by C. J. Miller
“No, it’s late,” Benjamin said. “We’ll get an early start tomorrow. Cash, write some notes on what you heard and saw tonight. Be ready to talk about it to the team tomorrow.”
“Will do.”
He disconnected the call. He was too wound up to sleep, but it was after midnight. He sat on the bed. He didn’t have anything else to do, but he had plenty of places he’d rather be.
Somehow Mitchell must have prevented his GPS signal from being broadcast. Lucia had taken the signal-disrupting device he’d given Cash. Could Cash find a device on the black market that worked similarly?
He wanted to believe that the work he was doing now would lead to a reunion with his son. What if he was wrong? He needed a backup plan. Nothing could stand between him and his son.
Cash must have fallen asleep because he awoke to a light tap on his door. He rolled to his feet and looked through the peephole. Lucia? What was she doing in this part of town? He opened the door and pulled her inside his room before she caught the attention of the wrong people. “You should not be here.”
She lifted a brow. “Why’s that? You come to my place all the time.”
“This place is a dump and it’s dangerous. I think I’ve heard four fistfights and a gunshot already tonight. The police have been here twice.”
Lucia sighed. “I’m an FBI agent. I carry a weapon.”
“Someone could still hurt you.”
“I didn’t know you cared.”
Something in that comment struck him. What had he done to make her believe he didn’t care about her? It was shocking to him how much he did care for her. He had set out to win her over, but what had unfolded between them had nothing to do with a con or any plans he’d made. “I do care. Of course I do.”
Lucia handed him a file. “While you were on radio silence, I had time to do my homework.”
“What’s this?” Cash asked, opening the file folder.
It was his file. Cash went ramrod straight. “Why do you have this?” He assumed she’d had access to his file from the time he had joined the team, but why bring it to him now? Did it contain something that upset her?
“I wanted to know if your story checked out.”
His blood ran cold. “What story is that?”
“About Adrian.”
His Achilles heel. “You better be careful about what you say next.” If she threatened his son or implied anything untoward about him, he wasn’t sure he could control himself. Master of control that he was, Adrian was his everything. He’d wanted to kill Mitchell for making a threat against his son. Only knowing that Mitchell was just one man on a crew of many had stopped Cash.
“His birth certificate does not list you as his father.”
Anger seared him. He was Adrian’s father regardless of what Britney had or had not written on the hospital’s paperwork. “I am his father.”
“Care to explain why it’s blank?”
Cash resented her question. It was not her business. Britney and his marriage had been rocky when she’d given birth to Adrian. But Cash had been with her, in the delivery room and in her post-recovery room. He had been there for Adrian’s first bath and he’d changed his first diaper. He was Adrian’s father. “I do not owe you an explanation.”
Lucia lifted her chin. “If you want me to believe your story, you do.”
Anger turned to rage, an emotion Cash rarely let himself feel. Lucia could push all his buttons, the good ones and the bad ones. “Would you question someone else like this? I am not a criminal in an interview room. I’m a man you’re sleeping with.”
Lucia snatched the folder back from him. “You can understand, given your history, that I should be wary that history will repeat itself. You’ve been secretive about Adrian. I want to know why.”
Did she really need an explanation? What kind of pathetic father dragged his son into a world filled with criminals? “I don’t want him pulled into this sick, twisted game that Anderson is playing. I would die to protect Adrian. I do not like to talk about Adrian because every time I do it just reinforces that I’m a failure as a father.”
Lucia recoiled and he read shame in her reaction. She had crossed a line and she knew it.
“Get out,” he said. He didn’t want to see her. He didn’t want to talk about this any further.
“Cash,” she started.
“Get out. Get out now.”
Lucia left, closing the door behind her.
* * *
Cash scarcely looked at Lucia at their team’s morning meeting. He answered every question politely, but he was distant. If anyone else noticed, they didn’t say anything. Maybe they chalked it up to the late night, but no one knew Cash the way she did.
Lucia didn’t know why she had pressed him about his son. It was wrong on so many levels. It was a betrayal of his trust, his privacy and his confidence. She could blame the past, Bradley and her sister’s betrayal, but it wasn’t an excuse for her behavior.
After the meeting, she waited until he returned to his desk before approaching him. “Cash?”
He was reviewing the report he had written with the details about the night before.
He spun to face her. “What do you want?”
She deserved his rudeness. “I want to apologize. I’m sorry, Cash.”
“For what?” he asked.
He knew, but he wanted her to say it. Here in the office where others could hear her. “For not believing you. For invading your privacy.” She lowered her voice. “For using something you told me in confidence against you.”
He nodded. “Okay.”
“Okay, what?”
“I accept your apology.”
“That’s it? That simple?”
“I want something in return.”
Was this part of the con? She felt bad for even thinking it. “Know that I have limits to what I am allowed to do.” She couldn’t remove his tracker. She couldn’t approve movements outside the city.
“I want you to host your family for brunch at your place and invite me.”
She paused for a moment. “You want to meet my family?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Cash reclined in his chair and she was struck again by how handsome he was. It was that much harder to say no to him when he looked at her. “I want you to trust me.”
Her family was difficult on a good day. “How is meeting my family proving I trust you?” Gatherings with her family were stressful. Add a convict to it and she was sure her parents would not approve. Though her mother would hide her feelings, Lucia knew her father would be frank about his dislike.
“If you want to be involved in my personal life, then let me into yours.”
Lucia sensed that if she didn’t agree it would change her relationship with Cash irrevocably. He didn’t want to be treated like a criminal. “I’ll make the arrangements.”
“What time?” He asked as if it were set in stone.
Lucia had never invited her family to her place. With the exception of the day her father had given it to her and a few visits from her parents, it wasn’t a spot where the family gathered.
“Nine,” she said, still thinking about the cleaning and preparation that would need to go into the brunch. But if it’s what it took to made amends with Cash, she would do it.
* * *
Cash arrived an hour early to help her prepare for brunch with her family. He hadn’t slept at her place since she’d gone to the Hideaway with the intent of catching him in a con.
He said he’d forgiven her for her intrusive questions about Adrian, but he was still upset. She had broken his trust. Strangely, she hadn’t thought about earning his trust. She had only been worried about whether or not she could trust him. It was a two-way street.
Lucia had missed him. She’d grown accustomed to having him around and felt strangely lost without him. Lonely. Her quiet solitude bored her. Her condo felt too large for one person.
“The food is being delivered in an hour, but I need to prepare drinks. Mimosas, heavy on the alcohol,” she said. If she could dull her family’s senses, maybe they’d go easy on her.
“Before Britney died, our relationship was not in a good place. We were separated and she wanted a divorce.”
Lucia turned. The words were unexpected. Lucia put down the glass pitcher and faced Cash. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“That information wouldn’t be in my FBI file. Britney was a vivacious and exciting woman, but our relationship had its ups and downs. She didn’t write my name on Adrian’s birth certificate because she hoped if our marriage went sour, I wouldn’t take Adrian with me. She knew how much I loved him.”
“That’s not how it works. Just because your name isn’t on paper doesn’t mean you’re not his father,” Lucia said.
“I know that,” Cash said.
Lucia shouldn’t have questioned him about Adrian. “Again, I’m sorry I interrogated you about your personal life and your son.”
“I wasn’t fishing for another apology. I thought you might like to know why Adrian’s birth certificate is incomplete. I was too angry to talk about it the other day. But I know why you looked into my history. You still don’t trust me.”
“I trust you,” Lucia said. How could she prove to him that she did? She offered up the one piece of information that was most difficult for her to share. “I wasn’t moved to white collar because I was owed a promotion. I was moved because violent crime wanted to get rid of me.”
Cash tilted his head. “Special Agent Wolfe’s apology. That’s what he meant?”
She nodded. It was embarrassing and difficult to speak about this. “I was the only woman on the team and I couldn’t hack it.”
Cash stood straighter. “Couldn’t hack it or didn’t have the right equipment?” He gestured down her body.
She laughed. She had to. Only Cash would see right to the heart of the issue. He hadn’t accused her of doing anything wrong and she appreciated it. “I didn’t have the right equipment. I wasn’t invited to their happy hours or to their sports games or to their birthday parties. The harder I worked, the more they made me feel like I’d done something wrong and didn’t deserve a spot on their team.”
Cash put his arm around her. “I’m sorry, Lucia. I knew something had happened, but I didn’t know it was that bad for you.”
She wiped at the tears that came to her eyes. “It’s not just that. I don’t fit in with my family. I don’t fit in at work. I don’t fit in anywhere.”
He made a sympathetic noise and hugged her to him. “Here. You fit right here.”
The words were balm on a raw part of her soul. Of all the partners she’d had, the boyfriends, the friends and the colleagues, she felt most like herself with Cash. “I could not have been more wrong about you,” she said.
“I’m trying to be a good man,” Cash said. “It’s hard. Sometimes I think about running away from my problems, buying a plane ticket to some tropical island and losing myself in the anonymity of a resort town. A fresh start. A new life. People who won’t know I’m a convict.”
Like researching a one-way plane ticket to Bhutan? “Why don’t you?” Lucia asked, wondering if that was the explanation for the library internet search that Benjamin had told her about.
“My life is here. Adrian needs me. Sounds like you need me. Running away is for cowards. My mom left my father and me, and I never forgave her. I can’t do that to the people I love.”
Love. Was he including her in that word?
Her doorbell rang and Lucia tensed. She raced to answer the door. It was the caterer, dropping off trays of food.
After Lucia inspected everything, she paid the caterer and fixed herself a drink. She took one sip and her doorbell rang again. This time, it was her family. Her entire family, arriving all at once.
After making the introductions, Cash fixed drinks while she helped her family with their plates.
“Is he your boyfriend?” Meg asked.
Lucia shook her head. “We work together.”
“Well, then let me say, I should have asked you to set me up with your eligible coworkers. My God, he is cute.”
“You’re married,” Lucia said, annoyed at her sister’s comment. Meg had Bradley. That was enough. Lucia suddenly felt territorial and wished she had said Cash was more than a colleague. Would that have made her sister more interested? Lucia’s relationship with Bradley hadn’t stopped Meg from sleeping with him.
Meg waved her hand. “I know. It doesn’t hurt to window-shop.” Her sister walked away and Lucia shook off her irritation. She wouldn’t enter into a debate with her family over Cash. It didn’t matter what her sister said about him. He wouldn’t be interested in Meg.
When her family was seated at the table, her father’s attention went to Cash.
“Tell me what you do,” her father said.
“He works with me,” Lucia said, not wanting Cash to have to explain his situation.
Her father held up his hand. “I was asking Cash.”
“I’m a consultant for the FBI.”
“What kind of consulting?” her mother asked.
“On special cases,” Cash said.
“That’s an unusual name. Cash. A family name?” her father asked.
“It’s a nickname,” Cash said.
“Do you work in finances?” Bradley asked.
Now they were getting into the thick of it. At any minute, her family would figure out Cash was a convict and it was over. Why had Cash wanted this?
“I have an ability to make money in difficult situations,” Cash said.
Her father’s eyes narrowed. “What does that mean?”
Cash glanced at Lucia. He didn’t appear upset at her family’s interrogation. “It means that I grew up running cons to take people’s money. I was good at it. I quit when I was old enough to make my own decisions, but the name stuck.”
Her family stared at him. Why had he told them about being a con man? Why couldn’t he have kept his explanation to the present? FBI consultant, the end.
“My daughter knows you’re a thief?” her mother asked.
“Talk about a rebellion. Come on, Lucia, are you serious with this?” Bradley asked, gesturing at Cash. The condescension in his voice set her on edge.
“As I explained, Cash is my coworker. Just because he has a different background than we do doesn’t mean we need to be rude.” She hoped her tone conveyed her disappointment. Couldn’t her family lower their noses for a few minutes to look at Cash, really look at him, and see that he was a good man?
“Everyone knows you’re sleeping with him,” Meg said.
Lucia rose to her feet. “That is no one’s business.”
“I don’t see you denying it,” Chloe said.
Fury and embarrassment welled up inside her. Why did her family have to behave this way? “I don’t owe you an explanation. Is this how you speak to people at the country club? Of course not! But because it’s me and my friend, you think you can act like uppity, snot-nosed brats.”
Cash remained silent.
“Lucia, you’re making a scene and embarrassing yourself,” her mother said.
She was the embarrassing one? “Am I? I don’t feel embarrassed. I feel pissed off. I’m the only one who’s on the receiving end of this scrutiny. Nothing I do is good enough. My sister can sleep with my fiancé and everyone applauds her when she gets engaged to him. But I invite you to meet a perfectly nice man, and you insult him and rudely pry into our relationship.”
Tears welled in her eyes and Lucia blinked th
em back. Everyone was staring at her open-mouthed. Only Cash looked amused, as if he was glad she had finally spoken her mind. There was nothing passive-aggressive about her words this time. They were fighting words.
“I am so sorry I invited you over today. I shouldn’t have bothered. Please, enjoy the meal. Lock the door on your way out.” She grabbed her coat and her handbag and fled her condo.
She heard footsteps on the stairs above her. She didn’t stop walking.
Cash caught up to her on the sidewalk, taking her arm. “Wait up, Lucia. Talk to me.”
“Sorry to have left you in the den of rudeness,” she said.
“Not the den of rudeness. They’re worried about you. Protective. Although that shot at your sister was well deserved.”
Lucia laughed. “For a second, I wiped that smug, satisfied look off her face.”
“Why do you care if they call me a thief or know we’re sleeping together?”
Because they were using both as reasons why Lucia was making a mistake. “It’s not their business.”
“Because I embarrass you,” Cash said.
“You don’t.” It wasn’t his behavior that had made her feel terrible.
Cash stared over her shoulder. “You looked like you wanted to jump out of your skin at brunch. Your family could sense something was wrong. They went in for the kill because you let them.”
Lucia threw up her hands. “I don’t understand why you wanted to meet them in the first place.”
“This might be hard for you to understand, but I’m tired of people treating me like a tool to be used and discarded.”
“I do not treat you like a tool,” she said.
“I was brought onto the team for my skills and my connections. But I am still a person. You wouldn’t know it from how I’m tracked and questioned and investigated.”
Lucia opened her mouth to deny it, but she couldn’t. His movements were tracked, she questioned him often enough and Benjamin had him under investigation. “You’re a criminal,” she said.
Cash’s face turned stony. “Is that how you see me? A criminal?”
“Not just a criminal.” But it was an explanation for why he was not allowed to do whatever he wanted and go wherever he wanted.