Page 78 of Covert Temptation

Tilting her jaw a notch, she snapped out, “Why bother? You already know my secret.”

“I want to hear your version.”

All the fight was sucked out of her. She felt her tendons turn to rubber and her body droop.

“I’ve been worried about you finding out.” She forced herself to meet his stare.

“Finding out what?”

“That I put myself through college by dancing.”

“You were a stripper.”

She jutted her jaw. “Not a stripper. I didn’t take off my clothes. I just wore skimpy costumes and danced on stage.”

His jaw worked as if he was grinding his teeth, but he didn’t seem capable of responding.

She went on. “Now you can go ahead and judge me. Tell me what a horrible person I am for leaving it off my job application, for avoiding it in every interrogation, and for not telling you.”

He cut furrows through his hair with his fingers. “It’s not against the law to be a dancer, Kennedy. You didn’t take off your clothes, and that probably wouldn’t have mattered much to the government.”

“My parents found out and told me that I’d never get my dream job if anyone ever found out. I just wanted to better myself.” She stared at her fingers locked in her lap.

He nodded slowly, processing it all. “That’s understandable. But Kennedy, you said you only slept with three people.”

She sliced a hand through the air as agitation took over. “It’s true! I never slept with any of those men who came to watch me dance. I have no idea how many people have seen me practically naked, but I’ve only had sex with three—you being one of them. And the other two were boyfriends I didn’t meet at the club.”

His lips compressed as redness streaked up his tanned neck. “I don’t understand, Kennedy. How does someone like you end up on a stage? You’re smart.”

“Gee thanks, Dante. Could it possibly be that on paper, two parents in a household looks peachy, but in reality, they were abusive to each other and me too? Dad drank because he was an asshole. Mom drank to survive him being an asshole. They knew how work the system, earning just enough money to get by. And that meant I was on my own when it came to college. No fast-food job was going to make ends meet.”

He sliced his fingers through his hair. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”

“It was cliché but effective. I never considered the consequences of my choices or how they might prevent me from actually achieving my dreams.” She swallowed against the lump thickening her throat, but her voice was still small. “I never considered how it would affect a relationship with someone I cared about.”

His chest heaved with the deep breath he took. “I hear what you’re saying.”

“I don’t know how you got this information, but I promise you, I made sure it was buried deep. Untraceable.”

He stared at her for a heavy beat. “How did you make sure it was buried?”

“I paid somebody to erase it from my past.”

“Someone has access to it, Kennedy. And that puts all of us at risk—you, me, Alyssa, myteam.” He gave a swift shake of his head. Agitation poured off him in waves in direct opposition to other waves she felt coming from him earlier that night.

Everything had shifted. Changed.

She wanted to scream, but she wanted to cry. “I don’t know how that happened, Dante. You have to believe me.”

He gave her a long, searching look. “We have work to do then. We have to find out how this all happened. And that means you have to be completely honest with me going forward. Nothing omitted.”

She gulped, fighting tears, and nodded.

What came next? She couldn’t see the path ahead. The fingers had been pointed at her for so long, and she always fought against the claims. Now she had to wonder if she really had unknowingly played a role in hurting those she cared about most.

Dante…

It sliced her deep to think that she might lose him over this.

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