Page 37 of Wired Strong

Frank firmed his jaw. “I didn’t believe I could discuss my concerns with you because you had already made your feelings for Connor abundantly clear, in spite of who he turned out to be. Why didn’t you tell me about him, instead of hiding his identities, his role as the Ghost vigilante?”

“I didn’t tell anybody. I couldn’t.” Sophie frowned. “Who Connor is wasn’t my secret to share.”

Frank threw up his hands in frustration. “Listen to yourself. ‘Who he is.’ Who is he, really? Does anyone know?”

“Does it matter what he calls himself? I know who he is, inside.” Even as she said the words, doubt gnawed at Sophie.Did she know who he was, anymore? Had she ever?

“What I don’t understand is, if he is so important to you, why hasn’t Connor been your boyfriend the whole time? Why has he stayed at that compound in Thailand with Pim Wat and the Master? And why do you still care about him when he lied, repeatedly, and let you grieve his ‘death’?” Frank made air quotes. “I, for one, will never forget the pain you suffered over that betrayal.”

“I am a grown woman, and I get to sleep with whomever I want. Do whatever I want in my relationships—and none of it has to make any sense to you, because it’s none of your business.” Sophie trembled with anger and stress. “But since we’re talking about it, Connor and I broke up over his role as the Ghost. I wanted him to stop his vigilante activities. He refused.”

“Well, that speaks well of your character, if not of his,” Frank said acidly.

“But it’s not a simple thing. Connor deals with people that need to be dealt with, people that no one in law enforcement can touch.” Sophie held her father’s gaze. “He rescued my ex-husband’s new child bride, and made sure she got back to her parents when I asked him to. Whatever else we get out of this conversation, know this: you don’t get to dictate who I have a relationship with. Not after Assan Ang.”

The specter of Sophie’s early arranged marriage to a sadistic businessman had long lain between them. Frank scowled. “I was not in favor of that match. That was all your mother.”

“But you didn’t try hard to stop it! You let it go forward. I wasnineteen,Dad!” Sophie’s knuckles turned white as she gripped her mug. “Assan almost killed me a hundred times.”

Frank ran a hand over his thick, closely-buzzed hair. “I didn’t know! You never said anything! I would have moved heaven and earth to get you away from him if I’d known—” He blew out a breath. “And that’s why it’s hard to watch you flounder around in your relationships. I just want you to be safe and happy.”

“I can understand that. I have a daughter now, too, and I’m very protective of her.” Sophie made a chopping gesture with her hand. “But every one of my relationships has been important. I still love each of the men I’ve been with in a unique way. I shouldn’t have to explain or justify that to you, any more than you need to tell me about the women in your life. Marrying my mother didn’t make sense—let alone staying with her as long as you did. Were you using her, just as she was using you?” Sophie’s eyes felt hard and hot as she pinned her father with her gaze. “It just now occurred to me. You were a spy, too.”

Frank sputtered, speechless, and Sophie saw a flash of that thing again.Guilt.

“Ridiculous. I’ve had a perfectly aboveboard position with the State Department all of these years,” Frank said.

“No wonder you knew about Connor. You’re with the CIA,” Sophie persisted. “How else would you have known about him?”

Frank stood up. “This discussion is over.”

“I’ll just ask Agent MacDonald or Kate Smith. They’ll tell me,” Sophie said. “You’ve been more than just an asset to the CIA; you’re anagent.That’s why you married Pim Wat. She’s close to the Thai Royal Family. You could report on the Yam Khûmk?n and the activities of the Thai court.”

Her father stood over her, six-foot-plus of intimidating male. “How dare you!”

“How dareyou,P?a?” Sophie stood up too. “You might as well admit it.”

Frank turned and walked into the kitchen. “Enough.”

“Oh, but you get to judge me? Take matters into your own hands like a patriarch of old?” The dogs, agitated by the raised voices, lifted their heads from their beds near the door. Sophie lowered her voice with an effort. “Dad. Let’s be honest, for once, and talk this through. Maybe there’s a way we can figure this out. Marcella had an idea that I’m thinking over.”

Frank opened the cupboard over the stove. “Are you hungry? I could fix you pancakes. You loved banana pancakes when you were a girl.”

Sophie flashed to their kitchen in the family’s communal house in Thailand. Her father had imported a Western stove, and when he was at home, he used to fix the two of them breakfast. Pim Wat had never joined them; she didn’t “feel well” in the mornings.

Yes, she remembered those banana pancakes.

“Please. I’m hungry. I’m always hungry these days.” Sophie seated herself on a high stool at the marble island that contained the stove. She sipped her tea and watched her father as he gathered the ingredients and made the batter from scratch. The homey sounds and smells and sight of him, stirring the batter in the bowl, took her back. “It’s nice that you remember about those pancakes.”

“How could I forget?” Frank sliced the bananas. Her sensitive nose reacted favorably to their sweet, ripe scent. “Those breakfasts were some of our best times together in that house.”

Sophie took out her phone and thumbed to an app that played jazz. Soon, mellow piano riffs accompanied the sizzle of butter in the cast iron pan. Frank didn’t speak until he had three perfectly round pancakes browning.

“I was recruited to the CIA as a condition of getting the ambassadorship. I was one of the first black men to occupy the office, and I wanted that job. I would have done worse than be a spy to get it.”

Ginger must have sensed the tension in her mistress, because she padded over to lean against Sophie’s leg. Sophie played with her dog’s ears as her father went on. “It started out small. Just faxing something confidential that came across my desk, here and there. Then, they engineered a meeting between me and Pim Wat.” He looked up to meet Sophie’s eyes. “Your mother was so beautiful.”

“She’s always been beautiful,” Sophie murmured. “I bet you were swept away.”

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