Goodness Had Nothing to Do With It by Lucy Monroe Read Free Book Online

she was fourteen."
     
    Damn it to hell. Why hadn't he known? The simple truth was that she hadn't told him. It appeared Ronnie's job as a corporate spy wasn't the only thing she'd hidden from him a year and a half ago.
     
    "How is she now?" The question felt dragged out of him.
     
    His interest in the woman who had betrayed him and her life made no sense, but that didn't diminish his desire to know details.
     
    "Better."
     
    "Do you mean well?" he asked, probing becausebetter could mean anything.
     
    "Yes."
     
    "I'm glad."
     
    Why had he said that?
     
    Of course, the thought of any child dying so young was abhorrent, but the surge of relief that had gone through him at Ronnie's answer had felt way too personal. He felt like cursing again. He didn't even know the girl and he didn't want to get wrapped up in Ronnie's life again. Not that he'd been all that wrapped up in it before, obviously.
     
    Realizing how much of herself she had held back from him made him angry.
     
    "Me too," she said, in reply to his inexplicable comment. "I'm sure you didn't call me to discuss my sister."
     
    He gripped the phone tighter. How could she sound so soft and vulnerable one minute and so cold the next? "You're right. I called to set up our next date."
     
    "Date?" She gave a mocking little laugh. "I'd hardly classify any meeting between the two of us as a date."
     
    "Why? We were pretty good together before." He couldn't resist taunting her with the truth.
     
    "Don't." She didn't sound mocking now. In fact, she sounded a little desperate.
     
    He smiled. "Don't what, sweetheart?"
     
    He deliberately used the endearment, knowing it would irritate her.
     
    "Don'tcall me sweetheart anddon't pretend you want to renew our relationship. I'm not that naive."
     
    Desperation threaded her voice and that surprised him, but it didn't stop the churning need to keep pushing.
     
    "What if I do?" he asked, with deliberate silky menace.
     
    She wasn't the one who'd been naive before. That had been him. He'd trusted her and look what it had gotten him. More than a year of celibacy and too many memories that wouldn't let him sleep at night.
     
    "Come on, Marcus. We both know you aren't interested in me any longer. I was a temporary bed partner who betrayed the company you worked for. You are no more interested in renewing our relationship—if you could even call it that—than I am."
     
    He could tell she was trying to sound cool, but her voice had wobbled there for a second. Maybe she wasn't as over him as she tried to pretend.
     
    "What if I am interested?" he asked, driven by a compulsion that he could neither understand nor control.
     
    But there was a burning need in him to goad her into losing her calm facade.
     
    "You're not." Her voice was flat with finality.
     
    "You sound so sure of yourself,sweetheart . It's always a mistake to be certain you know the mind of your opponent." Hadn't he made that mistake eighteen months ago when he had assumed he knew what Ronnie thought and felt? "Didn't it occur to you to wonder why I hadn't shared your past history as an espionage agent with Kline?"
     
    Her sharp inhalation told him that he'd scored a point.
     
    "Of course I wondered why you hadn't said anything," she said, her voice rising in agitation. "I asked about it, remember? But you refused to tell me why."
     
    "What if I said I had a price for my silence?" He couldn't believe he'd asked that.
     
    He would no more blackmail her than commit his own act of espionage. So, why had he said it?
     
    "Don't be ridiculous, Marcus. Blackmail isn't your style and you know it."
     
    She was back to sounding disinterested, almost bored, and that did something to him. He'd spent eighteen months pining for a spy and she acted like she'd never thought about him once, like the idea of sleeping with him again was a joke.
     
    Something inside him snapped at her cool indifference.
     
    "Maybe I learned something from you when you left."
     
    "What