PROLOGUE
Greer
For a spy, I’m not being very smart.
I’m certainly not clandestine.
Parking almost directly across the street from Ladd McDermott’s house is actually kind of obvious.
And so very stupid, especially since Ladd is a spy himself.
Well, only stupid if I don’t want him to see me, but I had come with the idea in mind that we’d have a face-to-face. The confrontation would not be pleasant and could end up causing quite a commotion in the neighborhood.
It’s quite possible he might shoot me.
So I don’t know if I’ll actually have the guts to get out of the car, walk up to his door, and knock on it. It’s been over a year and a half since he’s seen me, and I’m not sure if that’s long enough for his anger to have diminished.
There’s only one way to tell, though. It’s with a determined sigh I reach for the door handle. My fingers curl around the metal, but before I can pull, a car that had approached from behind swings into Ladd’s driveway.
I immediately sink lower into my seat, pull the brim of my baseball cap down, and thank God the rental car has semi-tinted windows.
The dark navy BMW 5 Series comes to a halt before the garage where the brake lights stay lit for only a few seconds. The driver’s door opens, and my breath hitches when I see Ladd unfold himself from the seat.
Christ, he’s gorgeous and has hardly changed. He still wears his dark hair short, which is shot liberally through with streaks of premature gray, a phenomenon that started when he was just twenty-five years old. I used to tease him it was the nature of our work that did it, but his father was apparently the same way. Regardless, I thought the perfection of his face and cool blue eyes bore the gray wonderfully, and to me, he was simply the most beautiful man in the entire world.
Still is at age thirty, and while the gray might be taking up a little more real estate than it did at twenty-five, he’s even more handsome than the last time I saw him. Frankly, his hair could fall out and warts could pop out all over his head, and I’d still be attracted to him.
Ladd trots around the back of the BMW but rather than stepping onto the sidewalk that meanders through beds of begonias and daylilies to the front porch, he moves to the car’s passenger side.
My breath full-on freezes in my lungs when he pulls open the door and offers assistance to whoever is sitting there.
Things move in slow motion as an elegant hand extends outward, placing fingers into his palm. My stomach turns as Ladd smiles at what is obviously a woman in the passenger seat. She must say something because he tips his head back and laughs before his sparkling eyes come back to her.
Time speeds up and it all happens so fast, I have a hard time comprehending what I’m seeing.
He takes her other hand and her legs swing out, clad in leggings and ballet flats.
Ladd bends at the waist and tugs at the woman.
Yes, tugs—and my gut flops over on itself when I see a very round belly popping out of the car before the rest of the passenger.
She’s gorgeous with golden-blond hair flowing down her back, a brilliant smile, and a very, very pregnant belly showcased in a well-fitting shirt. She’s one of those women who can wear tight clothes when pregnant and still look like she could stroll down a Milan catwalk.
Ladd pulls her right into his body, wraps his arms around her waist, and dips his head to kiss her softly on the mouth.
Tears prick at my eyes as I note the wedding band on his left hand that I had not noticed before.
They pull apart, join hands, and then make their way up the sidewalk, to the front porch dotted with pots of flowers, and through the door where they disappear from sight.
“Goddamn it,” I mutter to myself, staying slumped in the seat as I stare blindly at the front of his house.
I’m too late.
Ladd’s life is complete. A wife, a kid on the way—everything he always wanted and nothing that I ever did.
I waited too long, and he’s moved on.
CHAPTER 1
Ladd
Ten years later…
I spy Jackson sitting at the large conference table where the on-duty Jameson agents are congregating for our weekly meeting and I’m surprised to see him.
“What in the hell are you doing here?” I ask, because Jackson should be in Bretaria with his girlfriend, Princess Camille Winterbourne.
He grins at me, kicking the rolling chair next to him out in a silent invitation to sit down. “Camille is ready to see the world. Or rather, Pittsburgh. We’re going to stay here awhile and travel in our downtime.”
“And you’re going to stay in your little apartment here at headquarters?” I ask, because while Camille is about as down-to-earth as royalty can be, I can’t see her wanting to live there.
“Oh no,” Jackson says, chuckling at the thought. “She’s looking for a house to buy and until then, we’re staying at the Fairmont.”
“Does it bother you that your girlfriend is richer than God and is essentially your sugar mama?” I ask slyly.
“Not one fucking bit,” he replies with a snort. But I know Jackson isn’t into Camille because she’s a princess and her family is one of the wealthiest in the world. The dude is truly in love, and she loves him back.
Lucky bastard.
I turn my head toward the conference room door and see Cage entering. He nabs the remote control from the end of the table and points it at the large-screen TV on the wall. As the TV is always tuned to a national news station, immediately the screen is filled with the charred remains of an airplane that crashed last night at the Pittsburgh Airport.
And not just any plane.
This one was chartered by the Pittsburgh Titans professional hockey team, and everyone on board was killed.
“Can you believe this?” I murmur as everyone silently watches the news coverage.
“It’s horrible,” Jackson replies, shaking his head.
The plane had what they’re calling a “catastrophic failure of the landing gear” that caused it to somersault down the runway on landing before breaking apart and bursting into flames. The news was confirmed this morning that no survivors have been found. The city—actually the entire nation—is reeling from this, and I’m a bit tired today as I admittedly stayed up until the wee hours watching the coverage, hoping they’d pull at least one person out alive. I finally fell asleep around three a.m., and I’m on my third cup of coffee this morning. I’m only feeling slightly sluggish.
More people file into the conference room that can easily seat twenty, but usually has no more than fifteen agents at any one time. The others are spread out around the world on missions. Kynan McGrath’s Jameson Force Security has more than quadrupled in size this last year alone and has become the preeminent private security agency in the world, as evidenced by the king of Bretaria hiring us in January to protect his daughter from a kidnapping and assassination plot. There are offices located in Pittsburgh and Vegas, but there’s a rumor that Kynan’s looking to put one on the West Coast and possibly one in Europe somewhere.
Our esteemed leader walks in last, closing the door behind him. Kynan glances at the TV grimly, picks up the remote, and shuts off the TV. Immediate silence settles over the room as we all turn our chairs Kynan’s way. He takes a seat at the head of the table.