An Act of Persuasion(45)

“Hell, I’m surprised you haven’t already. Not like you to leave questions unanswered about the people in your life,” Mark said. “But did you say marry her? Didn’t you guys have your first date this weekend? That’s a little bit of a stretch.”

“Not when she’s carrying my child it isn’t. It gives me...a head start, I believe you would call it.”

Mark assessed his former boss. The ruthlessness he’d seen during his days with him on the Farm was still there. Civilian life may have tempered it, but it hadn’t squashed it. He had no doubt now Tyler had simply listed Anna as a prime target. An asset to be cultivated with any means necessary.

Only love and relationships weren’t like war. Well, not exactly like war anyway.

“If you push her too hard, too fast, you’re going to lose her,” Mark warned.

“I don’t need love advice from you.”

No, and Mark wasn’t really sure why he was trying. He knew Ben would reject anything he had to say about Anna, but he couldn’t seem to keep his mouth shut.

“Maybe not. Hell, I wasn’t really any better at relationships than you. Other than the seduction part.”

“Yes, that habit you formed of identifying any woman I was attracted to and seducing her before I had a chance. Quite a skill that.”

Mark couldn’t apologize for it. He’d taken too much satisfaction in it, even if it did make him a jerk. “Look, my point is I know you. I’ve seen you hunt down targets for months, hell, even years, with a merciless single-mindedness that always seemed to work. That was fine for terrorists. It won’t work for Anna. I’ve known her now for—”

“Three months to my six years,” Ben interjected. “We’ve had this conversation, remember? Please, though, do educate me on the subject of Anna.”

Mark sneered. “You know, at first I was worried about her. Worried she was at risk from being played by someone who is a master manipulator.”

“And you’re not?”

“No, but I’m not trying to fool anyone into thinking I love her just so I can get my hands on my kid.”

Ben made a sudden motion forward as if he wanted to attack, but then he must have remembered Anna would return shortly. No doubt she wouldn’t like the idea of her former boss strangling her current boss. Ben settled into the chair.

“You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” he snarled.

“It doesn’t matter. Now that I know her better, I think she’ll see right through you. She’s smart, but beyond that, she knows you, too. She’ll see through your high-handed seduction methods if they are simply a means to an end and not born from real sincerity.”

Ben snorted.

“Fine. You go ahead and think you’ve got it all figured out. But I’m here to tell you if you screw this up, if you piss her off beyond forgiveness, then you’ll be a stranger to the child you say you want to know.”

“What would you know about it?”

“I have a child. A child I’m a stranger to.”

Mark watched Ben’s forehead crease as he tried to access the information he had on Mark. Maybe at one time he knew Mark had a child but that information had been deemed unnecessary and long buried back in his brain.

“I forgot. I’m sorry.”

“Well, it was pretty easy to forget considering I didn’t talk about her much.”

Or at all. There were no pictures in his wallet, not that an operative at that level would have carried any personal information anyway. Still, he didn’t have a picture of her anywhere period. The last time he’d even seen her was a year ago on her birthday. They’d had a Skype chat for a few minutes. She’d seemed bored with him. And the picture hadn’t been all that clear.

His daughter.

“What happened?”

Mark startled a little. A personal question from Ben? A question that had nothing do with gaining useful information for a specific purpose, but rather was a subject he was curious about? That was a first. Mark supposed the least he could do for this old colleague was to paint a picture of what not to do with Anna.

“Her mother was my college girlfriend. We dated most of my senior year. She was a junior. She expected to get married after I graduated. I expected to work abroad for the CIA. I guess she thought she was losing me. She told me... It’s so stupid when you think about it, what a man will be willing to believe to get his uncovered dick inside a woman. She told me she started taking the pill. She lied about it and got pregnant instead.”