Read Online Bare Facts by Katherine Garbera - Free Book Online Page B

criminal past?”
    “No,” he said.
    She knew he was lying and cursed herself for asking the question so baldly. She sent a quick e-mail to Anna, telling her to focus on the Yakuza. And then shut down her computer.
    “Are you ready to go?” she asked. If she stayed with him another moment, she was going to be tempted to force him to answer her questions. She shook her head. What was she going to do, beat the truth out of him? That was a line she wouldn’t cross. Justine, however, would. She gave a brief thought to asking her friend to do just that, but she had a feeling that Sam would not approve. And she also suspected that Daniel wasn’t the type of man not to hit back, no matter that the person beating him was a woman.
    “Not yet. Don’t dig into this, Charity. The past has no place in what’s happening now. Your job is to protect me. That’s it.”
    She let go of her own anger. Smile, she thought. Use the femininity that men never fail to respond to.
    “You’re not even sure you want me to do my job. And you won’t listen to me,” she said carefully. She turned to face him, looking up at him from her chair. “I just want to help you, Daniel.”
    “I’m your boss,” he said. “Just do what I tell you and we’ll be fine.”
    But she knew there was more to it than that. Daniel was the kind of man who was very used to getting his own way and he wasn’t about to let a woman tell him what to do.
    “You’re a smart man,” she said. “And I wouldn’t dream of telling you what to do in the boardroom, but here…in this situation, I have more experience than you do.”
    “That’s not it,” he said.
    “Then what is?”
    “Control’s a big thing for you,” he said.
    “I’d say I’m in good company then, because you refuse to back down. Don’t forget it, buddy. I’ll do whatever I have to in order to keep you safe. Even if that means digging all the way back to samurai days and the inception of the Yakuza.”
    He gripped her arm hard, drew her body close to his, glaring down at her. “There are some things that aren’t meant to be brought forward.”
    What was he so afraid of in his own past? “The past always shapes who we are now. We can’t run from it or it will consume us.”
    “That’s a very Zen thought.”
    “Yes, it is. But it’s also true.”
    “In certain circumstances, but I refuse to be defined by what happened years ago.”
    “We’ve all made mistakes, Daniel…don’t worry about what we’ll find.”
    He let her go, stepping away from her. She followed him, knowing that she was close to getting some answers. Needing those answers now more than ever.
    “Tell me. Whatever it is, I need to know if I’m going to keep you alive.”
    “It’s nothing. There’s no big secret. Dig around in my past all you want. But stay away from the Yakuza. The Oyabun doesn’t take kindly to anyone sniffing at their door.”
    The Oyabun was serious business. For the first time, she felt a frisson of fear for Daniel. She had utter confidence that she could protect him but if his enemy was that powerful, nothing short of death would stop the man. And his death would simply bring about another enemy. Another person to take up the blood vengeance.
    “You’re going to have to trust me sooner or later.”
    “No, I’m not. Because we’re going to take care of the threat to me and then you’ll be out of my life.”
    “If you are an enemy of an Oyabun, this isn’t going to go away easily.”
    “Let me worry about that.”
    She shook her head, grabbing her back and walking out of the command center. She heard him behind her as they walked out the front door. She paused to reset the alarm on the house.
    “I really don’t like you right now.”
    “Good. Don’t like me. Don’t try to figure out what’s going on here. Just do your job and keep me alive so I can take care of business.”
    She gave him a steely-eyed look as he brushed past her, but he totally missed it because he