Free Caress Part Three (Arcadia Book 3) by Josie Litton

need. Yuri and I had agreed in advance that the money had to be clean.
So was what I did with it.”
    He hesitated, then said, “I want you to know that I paid
Volkov back quickly and in full. He’s a valued client but I’m not beholden to
him in any way.”
    Since I had trouble imagining Lucas allowing himself to be
indebted to any man, this hardly came as a surprise. As for the rest… “What
about Feeney? Did you stay in touch after that?”
    Lucas nodded. “Sean’s a good guy. Whenever I get down to
Washington, we find time for a game of handball or a little sparring. He’s got
a mean left hook.”
    Slowly, I came to terms with what he was really telling me.
Lucas was more than merely acquainted with an F.B.I. agent; he was friends with
one. And now he wanted me to talk to him.
    No, not just wanted. More likely, he was prepared to insist.
The man could be damn persuasive when he set his mind to it.
    With very little effort, he could turn me into a writhing
mass of sexual arousal incapable of holding a single thought in my head beyond
the need to come. Right before he sent me straight off the cliff into a
soul-exploding orgasm that melted every iota of resistance in my body and left
me unable to refuse him anything.
    Battling the carnal direction of my thoughts, I glanced over
toward the windows. The light angling through them cast golden shadows across
the living room. The effect was really quite lovely but it opened a well of
sadness in me.
    I had a sense not merely of time passing but of it passing
through me, a quicksilver kind of energy, precious but fleeting. No matter how
desperately I wanted to hold onto it, nothing I could do would change its
swift, remorseless flow.
    Tomorrow would come.
    And when it did, I would go with my father. I’d play the
loving daughter and pretend to enjoy my new life while I did my utmost to
discover the whereabouts of the money that he had come to New York to reclaim.
Not just so that it could be used to help his victims but so that it wouldn’t
be available to him to buy large men with guns willing to do his bidding.
    I wouldn’t stop until I was certain that he was no longer a
danger to Lucas or anyone else. No matter how long that took or what I had to
do.
    The cost might be very high. I might never see Lucas again.
The thought stabbed through me, so agonizing that I could scarcely breathe.
    Rather than surrender to that pain, I opened myself to it,
forcing myself to experience it fully. Only then could I hope to turn it into
the strength that I so desperately needed for what would come next.

Chapter Eleven
     

Lucas
     
    Feeney had warned me that Emma might know more about what
her father had done than she’d ever let on. I didn’t want to believe him but
now I had to confront the possibility that he was right.
    As grateful as I was that she’d barely blinked an eye when I
told her about Yuri, I couldn’t help thinking that the big revelation I’d been
so worried could turn her against me hadn’t come as news to her. On the
contrary, I’d have given serious odds that she was well aware of the true
lengths that I’d gone to in order to save my company.
    There was only one person she could have learned that
from--her father. While he was still riding high as the head of what appeared
to be one of the world’s most successful investment funds, John Whittaker had
made it his business to discover the source of the money that I’d used to best
him.
    He’d even challenged me about it--once. My response had been
sufficient to assure that he never brought the subject up again, at least
publicly. Confiding it to his loving, sympathetic and ever-loyal daughter was
another matter entirely.
    But as much as the evidence seemed to indicate that she was
in league with him, it pointed just as strongly in the opposite direction.
    I didn’t doubt for a moment that the shock and horror she
showed when I told her about the magician were real. Yet something was lacking
even there.