Page 47 of The Truths that Deceive

“What about your daughter?”

“Fuck, she hates me with a passion. But that’s okay. That hatred has protected her. She lives with a friend of mine and his daughter, her best friend Harley. We hardly see each other, but I know she’s protected.”

Calista bites her lip, those stormy eyes filled with softness that irritates. “I’m sorry.”

“I don’t really know her. Father through DNA only.”

“Bullshit.” She pushes away from me and grabs the bottle of rum I gave her. She takes the final swallow, and I’m almost positive when she looks at the empty thing, she’s thinking about hitting me with it. “No man gets a big-ass tattoo of North and South Dakota in red if they didn’t see themselves asan actual father. And you love her, even if you deny it. I know the truth.”

“Calista?”

“Yes?”

“Come here.”

She sways, her eyes a little glassy. And I kiss her, pulling her into my arms. She kisses me back dreamily, open-mouthed, melting against me. Seconds later, her body slumps over, the kiss dying on our lips.

I pick her up, hugging her close as I grab the laptop with my free hand. I walk into the bedroom and settle Calista onto the mattress. Then I use her hand to unlock the computer.

The drug should work for a few hours, so I take the computer and head back out.

She may claim to be innocent, but she has secrets.

And I’m about to uncover each and every one of them.

Chapter 14

Calista

“You fucking asshole, you drugged me.”

Smith’s dark head is bent over my computer, a frown on his face. It pisses me off that the amount of attention he gives me is about the same as he’d give a vaguely annoying fly.

Only a sliver of light peeks in through the window. A cool breeze whispers over my heated skin.

It’s a clear night.

But not inside me.

I’m a furnace of barely controlled hot anger.

“I asked you something.”

“No,” he says, “you made a statement. There’s a difference.”

Those words drive home the one fact I let slip away during this trip from France.

It doesn’t matter if he’s nice or cruel. It doesn’t matter if he saves me or holds a gun to my head.

There’s a reason I keep looking for outs and ways to escape,and it isn’t what waits for me at the end of this fucked-up road trip.

We’re enemies.

He’s my enemy.

No matter how amenable he can be, I’ve seen him turn on the proverbial dime into darkness, savageness. Violence. And yeah, he’s made no secret of what’s going to happen to me when we get back to the States. My captors will probably meet him at Dulles or Reagan National Airport for the handoff. Or, considering this is the mysterious Smith, some small governmental airfield where the CIA will be waiting with guns.

We’re at the opposite ends of things.

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