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So why hadn’t she let her mother know she was alive? God, what had happened to her?
“I know that, Mother.” She had to fight back the need to confide, to tell her of the pieces of memories she had, to plead for her help in figuring them out.
Yet she couldn’t. She couldn’t allow herself to do it.
“Promise, if you need to talk, you will come to me, baby,” her mother begged, another tear slipping down her pale cheek. “Please don’t hide from me any longer. You’re breaking my heart.”
“I promise, Mother,” she lied.
Lilly knew she couldn’t go to her mother with whatever her past entailed. But until she knew what it entailed herself, then she wasn’t even certain how dangerous she was to her.
And there was simply no one left to run to.
But Black Jack.
She almost froze in her mother’s embrace.
Pulling back, she breathed in heavily. “I need to rest for a while, Mother. Perhaps a nap would help this headache that’s brewing at the moment.”
She rubbed her temples as though there were truly a headache coming on.
/> “Of course.” Her mother kissed her cheek gently. “Rest, darling. I’ll have the maid call you for dinner.”
Lilly watched as she left the room, her heart thundering, her mind churning. Black Jack. She could trust Black Jack, she thought desperately. The urge to do just that was building in her mind, beating at it.
Who was Black Jack?
Travis.
She could see him in her mind’s eye, as he stood with Santos Bahre and Rhiannon McConnelly hours before in his home, a frown on his dark face. Green-flecked brown and gold eyes had been filled with concern, and a warning.
That was it.
She rubbed at the back of her neck, frowning now as she let those moments roll through her memories again. In Travis’s eyes there had been a warning. But why? What had he been warning her of?
Santos Bahre and Rhiannon McConnelly. They were partners, according to the file she had, in a very profitable business. That business included providing women to a very select clientele. According to the investigator, the rates for the female companionship rose in relation to the level of danger the companion would face.
Had she been a whore or a very good mercenary? What the fuck was going on?
A part of her was screaming that she should run to Travis, that she should talk to him, confide in him.
Black Jack. It was a code name.
She fought to still the rapid beating of her heart, the fear that raced through her like a locomotive tearing out of control. She felt her breathing constrict, felt the warning flashing in her mind that she couldn’t trust Travis any more than she could trust Santos Bahre, Rhiannon McConnelly, or Jordan Malone.
And yet another part of her was demanding that she do just that. That she trust him, possibly with her life.
I’ll be here for you, Lilly. His voice whispered through her mind, seductive, alluring. But what she sensed about that voice was anything but seductive and alluring.
As she fought to pull those memories free, a sharp ache sliced through her temples as though in retaliation.
Dropping her head, Lilly pressed her fingers to the sides of her head and fought to breathe through the pain.
The headaches had been common the first month after she had been shot. The memories she had lost had seemed to be closer at that time as well.
Turning, she stared into the mirror and gazed into the same unfamiliar face—which was at the same time familiar.
Reaching up she touched the arch of her brow, the slender line of her nose, the curve of her lips.
