Total pages in book: 165
Estimated words: 154925 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 775(@200wpm)___ 620(@250wpm)___ 516(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 154925 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 775(@200wpm)___ 620(@250wpm)___ 516(@300wpm)
MaeBe Vaughan has never been interested in normal. Her happy place is a dark corner of the Internet, where she disrupts all the bad guys. She has a great circle of friends and a full life. She doesn’t need a man. Until Kyle Hawthorne walked into her life. He’s all wrong for her. Surly. Damaged. His uncle is her boss. But she couldn’t help getting close to him. When his past threatened her safety, Kyle walked out without saying good-bye.
Kyle will do anything to keep MaeBe safe. He faked his death, hid in the middle of nowhere, and watched over her from afar. But when Julia resurfaces, he knows that to protect MaeBe, he’ll have to get close. So close that if they manage to survive, he will never let her go.
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
Prologue
Dallas, TX
Present day
Kyle Hawthorne stood in the darkness, peeking through the filmy drapes to glance down at the parking lot below. A tiny clown car moved into a reserved space, and he knew his prey had finally come home.
He shouldn’t think about the woman he adored as prey, but he’d decided he needed his inner predator if he was going to get out of the trap he found himself in. For a brief while the woman who was getting out of the small torture device she called a car had lulled him into thinking he could be the man he once was. The man who’d gone to college and had a normal future in front of him. The man who’d never thought about joining the Navy and would have laughed hysterically at the thought of being in the CIA. The man who would never have even thought about leaving her behind in the cruelest way.
Julia Ennis had reminded him of everything he’d become.
It had been a different person entirely who’d prompted him to think he could be both. A now dead man had poked and prodded him and made him see that this life was fucking short and if he couldn’t have Mae Beatrice Vaughn by his side, it might not be worth living.
Of course, he had to keep her alive, and that could prove to be a hard thing to do.
A man slipped out of the passenger seat. Actually what he did was unfold his big body and climb his way out of the car. MaeBe had always assured him her car would save the world someday, but that sucker had been hell on his spinal column.
He might have to rip this guy’s spine right out of his body like the movie Predator.
West Rycroft. Straight off the range and into the bodyguard unit at McKay-Taggart. He was going to have to have a long discussion with his uncle about what constituted a proper guard for a woman in MaeBe’s situation. It certainly wasn’t a baby Dom who was barely out of training both at Sanctum and the office. MaeBe required someone with experience and knowledge, and the will to ensure she followed orders when it came to her safety.
West Rycroft was barely good enough to carry her bag.
Had they used the time they’d spent in lockdown at Sanctum to play? Had West been trying his new skills on the most luscious sub in the world?
He felt a growl come from deep in his throat.
He needed to get a handle on his nasty side or he would scare the hell out of her, and he didn’t want that. She would be mad enough as it was since he was supposed to be dead.
Not that anyone believed him. His faked death was the worst-kept secret in the world, and he blamed his uncle for that, too.
MaeBe would have believed him if it hadn’t been for his uncle and her friends. She was probably mad at him, but that woman couldn’t hold a grudge to save her life. That was part of the problem. Julia had beaten the shit out of her and MaeBe probably thought they should all sit down and talk things through. She was that kind of girl.
Once he’d thought they weren’t compatible, but now he knew that her softness was a complement to his hard outer shell. They needed each other, and everything would fall into place when she walked in and he wrapped her in his arms. They would work things out this evening, and she would let him protect and take care of her.
MaeBe and her bodyguard disappeared as they walked into the building, and Kyle’s adrenaline started to flow.
His cell buzzed in his pocket, and he pulled it out. Normally he would ignore whoever was on the other end of the line, but only one person had this particular number, and he wouldn’t call if it wasn’t important. He had a couple of minutes until she made her way inside, and he would hear the alarm go off.
He’d gotten around that. She hadn’t changed the code. They were going to talk about that, too.
“Drake,” he said quietly into the receiver. “Have you landed yet?”
“Just touched down about an hour ago, and we’re on our way to your location,” Drake said. “We should be there in a few minutes.”
“Have you found her?”
He’d worked with Drake Radcliffe for years. Drake had been something between a boss and a brother. He’d definitely become a friend. They’d survived Julia together and were the only two people on earth who knew exactly what it had been like to be surrounded by her unique evil.
Julia had been his fiancée, but she’d been Drake’s sister.
“No, but I’m fairly certain she’s here in the States.” Drake’s voice was deep over the line. “I’ve tracked one of her known aliases to Toronto. From there she would likely cross the border by private plane and avoid passport control. I have to think she’s going to go for the information my father kept.”