“Who’s that?” Trent asks.
Turning on the shower to avoid being overheard, I whisper, “Right back,” and hang up.
The bathroom door swings open the moment I tuck the phone behind the shampoo bottle, and I almost yelp when a hand wraps around my throat and pulls me in for a kiss.
“One more for the road.”
“I’m gonna get you wet,” I protest, trying to push him out of the shower.
“Isn’t that what I’m supposed to say?”
“Get out!”
“Oh, you’re gonna eat your words tonight, honey, when you’re begging me toget in.” He slaps my ass. “Text me a list of everything you need.”
Atlas leaves the bathroom, and I stop the water so I can hear when the front door closes.
Taking the phone back in hand, the weight of my actions presses down tenfold with his kiss still warm on my lips.
“Trent?” I say in a shaky voice.
He doesn’t answer, and I check if I’ve even dialed his number.
“Trent, are you there?”
“So you’re screwing his son.”
I swallow the confession. It’s not needed.
“My father was right about you.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Do you really think I’m that incompetent to not know why you wanted to be relocated to Pennsylvania? To enroll in that particular university?”
He knew and still helped me?
It takes a single empty heartbeat. Then another, before the realization hits me.
It’s like a hammer shattering the mirror of my fake reality.
“You’re using me.”
The Feds can’t afford to get their hands dirty and anything leading back to them. But I’m fair game, I guess.
“Maeve . . .”
“No such thing as a free lunch, right?”
I was foolish enough to believe Trent was protecting me out of kindness. Or guilt. Or lust, maybe. I never considered... this.
“Intel on Mason as leverage or his head on a platter, so you can work with someone more agreeable? Like his son. What are you after?”
“Either.”
I’m the puppeteer who’s only now noticing the hair-thin strings that turned me into a puppet.
Looking back, I can see how all the pieces fit into place. My grief blinded me enough to miss the bigger picture, and my rage didn’t help either.
