Page 21 of Shadow Lies

“I’m not a little girl.”

“Your body isn’t. I’ll give you that. You have grown up. But your heart and your mind—you might as well be the thirteen-year-old you were when I first met you.”

She drew in a breath and he worked to not stare at the rise and fall of her tits as she did.

“Five minutes. That’s all I’m asking.”

“Why? Because you won’t get that fee for your time if I don’t?” he accused.

“No. We agreed up front I’d get paid whether I can convince you to talk to her or not.”

Smart girl. He hoped she got paid in advance. He didn’t trust Charley to hold up her end of any bargain.

“Why then?” he asked. “If you’re getting paid either way, why do you care?”

She hesitated a beat before she said, “Because I need to know.”

That rang true.

He smiled, believing her completely. “That’s really it, isn’t it? You can’t stand not knowing something.”

A decade-old memory careened into his mind. Alexis stamping her foot in childish protest when he refused to tell her what he’d gotten her sister for Christmas.

Big. Small. It didn’t matter what the mystery was, not knowing something chipped away at her until it drove her completely nuts.

She screwed up her pretty mouth. “Maybe. So what?”

“Nothing.” He laughed, shaking his head.

“There’s nothing wrong with me for being curious. What’s wrong with you, Kane? I’d be curious if someone looked up my ex-girlfriend’s little sister and sent her to a mountaintop monastery in China to find me. You’re the weird one who doesn’t want to know.”

She finished the rant with a pretty little pout on her cupid’s bow lips.

That only had him smiling wider. “Okay.”

“Okay, what? You agree with me that you’re the weirdo here and not me?” She folded her arms to mirror his position, but unlike him, she had on a revealingly low shirt that displayed creamy globes cresting above the fabric.

“Okay, make the call,” he said, smiling at her reaction as her eyes widened.

Fuck it. Why not hear what the mystery woman had to say?

Hell, maybe he could negotiate a donation for the monastery from Charley in exchange for his valuable time.

“Really?” she asked, looking as if she were afraid he was playing a joke on her.

“Really,” he repeated. “But make it quick. We’re on the clock here.” He tapped his empty wrist at the cuff of his sleeve.

She scrambled to get her cell out of her jacket pocket. “Right. Kung fu. Got it.”

Thathe didn’t believe. He doubted that shegot it—got him and his reason for being there—at all.

ChapterEight

Alexis’s hands were shaking as she tapped on her phone while she mumbled a curse.

Immediately after the four-letter word had left her mouth her eyes widened and her gaze cut to him.

She cringed. “Sorry.”

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