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Ian groaned. “I don’t know that I can handle having both you and Boomer on the payroll.”
“I think you’ll make out fine,” Nate said with a smile as he left.
Daughter? “You’re Tasha’s father?”
“The things we do for our kids.” Ian sat back, studying Dare. “Sometimes those things seem like excellent ideas at the time, but they don’t turn out the way we hope. Your mother thought she was doing the right thing by you, but it didn’t work out that way, did it?”
The man had obviously done his research. Or Tasha had a report ready. She’d studied him for a solid week, and he was the idiot who told her everything. “I’m not going to work for you, Mr…Ian.”
“It’s Taggart if you feel the need to be formal, though I’m going to ask you not to reveal that to Ben. He can call me Mr. Lemon.”
Dare was confused. “Why would you hand me a weapon? I could tell him everything. Well, now I could tell him your real last name at least.”
“I told you because I want you to know Tasha’s last name, though it wasn’t always Taggart. She was born Natasha Federova. She should tell you the story, but I want you to understand that if she trusts you, then I have to as well. Lou isn’t her sister. Lou is one of her closest friends, but they aren’t blood relations, though you’ll find my kids love their found family every bit as much as they do their biological family. TJ’s probably feeling that right now. Kara is her sister.”
He was confused. “Kara’s her sister?”
“Oh, yes, and she’s both the light of my life and the bane of my existence. That’s how kids are most of the time.” The man seemed determined to impart a bunch of wisdom. It should be annoying. Dare found it oddly soothing, like this was a real dad talking to him. “Tash, though… She was a gift from the universe. I didn’t understand our family wasn’t complete until she came to live with us. She’s precious to my family, and that’s why I’m going to offer you a choice. You can be angry and walk away and not worry about what happens if we don’t find the intel we need. That’s cool. It’s one way to go.”
He wanted to walk away. He was almost certain this man wasn’t going to torture him. And still he sat there. “It’s absolutely what I’m going to do.”
“Or you could stay on and help Tasha do the job,” Taggart offered like it was a reasonable thing to do. “Now there are going to be rules to follow, and you might not like some of them—the chief one being everything has to look perfectly normal. You have to go back to the suite tonight with her, let the people left at the conference see you together. It would be best if you slept in the same bed since we don’t know if they have people watching you closely. That’s the kind of shit that can trip a spy up. You forget about housekeeping at your own peril.”
“I’m not doing any of this. I don’t ever want to see Tasha again.” He didn’t need to see her. She was emblazoned on his brain, and he would die dreaming about her.
Taggart gave him a look that made it clear he didn’t believe him. “Of course you do. Look, lying to me is one thing. I can accept that. You’re hurt and I’m part of that hurt, but at least don’t lie to yourself. You do want to see her again. You want to do exactly what I said you wanted to do at the beginning of this conversation. Fuck her out of your system. You think showing her you don’t care about her will make you feel better. It won’t. Nothing is going to fill that hollow place in your gut except letting her back in, and that is scary, which is why that’s not what I’m offering you.”
This was such an uncomfortable conversation, but he couldn’t seem to walk away. “It sounds like you’re offering up your daughter on a silver platter.”
“I don’t have to do that,” Taggart said grimly. “She’ll do that herself. She’ll let you walk all over her, and I’m here to mitigate the damage. Look, if I didn’t kill that fucker Chet, I’m not going to murder you. I understand you’re the injured party, but you two need to work that out. If I thought for a second you would hurt her physically, this would be an entirely different conversation.”
“Who the hell is that guy?” As long as he was here, he could get some of his questions answered. “Fucking Chet. Who names their kid that? He’s an ass. First off, he did nothing to hide who he works for. He said it right out in the open. That seems careless. And then there was the way he treated Tasha. You know he basically called her a whore right in front of me.”
