The Gemini Deception (47 page)

“The doctor said it’s a wonder you don’t have permanent brain damage,” Cass replied sternly.

“I’m fine.” Jack winced when she tried to sit up. Her broken ribs made it tough even to breathe normally.

“Obviously,” Cass said.

“You’re beautiful even when you’re sarcastic.”

“Flattery won’t help you, Harding.”

Jack looked around at the cozy bedroom, which she had to admit was more conducive to a quick recovery than the sterile hospital ward. “Why did he bring me here?” She couldn’t fathom why Pierce and Grant had moved her into their home near the EOO campus.

“Because he wants to keep an eye on you.”

“What for?”

“Because he cares.”

“Why?”

“Ask him,” Cass said.

“It’s guilt.”

“If that’s so, then he has his reasons for feeling that way.”

“Isn’t he afraid I’ll strangle him in the middle of the night?” Jack joked.

“I guess he’s willing to roll those dice.” Cass smiled. “In your condition, I doubt you’d make it to the door.”

“You’re sexy even when you underestimate me. I’ll have you know I can make it to the bathroom on my own since this morning. Should’ve avoided the mirror, by the way.”

“Look at you, all on fire.” Cass avoided any comment on Jack’s swollen and stitched-in-places face.

“Hey, it’s all the way down the hall.” Jack smiled.

Cass gently brushed a loose strand of hair from Jack’s face. “I’m proud of you, baby.”

“You’re patronizing me.”

“You find that sexy, too?”

“Damn straight I do.” Jack winked.

“What am I going to do with you?”

“Give me a day or two and I’ll tell you exactly what to do with me.”

Cass kissed Jack softly on her swollen mouth. “I’ll be back for more sexual harassment in a couple of hours. Now, get some rest.”

“Okay, sexy.”

Cass walked sensually to the door. “Later.”

Jack tried to sleep but her swollen bladder kept getting in the way. “Damn.” She slowly rose and got out of bed, wincing at the pain. Holding on to the walls for balance, she limped down the hall, passing the living room. “Anyone there?” she called out. No one replied, so she continued down the hall to the bathroom.

With an empty bladder and not ready to go back to bed, she took her time walking back, sticking her head in the rooms she passed. “Not bad, Pierce.” The home was cozy and tastefully decorated, with colorful prints on the walls, modern but comfortable furniture, and subdued lighting.

Jack came to a closed door and started to pass by it, but curiosity got the better of her. She knocked first, and when no one answered, she turned the knob and looked inside. Pierce and Grant’s bedroom, evidently. Near the king-sized bed, Pierce’s trousers were hung over a plush armchair and Grant’s skirt was draped next to it. Like the rest of the rooms, the décor and furnishings were stylish but minimal. The bedside tables were bare except for lamps and a solitary framed photo on one. Interested in what Pierce or Grant considered frame-worthy when the rest of the house was devoid of any pictures at all, Jack entered the room and went to the nightstand.

She couldn’t bend over to look at it because of her ribs and the pounding in her head, so she picked up the photo and turned it toward the sunlight streaming in through the window.

Jack stared in disbelief, turning it this way and that. It was the same exact picture her mother had shown her: Jack as a baby, on her first birthday, covered in chocolate cake. “What the fu—”

“That’s what happens when you open closed doors.”

Jack turned to find Pierce staring at her. She held up the photo. “Where did you get this?”

“From your mother.”

“Why?”

Pierce walked over to the closet and removed a small metal box from the top shelf. He continued to the desk to retrieve a small key. “Why don’t you sit?” He took a seat at the edge of the bed.

“What the hell’s going on?” Jack didn’t know if it was the concussion or the situation that was this confusing. Maybe her mind wasn’t registering something it should.

“I wanted to wait until you were better,” Pierce said, “but…it’s too late now.”

“Wait for what?” Jack asked with trepidation.

He opened the box and pulled out handfuls of pictures, spreading them across the quilt. “Take a look.”

Jack eyed the pictures from a distance. She didn’t need to look hard or very long to see they were pictures of herself at all stages of her life. Many were the same as those her mother, Celeste, had shown her, and quite a few had been taken in recent years, after Pierce found out she was alive. “Where did you get these?” she asked quietly.

“The earlier ones are from Celeste. The later were taken here.”

“I can see that. Celeste has some of the later ones as well. She said my father would occasionally mail pictures to her up until…I disappeared.”

“That’s correct.”

“That still doesn’t explain what
you
are doing with them.”

“They’re mine.”

“What am I not getting?” Jack asked suspiciously.

“Jaclyn…” Pierce ran his hands through his hair and took a deep breath.

“Well?” Jack was angry Pierce had once again invaded her private life. “Do you collect pictures of all of us and alternate at your bedside?”

“No. Just my daughter’s.”

Jack didn’t…
couldn’t
register what Pierce had just said. “What?”

“Jaclyn, you’re my daughter.”

Jack let this sink in for a moment, her eyes going from Pierce to the scattered pictures. “No. That’s not true.” Her mind flashed back five months earlier, when she’d stumbled upon the mother she never knew, still alive and residing in Sainte-Maxime, France. Celeste had filled her in on the circumstances of her birth and had provided some details about the father who came to claim her when she was three. “My father was an American soldier stationed in France. That’s where he met Celeste and got her pregnant.”

“Correct.”

“No,” Jack shouted. “He dumped her when she got pregnant. She…she was a prostitute and not good enough for him.”

“I liked Celeste a lot, but I was never in love with her,” Pierce said. “I never counted on her getting pregnant, and when she told me she’d given birth to my child I went to get you. I couldn’t let you grow up in a brothel. Celeste loved you more than life, but I couldn’t let my child grow up like that.”

Jack opened her mouth but nothing came out.

“I was young and had needs when Celeste came along,” he continued quietly, “but I’ve only ever loved one woman. Joanne. I’ve loved her since we were children, pretty much like you did Cassady.” Pierce started to collect the photos. “Things were different, then. We couldn’t have relationships or marry, let alone father children. We were married to the organization, and any other relationship would have compromised our dedication and loyalty, or so they told us. This company, our work, came first, and anything or anyone who stood in the way or became a priority was destroyed or taken away. They would have taken
you
away, Jaclyn, if they knew you were mine.”

“You could have told me.”

“I wanted to when you were older and I could trust you to keep the secret, but…I didn’t have the nerve. I started to so many times but never followed through. I kept telling myself you were better off without a father rather than someone who could never live up to the expectations of one. If you had known the truth, you would have expected me to treat you differently and I would have, and that would have gotten us both killed.”

“Why the hell tell me now, now that I don’t need a damn father?”

“I have a bad heart, Jaclyn, and…I think my time is running out. I can’t take this secret with me.”

“So this confession is all about you clearing your conscience so you can rest in peace.”

“I’m telling you because you deserve the truth.”

“I deserved the truth a long time ago, not now because it’s convenient for you.”

“I know.” Pierce sighed. “I’m sorry, Jaclyn, I…”

Jack nodded vehemently. “If you were my father, you never would have treated me like dirt. You pushed and pushed me to be someone you wanted. My father would’ve given me a normal life, not raised me like a soldier and turned his back on me when I almost died in Israel. No father does that.”

“I wanted to tell you to come back,” he said. “Hell, I wanted to come get you, but…”

“But what?” Jack shouted, ignoring the increasing pain in her head.

“The decision wasn’t mine. The three of us had to agree to it, and back then, Joanne and Arthur didn’t know you were my daughter. They outvoted my decision to pull you completely from any further missions.”

“I barely made it out alive. What did it matter whose daughter I was?”

“Not that it’ll make any difference, but I found and killed Amzi myself. Buried him alive for what he did to you.”

“You’re right. It doesn’t make one shit of a difference, because all you wanted me to do was go on with the job while I could barely stand long enough to talk to you on the pay phone.”

“You…” Pierce paused and busied himself with piling pictures. “You were too damn good. One of the best ops this place has ever seen. They argued they couldn’t afford to pull you off duty, and they…
we
…clearly didn’t understand how badly you were hurt.”

“One of the best?” Jack plucked the pictures from his hands and threw them against the wall. “You’re a fucking liar. If I’m one of the best, that means you picked me because I showed promise like the rest of the kids you bring here. If I was your daughter, I’d have ended up here because of pity, not skills.”

“I couldn’t raise you here as my child, and I couldn’t leave this place, either. Of course I feared I’d never be able to bring you up to the other children’s standards, but I didn’t take into consideration how much the same we are. You were born for this work like I was. Call it genetic or whatever modern science calls it nowadays, but you only had to try half as hard as the rest.”

“Why do I remember trying twice as hard to keep up?” Jack refused to believe a word Pierce said.

“Because I demanded twice as much from you. Your abilities were…
are
…exceptional. It didn’t take long for me to realize even I didn’t have half the talent you did.”

Jack covered her ears. “No.”

“I’ve done everything in my power to get close to you ever since I found out you were alive. I lost my mind when TQ took you. I couldn’t lose you just when I had found you. I know you don’t want to hear this but…” Pierce wiped his eyes. “I’m sorry for everything. Please, give us a chance before it’s too late.”

“You’re not my father,” Jack shouted again.

“Please try to understand that I am,” Pierce said calmly.

“Never. I could never hate you this much if you were my father.”

Pierce rummaged in the steel box for something and got up. He walked over to Jack and she flinched at the closeness. “And I could never love you this much if you weren’t my daughter,” he said. He dropped something into the pocket of her robe and left the room.

Still stunned and furious, Jack put her hand in the pocket and pulled out what Pierce had put there. She let the tears fall when she recognized it. A delicate angel, three inches long, handcrafted from braided gold wire.

They had appeared to her all her life in dreams—comforting golden angels, suspended above her head. The puzzle had been solved when Celeste showed her the mobile from her crib, kept as a memento all these years. But it had been missing one piece. One angel.

Her mother had told her that her father had taken it with him.

Tuscany, Italy

Three weeks later, April 7

A month had passed since Harper’s return to her beloved home and country, yet the comfort she expected to find wasn’t there. She spent her days in the vineyards until late in the evening and would return home exhausted.

Monica would stop by on occasion to keep her company and distract her, but Harper would beg off early after staring silently into the flames of the outdoor fireplace. Her good friend and sex partner caught on very quickly that something was wrong. The first time she’d showed up to welcome her back, Harper had been pleased to see her but kept her distance. Monica had simply and silently understood. She’d asked if there was something she could do, and when Harper didn’t answer, she’d said she hoped this woman was worthy of her.

Monica, however, did start to worry and fuss over her when Harper refused to eat or have her traditional glass of wine at night. She’d show up with containers of ready-cooked meals and place them in front of Harper. To be polite, Harper would play with her food for a while, then beg off to bed.

Ever since her return, all she wanted to do was spend every moment working in the fields. It was the only time she could stop thinking about Ryden for longer than an hour. She had been tempted to call her every day that passed, but her voice would only make Harper hurt more, and it wouldn’t be fair to Ryden.

“Signorina Harper,” one of her hands called out from halfway across the vineyard.

Harper looked up and found him signaling her to walk over. She removed her gloves, brushed the soil from her pants, and went over to meet him.

“Someone here to see you,” he said in Italian when Harper neared.

“My appointment isn’t for another hour.” A new wine buyer was coming for a tour of her property and equipment. “Just show them the way,” Harper said indifferently. Normally, she couldn’t wait to escort potential buyers and friends through her vineyard, but she just wasn’t in the mood for conversation and business. “I’ll be over there.” She gestured to the new vines she had been working on before returning to them.

She’d intended to change her clothes for the clients, but right now she couldn’t care less. Her cargos were comfy and it was too hot to wear anything other than a tank top. She was stooped over, absorbed with the vine, when she felt someone staring at her. When she straightened and turned to look, she gazed straight into Ryden’s beautiful green eyes.

Ryden stood looking at her bemusedly, hands folded at her belt. She was wearing jeans and a red button-down shirt, and she looked amazing.