The Wrong Hostage

32

TIJUANA

SUNDAY EVENING

GRACE WATCHED FAROE WITH the kind of intensity he often used on her. In the three minutes since he’d backed her into a corner and dragged the truth about Lane out of her, Faroe had calmly pulled on his clothes, gathered up his cell phone, adjusted something on the unit, and put it in his pocket. Then he’d turned his back on her and stared out the window.

He hadn’t said a word.

Not one.

His cell phone rang. He ignored it.

“Say something,” she said finally.

“You don’t want to hear what I’m thinking.”

“Try me.”

“How would you feel if I’d shown up with a teenager, introduced you, and said, ‘Oh, by the way, this is yours. Little souvenir of three days of jungle sex and a bad rubber.’”

“You look at Lane and see a bad rubber?”

Faroe spun toward her. The raw fury on his face was the same as she’d seen sixteen years ago. His voice was deadly calm. It made the hair on her neck lift.

“I look at Lane and see a son I never had the chance to know,” Faroe said in a voice that was as quiet as his eyes were wild. “I look at Lane and see a son who never knew his biological father. I look at Lane and see fifteen years gone, fifteen years I’ll never get back. Neither will he. Then I look at you.”

Instinctively Grace backed away from Faroe.

He matched her step for step, inch for inch.

She’d known he would be angry. She hadn’t known how it would feel to be the focus of that rage.

“I look at you,” he said softly, “and see an ambitious female who used a stud for sex and a billionaire to raise her bastard.”

“I didn’t know you were Lane’s biological father!”

A wall hit Grace’s back. This time she didn’t welcome it. She ignored the tears blurring her vision and lifted her chin as Faroe closed the last inches between them.

“You didn’t care,” he said. “You had a baby and a billionaire and a fast-track career and you just didn’t give a damn about the dumb sperm donor.”

“The dumb sperm donor threw me out of his life, remember? I didn’t know, Joe. I swear it!”

“The dumb sperm donor remembers that you could have found out at any time and you damn sure have known for, what, ten years now? And you still didn’t tell me.”

“By the time I tracked you down ten years ago, you were in Belize, well out of cell range.”

Faroe looked at Grace’s bitter black eyes and trembling lips. Part of him admired her for standing up to him when most men would have cut and run.

But most of him was too furious to care.

“How did you know where I was?” he asked calmly.

Too calmly.

“I used my connections to track you to St. Kilda Consulting. I even got your cell phone number, the really private one only Steele has.”

“I told Steele he should change those numbers more often.”

“I didn’t call you,” she said roughly. “You were undercover in hostile territory, your life at risk every second. Just imagine how you’d have felt if a woman you hated told you that she’d had your biological son, who by the way was legally the son of a man you’d never met.”

Faroe didn’t say anything.

“Speechless again?” she said. “A rare double.”

“Don’t push me, Grace.”

“I’m the one with my back to the wall,” she said through her teeth.

There was a tight silence.

Then he stepped away, giving her room to breathe.

“Besides,” Faroe said neutrally, “Ted was much better father material, right? Rich, successful, socially acceptable, and best of all-not an ex-con.”

“You’re wrong.”

“Which part?”

“The important one. Ted should have been good father material, but he wasn’t. Even before he discovered that there wasn’t a genetic connection between himself and Lane, Ted didn’t care about his son. Ted was too busy with his hedge fund to take time for a baby, a toddler, a young boy, a-”

“Wife?” Faroe cut in.

“The wife was too busy to care about the husband. Balancing a demanding career and a baby took everything I had.”

“You’re breaking my heart.”

“You don’t have one. If you did, you’d be more worried about Lane than any other part of this mess.”

The smile he gave her was as cold as his eyes. He turned and headed for the door.

“Where are you going?” she asked. “You promised that-”

“I need some space,” he cut in. “A whole fucking universe of it.”

The door shut softly behind him.

She wished he’d slammed it.

Her shoulders slumped against the wall.

I’m sorry, Lane.

No matter what I do, it’s wrong.

When her fingers went slack, the sheet slid to the floor, leaving her naked again.

But Lane shouldn’t have to be the one to pay for it.

Grimly Grace kicked aside the sheet and went to the shower. She didn’t have much time to pull herself together before she met Hector Rivas Osuna, the Butcher of Tijuana.

Faroe might have walked out on her, but he’d given her some good advice.

Lie, Your Honor. Hector believes you’re his ticket to your husband.