The look he shot me was laced with heat. “It’s not exactly a secret that you caught my eye. I’ve done a bit of poking around on you.”
“Really?” I couldn’t keep the surprise out of my voice.
“Really,” he acknowledged. “You’re good at covering your tracks. I couldn’t find a thing prior to you showing up in Chicago. And that was the most suspicious thing of all.”
“Hmmm,” I said, my voice all innocence.
“I guess that makes you like Aphrodite, born from the sea. Or at least from Lake Michigan.”
“Naked in a seashell? I don’t think so.”
“Katrina Laron,” he said, as if my name was a chocolate soufflé, light and airy on his tongue. “Who chose the name?”
I’d lived inside a cloak of self-preservation for so long that I almost protested that I didn’t know what he was talking about. But I remembered myself and answered the question. “I did. I picked Katrina because it’s close to my real name.”
“Which is?”
I smiled at him. “You should know.”
“Catalina?”
“My dad likes that island, too.”
“And Laron?”
“That one I picked because I liked the joke.”
“All right. I’ll bite. What’s the joke?”
“It’s usually a first name for a boy, and it’s French in origin. It means thief. I thought it was fitting.”
From his expression, it was clear he agreed.
I frowned, thinking of my name and identities and all the stuff that people did to hide—and all the other stuff that people could do to find them.
“Cole,” I began, but he silenced me with a simple touch of his hand.
“They can’t find you. Not easily. And even if they do, they won’t find your dad. Trust me, Catalina. It’s going to be okay.”
And, because it was Cole who was saying so, I believed him.
About ten minutes after I left his house, my phone rang.
I glanced at the display, saw that it was Cole, and felt the sweet flutter of anticipation in my chest.
I reached over and punched the button to answer the call on speaker. “Hey, stranger,” I said. “It’s been far too long.”
“It has indeed,” he agreed. “I need you to find a place to pull over.”
I frowned at the serious tone in his voice. “Is everything okay?”
“As far as I’m concerned, everything’s perfect,” he said. “Including you.”
“Oh. But then what—” I remembered my suggestion about phone sex. “Oh.”
He laughed, the sound full of heat and wickedness, and I knew I was right.
I maneuvered into the parking lot of a nearby grocery store, then went around the back to the area where the deliveries are made and the employees park. That might, I thought, give me some privacy.