come as they searched the tiny apartment, stuffed their guns away, and returned to the front door.
“You better watch your back, miss,” the dark-haired agent said. “You’re hanging around with some pretty dangerous people.”
She just nodded, remarkably cool considering the somersaults her stomach was doing, the blood coursing through her veins, and the question screaming in her brain.
Where was Finn?
They left and she remained still for a long moment, vaguely aware of the dribble of sticky moisture down her thigh, a reminder that minutes ago she had been making love to a man wanted by the FBI.
“Finn?” she whispered, dragging her feet toward the bedroom, stepping in to see what the FBI agent had seen. A rumpled bed. Her clothes strewn on the floor. The window wide open.
Finally, she exhaled, dropping on the bed from the weight of what had just happened. Her gaze shifted to the bureau. No surprise, Finn had taken her bag.
Tears burned. Her throat closed. And a painful punch of regret hit her in the chest. God, she was a fool! A stupid, childish, trusting fool.
And he was the worst kind of man—a user.
For a long moment, she just sat there in her down coat, tears brimming but unshed. She listened to the silence of the apartment, inhaled the bitter fragrance of sex that hung in the room.
And she waited.
Not for Finn; he’d never be back. Not until he needed something only she could give him again. Then he’d charm her and coerce her and weaken her defenses and… get exactly what he wanted from her. That was Finn.
But she could say no.
So she waited for the agony in her heart to transform into something else. Visualized the change taking place deep in the molecular level of her soul. Harmless, healthy proteins of love gradually degrading into deadly toxins of hate.
After all, wasn’t this her expertise? Creating poison from something as common as dirt? Love. What could be more common? Or dirtier?
Minutes passed, maybe hours. Finally, she made a decision. She wasn’t sure how or when, but someday she’d find a way to use Finn MacCauley the way he used her, and then she’d watch him suffer.
Until then, she damn well hoped some other molecular transformation wasn’t taking place inside her. Remembering her impetuous decision, she pushed off the bed, slid out of the coat, and headed into the shower to wash away the remnants of Finn. Please, God, let the hot shower water be enough to eliminate every drop of him from inside me.
Because the last thing she wanted now was a baby. She had something different to live for—revenge on Finn MacCauley.
CHAPTER 1
Present Day
The halogen headlights sliced through the downpour like laser beams, turning the rain eerily white and illuminating each sudden turn in the nick of time. With every near miss on the twisty roads of the North Carolina woods, Devyn Sterling cursed the rental car company for not offering GPS, damned the weather for delaying her flight until this late at night, and wished to God that she had a clue which street was Oak Ridge Drive.
And threw in one more vile curse for the impulsive nature that landed her in this situation.
Arriving on the doorstep of her birth mother to shatter the woman’s life should really be done under sunny skies. But Devyn couldn’t wait another day. Or night. No matter the weather.
Squinting into the downpour, she tapped the brakes at a cross street, slowing to a crawl to seize the millisecond of clarity between windshield wipes to read the street sign, aided by a sudden bolt of lightning.
Yes. Oak Ridge. Thank God.
Thunder rolled just a second or two later, but Devyn powered on, inching down the residential street, peering at the houses, set far apart on acre-sized lots, most of them dark for the night. As she reached the end of a cul-de-sac and neared the address she’d memorized, Devyn drew in a nervous breath, practicing what she would say when Dr. Sharon Greenberg opened the door.
No matter how many times she rehearsed, the words came out wrong. Especially because Devyn doubted she could get through the whole story before she got the door slammed in her face.
Still, she needed a game plan for this encounter.
Her icy New England upbringing told her to be brutally blunt. Just knock on the door, open her mouth, and say, I’m the daughter you gave up in a secret adoption thirty years ago.
But deep inside, because her blood wasn’t truly the chilly WASP of