The Enemy Within (Daughters of the People Series Book 3) by Lucy Varna Page A

appointment. It would likely piss her off, but that was ok. He wanted
answers. Now that Indigo had confessed her fears about India’s ties to the
Eternal Order, he would damn well get them.
    He caught
Rebecca as she entered her office.
    “Bobby.” She
raised on tiptoes to kiss his cheek before continuing into her sanctum
sanctorum . “What a pleasant surprise.”
    He followed her
in and closed the door behind them. “Do you have a minute?”
    She turned a
puzzled look on him, an elegant one, and his heart softened. He’d heard the
stories of her youth, about the young girl who had wielded a sword with such
dazzling cunning that it had been given to her. She’d used it to cut a swathe
through generations of armies in Europe, Africa, and Asia, first as a soldier
and eventually as a leader. That sword rested in a case in the corner of her
office, protected by glass, unlike the woman who stood before him. Her heart
had fallen to his father, the charming history professor with a bent for
genealogy, and now it was Bobby’s as well.
    He waited for
her to take a seat behind her desk before dropping into one of the chairs in
front of it. “How’s Dad?”
    “Better. The new
medicine is working very well.” She leaned forward in her chair and pierced him
with a questioning stare. “We missed you this weekend.”
    “I stayed at the
office. We officially started work on the IECS job today and I wanted to be
ready.”
    She dropped her
eyes to the desk and shifted a paper.
    Uh-oh .
    “I thought you
might have spent the weekend with Indigo.”
    “Why would you
think that?”
    “You’re working
with her, aren’t you?”
    “That doesn’t
mean I’m seeing her.” Which he wasn’t. Exactly.
    “True. Are you
at least on speaking terms?”
    His mind drifted
to the kiss they’d shared that morning, the weight of her body against his, the
way she’d curled her fingers into his hair and pulled him down for more. “Sort
of.”
    “Are you trying
to get along with her or are you being stubborn like your father?”
    Bobby breathed
out a laugh. “Mom, really. We’re getting along fine.”
    “Well.” She
narrowed her gaze on him and he struggled not to shrink beneath it like a child
caught with his hand in the cookie jar. That steely gaze had likely brought
down a hundred armies all on its own. “As long as you’re trying.”
    “I am.” And he
was. If he were trying any harder, they’d be married with babies on the way.
    A little girl
with Indigo’s sapphire eyes, holding her hands up and calling him Daddy.
    Indigo round
with child, glowing softly the way expectant mothers did when they were happy
and healthy.
    Indigo under
him, her ebony hair spread out across his sheets, her body caught in rapture as
he stroked into her until she came, over and over again.
    “Bobby?”
    He looked up to
find his mother watching him with raised eyebrows.
    “Sorry. Work.” He
cleared his throat and shifted in his seat. “Lots going on.”
    “Of course.”
    A knowing smile
played across Rebecca’s mouth, and heat rose in his cheeks. Dammit, why
couldn’t he get his mind under control and off of Indigo?
    “What brings you
by today?” she said.
    “India Furia.”
He leaned forward and pinned her with a sharp stare. “She’s been visiting my
team members, threatening them if they don’t back off.”
    “Not an
unexpected development.”
    “Not much of
one, anyway. She stopped by Indigo’s on Friday, mentioned her plans for
stopping the Prophecy.”
    Rebecca’s gaze
remained steady. “Any specifics?”
    “Just a threat
to snuff out the Light.” He kept his gaze as careful as hers. “Indigo thinks
India’s part of the Eternal Order.”
    The corner of
Rebecca’s eye twitched in an otherwise neutral expression, and his heart sank. “When
were you going to tell me?”
    “About what?”
    “Don’t play
games with me, Mom.”
    They faced off
against one another, cool stares clashing across the desk.
    “Some things