Sweet Talk by Julie Garwood

him without a filter for the first time. Even his attire seemed disingenuous, with his hand-tailored suit and his handsome cashmere scarf draped around his neck. Olivia watched him slip on a black wool coat that was impeccably cut and a perfect fit.
    “Father?”
    “Yes?” He said as he put on one leather glove and reached for the doorknob.
    “This has to stop. You can’t continue to hurt people this way.”
    Her father turned back to her with a compassionate smile. “Get some rest, Olivia. You look pale. That terrible disease you have . . . it’s lurking under your skin . . . waiting. You never know when it could come back.” He left without saying good-bye.
    Monday morning, Olivia applied for a job with the IRS.

FOUR
    “ I don’t know what I was thinking,” Olivia told Jane. “Agent Kincaid asked me how I ended up working for the IRS, and once I started explaining . . . it got away from me.”
    “Did you tell him you’re investigating your father?”
    “No,” she replied. “But I went on and on about reaching my goal, and he naturally wanted to know what the goal was. I wouldn’t tell him, of course. I barely know the man. He has to think I’m crazy.”
    The two women were sitting side by side in beige leather recliners in what they called the Dracula room of St. Paul’s Hospital. Olivia was giving blood her friend would receive the following afternoon.
    Dressed in black silk pajamas and a hot-pink robe, birthday gifts from Sam and Collins, Jane had come down from her hospital room to keep Olivia company. Jane’s long honey-brown hair was up in a ponytail and she looked pale, terribly pale. Dr. Pardieu had ordered the blood transfusion and had told Jane that it would help immensely. It had in the past, he reminded her, and there was no reason to think it wouldn’t help now.
    “You shouldn’t care what other people think.”
    “I know,” Olivia agreed. “But Grayson’s . . . different. I do care what he thinks about me, and honest to Pete, I don’t have the faintest idea why.” She sounded bewildered.
    “Grayson?”
    “Agent Grayson Kincaid. He told me to call him Grayson.”
    “Do you think you’ll ever see him again?”
    “Probably not,” she said and was surprised by the stab of disappointment she felt. “Let’s talk about something else. Did I mention that Jorguson told me he admires my father and that he knows people who have done quite well investing in his fund?”
    “He must not have heard that you’re trying to stop him.”
    “How could he have heard? Every time I make an inquiry or lodge a complaint, it’s squelched. No one’s calling me back, the SEC . . .” She took a breath. “It’s frustrating, but I’ll keep trying.”
    “Tell me everything that happened at the interview,” Jane said. “Start at the beginning.”
    Since Jane was looking so sickly, Olivia decided to accommodate her, and by the time she was finished, Jane had a stitch in her side from laughing so hard.
    “Let me get this straight. You asked Jorguson’s bodyguard if he had a permit to carry a gun? The man’s pointing a . . . what did you call it?”
    “A Glock. Agent Kincaid called it a Glock.”
    “Okay then, he’s pointing a fancy Glock at you, and you want to know if he has a permit?” Jane thought, given the circumstances, the question was hilarious, and she couldn’t stop laughing.
    Olivia handed her a tissue to wipe the tears from her cheeks. “I watch way too much television, don’t I? On all those police shows the detectives ask the criminals if they have permits. I was trying to think of something to say to get him to stop coming toward me. It’s illegal for him to even carry the gun. I don’t know why I didn’t point that out.”
    “Weren’t you scared?”
    If an outsider had asked her that question, she probably would have pretended that it was no big deal, she hadn’t been scared at all. She wanted people to think she was a tough, no-nonsense kind of