Keeping her arms around the fragile little girl, Myst rose to her feet and carried Molly toward the door that led to the back of the suite.
“It’s okay.” She brushed her lips over Molly’s forehead. “I’ll tuck you in.”
Molly gazed up at her with shimmering bronze eyes. “I don’t want you to leave.”
Pain sliced through Myst. She’d known this was going to be difficult. But she hadn’t realized it was going to feel as if her heart was being ripped out.
She forced a smile to her lips. This was for Molly.
After everything her daughter had been forced to endure over the past week, a visit from her mother was the least she could do for her.
“I’m not leaving,” she said, pretending to ignore the large male form prowling behind her like a panther shadowing its prey.
The hair on her nape stirred, her mind urging her to flee as she walked down the short hall that led to two bedrooms. She chose the nearest, heaving a silent sigh of relief at the sight of the toys piled in the corner of the elegant black and gold room.
The last thing she wanted was to accidentally intrude into Bas’s privacy.
Not that she feared he would toss her on his bed and strip off her clothes. Her lips twisted. His expression when she’d entered the suite had revealed what he thought of her.
And it was nothing good.
But it would have been . . . unnerving.
“You swear you won’t leave?” Molly pleaded as Myst crossed the lush black carpet to settle her daughter on the bed. “A pinkie swear?”
She gently tugged the gold comforter over Molly’s tiny body. “I swear.”
“You shouldn’t make promises you can’t keep,” Bas growled from behind her.
“We can discuss it later,” Myst muttered, concentrating on her daughter, who was snuggling into the mattress with her stuffed hippo pressed to her chest.
Although they’d been in constant mental contact, she’d never had the opportunity to savor Molly’s delicate beauty or the pure innocence of her soul, which glowed around her with a golden aura.
She was . . . perfect.
And worth every sacrifice that Myst had to make.
“Will you tell me a story?” Molly pleaded.
Myst gently pushed a silver curl off her daughter’s cheek. “Of course.”
Molly flashed her a dimpled grin. “I want to hear the one about the princess who saves the troll and he turns into a prince. That’s my favorite.”
“Her favorite?” Bas growled, abruptly grabbing Myst by the arm to tug her away from the bed. “What’s she talking about?”
Myst made a sound of impatience as they halted near the doorway. Okay, Bas had every reason not to trust her. She got that. She truly did.
But she only had a limited time with Molly.
She couldn’t afford to waste a minute.
“It’s a fairy tale that I made up,” she confessed, forcing herself to meet the bronze male gaze even as tiny shudders raced through her body.
Who wouldn’t shudder when an assassin was scowling at her as if he was considering where he intended to dump the body?
It had nothing at all to do with the fingers that had loosened their grip and were absently stroking up and down the bare length of her arm.
“Fairy tale?” he snapped.
She shrugged, wishing she wasn’t such a shy, timid mouse.
If she was one of those beautiful, sophisticated women that seemed born with the knowledge of how to manipulate men, she could use her wiles to convince this man to let her stay.
As it was . . . she had no flipping idea how she was going to perform that particular miracle.
“It’s a harmless story.”
The stunning metallic eyes narrowed, the air heating. Bas was not only a witch, he was a born Sentinel, which meant his body temperature ran hotter than other people’s. Especially when they were pissed off.
Or in the throes of passion . . .
She slammed shut the door on that agonizingly vivid memory, watching as his bronze eyes narrowed, his heat spiking.
Almost as if he’d managed to catch her wicked thoughts.
“Myst—”
“Mommy,” Molly called from the bed.
Myst released a breath she didn’t know she was holding. Thank God for a timely interruption.
“Coming.” She moved to step around the male only to come to a halt as his fingers tightened on her arm. She tilted back her head to glare at his painfully beautiful face. “Let me go, Bas.”
He refused to release his grip, but his fingers instantly eased. She blinked in confusion. Was he afraid he was hurting her?
That seemed very . . . un-assassin like.
“Have you been sneaking in to see Molly?” he growled.
She shook her head. “No.”
“Then how did you tell her a fairy tale?”
Myst hesitated. She wanted to lie, but she feared he would sense she wasn’t telling the truth.
Probably not the best way to convince him that she could be trusted with their daughter.
“We’re psychically connected.”
His dark brows lifted in surprise. “You told me that you’re a clairvoyant.”
“That’s one of my gifts,” she agreed, her voice carefully devoid of emotion.
“One?”
Her lips twisted in a wry smile at the disbelief in his tone. She was used to being dismissed as a mere scribe with meaningless powers.
“Yes.”
He looked . . . offended.
“You didn’t tell me you were a telepath.”
She shrugged. “You didn’t ask.”
“You applied for a job. I assumed you would have shared your complete résumé.” He leaned down, wrapping her in the scent of clean male skin and Scotch. “Or were you keeping secrets even back then?”
His lips brushed the top of her ear, sending streaks of lightning through her body.
Danger, excitement, and pure lust twisted her stomach into a knot.
Dammit. She’d spent the past four years isolated in the bowels of a Russian monastery. She wasn’t prepared to deal with the cascade of sensations.
She struggled to suck air into her lungs. “I wasn’t a telepath when I applied for the job,” she said in hoarse tones.
He frowned, his fingers resuming their absent path up and down her arm. Was he even aware what he was doing?
Her skin shivered with delight.
“Is that supposed to be a joke?” he demanded.
She grimaced, understanding his annoyance. High-bloods were born with their mutations, even if some didn’t reveal themselves until after puberty. Most people only had one, but a rare few could claim a combination.
Like Bas, who’d been born with both the magic of a witch and the superior strength of a Sentinel. And even more rare were those powers that appeared later in life, seemingly out of nowhere.
None of the healers had an explanation.
It simply happened.
“The talent didn’t reveal itself until I was pregnant,” she grudgingly confessed.
He lifted his head, genuine amazement in his eyes. “A spontaneous manifestation?”
“Yes.”
He studied her with a searing intensity. “Fine. You should have told me you were in contact with Molly.”
She forced herself to hold that raptor gaze. Bas was a natural leader with a male confidence that easily intimidated others.
In other words . . . an arrogant ass.
He would run her over completely if she didn’t try to stand her ground.
“As I said, you’re not my boss.”
“No, but I am Molly’s father.”
“I know that . . .” she started to snap, only to bite her tongue. Well, hell.
He was right.
“And?” he prompted.
She grimaced. It was true he was an arrogant ass, but he’d taken in a baby that he hadn’t known existed, without question and without hesitat
ion, and surrounded her with the sort of love every little girl deserved.
As much as it might pain her to stroke his bloated ego, she owed him her eternal gratitude.
“I’m truly grateful that you’ve done such a wonderful job with Molly.” She managed to force the words past her stiff lips. “She’s a very special little girl, and I know that you had a very large part in that.”
He blinked, a flare of color staining the sharp line of his cheekbones.
Had she managed to knock him off guard?
Amazing.
Then his lips abruptly thinned. “You’re very good at deflecting my questions,” he accused.
She dropped her gaze to his thousand-dollar Italian shoes.
“Then stop asking them.”
“Myst.” His finger curled beneath her chin, tilting her head up. “Why didn’t you let me know you were in contact with my daughter?”
A fresh pain sliced through her heart. “Our daughter,” she corrected in fierce tones.
His lips parted, but before he could deny her right to be a mother, Molly’s plaintive voice interrupted their tense confrontation.
“Daddy, I want Mommy to tell the story.”
Myst glanced toward the tiny girl who was perched on the edge of the bed before returning her wary gaze to the predator who was nearly vibrating with the urge to toss her through the nearest window.
“Let me go to her, Bas,” she said in low tones. “Please.”
Frustration tightened his stark features, but dropping his hands, he forced himself to take a step back.
“Tell her the story. Then we talk,” he warned, turning his head to send his daughter a smile that held uncomplicated affection. “Good night, pet.”
Bas stalked from the room, his phone pressed to his ear as he reached the main room of the suite.
“Kaede,” he snapped as soon as his enforcer picked up. “I need you in Kansas City. I’ll explain when you get here.”
He shoved the phone back into his pocket and paced to the bank of windows that overlooked the Kansas City skyline.
Un-fucking-believable.
After five years of paying a fortune to trackers, witches, and even a human private investigator to hunt down Myst, she’d waltzed into his penthouse as if she had every right to be there.
Worse, he discovered that she’d been in constant contact with Molly.
A short, humorless laugh was wrenched from his throat.
No, that wasn’t the worst.
The worst was the undeniable fact that he found her just as damned exquisite as the first time she’d sashayed that tiny body into his office.
His fingers had twitched with the urge to run through the moonlit silk of her hair. To yank off her pretty sundress and explore the pale ivory skin that had haunted his dreams. To crush the soft curve of her lips until they parted in helpless surrender.
Emotions are the enemy.
He’d been taught that by the monks who’d honed him into the perfect killer.
But Myst managed to shatter a lifetime of training, stirring his passions with an ease that was frankly terrifying.
He needed her gone.
Now.
Pacing toward the long bar that was set near the leather sectional couch, Bas grimly poured himself a Scotch. Tomorrow he would have the suite cleaned from top to bottom. Maybe that would get rid of the lingering scent of honeysuckle.
He was on his second drink when he heard the sound of approaching footsteps and he whirled to study the woman who came to a hesitant halt in the center of the room.
His brows snapped together. He told himself it was because she was an unwelcome interloper and not because she looked as delicate and ethereal as a moonbeam.
A very sexy moonbeam.
She wrapped her arms around her slender waist, making a visible effort to meet his gaze.
“There’s no need to glare at me,” she chided.
He set aside his empty glass, smoothing his face to an unreadable mask.
It was something that should have come easily. He was a cold, ruthless assassin, wasn’t he? Unfortunately, this woman had a unique talent of getting under his skin.
In more ways than one.
“You’ve been screwing with my daughter’s mind,” he said between clenched teeth, still unnerved by the revelation that this woman had been speaking with Molly without his knowledge.
Her chin jutted to a defensive angle. “I’ll admit that I’ve often communicated with Molly, but I was hardly screwing with her mind. We talked like any other mother and daughter.”
He narrowed his gaze. “You knew very well that I was unaware of your telepathic powers. You deliberately used that lack of awareness to take advantage.”
“Molly was the one to reach out to me.”
His scowl deepened. “How? You’re not trying to claim she’s a telepath?”
“No, but I could sense her,” Myst muttered. “She needed to know that her mother loved her.”
“A mother who loves her child doesn’t abandon her.”
She flinched at his deliberate attack. “I didn’t . . .”
“Didn’t what?”
“Nothing.”
He studied her pale face.
She was hiding something. But what?
“Why are you here?”
“You know why.” She hunched a shoulder. “I’m here to see my daughter.”
“Why?” he pressed again. “Four years ago you left her on my bed and walked away without looking back. Surely you can understand my confusion as to why you’d be struck with a burning need to see her now.”
Her lovely face that looked far too young to be a mother’s flushed at his accusation.
“Molly was traumatized when she was kidnapped.”
His breath hissed between his teeth.
The memory of Molly’s kidnapping was still a raw wound that made him think about killing things.
“You don’t have to remind me,” he snapped. “We were all traumatized when she was taken.”
The velvet-brown eyes widened with something that might have been confusion.
“I’m not blaming you.”
“Then what are you doing?”
“Trying to explain that after Molly was taken she reached out to me in terror,” she said, her voice trembling as if she’d been as tormented as he’d been by her abduction. “She couldn’t tell me where she was, or who’d taken her, so all I could do was try to give her comfort and swear to her that I would come and visit if she would be a good girl and do everything they told her to do until you could come for her.”
Her soft words should have infuriated him. What right did she have to make promises to his daughter?
Instead, he went hunter-still. “You were so certain I would find her?”
“Yes,” she said without hesitation.
Shit.
He struggled to keep his face devoid of emotion at the insane flare of pleasure that raced through him at her absolute confidence in his skills.
What the hell was wrong with him?
It wasn’t as if this woman’s opinion mattered, did it?
“Is that why it took you a week to get here?” he snapped, angered by his ridiculous reaction to this female. “Or were you just too busy to care that your daughter was in danger?”
Her head snapped back, an unexpected fury tightening in her delicate features.
“Don’t ever say I don’t care about Molly,” she spit out, her hands clenched into tiny balls. “I left the second I knew she’d been taken. If I hadn’t had to make sure I wasn’t being followed I would have—”
She bit off her impulsive words, stiffly turning to walk toward the bank of windows.
“Followed?” he instantly pounced. Was this a trick? A lame excuse for not rushing to help in the search for Molly? “By who?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
Bas kept his gaze locked on the fragile profile reflected in the window.
“It does if you’re in da
nger.”
She hunched her shoulders, a visible shiver shaking her body.
“All I’m asking is a few days to spend with my daughter,” she said in low tones.
Bas was moving before he could halt his forward progress, grabbing her shoulders so he could turn her to meet his searching gaze.
“I want to know why you think you’re being followed,” he insisted.
Her ridiculously thick lashes lowered to hide her expressive eyes. A sure sign she was about to lie.
“You’re always in hiding,” she muttered. “I didn’t want to accidentally give away your location.”
“Bullshit.”
Her jaw tightened, but her gaze stayed lowered. “Can I stay?”
His grip eased on her shoulders, his fingers compulsively stroking the satin-soft skin of her back.
“For how long?” he demanded.
“A few days.”
“And then you intend to disappear into the ether once again?”
“Yes.”
Some indefinable emotion clenched his stomach at her blunt admission that she couldn’t be bothered to spend more than a handful of hours with her child.
His hand moved from her shoulder to grasp her chin, tilting back her head so he could study her delicate features.
So innocent.
The face of an angel.
How the hell could she be so cruel toward her only child?
Unless . . .
“Do you have another family?” he abruptly demanded.
She blinked, as if confused by his question. “Do you mean parents or siblings?”
His lips thinned. “I’m asking if you have a husband and pack of kids. Is that why you treat Molly like a dirty secret?”
“Of course not,” she breathed, a genuine outrage darkening her eyes. “And I don’t treat Molly like a dirty secret.”
Dropping his hands as if he’d been scalded, Bas took a step back.
He didn’t want to feel a sharp-edged relief that he’d been wrong in his suspicion that Myst was already claimed by another male.
He didn’t want to feel anything for this woman.
“No,” he said abruptly.
“No what?” she asked in bewilderment.
“No, you can’t stay,” he informed, retreating behind his icy composure. “It isn’t fair to Molly.”
She sucked in a sharp breath, her expression stricken. “A visit from her mother isn’t fair?”