Hitman's Secret Baby: A Bad Boy Romance Read Online Free

let me in or are you just gonna be sarcastic at me through a door-crack?”
    “Third option.” I slammed the door in his face, turning and pressing my back to it. My heart was flip-flopping over and over, my stomach squirming. Just seeing him was difficult, looking into his familiar and not-so-familiar face.
    “Taryn!” He banged a couple more times. “Open the damn door.”
    “Go away.”
    “I’ll stand out here all day if I have to.”
    “Then I’ll just have to call the police,” I called back, feeling an instant chill. What would they do? I wasn’t sure I could expose Mason like that, no matter how angry I was.
    It didn’t scare him off, though. “Please,” he said softly, a tone of voice that surprised me. “I have something really important to tell you. It’s about Ethan and it affects you all.”
    I stood with a sinking feeling of dread. “What about Ethan?”
    “Not through a closed door.”
    He didn’t demand anymore, letting me take my time. I turned, slowly, and took the chain off, and there he stood, slouching and a little sheepish, his hands stuffed in his pockets. He was trying to look less intimidating to me, I thought.
    It was working.
    “Be quick about it,” I snapped, unwilling to give him any more inches than this one.
    He walked in, looking around my hallway. “Nice place you’ve got here.”
    It was. I loved my little home, where I’d singlehandedly raised my daughter. I worked damn hard with my brother, running our family’s diner in town to keep up with the mortgage payments and bills. I’d struggled, but ultimately done fine all these years without Mason. Surrounded by the people I loved, Anna, Ethan, Justin, my parents, I’d brought up my daughter to be smart and bright and full of life.
    “The kitchen is straight ahead.” I pointed towards it, trying to keep him out of the living room, where he’d have to look at all the photographs of Daisy. There were plenty in the hall, too, but I urged him quickly through the house.
    He stood with his back leaning against my kitchen counter, and I folded my arms to hide the tremble in my hands and the unevenness of my breath.
    His presence was palpable, a torment on my frayed nerves. He was so damn beautiful, just like he ever was, and I couldn’t stop myself from wanting him. I felt sick over it, my stomach in knots.
    That kiss at the church yesterday—it should never have happened. It had brought back to many memories, too much of the past worming its way through the cracks he’d caused by showing up.
    “You ruined your sister’s wedding, by the way,” I blurted out, mostly to remind myself of the agony he’d caused before I got too carried away in the subdued, medium green of his eyes and the lush shape of his mouth. “I had to tell her you were there, and you can imagine how that went down.”
    Mason bowed his head. “Shit.”
    “Yeah.”
    “Taryn, look, I can’t say sorry anymore because it doesn’t mean anything. It’s just a word. You know me— knew me. Words aren’t my thing, actions are, and I came here to tell you something today because I have to believe you might trust me again. I want to be totally honest with you. No more lies.”
    “You can’t make up for ten years of lies with one truth.”
    “I can try,” he said fiercely, his hands balling into fists. He still spoke with so much bluntness, never beating around the bush because, no, words were never his thing, and the ones he gave were always meaningful in some way. I struggled to reconcile that with the man who deceived me for so long and I couldn’t. “Ethan Foster is on a hit list. I’ve been asked to kill him.”
    “Ethan?” I choked.
    “I’ve taken the job, for now, but only long enough to buy some time to figure out what the hell to do.”
    “What’s he done?” I shook my head. “He’s a good man.”
    “What if he isn’t,” Mason said flatly. “What if he’s just like his father.”
    “I didn’t know Mr. Foster that well,