by Sheila Kell
His Chance
His Destiny
His Family
His Heart
HIS SERIES, VOLUME II
Copyright © 2018 by Sheila Kell
Publisher: Cunningham Books
Editor: Hot Tree Editing
Interior Design: Polgarus Studio
Cover Designer: CT Cover Creations
Cover photo: hotdamnstock.com
Individual Book Models: Craig Gierish, Rick Van Der Bosch, Scott Nova, Zeke Samples
Photographer: Eric Battershell Photography
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the publisher, Cunningham Books, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
To the extent that the image or images on the cover of this book depict a person or persons, such person or persons are merely models and are not intended to portray any character or characters featured in the book.
ISBN 978-0-9992496-3-5
Hamilton Investigation & Security
HIS Series, Book Four
Devon & Rylee
To Christine Ardigo
The best book wifey
I’ve been blessed with many people who are there to help me put a novel together. This is a brief thank you for your support while I wrote HIS CHANCE.
I want to extend a thank you to author Teri McGill for all of her wonderful encouragement. I appreciate the effort because it kept me moving forward.
Becky Johnson of Hot Tree Editing, and my critique partner, author Christine Ardigo, are miracle workers. I learned much from them that I know make my books better.
With the art of Eric Battershell Photography and CT Cover Creations, I have another amazing cover. You are both extremely talented individuals.
I extend a heartfelt thank you to author Sharon Gibbs for working with me on the blurb. I’m unable to write without you. Be ready for the next one.
And, finally, once again, I must thank my mother for her work reading and rereading throughout the process. Mom, you rock!
FOGGINESS ATTEMPTED TO lift itself from her thoughts but failed miserably. Rylee’s head throbbed and her stomach roiled. Her eyes fought to open, then after the success of only a small slit, the blinding light of the day urged them closed. Her waking mind attempted to process what her eyes weren’t seeing. Not an easy task when it was ready to explode from pain.
Lying on her right side in a soft bed, Rylee Hawkins tried again and blinked slowly, opening her eyes a fraction more with each painful blink. The wall in front of her was actually a wall of glass supporting a set of patio doors with golden handles in the middle. Long, thick, navy blue curtains with thin cream inserts hung aside to display a balcony that housed a small wrought-iron table, two chairs, and two empty wine glasses. Tall buildings stood in view with the sun shining behind them, which increased the beating tempo in her head. Beside the comfortable bed, a solitary lamp sat upon a light-colored wood nightstand.
Nothing was familiar. Her gut told her it was a hotel room. She just had no idea which or where. Rylee was mildly aware that this was the point when most would panic. Instead, she could barely muster confusion. She squinted and ignored the shot of agony behind her eyes to read a sign flashing in the distance. The Las Vegas strip.
Closing her eyes, Rylee groaned. She and her FBI teammates had taken a long weekend break after closing a major case and thought this would be a great place to visit since Sara and Zack, two fellow agents, wanted to marry right away.
She searched her mind and came up mostly blank of the prior evening’s events. They’d made it to the chapel, and an Elvis impersonator had married the two. While it wasn’t how she’d want to be married, to each his own. Zack was a huge Elvis fan and Sara loved Zack. So, Elvis it was.
Thinking back, she remembered them going to a casino bar to celebrate. Then… nothing. With the monster hangover she had, she must’ve had way, and she meant way too much to drink. That wasn’t like her.
Rylee considered it pretty fucked up she couldn’t remember most of the night. She hoped she hadn’t made a sloppy mess of herself. That type of embarrassment she didn’t need with the other agents.
Swallowing past what felt like a wad of cotton lodged in her throat, she decided it was too early to deal with anything. Her flight wasn’t until close to noon. First, she’d get up, relieve her full bladder, take several aspirin and close the damn drapes. Then she’d set her alarm and slip back into la-la-land. Maybe she’d wake refreshed and remember the evening. She just couldn’t believe she’d been stupid enough to drink to excess like that.
“Good morning, beautiful,” a gravelly, male voice said from behind her.
Her eyes flew open and she stiffened. Holy shit! A man was in her bed. How had she not realized that? Panic and shame flushed through her, washing away any discomfort from her hangover. What the hell had she done?
Without moving her head, she glanced around for a weapon and noticed the lamp was white. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. She wasn’t even in her room. The bedside lamps in her room were baby blue.
Rylee squeezed her eyes shut. She couldn’t face what she’d done. Getting out of this room and away from this man was imperative.
She spotted clothing tossed haphazardly in front of the patio doors, like the owners had been unable to get them off fast enough when they’d come in from the balcony. She couldn’t get to them without exposing herself to her bed partner. That she didn’t want to do. At least not again… knowingly.
Since she never had a one-night stand before, she didn’t know how to properly extricate herself. Did he expect her to roll over and continue what had obviously occurred the night before? Sexy as that voice sounded, it wouldn’t happen.
When a hand touched her arm, she reacted and launched herself from the bed and to her clothing. Screw him seeing her naked body again. “I… need to… go-o,” she stammered as she pulled her black dress over her head. Fuck it. She’d carry her undergarments. She’d just have to experience the walk of shame.
Rustling sheets and a slight squeak of the mattress alerted her to his exiting the bed. “Rylee, what’s the matter?”
Crap. He knew her name, and she had no idea who he was. She couldn’t even bring herself to look at him. “Look, last night was fun and all”—she snagged her black stilettos—“but that’s all it was. I’ll see you around.” Or at least she assumed it had been. Her memory was still misbehaving.
He stood behind her. His close presence had her breathing heavily and trembling with need. Christ, had he slipped her a roofie or something? That could be why everything was blank. She hadn’t had a drunken blackout since one stupid night when she’d been eighteen. After that, she’d learned to limit the amount of alcohol she consumed. She liked being in control too much.
She reached the desk to grab her purse, and he touched her arm again. Her heart hammering, she reacted in a flight-or-fight mode. Actually, she did both. She snatched the only weapon she saw—the large, ceramic desk lamp—and swung it at the man’s head.
He staggered a moment, then collapsed to the floor.
She picked up her purse and rushed to the door only to stop for a moment as her conscience pricked her. Shit. Quickly, she moved back to the man, knelt down and checked his pulse. Steady
. Good. No blood. Good. Now, get the hell out of here, Rylee, she told herself.
Yet, she had to take a good look at him. She didn’t want to walk up to him one day, and find out later he happened to be the man she’d been so drunk she forgot she’d fucked.
Handsome. Sexy. Dark hair, albeit a bit longer than she’d usually choose. Toned body. She hadn’t chosen a slouch, that was for sure. His face would not easily be forgotten. His strong jaw teased her memory. It seemed familiar, yet she couldn’t recall ever seeing this man before. Maybe it was just teasing her memory from the evening before. Or, he could just look similar to someone she knew. She told herself to leave before he woke because he might want to kick the shit out of her for hitting him.
A niggling feeling told her that he wouldn’t be that way, but she didn’t plan to stick around and find out if her instincts were on target or not. Standing, she saw his wallet on the desk and reached for it. She wanted to know who he was. When he moaned, she snatched her empty hand back.
Her blood gushed through her veins, and her pulse skipped erratically. She had to escape. Back at the door, she opened it and peeked outside. Seeing no one in the hallway, she slipped through the opening and a sense of panic hit her full force, almost knocking her back into the room. Please God, let this at least be my hotel, she pleaded. She peeked at the room number and exhaled loudly to see it was in the same design as hers. Shoulders sagging, she turned to the elevator.
Back in her room, four floors up, she stripped the dress over her head on her walk to the shower. She had to get clean. She’d fucking had a one-night stand with a stranger and didn’t remember a moment of it. How did she wash away the dirt and disgust she felt worming their way around her insides?
The thought of his waking right away and seeking her out pushed her into action. He knew her name. At least her first name. She didn’t plan to see if he knew more.
After a hot shower, she glanced at the time and rushed to pack her bag. Not realizing it had been so late in the morning, she’d taken a leisurely shower. If she took a taxi rather than relying on the courtesy transport, she hoped to make her flight check-in time.
She wanted nothing else to do with this city and doubted she’d ever return. Rylee just hoped she hadn’t told the man in the bed too much about herself because she didn’t wish for him to just show up out of the blue wanting more of whatever she’d given him.
With that thought, Rylee wanted to smack herself on the forehead and shout, “Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.” But, her head still hurt too much for that abuse.
Once in the cab on the way to the airport, she remained rankled that the desk agent at the hotel hadn’t given her the stranger’s name, even after she’d flashed her badge. Admittedly, she knew they were following protocol, but she was hardly in the right mind for sane decisions, as made evident from the previous night. She sighed as she stared out of the vehicle’s window. It had been her last chance to find out who he was without asking him directly, and since she’d knocked him unconscious, she couldn’t do that.
Before long, she’d made it to the airport, in just enough time to check in and grab herself a coffee. Settling into her seat on the flight back to Baltimore, she took a deep breath and heaved a sigh of relief for being rid of the city. Finally, her body began to settle. The reaction to what she’d done—sleeping with the stranger and hitting him on the head for no reason—had sent an adrenaline rush spiraling through her to get the hell out of Vegas. Her trembling hands on her lap grabbed her attention. Oh shit. She couldn’t get away fast enough.
Ten months later
RYLEE HAWKINS JUMPED at the sound of her name and looked around to the door. Dammit. She’d been thinking of her Vegas trip again. Most days she tried to pretend it was only a dream. Only, it’d been real as hell, and she couldn’t forget it… or him.
Eight months later when she’d returned home from one of the worst ops in her life, she’d finally read his messages. He’d attempted to reach out to her a month after Vegas, and tried consecutively for a few months before he’d finally given up. The kicker was, she wasn’t quite sure how she’d felt about that at the time. The fact he’d attempted to pursue her had done all sorts of things to her heart and libido, but so much time had passed since Vegas, she’d had no intention of reaching out to him. Plus, she had still been embarrassed about her drunken behavior.
Yet, Devon Hamilton—a man she’d never met before Vegas—discovered she was back on the grid and had managed to make one last attempt at contacting her. It was a call that she pushed fiercely to the back of her mind and buried as deeply as possible.
Only anger, confusion, and disappointment were attached to any memory and link to Vegas. It was best off forgotten and left in the past.
“Rylee,” an insistent voice called, breaching the bubble of her wayward thoughts.
She looked at the man attempting to gain her attention.
God, she was exhausted. It had been a shitty night. No longer an FBI agent, as co-owner and acting manager of Pynk Nightclub, she dealt with women who liked to let loose. That evening it’d been a woman who kept groping a waiter, a jealous customer’s fiancé who just knew she was having an affair with the bartender, said bartender who made a pass at a different bride-to-be, and two women who passed out in the bathroom. She hated bachelorette party nights. They drew a crowd, but the headache wasn’t necessarily worth the revenue. She’d have to speak with her stepsister and business partner, Madison Maxwell, about it when they saw each other next.
Who knew when that would be? As a supermodel, Madison traveled extensively. She’d purchased the club a year ago and had convinced Rylee to buy in with her so they’d have something to rely on after they were done with their current careers. It had only taken Rylee a few months and her growing frustration with the restraints enforced by the FBI to convince her to make the change sooner rather than later. While a club was a far cry from her experience and knowledge, she had known staying in the FBI would have eventually broken her. That had been about the time the club manager they’d hired had walked away without a word—with one of the bartenders. Now, to keep herself busy, and paid, she ran the business. At least she’d finally been able to put her business degree to use.
The male voice repeated her name.
She smiled at him. Brent Fuller. Not the man in her dream, but a damn fine guy. He’d stayed over from a get-together with his buddies to walk her to her car. He was a blond-headed, fun-loving Immigration and Customs Agent she’d met while they were both undercover on her last job with the bureau, and he’d clung to her ever since. Yet, he’d never been pushy. In fact, she wasn’t sure if he truly wanted her, or if it was just fun play for him to try to win the one who wouldn’t drool at his feet.
She stood from the leather chair in the manager’s office and walked around the wooden desk to where he’d been waiting to escort her out of the building.
“Are you sure you won’t marry me?” A glint of humor laced Brent’s voice.
She smiled at his persistence. “Yes, I’m sure. You know as well as I do that it wouldn’t last. We’d end up hating each other.” Without a spark, and there was none, which she admitted was a shame because he was handsome and kind and would be a great Prince Charming, she couldn’t do it without something holding them together. Besides—
He placed a hand on her arm, then lifted his other hand to lightly stroke her face.
A ripple of unease infiltrated her body.
“You know that won’t happen to us. I won’t allow it to happen.” His mouth turned up into a sweet, yet determined smile.
She shook her head. Had he stopped joking? “Brent, we don’t love each other. I told you I’d only marry for love.”
“Ah, that’s where you’re wrong. I love you, Rylee.”
Stunned, she swallowed hard and with her heart pounding, she could only stare. Could that be true? Good grief. What had she done to lead him on so? She’d never even allowed him to kiss or hold her. Well, he had held her whe
n she’d cried over losing track of the girls during their joint mission. But, that hadn’t been intimate. At least, not to her. She had to stop this now because she couldn’t tell if he was still having fun or being dead serious.
Brent placed his index finger over her lips, effectively silencing her. “Don’t say anything now. Just think about it. I mean it. I want to marry you because I love you.”
Without giving her a chance to respond, he swooped down and kissed her, a mere touch of the lips. He pulled back before she could push him away. “Now, let’s get you home to that ice cream you’ve been craving.”
Rylee stood, bewildered at this change of atmosphere for them.
He laughed and reached his hand out for the keys to lock the front door of the club. Pynk had been a refuge of sorts after she’d left the FBI. While she’d come out of her last op without injury, they’d lost track of some of the young girls Keith Westbrook had sold into sexual slavery. Her gut clenched at what the girls must be enduring.
Hired as a maid for that creep Westbrook, she’d kept a close eye on the girls he had kidnapped. When the time finally came, as a housekeeper, she’d snuck into their room to prepare the girls for their rescue by the bureau that evening. They had been so scared, and she couldn’t blame them for their fear. The fear of knowing something was going to happen… but not knowing what, had to be turmoil. But, Rylee knew the plan for the girls. That night, the girls were scheduled to be sold to the highest bidder. The FBI would get both sides of the sick equation and save the girls in the process.
