Page 270 of Vicious Temptation

I read the page again, desperate to find something that doesn’t fit, something he couldn’t possibly know that would prove Elena put this together from a distance and that Thiago had nothing to do with it. But every line brings back another memory.

My terrace. My home. My family. The nights when I let him see inside my head. My fingers tighten around the paper until it crumples beneath them. I blink as a tear hits the page, only then realizing I’m crying.

Thiago wasn’t learning me because he loved me.

He was studying me.

The thought makes my chest cave in. I press my palm against my sternum and draw a breath, but it catches halfway down. Another tear falls, then another, and the words in front of me swim until I have to wipe my eyes just to keep reading..

As I turn another page, my breaths come faster, each shallower than the last. Then my eyes catch two lines near the bottom, and I stop breathing altogether.

Current Operational Development: Target has invited operative to private family dinner. Attendance will provide direct access to senior Cain family members and an opportunity to assess current organizational activity.

Mission Status: ACTIVE

My heart gives a painful thud as the meaning sinks in. No one. No one outside my family knows about tonight except Thiago.

“No.”

I shake my head as more tears spill down my cheeks. There has to be another explanation. There has to be a way Elena found out without him telling her, because the alternative means he walked away from everything I trusted him with last night and reported back to the woman who sent him after me.

But I can’t find one.

The denial I’ve been clinging to finally shatters, and the pain that rushes in behind it nearly doubles me over.

He told her.

He had to have told her.

A sob catches in my throat as I swipe at the stack, sending papers scattering across the floor. I stumble back from the table and wrap my arms around myself, as if I could somehow hold together everything inside me that’s coming apart.

“No.” I can barely force the word past my lips. “Please...it can’t be true.”

I back away from them, but there’s nowhere to look that doesn’t remind me of something I gave him. My apartment surrounds me. The home he was ordered to gain access to. Somewhere above me is the terrace he was ordered to find. Downstairs are the cars he was supposed to document.

I press a hand over my mouth as another sob forces its way up my throat.

“No, Thiago. You didn’t do this to me.”

My phone vibrates against the table.

Thiago Calling...

I stare at his name.

An hour ago, I would’ve answered before the first ring even finished. I was standing in this same room, telling Val I loved him, wondering how I could possibly be so sure after only a few weeks. Now I know exactly how.

He made sure I would be.

The call ends, only to start again seconds later, but I can’t bring myself to touch the phone.

Everything I thought was ours suddenly has another explanation. The questions he asked. The places he wanted to see. The way he paid attention to every little thing I did. Even the parts of me I thought he noticed because he cared.

I trusted him with all of it.

And he was sent here to make sure I did.

Sixty-Six