PROUD HEARTS
Lose your heart to Wild Romance!
With the grant money needed to continue her video journalism work with a pride of Zambian lions fast running out, Deidre (Dee) Young reluctantly signs a contract to help create a "Living With Lions" episode for the popular Living With... reality TV show.
Star and Hollywood idol Chris Corsair is just as arrogant and self-absorbed as Dee feared he would be. That is, until an accident forces Dee and Chris to rescue one of the pride's cubs, and Chris proves to be more than just a pretty face with a rock-hard body play-acting the hero.
But even as Chris and Dee burn up the hot nights with their new-found passion, a hunter arrives on scene determined to stop at nothing—even murder in the isolated African bush—to take home the head of Brutus, the alpha lion of Dee's beloved pride.
To save Brutus and themselves, they'll have to trust to their lions, each other, and the strength of a love that threatens to tame them all.
Know the minute NOBLE HEARTS, Book 3 in the Wild Hearts Romance series, is available! Sign up for my mailing list today. You’ll ONLY receive a newsletter when I have something new on offer, and your email will never be sold or spammed.
http://phoenixsullivan.blogspot.com
MORE BOOKS BY PHOENIX SULLIVAN
Wild Hearts Romance Novels
BRAVE HEARTS (Book 1)
PROUD HEARTS (Book 2)
NOBLE HEARTS (Book 3) – Coming Summer 2016
~
Medical Thriller
SECTOR C
Copyright © 2016 by Phoenix Sullivan
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without the written permission of publisher or author, except where permitted by law.
[email protected]
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1
Dee
CHAPTER 2
Chris
CHAPTER 3
Dee
CHAPTER 4
Chris
CHAPTER 5
Dee
CHAPTER 6
Chris
CHAPTER 7
Dee
CHAPTER 8
Chris
CHAPTER 9
Dee
CHAPTER 10
Chris
CHAPTER 11
Dee
CHAPTER 12
Dee
CHAPTER 13
Chris
CHAPTER 14
Dee
CHAPTER 15
Chris
CHAPTER 16
Dee
CHAPTER 17
Dee
CHAPTER 18
Chris
CHAPTER 19
Dee
CHAPTER 20
Chris
CHAPTER 21
Dee
CHAPTER 22
Dee
CHAPTER 23
Chris
CHAPTER 24
Dee
CHAPTER 25
Dee
CHAPTER 26
Chris
CHAPTER 27
Chris
CHAPTER 28
Dee
CHAPTER 29
Dee
CHAPTER 30
Dee
CHAPTER 31
Chris
CHAPTER 32
Dee
CHAPTER 33
Chris
CHAPTER 34
Dee
CHAPTER 35
Dee
CHAPTER 36
Chris
CHAPTER 37
Chris
CHAPTER 38
Chris
CHAPTER 39
Dee
ABOUT PHOENIX
CHAPTER 1
Dee
“Why again did I let myself get talked into this?”
It was far from the first time I’d asked that question, but it was one of the last opportunities I’d have to second-guess my sanity before the film crew arrived tomorrow. D-Day. Doomsday.
By the way my stomach was churning around in knots, I had a pretty good idea how cold feet could prompt a bride or groom to flee the altar. Second thoughts—better reasoned, it seemed, than the first thoughts that elicited my yes initially—ate at my good sense.
No, what really ate at me was compromising myself and my work for the quick buck it would bring. Stupid self-respect, always trying to assert itself at the most inopportune times.
But I also needed the money to continue my work here in Zambia; otherwise, the grants and patron funding would only last another season or so. Nature documentaries were fast losing their glamor—along with losing screen time to fake hunts of even faker legendary beasts and a host of celebrity-based reality shows.
Like Chris Corsair’s Living With… series, which combined the worst of both types of staged drama.
Drama and staging and celebrity ego that he was bringing here tomorrow.
Not that the extra publicity would hurt when fundraising time came around again. It just made me feel…dirty.
“You guys’ll be on your best behavior while they’re here, right?”
Nana, regarding me from under the shade of a tambotie tree simply flicked an ear. Brutus, lazing on his rocky throne, yawned, and my camera caught the impressive spread of his jaws, the gleam of fangs and the curl of his long tongue. Such a camera hog, and always willing to pose for it as though he understood every private moment of his would be on display for thousands to see. Millions, if I could sell to one of the major syndicates or public television. Or a reality series.
“No trouble from any you, OK?”
Not than any entreaty or admonishment on my part impacted what this little pride of lions chose to do day-to-day, or even moment-to-moment. How the lions would react to new people in their territory was my first concern. The safety of the crew my second. Maybe my priorities should have been reversed, but the crew had a choice about being here. They knew the risks, were fully aware this wasn’t a zoo and that the lions, while—usually—tolerant of me, weren’t tame in any sense of the word. Provoke them at all and the consequences could be dire. The Living With… crew still chose to come. Any consequences would be theirs alone to bear. I was very clear that’s what our contract said before signing it.
“Best behavior,” I repeated, as Caesar and Cleopatra, my Wonder Twins, tussled in the sand, their growls and snarls echoing off their father’s rocky throne.
God, I enjoyed being here alone with them.
And three strangers, including an arrogant son-of-a-bitch if his last season’s episodes fully captured his conceited attitude, would be here tomorrow to disrupt everything and create their own reality.
Why again had I let myself get talked into this?
CHAPTER 2
Chris
Lions.
Well, Bears, Sharks, Wolves, Marines, Skydivers and Elephants had all been ratings hits. The showrunners seemed to know the audience, and as long as I didn’t have to do more than six of these a year, then with the 25% bonus per episode my agent had negotiated for this season, I could certainly put up with the four months of travel and filming, along with the two months of late-night talk shows and publicity tours, in order to spend the other six months in civilized places like Vegas, Atlantic City, maybe even Monte Carlo in the winter.
Plus I was already signed for a new superhero franchise trilogy that would begin filming next year, which would lock in a nice annual income for, oh, a decade or so, coupled wit
h guest appearances, a starring role in an indie movie or two, and with luck, plenty of magazine and social media coverage.
A Top 100 Hottest Men of the Year list or two wasn’t out of the question, either, especially since I’d have to step up my workout regimen for that superhero role, if the name Atlas had anything to do with the character’s physique.
All-in-all, life was looking sweet for that half-a-year of downtime each year I was planning around. Indulging in all the vices, encouraging the paparazzi to keep my face out there, living high…
It was that first six months out of each year when I was going to have to pay the dues. Like now.
Lions. Maybe a couple of years ago that word would have had some more thrill to it. All it conjured now was some aging, mange-eaten animals on a hot, dusty savanna in some forgotten corner of Mozambique or Zimbabwe or wherever they were sending me this time. Two weeks of isolation, without women, sex, cards or dice.
Okay, there would be women. My cameraman was one. Reena, an Indian beauty with make-up perfect eyes and a body that screamed, “Take me.” Or screamed it to everyone else but me. Few women ever said no to my charms, but no matter how many times I tried to get into her pants, she wouldn’t have me.
The videographer who lived with the lions was a woman too. Dee something-or-another. Cute in that wholesome, sisterly way if her resume picture wasn’t purchased from a photo site, but anyone who’d devote their life to living alone in such a remote spot had to be seriously disturbed. Probably too disturbed to be seduced into bed. She and Reena would likely get off with each other talking about framing and lighting and F-stops, when I’d rather be discussing G-spots.
My only real chance at bedding anyone would be Gary. As a personal assistant, he was top-notch. Just overly attentive. And overly handsy. He was good-looking enough, with a close-trimmed beard and a ripped body that he kept toned by working out with me every morning. Didn’t matter to me that he was black. If I swung that way, he and I would be making merry in the sack on all these location shoots. But I just couldn’t get it up for a guy, no matter how I—and he—might have appreciated it.
So, really, the next two weeks couldn’t be done fast enough. In and out, like a whore being paid by the hour, as they say.
Although I was looking forward to some of the promo shots that would come out of this. After all, what guy doesn’t look even more studly next to a mountain of a lion?
Even if it was all just trick shooting by an exceptionally beautiful photographer.
CHAPTER 3
Dee
After a two-hour drive and a morning buying supplies—all after breaking camp and loading the Range Rover at dawn—I beat the television crew’s plane by only minutes. I ran a comb through my hair in the building’s only restroom, but that was the extent of my freshening up before their flight was wheels down on the runway.
The 4-engine prop plane was one of those that carried maybe 20 passengers, and only six deboarded. The smiling young man behind the ticket counter locked the cash register, motioned me and the four other people in what masqueraded as a terminal in this small Zambian town, and led us out to the runway where he transformed into a baggage handler, hurrying to offload the luggage from the belly of the plane onto the hot tarmac.
The one-person ground crew wheeled a ladder to the plane’s door and the first three people out were claimed by the two couples waiting with me. That meant the three left were mine. The Indian woman, the black man and Chris were all “beautiful people,” smartly if casually dressed and, despite being supremely tired with untold layovers and puddle-hopping to get here to Zambezi after an 8000-mile flight to Africa, they were impeccably made up and all smiles as they each stepped out onto the rolling ladder.
Smiles that faded abruptly as they realized the only paparazzi on hand to greet them was a fairly disheveled camerawoman with a palm-sized handheld, self-consciously tucking stray bits of hair behind her ears.
Lowering the camera, I waited for them by the astonishing pile of unclaimed luggage on the tarmac.
“I’m Deidre Young. Dee.”
Both men ignored my outstretched hand. The woman clasped it briefly, her warm brown skin soft and without callous in my rougher hand. She didn’t, however, offer her name. Almost apologetically I let go the unblemished hand and turned my attention to the luggage, mentally calculating how much space would be left over in the Range Rover after four adults piled in with the supplies I’d just picked up.
“How much of that is yours?” I asked.
“All of it,” the man who wasn’t Chris Corsair, Hollywood star, said, his voice clearly pained about having to speak to me.
My eyebrows shot up. Well, that made my calculations easier at least. “You’ve arranged for a rental, then, I assume. Better be sure it’s 4-wheel drive.”
“I’m sorry, didn’t you do that?”
I didn’t think my brows could arch up even further. I was wrong. “Uh, no. I was assured everything was being taken care of on your end. I assumed everything meant, I dunno, everything.”
“You didn’t, I dunno, confirm?”
What a prick, mocking me like that. This was going to be a long—long—two weeks.
“Two things about that. One, not my job. Two, I’m on a sat line. Getting a signal and confirming your flight was impossible enough.”
“Fine,” the prick clipped out before turning to the ticket-master-baggage-handler who’d been grinning his way through our conversation. “Where’s your rental counter?”
“In Lukulu.”
“Where’s that?”
“100 kilometers south.”
“What do you mean? There isn’t a desk in there?”
“Look at it.” I nodded toward the squat terminal building. “There’s barely room for his desk much less a rental one.”
“Komani Mabaso has a tow truck and a cargo van,” said our ticket-master-baggage-handler. “An SUV too that he runs passengers to the motel in. He may have something to rent. Most of our business is from the safari tour camps. They provide their own transportation.”
“Uh-huh. They provide the transportation.” The prick looked pointedly at me.
“Then maybe you should have booked a tour with one of them. I’m not a tour service, Mr.…?” I looked pointedly back at him.
“Cox,” he supplied, and I fought the 12-year-old in me to keep from smirking at such an apt name for a prick.
The plane’s engines revved, making further conversation impossible until it taxied away to the single hangar near the fuel depot, where I expected it would be cleaned and gassed up for another roundtrip to Lusaka tomorrow. I wondered if they even serviced any other passenger flights than to and from the Zambian capital, maybe 500 kilometers to the east.
Chris’ sunglasses masked a lot of his expression, but the star’s attitude screamed boredom.
The woman with him looked exasperated but resigned.
“Can we at least get inside out of this heat?” Mr. Cox asked, fanning himself.
If he couldn’t last two minutes in it, how did he expect to last two weeks? Not my problem, I wanted to tell myself, but the success of this farce of an expedition would only be as good as our weakest member. If one of our group couldn’t keep up… “Please don’t tell me you’re the cameraman, Mr. Cox.”
The look of feigned horror he turned on me was rather insulting considering my own skillsets. “I am Chris Corsair’s personal assistant.”
“Then I guess you should be trying to find a way to assist him out of here…personally.”
The corner of Chris’ mouth twitched. It was just a hint of that famed smile of his, but at least it was some reaction.
The woman’s demeanor softened as well. “Luckily, I’m the cameraman. Reena Narayanaswamy. Don’t even try pronouncing that. Reena’s fine.”
Donning the cap of concierge, the ticket-master-baggage-handler-cum-concierge escorted Mr. Cox inside to try to secure a rental from his local contact.
“Anythin
g meltable in your bags?” I asked, the heat off the tarmac adding a couple of degrees to the already sweltering temperature.
“I wonder if spray cans explode?”
“Scientific curiosity, Mr. Corsair?” I asked.
“Nah, I just like watching things explode.” He winked pure charm my way.
“I’d like to get the camera equipment off the runway, at least,” Reena said, moving to pick up two of the heavier bags. I threw in to help her and, surprisingly, Chris slung a couple of bags over his well-muscled shoulders and helped move the mound of bags into the shade by the terminal.
After, carrying only the most sensitive of the equipment, we went inside to sit on plastic chairs under the thwock, thwock, thwock of a ceiling fan. Ten minutes later, Cox crossed the short distance from the ticket desk to join us. “There’ll be something here in 30 minutes.”
“Which means we’ll be lucky if it’s here in a couple of hours,” I cautioned. Thank god for the wifi tower on the hill just beyond the runway. We pulled out phones and tablets so we wouldn’t have to talk to one another.
It turned out Komani Mabaso was pretty johnnie-on-the-spot. He drove up an hour-and-a-half later, long after the plane crew had left and just before the concierge’s patience was taxed to its end. At least I did see a nice sum of currency pass between Cox and our concierge for his pains, after which the concierge’s patience improved immensely. That was at least one international language that Hollywood taught well.
My Range Rover was well-broken-in at four years old. The Land Rover that drove up, however, had to have seen 30 years or more. Its tires alone were probably older than my SUV.
“How far are we going?” Chris asked, his gaze flicking between the two vehicles.
“Ninety kilometers or so. A couple of hours drive,” I said.
He nodded. “I’m riding with you.”
We followed the older Land Rover to Mabaso’s place to drop him off, then found the town’s only diner for a late, late lunch. The sets of tin tables and chairs and matching tin ware didn’t inspire confidence in my companions.
“Whatever you order, enjoy it,” I encouraged. “We have a day or two of fresh groceries but after that we’ll be eating out of cans and boxes.” I was looking forward to a fresh-cooked meal no matter the ingredients, and to my company’s surprise, the cook didn’t disappoint. Large tin platters of traditional mealie bread appeared followed by a communal bowl of spinach swimming in a curry of rice, carrots, hot spices and coconut milk dotted with chunks of what was probably guinea fowl. Chai tea and sugar-dusted plantains at the end rounded out a meal far more satisfying than any I’d had in the past month or was likely to have in the next two weeks.
Proud Hearts (Wild Hearts Romance Book 2) Page 1
