when she was born.”

“Oh.”

“We don’t have much of a relationship.”

“Shocking. You’re such a charmer. I can’t imagine how you wouldn’t be a doting dad, too.”

He puts the bottle down with a soft click on the windowsill.

Somehow the gentleness is worse than if he slammed it down.

“You know nothing about me or my fucking life, Juniper.”

I normally like my middle name, but not when he says it with that scathing touch. “You’re not the only one who wasrecruited young. Dakota was… let’s just say she was something of a very delayed surprise.”

I try and think of something to say. But nothing comes.

There are questions that crowd my mind. Did her mother keep her from him? Was his kid adopted? Relationships can be repaired.

“M-my brother didn’t want anything to do with Mom for a long time. I guess you’ve read all about us, but our grandmother raised us, and then our mom came back. She was never the same. Damaged, scarred. She was so self-destructive. And she was in and out of institutions. But they made up, created a bond before… before she died.”

Death by suicide. That was the thing, but I’d had suspicions.

It doesn’t matter.

I tracked down the man who led her to this horrible outcome. Maybe he’s our father. Maybe not. I don’t know or care.

I uncovered it two years ago in an old file. An investigation into Jon Trenton and his business dealings. The Collectors. His twisted, depraved preference for young girls.

My eyes burn hot.

“Sylvie’s long dead and there’s no fixing my shit. Dakota’s better off without me in her life.”

“Smith?”

“What?”

He softens, trails fingers down over my cheek, rubbing light on my lower lip. It’s like a balm, like something I never knew I needed. The touch isn’t sexual. No, this touch is… it isn’t sweet, but it’s tender and comforting and it makes my eyes burn hotter and my vision blur.

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