Hush (Black Lotus #3)(23)

“I’m sorry.”

“There should be no doubt in that heart of yours that you belong to me. Everyone in that room knows it. My cum is all over your skin, and yet you feel threatened by another woman.”

“You just . . .”

“You want to know my past? Because it isn’t that interesting. I’ve never been in love. Not once. I’ve dated less than five women in my life, but I never loved any of them. Did I f*ck them? Yes. Have I f*cked others? Yes, but not many. Casual sex isn’t really my thing. I’ve spent my life working hard, trying to live up to my father’s expectations. Work was always my main focus. And then there was you. You came into my life and turned everything upside down.”

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” I admit. “I hate that you’ve seen so many of my weaknesses. I love you, there’s no question, but I don’t know how to do this the right way.”

“You don’t fool me. You’re the strongest woman I know.” He cups my face in his hands, dips his head down to my level, and looks deeply into my eyes, adding, “But you’re weak too, and when you let me see that part of you, it only makes me love you more. You and I have been through hell and back, and this isn’t going to be easy for either one of us.”

I slip my arms around his waist and rest my head against his chest.

Declan presses his lips to my head in a tender kiss. “You have nothing to worry about, you hear me?”

“Yes.”

“Come on,” he says. “Let’s go home.”

“We can go back in.”

“I’ve had enough socializing for one night. Let’s get out of here.”

The drive back to the apartment is a short one, and when we walk through the door, I kick off my heels. Declan gets the fireplace going and we simply hold each other as we lie on the couch. We settle into the silence and darkness, too lazy to slip out of our formalwear. I soak in the heat from his body while he runs his fingertips along my spine.

After a while, Declan’s phone rings. I’m edging on sleep when he takes the call.

“McKinnon . . . Yes. Let him up.” He ends the call and gently brushes my hair back. “Lachlan’s here,” he tells me, and I groan, not wanting to get up.

A couple minutes later there’s an abrupt knock on the door, and when Declan opens it, Lachlan rushes in.

“I’ve got it,” he announces urgently, holding a sheet of paper.

“What is it?” I question, standing and walking towards him.

He comes straight to me, passing Declan, and hands me the paper. “The passenger manifest.”





“THIS COULDN’T HAVE gone any better,” the PI that I hired a few days ago tells me.

“Were you able to plant the device on him?”

“Even better. I followed Stroud from his hotel to a residential building. It wasn’t long before he emerged right out the building’s front doors with a woman. I trailed them as they walked to a department store,” he recounts as I sit in my derelict cubical and listen. “The woman was in the fitting room when he became distracted with a phone call. As soon as the woman walked out to the shopping racks, I figured her phone would have to do since I didn’t see a way to get to Stroud’s. It only took thirty seconds to find her cell phone in her purse, pop out the SIM card, and replace it with the tracker SIM.”

“Why the f*ck do we care about some chick? You were supposed to plant it in Stroud’s phone.”

“This is when you’re going to thank me,” he says with a bout of pride. “I pulled the data stored on her phone, and that woman is Archer’s daughter.”

“He has a daughter?”

“Elizabeth Archer. She is exactly who we need to be following. It has to be her who’s looking for Archer. I looked into her, and it seems she went straight into foster care when Archer was arrested.”

“Holy shit,” I murmur in astonishment.

“I say we keep quiet and allow her to lead us to our point of contact.”

“I agree.”

“I’m now adjusting my surveillance off Stroud and onto the daughter. I’ll call you with any updates.”





HOURS HAVE PASSED since Lachlan delivered the passenger manifest, and I’ve already completely scoured it. My heart sank a little when I didn’t see the name Steve Archer. I knew his name wouldn’t be on it, but all reasonable thought had vanished in that moment.

Declan immediately pushed Lachlan out when my emotions started getting the best of me. I tried to rein it in as best as I could since Declan is under the impression I’m taking the prescription that’s supposed to help these stress-induced meltdowns. But I couldn’t deafen myself to the piercing ring in my head. It was painful and sent me into a mild panic.

After I calmed down, Declan suggested I take a break, get a good night’s sleep, and revisit the manifest in the morning. But I can’t do that. My father is on this sheet of paper, I know it, and I can’t sleep until I find which name is his.

Sitting in Declan’s office while he’s sleeping in the other room, I continue to enter in each name into a people-finder database. I’m not even sure what I’m looking for to guide me in one direction or another, but I jot down any information that pops up for each male passenger. There were one hundred and twenty-two men on that plane. One hundred and twenty-two different paths to follow, but only one will lead me to my dad.