An Act of Persuasion(59)

Yes, she was pretty messed up. Because her earliest memory started with an epic betrayal.

Was this how Sophie felt? Had she felt that one of her parents had abandoned her at an early age because he wanted to be a spy instead of a dad? And now the one parent she counted on the most had done the most unforgivable thing and died, leaving her practically an orphan.

Of course, Sophie had her grandparents so she wasn’t living at the whim of the foster-care system. But what if something happened to them?

Wasn’t that exactly what Dom was afraid of and why he’d taken Mark’s phone call in the first place? He and Marie were too old to escort Sophie all over the country. Between his arthritis and Marie’s emphysema things were getting harder for the two of them, not easier.

Mark needed to fix this. Now. Or at some point in the future Sophie would be the one lacing up her running sneakers getting ready to bolt any time a man tried to get close. What if she never gave herself a chance at real happiness? Mark would always know that it was partly his fault.

Maybe he couldn’t save Anna, maybe he couldn’t help Ben. But Mark sure as hell could fix things between him and his daughter.

He picked up the phone and dialed the number he had committed to memory. Dom’s voice was instantly recognizable.

“I’m done playing around, Dom. I don’t care what she wants. I’m coming for Sophie.”





CHAPTER THIRTEEN



MARK PULLED ALL his courage together as he approached the house. Dom and Marie had been living in the same home in the upper-middle-class suburb of Philadelphia known as Bryn Mawr for as long as Mark had known Helen. He’d had no trouble remembering how to get here. As he parked the car in the driveway he noted that his hands were as sweaty as they’d been the first time he’d met Helen’s parents.

Sweatier even than the time they had come to tell her parents she was pregnant and they were getting married. Funny, because he didn’t remember her being nervous then. It was almost like they were an afterthought to Helen.

His parents hadn’t been thrilled with the announcement, knowing what it would do to his plans to apply for the CIA. His father was a former military man who thought serving the country was a man’s duty, not a choice. While he’d originally imagined Mark following in his footsteps as a career soldier, he’d at least accepted the CIA as the next best thing. Certainly better than, say, the Coast Guard.

Of course, his parents had been even less thrilled when he told them the wedding was off. His mother seemed to know that, while biologically she was a grandmother, she wouldn’t be one in reality. That had certainly borne out. Sophie had disappeared into Helen’s family and his parents had gotten to see her only once as a baby.

He would change that. His father had passed away two years ago, but his mother deserved the chance to know her grandchild. Thankfully his older sister had given her two others to keep her occupied or she might have been more insistent about seeing Sophie and that might have created conflict between the two families.

But now, come to think of it, he wished she had been more insistent. Maybe if his mother had forged some bonds on the Sharpe side of the family, this meeting wouldn’t be quite so nerve-racking. It was too late now. What was done was done.

He got out of the car and started up the trail of steps that led to the front door with the flowers clutched in his hands like a sword he might need to defend himself. He rang the bell and waited.

A few moments later a solemn-faced Dom opened the door and let him inside.

“You’re early,” Dom noted.

“I’m anxious.”

“They’re waiting for you in the living room.”

Mark followed the older man, purposefully slowing his gait to match Dom’s arthritic steps. He thought of the many steps outside without any kind of railing and wondered how Dom still managed them. There was also the size of the house. It felt like it went on forever, sprawling over several thousand square feet. It must take the man an hour to get from the foyer door to the kitchen.

After what seemed like an eternity later, they finally rounded a hallway that had an archway opening to a much larger room than Mark remembered.

Or maybe it was that he felt smaller.

It wasn’t until he saw her, wearing a green dress with her hair in a heavy braid down her back that he let out his breath. She was beautiful in person. So much like her mother. He’d forgotten how pretty Helen had been.

She looked at him, her face expressionless. Marie made a coughing noise behind her hand that sounded feigned and Sophie immediately rose and walked over to him. She held out her hand and met his gaze head-on.