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  But it was her. It had been her from the moment I saw her leaning back at my desk in my office.

  “Derek, what’s going on? What happened?” Sam asked. “My team can’t find any threats. Everything is clear. Did someone find you? Shoot at you? Breach your property?”

  “There wasn’t an emergency,” I said. “I lied.”

  Sam’s eyes finally met mine, and I knew I had her attention.

  “Derek, what the hell are you talking about?”

  “I want to be more than just your client,” I said.

  I watched her back straighten as she leaned heavily against the door.

  “Are you fucking serious?” she asked. “You faked an emergency so you could tell me you wanted to sleep with me more?”

  “Not sleep with you. Engage with you. Interact with you. Take you to dinner. Wine you and dine you. Experience you here, late at night in my arms.”

  “Your life is in danger, and you’re concerned about who you’re going to date? I think you’re crazy. I think you’ve gone full mental on me.”

  “I want to be more than just your client,” I said.

  “Well, you can’t be,” she said. “I’m hired by you to protect you, not be your girlfriend. You can’t pay me and have me be your girlfriend.”

  “You’re already faking it to a couple of people. Why not make it official?”

  “Because that’s two ticks short of being a hired escort, which is something I’m not. I’m your security guard. Your bodyguard sent here to protect you from whoever the fuck’s trying to kill you, Derek.”

  “You’re not leaving until we talk about this.”

  “The only person who has any control in this arena right now is me. And if I feel you’ve been psychologically compromised, I’ll remove you in a heartbeat.”

  “Whisk me away to the funny farm because I want to have a relationship with you?” I asked. “Are you that afraid of being vulnerable with me?”

  “I knew this was a mistake,” she said as she shook her head. “I knew it was a mistake the moment you stepped into that bathroom in Vegas, and I should’ve listened to my gut. But this is over between the two of us. Whatever this little dance is, it’s done.”

  “Is that really what you want? Do I have to give you permission to enjoy yourself again?”

  “You don’t have to give me permission to do anything! Mark my words, Derek Steele, when this is over, and I figure out who the hell’s trying to kill you, I’m moving onto the next job. Chemistry is one thing, but this isn’t even real. Everything you’re feeling right now is heightened by the fact that you’re in danger and that I’m trying to keep you from it. Do you know who Florence Nightingale is?”

  “No,” I said as I crossed my hands over my chest. “Enlighten me.”

  “She’s the founder of modern nursing, but it’s also a psychological phenomenon. It’s when someone who’s being taken care of attaches themselves emotionally to the caregiver.”

  “You think I want to be with you because you’re protecting me.”

  “And once I leave, those emotions will fade,” she said.

  “So you think how I feel for you is all just an adrenaline-laced fantasy.”

  “I know it is,” she said. “None of this is real. Nothing between us is anything else than a misfiring of chemicals in the brain.”

  “You could technically argue that any emotion is.”

  “I always argue that any emotion is. The only thing that makes that emotion real is the context with which it’s interpreted. Happiness is a chemical reaction, but the true depth of happiness is being able to conjure that chemical reaction when you need it. Love is a chemical reaction, but the true depth of it is being able to conjure it during the bleakest of times.”

  “How is that any different from this? I’d say this is pretty bleak,” I said.

  “You’re not in love, Derek. You're infatuated with someone who is protecting you. We’ve been thrust together by your need to survive, so you’re clinging to me because I can help you do that. Sex is a normal release for when someone gets overworked or overstressed like you and I both have been. But once I leave, you won’t be able to conjure these same feelings. That’s the difference between actual love and what’s going on here.”

  “That what happens with this Florence Nightingale thing?” I asked.

  “Yes. When the caregiver leaves, the feelings dissipate. They don’t grow. They don’t bubble. They don’t do anything but disappear because they can’t be conjured. Because they weren’t rooted in anything.”

  I nodded as I tossed my gaze out the window. What I’d wanted was a confrontation, and I had gotten it. Not only did she think sleeping with me was a mistake, but she thought I had lost my mind and that I was using her as some form of stress release because of my life being threatened. In her view, I was nothing more than the playboys who surrounded me in the business world.

  Just a fuck-toy.

  That was what she thought I saw her as.

  “If you’re that convinced—”

  “I’m not convinced. It’s simple truth,” Sam said.

  I nodded my head as I pulled my lips into a thin, taut line.

  “I’ll be with you at work, but at night I’m keeping my distance. I’ve got my entire team here now because of this little stunt you pulled, so I’m taking advantage of them. John will be with you at night, and if you chase him out of here again with a baseball bat, I will have you arrested,” I said.

  “Yes, Miss Williams.”

  “Now. Get some fucking sleep, Mr. Steele. I’m going to have John clear the rest of your house before I leave,” I said.

  I turned my back to her, watching her reflection through the window as she left. The men were walking through my yard, making their way back to their stations. There it was. The truth I couldn’t fight. Sam didn’t want me the way I wanted her, and there was nothing I could do about that.

  The only thing I could do was keep going even though everything inside of me screamed to run after her.

  Chapter 24

  Sam

  One Week Later

  I SAT IN THE WASHROOM office keeping tabs on the building. Derek was working late, so I was working late. This was how he was going to get around what I had said about keeping my distance at night and all. He was a stubborn fuck, I would give him that. I had relegated myself to only guarding him at his office, so he was staying at his office.

  I shook my head as my eyes darted from television to television.

  Things had been quiet for the past week, and that made me nervous. When there were attacks and letters, we could use them to carve out a trail, but when there was nothing to follow, trails went cold. Questions went unanswered.

  Suspects started falling off the list.

  Lance kept me updated on what Derek’s past security crew was doing. Griggs had moved onto a new client and had been talking about how generous his past employer was. He was getting his men to take part-time jobs until he could secure them a decent job working full-time for someone else. From the sounds of it, he was doing exactly what he was told, downplaying the break from Derek and not giving away what was really happening.

  The problem? His disposition and constant work schedule made Griggs less of a suspect.

  The list of employees Lance ran suggested more than a few disgruntled employees had left Derek’s company over the last couple of years. But all the evidence I chased down while being holed up in his office pointed to someone who was currently working for the company and still had access to the company.

  None of the disgruntled employees’ information still worked in the system, and none of the employees boasted of any technological skills to get in and mess with things.

  Hell, none of the employees fired over the past two or so years had even been from the IT department.

  It was frustrating. I was missing something obvious. With all the suspects that had dropped off the list, another move would help point me in the right direction. Another
letter or another plausible attack. I had men in place in areas no one could see, so I was no longer concerned with anyone getting hurt.

  Any sort of move would push us in the direction we needed to go so I could unload this case and get the fuck out of here.

  Derek was hunched over his desk, filling out paperwork or something. The office was completely silent. No one was coming or going, and the security guards were getting boring to watch. I got up from my seat and pushed my way into Derek’s office, his eyes darting over toward me as I closed the washroom door.

  I was going to see if he wanted to order a late dinner since neither of us had eaten.

  However, when I turned back around, I saw something curious. I saw someone creeping around outside of Derek’s office door. I slipped over into the shadows as Derek looked up at me, a curious look on his face.

  I put my finger to my lips to shush him as the doorknob of the door started to turn.

  I pressed myself against the wall, the shadows of his office encasing me as Derek stood to his feet. I moved my hand to my gun and felt nothing there.

  Fuck. I had left my firearm in the washroom.

  “Jacob,” Derek said. “I didn’t know you were still here. It’s almost ten o’clock. What are you doing here so late?”

  I stared at Jacob from the shadows as I studied him, his stance tall and his eyes piercing. The look of joviality he usually had on his features had been buried by something else.

  Something that sent shivers down my spine.

  “Did you know my father was a janitor?” Jacob said.

  “No, I didn’t,” Derek said. “You don’t talk about your family much.”

  “I know. It’s hard to talk about my family when I’m surrounded by people who come from successful families.”

  It was the bite in his voice that caused me to slowly stack the missing pieces together.

  “What do you mean?” Derek asked.

  “Like you, for instance. You came from wealth, and you shouldn’t be ashamed of that. All the investors on our board came from wealth too. But not me. I’m a self-made man, born to a janitor and a mother who worked in a call center all her life.”

  “Those are honorable jobs. We need people like them to do what we do,” Derek said.

  “I didn’t go to college on Mom and Dad’s dime. I had to work hard in school and learn shit I didn’t want to know. Grab at every academic scholarship I could obtain in order to prove myself worthy of an Ivy League education.”

  Derek looked at me quickly before he trained his eyes back on Jacob. It was all slowly beginning to make sense. The email Gretchen talked about coming from within the company. The random tip that Derek was in Vegas. The way it was so easy for the perpetrator to get onto Derek’s property.

  It wasn’t because someone was sneaking onto the property.

  It was fucking because the security guards knew who was coming through the gate.

  “What you did was incredible, Jacob. I know how hard you worked to get into Cornell, the things you sacrificed and the things you went without in order to get your education. You’re a good man for it. You’re a role model for men like me,” Derek said.

  “I am. At least, I should be. I could be a greater role model, though, if I had the seat you did.”

  I saw the understanding I was beginning to come to slap Derek across the face. He went from opening his body to his friend to closing himself off. He crossed his arms over his chest and walked out from behind his desk, and I cursed every movement he made.

  His desk was the only protection he had until I could get to him, and I wasn’t ready to give away our only surprise just yet.

  “You’re just a rich boy who had everything handed to you, Derek. You’re a billionaire born to a millionaire of a man. Your greatest complaint is that your father wanted you to take over his business, and you didn’t want to. That’s it. That’s all. Nothing else,” Jacob said.

  “Jacob, where is this all coming from?” Derek asked.

  “At thirty, you make more money than you would never need, and I’m still stuck working my ass off behind spoiled rich boys.”

  I watched Jacob slide his hand into his pocket before he pulled a gun from it. Derek’s eyes were wide, and my heart was beginning to slam in my chest. All of it was falling into place. The wink in the hallway after Emma’s office. The fire alarm being pulled. The way he had cozied up to me and how he watched me whenever I was around.

  Holy shit. Jacob Carl was the man harassing Derek.

  “You should have taken the warnings, Derek,” Jacob said as he raised his gun. “You should have listened to the eye in the sky.”

  I raced from the shadows as I watched the gun being leveled at Derek’s chest. I saw his eyes grow wide as he whipped his gaze over to my body. I stepped up onto the coffee table, launching myself into the air as Jacob squeezed his weapon. The loud crack of the gun reverberated off the corners of the room, startling Derek as he yelled at me to stop.

  I could see the bullet traveling, piercing the air and making its way for Derek’s body. Time itself halted in its tracks as I went flying through the air, doing the only thing I knew I could. My feet touched down onto the ground, and I lunged, throwing myself between Derek’s body and the bullet. His arms were reaching out for me, trying to get me to stop as his body moved away from the bullet.

  Jacob’s eyes were wild as he stood there, watching me fly through the air as I tried to make my way to Derek.

  Tears crested my eyes as I thought about what could’ve happened had I not come out of the washroom. I saw Derek’s body plummeting to the floor as I screamed. I saw myself hunched over his dead body as I cradled him against me. I saw the floor stained with blood, and it coated my fingers and stained my jeans, the blood of a man who made me feel things I’d never experienced in the all my life.

  “No, Sam! Don’t!”

  “You don’t deserve that chair! But I do!”

  The crack of the gun was thunderous as I landed on Derek’s desk. I rolled off the side and onto the ground as the entire world went silent. I could feel someone’s hands on me. My ears began to ring, silencing the room around me as the floor thundered below my back. Feet were shuffling, and my chest was panting. I slipped my hand into my pocket and withdrew my pocket knife as I felt something warm dripping onto my skin.

  I saw Derek’s face hovering over mine, his eyes full of fear, wide with terror. I assumed the worst as I rose up to take stock of his body, hoping and praying I’d pushed him out of the way in time. Tears that were cresting my eyes now poured down my cheeks as an urgency flooded my veins. I felt the need to rise, defend what was mine, and protect what had been so violently mutilated.

  But not before I heard a voice pierce the silence my ears had forced me into.

  “Fine. If that’s how it’s going to be, then the both of you can go.”

  Jacob.

  The man trying to kill Derek was his friggin’ best friend.

  THE END

  Illusion Blurb

  Illusion – Book 2 of Billionaire in Disguise

  I NEVER EXPECTED SOMEONE I knew wanted me dead. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised. Jealousy has been motivating people to do horrible things for all of history, and when you’ve made as much money as I have, it’s hard not to be the target of the green-eyed monster.

  I also didn’t expect my beautiful bodyguard Sam to throw herself in front of a bullet for me. No one has ever risked their life like that me before, especially a woman I’m falling for.

  Is it totally messed up I’m almost glad the man who tried to kill me escaped? Yeah, I feel that way because it means I can spend more time with Sam.

  Now we’re both distracted, and there’s still someone out there who wants me dead. But I care more about convincing Sam that we have something real together. Something that goes deeper than just steaming up my bedroom.

  I don’t think she believes me. Sam thinks our relationship is nothing more than an illusion.


  Charade Blurb

  Charade – Book 3 of Billionaire in Disguise

  I THOUGHT ALL MY TROUBLES were over. The men scheming to kill me met their own ends, and I made it clear to my beautiful bodyguard Samantha I wanted something more than just protection from her. When she told me she loved me back, I knew what true happiness was.

  My brief moment of joy was dashed when the FBI stormed in and arrested me on false charges. It was like my old enemies had reached from the grave to pull me down with them. The government seems convinced that I’m one of the bad guys and not a victim.

  Where does that leave me? Sam still believes me, but with my accounts frozen and my resources limited, I’m not sure I can find out who might be interested in finishing what my old enemies started. So I’ll do whatever it takes to protect myself and the woman I love, even if it involves making deals with gangsters.

  Sometimes justice is a charade.

  Billionaire in Disguise

  Book 1: FAÇADE

  Book 2: ILLUSION

  Book 3: CHARADE

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