Page 41 of The Blonde Who Came in from the Cold
When he slipped it on her finger a moment later, Alex absolutely loathed how much she was smiling.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Eight Years Ago
The Island
King
King should have stayed on the airplane.
On the mainland.
In bed.
He never should have answered Merritt’s call or, for that matter, followed in his father’s footsteps. But perhaps his biggest mistake was letting Alex go first down the airplane’s stairs. He had to watch her tip her face up and squint against the sun, wind in her hair, as a voice called, “Welcome to Cupid’s Arrow!”
“Kill me now,” King must have mumbled, because Alex looked back at him, blinking and wide-eyed.
“That could be arranged, you know?” she whispered, too low to be heard over the sound of the waves and the idling jet. And then she turned away from him, as if blown by the breeze, and everything about her tightened—her shoulders and her tone. It was like a magnet hovering over a pile of metal shavings. Something snapped into place—from the line of her shoulders to the set of her jaw as she slipped on a pair of dark glasses.
She wasn’t Alexandra Sterling anymore.
She was Mrs. Donna Dixon.
And she was angry.
“We are so glad you made it. How was your flight?”
King might have forgotten about the other woman, if he’d been a different kind of man. She was somewhere on the soft side of middle-aged, long flowing dress and big flowing hair that was a little too red to be natural. She looked like the kind of woman who would very much like to join a cult if only she could find one with adequate amenities. And maybe that’s what she was building here, he had to think, as she eyed their jet and inched closer.
“Welcome to the place where your inner cupids will renew the arrow of love.” The woman brought her hands together and bowed as if she’d just recited some ancient and sacred text and not the biggest bit of gibberish that King had ever heard in his life.
It was all he could do not to roll his eyes, but Alex didn’t have that problem.
“Hello, I’m Donna. This is my husband”—she made a half-hearted gesture in King’s direction—“Dimwit.”
“David,” King put in, but his dear wife wasn’t in the mood to bother with technicalities.
“That’s what I said,” she muttered just loudly enough to make sure the words would carry.
He held out a hand for the woman. “David Dixon, nice to meet you.”
“Charmed.” The woman eyed him up and down like maybe she might be better off if David were back on the market. King couldn’t help but chuckle when he saw Alex bristle.
“Donna and I are thrilled to be here. Isn’t that right, sweetheart?”
“Sweetheart?” She wielded the word like a whip. And then her lips quivered and her eyes went misty. Even her skin changed color.
King was raised among the best spies to ever live. He’d studied at the foot of the masters, dining on tales of clandestine missions and covert operations. It was not at all hyperbolic to say that his grandfather alone changed the trajectory of the world. That was Michael Kingsley’s bloodline—his legacy. His fate. But King had never—ever—seen anyone do what Alex did then.
She wasn’t pretending to be Donna Dixon from Denver. ShewasDonna Dixon. And she was on the verge of tears.
“That’s not what you called me last night.”
“Darling.” King kept his voice low, turning his body as if that might make the words more private. “We’ve been over this—”
“You mean while you were under someone else?”
