by Layne, Ivy
Uncovered: The Untangled Series, Book Three
Copyright © 2019 by Ivy Layne
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Find out more about the author and upcoming books online at www.ivylayne.com
Also By Ivy Layne
The Untangled Series
Unraveled
Undone
Uncovered
Scandals of the Bad Boy Billionaires
The Billionaire’s Secret Heart (Novella)
The Billionaire’s Secret Love (Novella)
The Billionaire’s Pet
The Billionaire’s Promise
The Rebel Billionaire
The Billionaire’s Secret Kiss (Novella)
The Billionaire’s Angel
Engaging the Billionaire
Compromising the Billionaire
The Counterfeit Billionaire
Series Extras: ivylayne.com/extras
The Alpha Billionaire Club
The Wedding Rescue
The Courtship Maneuver
The Temptation Trap
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Epilogue One
Epilogue Two
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Also By Ivy Layne
About Ivy Layne
Chapter One
Alice
It started with an orgasm.
No, that's not right.
It started long before Cooper Sinclair gave me the best orgasm of my life, but up until then, I did a good job of ignoring it.
There's something about life-changing pleasure that makes attraction to a man hard to ignore.
I couldn't ignore the man himself. Cooper Sinclair hadn't just given me the best orgasm of my life. He was my boss.
Oops.
Maybe I should rewind just a little. I work at Sinclair Security. I started nine years ago as the girl who answered the phones and made coffee. These days I pretty much run the front office, and Sinclair Security has grown into the premier security agency in the country.
I've worked side-by-side with Cooper Sinclair for years and nothing ever happened.
Nothing.
Not an inappropriate remark, not a touch that lingered a little too long. Cooper is bossy as hell, but he's a gentleman. For most of that time, I was married. My husband—well, he's another story—but I don't cheat. I went to work and busted my ass keeping the Sinclair team in line. Sure, I appreciated all the eye candy hanging around, but I never touched. I didn't even flirt.
Then a house exploded on top of me and everything changed.
The Sinclair team has been in any number of tight spots. Tight spots are their bread and butter. This wasn't their first explosion. Not me. I’m strictly behind the desk. I have basic training—Cooper's policy for all employees—but I never planned to use it.
It was supposed to be a quiet day. A chance to get out of the office and do something different. I volunteered to watch Knox Sinclair’s girlfriend’s son. Adam was five, a cute kid, no trouble at all. I figured we’d eat some PB&J’s, check out his Legos, and before we knew it Knox and Lily would come home and I’d head back to the office. No big deal.
And it wasn’t.
Not until I walked down the hall to see a pile of paper on the floor beneath the printer, every piece bearing the same chilling warning.
HOUSE SURROUNDED. GET TO SAFE ROOM.
We always wonder how we’ll do in a crisis. When we’re tested, will we pass or fall apart? If anything good came out of that day it's the knowledge that somewhere deep inside me all of Cooper’s training paid off. That training saved our lives.
I saw the warning printed in stark letters and my brain clicked into a gear I didn’t know it had. I didn’t stop to wonder why they hadn’t just called, or who was surrounding the house and why.
I strode to the kitchen, told Adam we were having a picnic in Knox’s secret room, snagged some snacks from the pantry and a puzzle, led Adam to the basement safe room, and locked him inside.
I'd booked it back up the stairs and grabbed a weapon from the gun-safe, intending to lock the door to the safe room and sit tight.
I was trying to figure out how to hide the firearm from my young charge when feet thundered down the steps. A man with a gun. Not Cooper. Not anyone from our team. One of the men surrounding the house.
I don't know what I would have done if I'd stopped to think. There was no time to unlock the door to the safe room. No time to get to safety.
Deep inside all of us is an animal that wants to live. To survive. It doesn’t care about conscience, about right and wrong. The animal inside me raised my arm, aimed, and fired a split second before the man on the stairs could do the same.
Before the echo of the shot faded, the house shook with a boom, the steps rolling under the intruder’s feet, pitching him down the stairs and straight at me. Ears ringing, coughing from the dust in the air, I dove away from him. Something above me shifted and fell, whacking the back of my head with a sickening thud. The lights went out.
I don’t think I was unconscious for that long. I remember Cooper’s fingers on my throat, the ocean scent of him as he lifted me and ran. My eyelids weighed a ton. My mouth wouldn’t work, and I drifted in and out, but I remember.
Cooper. Always Cooper. Holding me. Barking orders in the hospital. Brushing his fingers over the swollen lump on the side of my head.
I opened my eyes what felt like a lifetime later to see Cooper pacing at my bedside, his phone at his ear. I wiggled my fingers and toes and
took a deep breath, verifying that I was in one piece. I felt okay except for a headache so bad it made my occasional migraines seem like a paper cut.
I must have made a sound. Cooper spun around, saw that I was awake, and ended his call. He stepped out of the room for half a second before he was back, demanding, “How’s your head?”
Cooper is intense. I don't know if he knows how to relax. It was disconcerting to have all that intensity focused on me. Ice-blue eyes leveled on me, cheekbones sharp, lips tight. Only his dark hair softened him, thick and a little longer than usual. Cooper hadn't had time to get a haircut. I liked it like that, loved the annoyed flick of his head when it fell into his eyes.
“Alice,” he said, those icy eyes narrowing.
“Uh-huh?”
“How does your head feel?”
“It's fine,” I kind of lied. “What happened? Is everyone okay?”
“Everyone's fine. Everyone except for you. They’re bringing you in for an MRI in a few minutes.”
“An MRI? Why?” I didn’t want an MRI. I wanted to go home and sleep off this headache.
“Because you have a goose egg on the side of your head and you were unconscious,” he answered with strained patience, his weight balanced on the balls of his feet as if ready to catch me when I made a break for it. I knew better. If Cooper said I was getting an MRI, I was getting an MRI.
“I wasn’t unconscious,” I said, not entirely sure if that was true.
“No? Then why didn’t you open your eyes? Why didn’t you say something?”
I stared at him, speechless. Cooper wasn’t angry, though a stranger might hear his tone and assume he was pissed. I knew him. Cooper didn’t get pissed. He was cool and collected right up until he went nuclear. Pissed was somewhere in between. Cooper didn’t do half measures.
No, Cooper wasn’t angry. He was scared. I’d seen Cooper scared less than I’d seen him go nuclear. Only once. Why was he scared now? He’d said everyone was fine.
“It’s just a bump on the head. It hurts, but it’ll go away. You’re sure everyone is okay? Adam?”
“Adam is swimming at Evers’ house with Knox and Lily. He has no clue what happened.”
“Knox?”
“Fine,” Cooper bit out. “Not going to ask about me?”
“I can see you’re okay.”
Cooper’s eyes flashed. Maybe he was pissed.
Maybe he had reason to be. I’d shot someone. I should ask what had happened. What was going to happen. My head hurt. I didn’t want to think about it. Didn’t want to think about anything.
“I shot him,” I said in a low voice that wouldn’t carry out of the room.
Cooper’s eyes closed in a long blink. He shoved his hands in his pockets before he said, “Evers is explaining to Agent Holley. He’ll want to talk to you.”
“Okay.” What else was there to say? Special Agent Holley was with the Atlanta division of the FBI. I’d met him more than once. He liked me. Hopefully enough that he wouldn’t throw me in jail for murder.
“Alice.” I rolled my head to look at Cooper, wincing at the movement. Cooper’s face was soft. “You did good. Adam is safe. Safe and clueless, just like he should be. The man you shot was one of Tsepov’s. I don’t want to think about what he would have done to you. You did good.”
I let that sink in. Tsepov had been the obvious suspect, but I didn’t want to jump to conclusions. Sinclair Security is a big operation. Andrei Tsepov wasn’t their only enemy.
He wasn’t their only enemy, but he was the only one who had it in for them personally. I knew who Tsepov was. Given everything that had been going on lately, it was impossible not to know about Andrei Tsepov.
Nephew to the former head of the Tsepov crime family with bases of operation in Las Vegas, Atlanta, and Chicago. Neck deep in all sorts of ugly shit. Running guns, drugs, human trafficking.
Former business partner to one Maxwell Sinclair.
Cooper’s father.
Five years before, Maxwell’s car had gone off a bridge with him inside. The medical examiner identified the body using dental records. Open and shut. His sons had grieved. His widow moved to Florida. Case closed.
It should have been. It was until Cooper learned that his father wasn’t quite as dead as he’d thought. For the past few months, Cooper and his brothers had been scrambling to untangle the mess their father had left behind.
If that man in the basement was one of Tsepov’s, then I was with Cooper. I didn’t want to think about what he would have done to me either.
I wanted to ask what had happened. Who blew up Knox’s house? Why? Why did they send the warning through the printer? What happened with Tsepov?
Before I could ask, a nurse came in pushing a wheelchair and took me off to my MRI. An hour later I learned I was concussion-free.
Discharge took way too long. Cooper stayed by my side for every second. I expected him to head out, to assign one of the other guys to get me home. Agent Holley would want to talk to him.
Cooper had better things to do than hang around the hospital watching me sign paperwork and wait for the discharge nurse. Every time I mentioned that he could leave he shot me a look and didn't respond. I didn't argue.
My head hurt like a bitch, I was bruised from hitting the floor, and I just wanted to go back to sleep. Finally, Cooper drove me back to Sinclair Security. Home. I was the only employee who lived in the building. Well, me and Cooper, but his place took up the entire top floor, nothing like my modest two-bedroom a floor below him.
Intended for clients in need of secure lodgings, the building had two of the small apartments. When our lease ran out six years ago and my husband forgot to sign the paperwork on our new place, Cooper offered us the smaller apartment until we found something else. I was still there.
Instead of hitting the button for the third floor, Cooper hit number four. I reached out to correct his mistake. His fingers closed around my wrist, leading my hand away from the panel.
“You need to rest. I'm taking you to my place where I can keep an eye on you. If I let you go home you'll find some project and you won't lay down and sleep.”
I stared back at him, at a loss for words. I'd never been in Cooper's place before. I knew it had to be huge since it was the only thing on the fourth floor, and I knew it was nice because Cooper had expensive tastes. But I’d never been invited upstairs. Never had a reason to knock on his door.
That wasn't the only thing that stole my tongue. Cooper knew me too well. My head was throbbing. All I wanted was to crawl into bed and pass out. But if I couldn't find sleep? He was right. I'd be up, futzing around my apartment, looking for something to do. I'm not good at sitting still. I get restless too easily. For some people, a day on the couch with a movie or a book is heaven. Me? I always have at least five projects going at the same time.
That didn't mean I needed a babysitter. Especially not Cooper Sinclair. It looked like he wasn't giving me a choice. And maybe, just maybe, he had a point. Too tired to argue, I let him lead me into his apartment, barely registering the wide-open space, the gleam of stainless steel and black marble from the kitchen, the ridiculously huge flat screen mounted across the room.
Down a hall, around a corner, and I was in his bedroom. Floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out into downtown Atlanta and a bed the size of Georgia. Maybe Texas. Whatever, it was huge. The navy-blue upholstered headboard reached to the ceiling. It was neatly made in matching sheets under a crisp, white duvet.
My tired brain drifting, I wondered if Cooper had made his bed himself, tucking in his sheets so they were creased just so. Then he was pulling back the covers and nudging me between them.
“I'll be back with something to drink. You need to take the meds.”
I hate pain meds. I hate all pills. I wasn't going to argue with Cooper. My head throbbed like a rotten tooth, pulsing s
o badly my vision felt like it swelled and contracted with every stab of pain. I just wanted to lay down and close my eyes. Being in an explosion hurts.
Then Cooper was there, pushing two chalky pills between my lips and handing me a glass of cold, sweet juice. I forced the pills down, sipped the juice and let Cooper lower me to the pillow. My eyes slid shut and I was out.
Chapter Two
Alice
I woke sometime in the night, blinking into the dark, instantly aware I was not in my own bed. I rolled to my side to find Cooper sleeping on top of the covers, an arm's length away.
I was in Cooper's bed. Cooper's apartment.
More importantly, Cooper was in Cooper's bed. With me. Not under the same covers, but still. What the hell?
I thought about getting up, sneaking out, and going down to my own place. As soon as the thought entered my mind, I pushed it away. I was warm and comfortable, except for the throb in my head and the ache in my shoulder and hip. My stomach churned from the pain pills. I wasn’t fully nauseous, but if I got up—nope, not going to happen. I let sleep pull me under.
The morning sun speared my eyes as the mattress beside me depressed, and I rolled into a hard body. Squinting into the light, I realized my hand was on Cooper's thigh, my shoulder braced on his hip. He was sitting on the side of the bed next to me, and I was groping him. Crap.
I snatched my hand back and tried to sit up, pinned by the sheet Cooper sat on.
“Can you eat breakfast?”
I stopped trying to sit up and thought about it. My head still hurt. A lot. Enough that I might take another dose of the pain meds, and if I took the pills I’d need food in my stomach or I might throw them back up.
Like the creepy mind reader that he was, Cooper nodded before I spoke a single word. “You need breakfast so you can take the pain pills. Good you're not going to be a pain in the ass about it. I got one of the grunts to pick up takeout from Annabelle's. Breakfast sandwich, coffee, and a cookie if you behave yourself.”
I thought about busting his chops for the behave myself comment, but if he had breakfast from Annabelle's I’d keep my mouth shut. Annabelle was a friend who owned a café. Everyone at Sinclair Security was a regular, even though there were closer options. While Annabelle was an artist with coffee, anything that came out of her kitchen was divine.
