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if he told her part of the truth? There were bad parts he could share, and there were worse parts he could never divulge. In an effort to protect sensitive information the FBI had kept their investigation of him private. Outside of Mandy’s newspaper article about the case he’d been working on, no other information had been made available to the public.
    “Off the record?” he said.
    She hesitated longer than he would have liked. “Off the record.”
    “I was stripped of my security clearance and put on administrative leave without pay.”
    A shocked silence followed, filled with awful music, until she said, “Why?”
    “I was working on a case that involved a group of hackers that specialized in acquiring credit card numbers. A branch of Russian organized crime was laundering their money.” He took a moment to steel himself for the words that followed. “I was accused of leaking information to the mob.”
    The pause was painful as she stared at him, wide-eyed. “And did you?”
    The words punched hard, his stomach drawing tight with anger. He’d seen the doubt in his colleagues’ expressions. The questions in their eyes. Outside of his parents and Pete Booker, no one had believed the truth—not a hundred percent, anyway. Not even after he’d been cleared. So why should
she
? But somehow her doubt took a larger chunk from hisalready ragged pride, and left him dangerously close to the edge. He leaned closer, and a flicker of desire swept through her eyes. For some reason the thought of a payback appealed. And there was no greater payback than refusing to answer a nosy woman’s question.
    “What do you think?” he said.
    Carly hardly knew him, and had no reason to believe in his honor. But for one terrible moment he realized he was holding his breath, hoping she would.
    “I don’t know,” she said softly, the tone doing little to ease the doubt in her eyes. “Why don’t you tell me?”
    The seconds that ticked by felt like minutes to Carly, and she held her breath as she waited for Hunter’s response. The news about his past had dumped a truckload of fuel on an already burning fire of curiosity, but the impassive look on Hunter’s face—so close to hers it was difficult to concentrate—revealed nothing.
    And then his eyes flickered with an emotion that came and went too quickly to identify. Finally Hunter leaned back in his seat, but there was a coiled energy simmering beneath the falsely relaxed air. “I think I’ll let you draw your own conclusions.”
    Carly stared at Hunter, quietly sucking in a breath. Damn, the man was determined to drive her down crazy lane. “What eventually happened?”
    “The matter was investigated and dropped for lack of evidence,” he said evenly. “After that I left the force voluntarily.”
    From the tone in his voice it was obvious he was done with the discussion. But his response didn’t make it clear if the charges against him were accurate, but couldn’t be proved, or if they were false. The truth lay buried beneath the impossible-to-ruffle gaze, and her mind kept drifting back to the hard, lethally cool look on his face in the alley.
    She cleared her throat, trying to ease the tension. “Being ex-FBI must have helped your business.”
    He shot her a pointed look. “As much as having William Wolfe for a father has helped
your
career.”
    The statement was like an elbow-jab to the gut, and Carly’s stomach folded protectively into a knot. Her dad was her least favorite subject, and she wished the Shakespeare-singing and dancing men in the buff
had
driven Hunter away. Clearly he didn’t scare easily. The next few minutes were going to be rough.
    Remember the mantra, Carly. Cool. Easy-breezy
.
    “It didn’t help as much as you’d think,” she said lightly. “My dad always insisted I make it on my own.” Which she had confidently set out to do, back when she’d believed hard work alone was enough. “When I landed my first job at one of his California