Page 25 of Hidden With You

“All of it?” I have no idea what she’s talking about.

“If I tell you this, you better not mention it to anyone, okay? I mean it. This is a family thing.”

This is Leah’s serious voice. The kind I heard when Camille and I used to get in trouble. Back when I felt more a part of her family than my own.

She draws a breath. “I ran him before Ryan made the offer. Full profile, as deep as I could go.”

“Okay. What did you learn?”

“He left MI6, and he’s been freelance for a few years.”

“So?”

“So I couldn’t find anything on the jobs he took.”

“So what? There were probably confidentiality terms.”

“Yeah, but no. You don’t understand. I’m good at what I do. He must have a secret bank account because there’s not enough going into his regular one. Which begs the question of why he would need a secret one. Unless he’s doing work that he doesn’t want anyone to have look at.”

“Again, clients with confidentiality.”

“Maybe. But there are still a lot of questions.”

“He was a spy. That’s a paranoid breed. Maybe he just doesn’t like leaving a trail. That way he avoids bad guys doing what you were trying to do.”

“Maybe,” she admits.

“What did Ryan say?”

“Nothing to me. I just delivered the report.”

“Well, there you go. If Ryan knows and still hired him, then everything must be okay.”

Leah’s head tilts to the side. “Tell me you’re not that naïve.”

We’re in the house now, crossing the palatial entryway toward the hallway under the stairs that led to my study off the kitchen. I stop in the hall and face her. “Look, just tell me what you think. You’re the one who brought it up, you obviously want to tell me. What do you think is going on?”

“I think he was using freelance gigs as a cover to investigate his wife and daughter’s death. Now, I think he might be using Stark Security. I think he’s talented but obsessed.” She crosses her arm and stares me down. “Does that sound like someone you know?”

I frown. It sounded like Martin King, my former CIA hero who has spent the last three books getting in and out of various kinds of trouble, all against the backdrop of searching for his little sister’s killer.

“So what if he’s a little bit like King? It’s not like I knew that before I was attracted to him.”

“That’s not my point. You did a good job writing that character. You got into his head, and you did it right. And Martin King’s a fucking powder keg.”

“Yeah, but he’s good in bed,” I quip.

She says nothing, but there’s ice in her eyes.

“Come on, Leah. Just because there are some similarities between him and my character, that doesn’t mean he’s actually like King. He’s not going to lose his shit any moment.”

“You really want to fuck a powder keg?”

I look away, as if I’m conceding the point. But I’m not. Because the truth is that even with a potential explosion, I still want him. Maybe even more.

And I’m not at all sure what that says about me.