She bit her pink, bruised lip, and he could tell she didn’t like the intrusion of a bodyguard, even from a distance. For a moment Talos was tempted to ignore his assistant’s phone call, forget the billion-dollar deal and offer to be her own private bodyguard. Then she sighed. “All right.”
Talos watched as she wandered toward the market. Even in the loose cotton skirt, he admired her backside. He admired her dark glossy hair, her perfect natural beauty. Her sweetly innocent love for him.
I love you, Talos. Whatever I felt for you last summer—I’m in love with you now.
The phone’s incessant ringing finally penetrated his consciousness, forcing him to answer. “Xenakis.”
“The Sydney deal is as good as done,” his first assistant crowed happily. “Their board just voted in favor of the sale.”
“Good,” he said, but he wasn’t really paying attention. He was watching his beautiful wife walk across the market, looking so happy, so interested in the world around her. He was about to hang up.
Then he suddenly paused. “Have Mick Barr investigate Eve.”
His assistant’s voice was too well-trained to register surprise. “Investigate Mrs. Xenakis?”
“Have him find out how her father died. See if there’s any reason it might be tied to me.”
As Talos hung up the phone, his gaze lingered on Eve, so beautiful and natural in the pink tank top and short cotton skirt. Instead of stiletto heels, she was exploring this city—exploring her life—in sandals that were clearly made for walking. Her bright, happy face, once so pale, was starting to tan in the sun.
He’d once thought to use her amnesia against her. He’d never imagined that her innocence and warmth would affect him like this. He felt knocked off-kilter by her tenderness, by her love.
I’m sorry. Forgive me.
He was blown away by her openness and vulnerability. She’d accepted blame for a betrayal she could not even remember. She’d chosen to believe him. To trust him, when all he’d done was lie to her, trick her, punish her. It was enough to bring any man to his knees.
Talos started to walk toward her, but he’d gone only a few steps before the phone in his hand rang. He saw his lead investigator’s number and answered. “That was fast.”
“I can tell you about your wife’s father right now, Mr. Xenakis.” Barr paused. “Does the name Dalton Hunter mean anything to you?”
Talos’s entire body went hot, then turned to ice.
He was only dimly aware of the ebb and flow of people around him as his hand clenched around the phone.
“Dalton Hunter?” he repeated in a strangled voice.
“He died in a car accident when she was fourteen. A few months later, her mother remarried—to a wealthy British aristocrat. He adopted her. She took his name.”
Talos’s heart pounded in his throat. He saw black birds soaring in the blue sky above the city and for a moment he thought he was going mad.
Dalton Hunter—Eve’s father?
“How was I never informed of this?” he bit out.
“We’ve known about this for months, boss, but you said you didn’t want to hear anything about Eve. You just wanted us to find her.”
Clenching his jaw, Talos stared at Eve across the market.
“The mother didn’t live long, either. She died a few months after she moved the kid to England. Something about heart trouble.”
Heart trouble, he thought. Dalton’s wife.
And he knew just when Bonnie Hunter’s heart trouble had started.
“Right,” he said. “Thanks for the information.”
He closed the phone.
He stared down at his hands, which had tightened into fists. All these months, he’d thought Eve had pursued him out of a mercenary desire for money—or out of love for Jake Skinner. He’d thought she was shallow and cold.