A Necessary Deception

by Lucy Farago

  “To make tea.”

  “Aw, look at you, all servantlike. But sit your ass on that couch. I’ll make the tea, and the breakfast I owe you.”

  “I take it back,” he said as he limped toward the sofa. “You are a bitch.”

  She laughed. “Would you like something to drink? A tall glass of arsenic, perhaps?” she called out from the kitchen.

  “Does it have liquor in it?”

  She popped her head out of the cupboard she’d stuck it in, wondering if the man had a drinking problem, when she saw him struggling to get comfortable. She’d just taken a step forward to help when he managed to prop his leg on the coffee table. The relief on his face made her stomach hurt, guilt, her heart. It was because of her he was hurt. It was hard seeing anyone in pain; with Monty, she wished she could make it all go away. “I can bring you a drink if you want?”

  “No,” he said, his breath labored. “I was kidding.”

  “You know, I burned my ear once with a flat iron. I whined about it for days. Looking at you, I’m ashamed of myself.”

  When he smiled, she wanted to drop what she was doing and hold him in her arms. She wondered at her own stupidity. She’d never thought of herself as the mothering type. Her old friends would think her insane. But then again, they were her old friends.

  “This is nothing. Like you, I’d be ashamed of myself if I complained. I’ve seen my friends suffer worse. Someone on my team was shot last year.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. Did he make it?”

  “He got lucky and someone was there to help.”

  “That’s good.” She dropped a kettle on the stove. After she’d put Monty to bed last night, she’d been surprised to find all kinds of supplies for a decent meal, including potato flakes. She couldn’t make proper latkes, but Bubbe D had taught her a trick or two with leftover potatoes.

  “Taylor?”

  She dumped the powdered milk she’d measured into a bowl and looked up. “Yes?”

  “I got lucky too.”

  She didn’t know what to say. Out of all the things she’d done in her life—and she’d done a lot—helping to bring him back and taking care of that nasty burn had been the most rewarding…and scary as shit. But she’d done it. “That’s very sweet of you to say.”

  “It’s the truth. I was running out of steam. I don’t know if I’d have made it back without you. Thank you for not listening to me.”

  “See, now that I’m good at. Letting people tell me what to do has never been my thing. Oh, look, we might have something in common.” She opened the package of potatoes and put them in the bowl with the milk. The kettle started to whistle.

  “My boss tells me what to do all the time,” he said, adjusting his leg. “You and I don’t have that much in common. I grew up poor—until husband number six—and with a woman who forgot she was a mother.”

  After sprinkling in dried onion, garlic flakes, salt, and pepper, she slowly stirred the contents of her bowl, adding hot water a little at a time. “Taking orders from your boss doesn’t count. You have to do that, but it doesn’t mean you like it. Control freaks don’t like people telling them what to do. And the only time my father paid attention to me was when he decided it would be a great idea to marry me off to some sheik.”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Nope.” She found the right-size pan and set it on the stove, then proceeded to mix the powdered eggs with dehydrated peppers. “I’ve had the pleasure of pointing out your control freakiness a few times now. Why are you surprised I did it again?”

  She knew what he meant but had regretted opening her big mouth. How demeaning to admit her father was that much of a jerk. She cranked open a can of diced tomatoes and spooned some into the powdered eggs along with the required water, which she splashed all over the counter. She didn’t want to talk about her father. She hated him. She slammed a skillet on the stove and waited for it to warm up while she stirred the egg mixture. She was managing to keep most in the bowl when strong fingers snagged her wrist.

  “I need that to make breakfast,” she said, nodding toward her hand.

  “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  She couldn’t look at him. If she did, she’d cry. And she’d stopped crying over that man years ago. “You didn’t.”

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  He was just saying that to be nice. Who wanted to hear about a son of bitch who’d sell his own daughter for a deal? She shook her head, afraid she’d make a fool of herself if she opened her mouth. She’d told no one what her father had done. Why she’d even brought it up, she didn’t know.

  “Are you sure?”

  “You shouldn’t be standing.”

  “No problem.” With a cocky grin, he hoisted himself onto the small island, far enough back so as not to bend his knee. “Talk.”

  “Counters are for glasses, not for asses.” She poured large dollops of the potato batter into one pan and ignored him. Next, she opened the can of beans and dumped those into a pot, then added a splash of maple syrup and some of the diced tomato and stirred.

  “You can’t tell me something right out of a romance novel and not explain it.”

  “First off,” she said, with a dirty wooden spoon pointed in his direction, “in romance novels, the lovers get a happy ending. I’ll give you two guesses as to who, in that billion-dollar deal, wasn’t happy.”

  He whistled. “That’s a lot of money. Frankly, I don’t see it. A million, two maybe, but a billion? I don’t know,” he said, looking her over from head to toe. “Okay, three, but that’s my final offer. But for that, you have to help me shower. Nonnegotiable. And naked. You have to be naked.”

  She yanked open a drawer and pulled out the largest serrated knife she could find. “How long do you think it takes to amputate a leg?”

  “Hey,” he crossed his arms over his knee, “I was paying you a compliment.”

  Taylor tossed the knife back in its drawer, doing her best not to grin. “Good thing was, I had a choice. Not like those girls on my website.”

  “That’s the only difference. He was still using you. Was that for the casino he tried to open in Dubai? Were you the reason it fell through?”

  She flipped her potato creations. The pan sizzled, and an aroma that reminded her of Bubbe D filled the small kitchen. “I can’t take all the credit, but my walking away sure as hell didn’t help.” She struck a match and ignited the other burner under the second pan.

  “By walking away, you mean from everything? Is that why you dropped out of sight?”

  “Not on purpose, but I was no longer doing anything the paparazzi found newsworthy. I became dull. I took my grandfather’s trust fund and left. It was enough for me to finish school and then help me start my business. And as you can see, I’m no longer the heiress with too much time on her hands.”

  “He disowned you?”

  “I disowned myself. He told me I couldn’t make it without him and I set out to prove him wrong.”

  “Which you did,” he said, sounding proud.

  It was flattering and sad, this man who barely knew her pleased with her accomplished, and her own flesh and blood not giving a damn. “I thought so. Now, I’m not so sure. How much of my so-called success was the Russians? If I went under, they lost.”

  “When we get reception, I’ll let you know.”

  “You can do that?”

  “Give me a computer and I can tell what color underwear the president of the United States is wearing.”

  She’d been about to pour the egg mixture when what he’d said dawned on her. “You hacked into the White House?”

  “I never said I hacked into the White House. That’s like really, really, really illegal.”

  “You’re a computer geek. That’s what computer geeks do. They hack.” She poured the eggs and, with a flat spa
tula, began to stir.

  “It’s not all I do.”

  “No.” She took her eyes off the stove for a second to give Monty an appreciative smile. “You rescue women who’ve fallen and can’t get up. Now, get your ass off the counter and go sit. Food is nearly ready.”

  She heard a grunt as he jumped down. “That’s one very fine sexy ass to you.”

  “And one inflated head.” She grabbed the clean plates they’d used for their pancakes and left in the sink to dry.

  “Inflated is the wrong word,” he said over his shoulder, with another of those cocky grins. “More like—”

  “If you say it,” she warned, “I’m dumping your breakfast in the trash.”

  “Go ahead. Watch how fast Mickey and Minnie come to visit.” Using the table for support, he lowered himself into a chair.

  “Then guess what you’re eating for dinner?” She set a plate in front of him and took a seat for herself. “Too bad we don’t have ketchup. I hear it makes everything taste good.”

  “I was raised in the Kentucky mountains. I’ve eaten worse.” He regarded the food with an appreciative grin. “This looks really good.”

  “You haven’t tried it yet.” She passed him a napkin.

  “I suspect, Taylor, that when you put your mind to something, you get it done.” He ate some of the eggs. “Mmm, not bad. I’m impressed. Thanks for doing this.”

  “It’s me who should be thanking you. Making a meal is nothing. Can I ask you a question?”

  “Ten.” He scooped up the beans and slid them into his mouth with another, “mmm.”

  “Ten what?” Not holding her breath that this had nothing to do with sex.

  “On a scale on one to ten. Weren’t you going to ask me to rate my lovemaking skills.”

  She jabbed her fork into a couple of beans and popped them in her mouth, chewing as slowly as possible. He watched. When she was done, she gave him her most serious expression. “You know, for a geek, I’m simply amazed at your ability to take everything I say and make it dirty. How do you do that?”

  “It’s a gift. So, what did you want to ask?”

  She wagged her fork at him in warning. “Okay, there’s no way you can turn this into a punch line. If you were raised in Kentucky, how come you don’t talk like a Southerner?”

  “I can.”

  Well, at least he didn’t answer in a dirty one-liner or come on.

  “But unless you’re naked and beneath me, it doesn’t come out much.”

  Damn. The man was right. It was a gift. She dropped her head. More so he didn’t read the expression on her face than being dumbfounded. Whether he knew it or not, the man had another gift. The ability to conjure all kinds of lusty images. She only hoped they were rescued sooner rather than later. Because later, she might very well get to hear that drawl.

  Chapter 14

  Monty tried the satellite connection once more with no luck. Not knowing when the storm would let up, he did the one thing he could; he programmed the computer to send a looped message. Fingers crossed, when the sky cleared, it would transmit. The one positive was that the Russians might give up their search.

  He gathered his breath and braced himself for the pain that would follow as he pushed himself to stand. He let out a low growl. Burns sucked. And given where this one was, it sucked even more. How the hell did he avoid bending his knee?

  It warmed him in places he hadn’t thought possible, remembering how Taylor had dragged him through the trees and back to the bunker, and it made him proud of how she’d kept it together when the Russians had gotten too close, way too close. They were bonding. It was inevitable. Intense situations either brought out the best or the worst in people. It didn’t mean he and Taylor would be lifelong friends. For now, maybe friends with benefits? But that would be it. Taylor was the marrying kind. And the words I do would never come out of his mouth. The only thing he shared with his mother was DNA. Needing people only fucked with your life.

  He limped his way back to Taylor and found her exactly where he’d left her, curled up in the armchair with a blanket and Agatha Christie. It was sweet that she’d left the sofa for him to stretch out on, but honestly, he wished it was him she was curled up with. “How’s the book?”

  “I can never figure out who done it.”

  “Is that good or bad?”

  “Good.” She folded the corner of the page she’d been reading and set the book down. “Any luck?”

  “No, but I programmed the computer to send out a message every five minutes. The moment we have reception, they’ll get it.”

  She’d already figured out the plane wouldn’t be able to land and had been smart enough to point out something he’d completely missed. The Russians couldn’t get out either. Which begged the question, where were they now? Theirs wasn’t the only bunker in Alaska. Had they been planning on taking Taylor to Russia or somewhere else? Which brought him to his next point. “Taylor, what exactly is it you have for evidence?” He stretched out on the couch, waiting for her reply.

  “I’ll show you.” She disappeared into the bedroom. A short time later, she was handing him a silver tube. The lipstick she’d risked her life for.

  He opened it. “This isn’t my shade.” But he was already slapping himself in the head.

  “It’s not just a lipstick.”

  He’d figured that out, too little too late. “I am so stupid,” he said, searching for a way to open it. “Where did you get this?” He’d seen mock lipstick USBs before but nothing like this.

  “I had it made.” Plucking it from his fingers, she applied the pretty pink shade to her mouth, then smacked her lips.

  “Really?” He took it back and examined it some more. It was impressive. “I shouldn’t be surprised. If someone can hide a flash drive in a diamond-encrusted piece of jewelry, why not this?” Of course he still couldn’t open it.

  “Give it to me,” Taylor said. She twisted the bottom of the tube clockwise, pulled it down a quarter of an inch, twisted counter clockwise and tugged again, this time removing a micro flash drive from its base. She handed it to him. “Someone did that? Hid a flash drive inside jewelry?”

  “Yeah.” He looked inside the empty tube of lipstick. “Mind if I borrow the idea?” The women in ICU would be able to use something like this.

  “The lipstick thing? Sure, but mass-market sales would kind of defeat the purpose, if everyone knew about it.”

  “I couldn’t agree more. Here.” He slipped the lipstick into the front pocket of her jeans. “Take good care of it. But why would you need something this covert?”

  “Not so much covert as safe. My entire hard drive, including files on the couples I’ve matched, are on this.”

  “Flash drives aren’t reliable sources for hard-drive backups. They can be unstable.” He was hesitant to come right out and say it, but her proof could be gone.

  “Not this one,” she said, waving off his concerns. “Look, you hear about hackers doing all kinds of stuff. But when my team kept assuring me the files were hack-proof…”

  Nothing was hack-proof. “You started to wonder if someone inside your team was involved.”

  She nodded. “There wasn’t anything on the market, so when I suspected someone had hacked into my site, I had it made. I needed to back up the entire hard drive without anyone knowing I was doing it.”

  He scooted over and tugged her down, wanting her next to him. “Taylor, I know everything there is to know about computers. If someone was developing something like this—”

  “You’re not the only sexy computer geek I know.” She gave him a small nudge.

  While he appreciated the compliment, he was curious about the flash drive. “Who do you know?” There was one person he could think of, and if it was him, Monty would be a little pissed to find out Duncan had been holding out.

  “He doesn
’t want it getting around. Something about patents I tuned out.”

  “Got it. Who?”

  “Duncan—”

  “Son of a bitch.” He was going to seriously hurt the man.

  “You know him?”

  The entire world knew billionaire Duncan Moore. “Are you two related?”

  “No relation. I met him at a charity event. We stayed friends. His then-wife hadn’t been happy about it, but he either didn’t notice or didn’t care.”

  “Do you meet all your friends at charity events?”

  She shrugged. “Some turn out to be not so nice. In case you didn’t know, money does funny things to people.”

  Yes, it did. But he’d been lucky. The two billionaires he knew were both relatively decent guys. For the most part. “You turned out okay.”

  “Gee, just what a girl wants to hear.”

  “More than okay,” he said, threading his fingers through hers.

  In the silence that fell between them, Taylor glanced down at their joined hands.

  “Monty? Do you think the police will believe I had nothing to do with this? I mean, my dad isn’t exactly citizen-of-the-year material. He’s never been arrested, but he’s not known for his scruples.”

  “If the feds know who’s behind the operations, they’ll know better than to believe you were in on it.”

  “I hope so. It looks bad.”

  “Do you mind if I examine the files?”

  “I… it’s not that I don’t trust you… But there’s this confidentiality thing.”

  She bit her lower lip and if he hadn’t tripped over his own tongue he’d have asked if he could have a taste of that lip too. He wanted to kiss her again. He wanted more than kissing. Thinking of her in a sexual way was bad…very bad. He wasn’t about to rule it out; simply acknowledging it might be a poor decision. “You’re running for your life. What’s more important? Hiding personal information or keeping you alive?”

  She handed him the flash drive.

  “I’ll let you know what I find. If you want, you can load up those small emergency packs with the supplies we discussed.” They’d put together a list and he’d surprised her by including ChapStick, but had to explain it wasn’t for the reason she’d imagined. Lip balm, like duct tape, had many uses.