Hidden Agenda Read Free

one.
    The overhead light cast a golden glow over her obsidian head, and for the first time he detected a liberal streaking of silver in the raven-black curls. Eve was graying prematurely. He knew her to be only thirty-four. He was thirty-eight, and his hair was still free of any traces of gray. Not that he hadn’t earned them. The escapades he had been involved in were enough to turn his hair white
and
give him cardiac arrest.
    He took a sip of his drink, then leaned back on his chair, flashing a wide grin. His teeth appeared white against the thickness of the black mustache.
    “I suppose you know most of the curses.”
    “But of course.”
    Eve gave him a warm, open smile for the first time. Seeing her slanting eyes crinkle and her lush mouth soften delighted him as he leaned closer.
    “Did you learn the curses from the nanny?”
    She wrinkled her delicate nose. “I learned the curses at a prison that was licensed as a school.”
    “I take it you attended a boarding school?”
    Her jaw hardened and the brilliant lights in her eyes faded. “It was more like a prison than an exclusive school for girls.”
    “How many years did you attend?”
    She gave him a cold stare. “Twelve. My stepmother insisted that the school was what I needed to turn me into a respectable lady. She claimed I embarrassed her because I preferred baseball games to high tea, wrestling matches to ballet, and Aretha Franklin to Leontyne Price.”
    “I assume you and your stepmother did not get along too well,” Matt concluded, concealing a smile behind his napkin.
    Eve speared a small portion of cold fish salad, shaking her head. “She despised me, and the feeling was mutual.” Her gaze was fixed on her plate. “My father married Janice less than a year after my mother’s death, and she played her role well as the adoring stepmother until she had to compete with me for my father’s attention.”
    Her head came up slowly, and she stared across the table at Matt. “My mother developed multiple sclerosis within three months of my birth, and her health deteriorated rapidly over the next five years. I didn’t know it until years later, but my father and Janice were having an affair during this time. She waited until my mother died, then legalized her claim on Floyd Blackwell.”
    “What did your father say about her sending you away?”
    “Nothing.” The single word was flat, emotionless.
    Matt leaned forward. “I can’t believe he said nothing.”
    Eve swallowed painfully, meeting his topaz gaze. She was angry with herself because she’d revealed more than she wanted to. “I came to Mexico to ask you whether you would accept payment to return my son to me, not to give you a familial overview.”
    Resting an elbow on the table, Matt glared at her. “Miss Blackwell, you need me.” His voice was deceptively soft. “I want you to try to remember that, because I sure as hell don’t need you, or the pittance you’re prepared to offer me.”
    She felt her face burn. Pittance. What she was going to offer Matthew Sterling was all of the money she had left. She had spent practically all of the proceeds from the sale of her Washington, D.C., gift shop hiring investigators to find her son and bring him back to theStates, and here this pompous pig was calling her offer a pittance even before he heard the amount.
    “Maybe to a man of your means twenty-five thousand dollars would seem like a pittance, but I’ve heard stories where people were hired to eliminate others for a lot less,” she snapped at him.
    Matt hadn’t missed her slender fingers tightening on the handle of her knife. He smiled.
    “Twenty-five thousand dollars would just be enough to cover the bounty on one of my ears, Miss Blackwell,” he crooned, and the drawl of West Texas was distinctly noticeable in his speech pattern for the first time that night. “The word is that the last time I left Colombia the price for my ears was up to fifty thousand.” He placed a large brown