Ash pulled her into his arms so she lay with her head against his chest. He was hot beneath her cheek and she could feel the thud of his heart. As he stroked her hair, she relaxed into the feeling while the tremors ran through her body.
She could still feel his erection pressing against her. Sliding her hand down, she stroked against the bulge, but he put his palm on hers to stop her as a car horn sounded from the street outside.
“Oh God,” she muttered.
“No, not God—Christian.”
Sitting up, she ran a hand through her hair. The orgasm had released some of her tension and she felt boneless, replete, and for the first time since this whole thing had started—at peace.
Ash settled her on the cushions and rose to his feet. He stood for a moment gazing down at her. “One day, we will finish this,” he said. “I’ll take you to my home where no one will dare to interrupt us.”
“It’s a date.”
The horn sounded again, and he sighed.
“You’re a good friend to help him like this,” Faith said.
“I’m not doing this for Christian, but for Tara. I’ve only found her. If I lose her now—”
“Found her? I don’t understand. What is Tara to you? I thought she was just your friend’s wife.” She had the impression there was no love lost between Tara and Ash. Or had that been on Tara’s side only? Maybe Ash loved her, maybe he’d made a pass at her, and she’d spurned him, and that’s why she sounded as though she hated him.
“Christian Roth and I will never be friends. He only lives because my daughter loves him.”
Shock hit her in the gut driving away the last ripples of pleasure. “Your daughter? Tara is your daughter?”
He turned back to her, a frown on his face. “You didn’t know?”
“How the hell could I?”
His frown deepened.
“I presumed someone must have mentioned it.”
She pressed her fingers to her eyes. Oh God, she was instrumental in the kidnapping of Ash’s daughter. It was bad enough when Tara had been nothing more than his friend’s wife. But his daughter?
He would never, never forgive her.
A wave of cold ran over her and she tried to pull herself together. She took a deep breath. “No, no one mentioned it. What about her mother, where is she?”
“Lily was her mother, and she’s dead. Look, I have to go.”
She bit her lip and nodded. “Call me if you find anything.”
“We’ll find her if we have to rip this city to pieces to do so. And those responsible will suffer the fires of hell.”
Great. Something else to look forward to.
Chapter Thirteen
Tara was Ash’s daughter.
How could she have missed that?
She searched through everything that had happened, hunting for a clue, but there had been no hint. It wasn’t as though the two looked anything similar.
No, apparently Tara took after her beautiful mother, who had been pure and good and…
How could you dislike a dead person? She was jealous, and she hated that. The hard lines of Ash’s face had softened when he spoke of Lily.
Faith’s anger had deserted her the minute Ash walked out the door. He’d seemed slightly perplexed by her attitude. And why shouldn’t he be?
She was pretty confused herself.
She’d just had the most mind-blowing orgasm of her life at the hands of a man who she was supposedly spying on. The man whose daughter had been kidnapped by the people she worked for.
Pushing herself up, she peered out of the window. The vehicle Ash had driven her home in was still parked at the curb outside her front door. Faith could make out a figure in the driver’s seat. Her babysitter for the night. Who she wasn’t to let in, because he wasn’t housetrained and an asshole.
They wouldn’t be babysitting her if they knew the truth.
How had her life become so complicated?
What did she really think about Ash? It had been years since she had let a man close like that. She’d had a few relationships, but they never survived the strictures of her job. And her job had always come first.
Maybe Ash attracted her because he was so different. Maybe she’d always gone for nice men because she knew that if it came down to a competition between them and her job, her job would always win out.
Had that changed?
Her head was going to split, though she knew it wasn’t due to her illness.
While she might tell herself that she hadn’t known, that she hadn’t actively set Tara up to be taken, it was her fault. She should have told them immediately about her suspicions. Loyalty to the job was the only thing that kept her silent. And that loyalty was the reason she was guilt-ridden.
The problem was she didn’t know what she wanted to believe.
Either her bosses were in the wrong and they had kidnapped an innocent woman, which would mean the good guys were no longer good. At that point, her whole world would fall apart.
Or her bosses were right, Christian Roth was one of the bad guys, and she was coming to care for a man who was involved in God knew what. The thought brought her up short.
Coming to care for Ash? Since when?