Mad, Bad and Blonde - Cathie Linz [13]
“Oh my God!” her father bellowed. “He doesn’t work for me. He works for that low-down thieving bastard Vince King from King Investigations!”
Great. Faith’s heart sank. She’d just slept with and had mind-blowing sex with the enemy.
Chapter Three
“Are you still there? Did you hear what I said?” Faith’s father demanded, his voice so loud she had to hold her cell phone away from her ear. “Caine Hunter works for that bastard Vince King!”
“Yes, I heard you.”
“You said this guy has been spying on you? Have you had direct contact with him?”
“Yes.” You couldn’t get any more direct than she’d gotten with Caine last night. The heated memories filled her mind and weakened her knees. She sank onto the bed. Her contact with Caine had been intimately direct and extraordinarily sensual, not that she was about to tell her father that.
“Did he threaten you? Intimidate you in any way?”
“No, nothing like that.” Although Caine’s ability to give Faith pleasure had been so intense that it had threatened her self-control and left her flying to orgasmic planes she’d never visited before.
Sensing she wasn’t telling him everything, he demanded, “Do I need to come over there and get you?”
“Of course not.”
“You’re obviously not in a clear state of mind.”
Hey, you wouldn’t be clear if you’d gone through what I have in the past week, she wanted to tell her father but didn’t. She’d already left her family with the mess caused by her ruined wedding. Instead of facing the music and handling things herself, she’d hopped on a plane and left town.
Not the action of a responsible adult, perhaps, and she felt guilty about that . . . along with the fact that she’d just slept with her father’s enemy. Or to be more precise—she’d slept with an employee of his enemy.
“You haven’t forgotten why that bastard King is our enemy, have you?”
“No, Dad, I haven’t forgotten.” How could she? Their rivalry was legendary.
“He worked for me. He was my best friend, and he betrayed me.”
Yeah, Faith sure knew how betrayal felt. She’d had more than her fair share lately.
“After swearing he’d never start his own agency, he did just that. He’s been out to get me ever since—stealing clients, sabotaging cases, messing with our investigators. When Alan the Asshole went missing, my first thought was that King had gotten to him. I don’t think that’s what happened in that instance, but I will certainly check it out again. This case with Caine Hunter showing up in Italy is another matter. Hunter isn’t just any employee. He’s got a sick grudge against us. He blames me for his father’s death.”
“What? Why would he do that?”
“His father was involved in a major case of ours, one involving corporate theft in the millions of dollars. We were about to turn our information over to the authorities when the guy committed suicide.”
“How can Caine blame his father’s suicide on us?”
“Because he doesn’t think his father was guilty, which is ridiculous. Listen, Faith, this Hunter guy is not to be messed with. He’s a former Marine with revenge on his mind. That’s a dangerous combination.”
And here she’d been thinking Caine’s dark eyes and broad shoulders were a dangerous combination. Silly her.
“You need to get away from that bastard immediately,” her father said.
“I fly home tomorrow.”
“Don’t wait until then,” he ordered before hanging up.
Faith’s first inclination was that she wasn’t about to let Caine force her out of her dream trip—even if it was now threatening to turn into a nightmare. Here was yet another man who’d messed things up for her. Yet another betrayal.
Maybe she should just leave. Was it really worth hanging around for another