Page 171 of What Started In Deception

He closed his eyes as he clenched his jaw. “No.”

“I guess you can’t be attached at the hip all the time.” She chuckled. “So, I know you guys just went on vacation, but I want you to plan a trip down here to Austin, even if it’s just for a long weekend. Zoey wants to meet Lydia, and I want to spend some time with the two of you.”

He stared at the bottle of shampoo, rubbing at the back of his neck. “Mom, we broke up.”

The line stayed silent. “What? Why? Oh, honey, what happened?”

He felt his jaw clench again as he turned away from the damn bottle. “It didn’t work out.”

“But you two were so happy on your date the other night.”

He raked his fingers through his hair now because she was right. “It didn’t work out, Mom.”

“Okay. Do you want to talk about it?”

“No.”

“All right. Let me just say that there are few things in this life that are so broken that they can’t be fixed.”

He puffed out a breath because things between him and Lydia felt pretty damn broken. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Well, I’ll let you go, but you know where I am if you need me.”

“I do. Thanks, Mom.”

“I love you, honey.”

“I love you, too.”

“Bye, hon.”

“Bye.” He shoved his phone back into his pocket as someone knocked on his door. He huffed out a bad-tempered breath as his mood continued to sour. “Now what?”

Moving down the hall, he yanked open the door, blinking in shock as he stared at James and Marietta standing in front of him. And then he closed his eyes as he let his head hang when reality dawned—when he realized that they knew who he was.

“Special Agent Tyler Corddry,” James said, gesturing to Ty’s badge on his belt and his sidearm still settled on his hip.

“Yeah, that’s me.” He opened the door wider to let them in.

Marietta immediately wrapped her arm through his, wearing slacks and a blouse that she’d dressed up with her trademark jewelry and lipstick, smelling like jasmine. “And now I know why you sent me a text, trying to pass me off to one of your personal trainer friends.”

He shut the door behind them. “I’m sorry about that—for the short notice.”

Marietta shrugged as they moved down the short hall. “You certainly look quite a bit different, all fancied up—and with a gun on your hip.”

He sighed. “I hope you’ll let me explain.”

“I found out plenty,” James said as he stood in the living room, dressed in an expensive suit and tie after a day on Capitol Hill. “My son shared some troubling news with Cindy and me on Sunday afternoon, but then he told us that Ty, Lydia’s now ex-boyfriend, happened to know several of the right people to make all of his problems go away. Or at least, the potential legal ones.”

“Yes—”

“So, naturally, I was intrigued,” James interrupted as he held up his hand, not quite the friendly man that Ty had spent time with in the gym or chatting with at family dinners. “I did a little digging—or my people did, anyway—and it turns out that my son and I were under investigation for the last several weeks.”

Ty nodded, not at all surprised that James had found his answers. He was a powerful man in DC. “Yeah, a quiet inquiry.”

“Did Lydia know?”

Ah, shit. It was tempting to tell him that she didn’t, but lying tended to cause more problems than it solved. Honesty was always the best policy when he wasn’t undercover. “It’s important to understand that I forced her hand.”