by Cynthia Eden
In a world of lies, he’s the only man she can trust
Navy SEAL Brodie McGuire’s orders were clear: Get the hostage out alive. After spiriting Jennifer Wesley to safety, their terror and need ignited into passion. Mission over, haunted by memories of their night together, Brodie didn’t expect to see the Louisiana society girl again. Then she showed up at McGuire Securities.
Six years ago, Brodie saved Jennifer’s life. Now she needs his protection again. But he has no idea who she really is. On his family’s Texas ranch, attraction flares, taking them over the edge. As Jennifer’s violent past explodes in the present, she has to find a way to earn Brodie’s trust before her deadly secrets get them both killed.
“Do you ever wonder…was it really as good as we remember?”
Her words rocked through him.
Her gaze fell to his mouth. “It was just the adrenaline, right? The danger? The whole life-or-death situation that we were in. I mean…there’s no way that we’d kiss again and—”
“Ignite?”
Her lips parted.
He wanted her mouth. He also wanted to show her that he could be more than the rough SEAL she’d known before.
“Yes,” she whispered. “Ignite.”
Hunger, desire pulsed through him. “You should walk away now.”
He’d said words like that to her, before. Another time, another place.
She’d been hugging him, her body trembling. Desire had twisted inside him. He’d tried to do the right thing. Tried to warn her away.
You should walk away.
But she hadn’t walked away then. She’d stood on her tiptoes and put her mouth against his.
And now…now she was walking toward him, stopping only when their bodies brushed.
“One kiss…just to find out?”
SECRETS
New York Times Bestselling Author
Cynthia Eden
Cynthia Eden, a New York Times bestselling author, writes tales of romantic suspense and paranormal romance. Her books have received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, and she has received a RITA® Award nomination for best romantic suspense novel. Cynthia lives in the Deep South, loves horror movies and has an addiction to chocolate. More information about Cynthia may be found at cynthiaeden.com, or you can follow her on Twitter, @cynthiaeden.
Books by Cynthia Eden
HARLEQUIN INTRIGUE
The Battling McGuire Boys
Confessions
Secrets
Shadow Agents
Alpha One
Guardian Ranger
Sharpshooter
Glitter and Gunfire
Shadow Agents: Guts and Glory
Undercover Captor
The Girl Next Door
Evidence of Passion
Way of the Shadows
Visit the Author Profile page at
www.Harlequin.com for more titles
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Jennifer Wesley—Jennifer knows that she is in danger. Someone has been stalking her, and if Jennifer can’t unmask the man terrorizing her, she fears that she may lose her life. She turns to the only person she can trust…a man who saved her life once before, on a dark and deadly night years ago…
Brodie McGuire—Tough ex-SEAL Brodie McGuire spends his days and nights working to bring down criminals. He’s always ready and eager to face danger, but when he learns that Jennifer is being threatened again, he knows that his new case will be very, very personal. He let Jennifer escape from his life once before, and he vows not to make the same mistake again.
Davis McGuire—Brodie’s twin, Davis, has followed his brother into more battles than he can count. When Davis sees how quickly Brodie appears to be falling for the mysterious Jennifer, he worries that his brother may be facing a battle that he can’t win. Jennifer is a woman with secrets, and Davis is determined to uncover them and protect his brother, at all costs.
Mark Montgomery—Mark has lived next to the McGuires for years, and he was close by the night that the family suffered a terrible tragedy. Yet it seems Mark has been keeping his own secrets, and when Jennifer’s attacker targets him, too, those secrets may be dragged out into the harsh light of day.
Shayne Townsend—Detective Shayne Townsend has worked closely with Brodie for years. He knows every detail about the vicious murders that nearly tore apart the McGuire family. As danger threatens the McGuires once more, he wonders if the family will be strong enough to survive.
I’d like to offer a huge thanks to Denise and Shannon—it is a pleasure working with you!
For my readers, thank you so much for your support. You’ve been absolutely incredible! And I hope you enjoy my latest Intrigue.
Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Epilogue
Excerpt
Prologue
He’d rescued her from hell.
Jennifer Wesley turned slightly, and her gaze fell on the man in bed beside her. Sleep made him look innocent, safe, but she knew that image was a lie.
There was nothing safe about Brodie McGuire. The man was a SEAL. Dangerous. Deadly. A force to be reckoned with.
She’d thought for certain that a rescue wasn’t going to happen for her. Her captors had sure been confident that she would never escape from them. Then Brodie had appeared.
Her fingers brushed over his hard jaw, tracing the dark stubble there. His eyes opened at her touch, his green stare 100 percent awake and aware.
He was naked. So was she. After the rescue, once they’d ditched her captors and made it to relative safety, the adrenaline and fear that she’d felt for so long had morphed into something else entirely. The power of her desire had taken Jennifer by surprise.
He hadn’t seduced her. Hadn’t taken advantage—she’d been the one so intent on kissing him. On finding some pleasure to push away the nightmares and the terror.
His gaze slowly slid over her face. She had the odd feeling that he was almost...almost trying to memorize her features.
Only fair, really. She didn’t want to forget anything about him.
“Thank you,” Jennifer whispered.
His dark brows rose.
“For saving me.” Not the lovemaking part. She felt her cheeks stain. “I thought I was going to die out there.” Her wrists were still red and raw from the rope burns. She tried to smile. “I sure am glad you were the navy SEAL assigned to my case.” She was more grateful than words would ever be able to express.
I would have died without him.
“Your father wasn’t going to let you vanish,” Brodie assured her. She caught the faintest hint of a Texas drawl in his voice. There one moment, gone the next. “He used all his pull to bring in my team.”
“My...father?” She kept the emotion from her voice—she’d learned that trick long ago. For her, life was all about acting now. Hiding emotion was necessary for survival.
“Yeah, the oil magnate. He’s the reason you were pulled into this mess.” Anger roughened his voice for a moment. “Your captors thought they could ransom you for a fortune.”
No, they hadn’t. They’d just planned to kill her. But there was some information she couldn’t tell her rescuer. He didn’t have enough clearance to know everything.
Jennifer leaned forward. Her lips brushed across his. “Thank you,” she said again.
His arms curled around her as he pulled her up against his body. Powerful, hard, hot—those words perfectly described
Brodie. She wanted to just stay there with him. To forget the rest of the world for a while.
But forgetting wasn’t an option for her. Especially not when she could hear the pounding of footsteps right outside their safe house.
Gasping, she tried to pull back from him.
“Easy.” He let her go and rose to his feet. Brodie jerked on a pair of cargo pants and peered through the thin crack between the window and the long, dark curtain. “It’s my men.”
His men. Okay, right, but his men could not see her naked. Jennifer grabbed for her clothes—bloody and dirty though they were—and she dressed as quickly as she could. When she whirled back around, Brodie was fully dressed, too—looking all crisp and in control, and not at all like a man who’d spent the hours of the night making passionate love to her.
When he opened the door, Jennifer saw that his gun was tucked into the waistband of his pants. Men streamed into the safe house then, men who moved with the same controlled, soundless steps that Brodie used.
“We have a chopper waiting for you, Ms. Wesley,” one of those men said. He was tall, with blond hair and bright blue eyes. “You’ll be on your way home in less than an hour.”
Home. She didn’t really have one of those. Her gaze slid back to Brodie. She shouldn’t ask this, but Jennifer still heard herself say, “Will you be on the chopper with me?” Because Brodie made her feel safe. In a world of lies, he was a man that she trusted. Someone she could count on.
It wasn’t every day that a man risked his life to save her.
But Brodie shook his head. “I have to stay for mission containment. That’s your flight to freedom, not mine.”
The others were watching them. Did they know what had happened in that safe house? Jennifer felt as if the truth was stamped on her face. No, it isn’t. You never reveal what you feel.
She closed the distance between them. She rose onto her tiptoes and, putting her mouth close to his ear, asked, “Will I ever see you again?”
His body was so tense against hers. “Hopefully, you won’t need to see me.”
She eased away from him.
“Try not to get kidnapped again, and you won’t need me.”
Not get kidnapped? No, she couldn’t make that promise. He didn’t understand the world she lived in.
Her gaze swept over him. Lingered. He hadn’t been what she’d expected, and she wouldn’t be forgetting him anytime soon.
Jennifer headed toward the door.
“I’m...I’m sure your father will be glad to see you,” Brodie’s gruff voice followed her. “He moved heaven and hell to find you.”
Glancing back, Jennifer gave him a faint smile. “I’m sure he’ll be thrilled when he sees me.”
And that would be a miracle, actually, considering that her father had been dead for ten years.
She followed her new guards and slipped out the door. The men with her were saying that she had to hurry, that her safety depended on a quick departure.
So Jennifer didn’t glance back. She didn’t waste time on goodbyes with Brodie.
Yes, he’d been unexpected...and Jennifer was quite sure that she’d never forget him.
Too bad he had no clue who she really was.
Chapter One
Six years later...
A ghost from his past had just walked right through his office door. Brodie McGuire shook his head, an instinctive response, because he could not be seeing that woman. There was no way she was standing there. No way.
Usually she only appeared in his dreams.
She couldn’t have just walked into his office at McGuire Securities. She was far away, some place safe and no doubt with—
“We have a walk-in appointment that I was hoping you could handle,” Brodie’s older brother, Grant, told him. “This is Jennifer—”
“Wesley,” Brodie finished, then cleared his throat because that one word had sounded like a growl.
Grant’s brows climbed. “You two know each other?”
Yes, they did. Intimately.
“Well, that just makes things easier.” Grant flashed a broad smile. “Ms. Wesley, I will leave you in my brother’s capable hands.”
Brodie realized that he’d leaped to his feet as soon as he’d gotten a look at Jennifer.
Grant glanced over at him, a faint frown on his face. Brodie offered what he hoped was a reassuring smile as he hurried around his desk and toward Jennifer.
Grant hesitated a moment more; then he slipped from the office. The door shut quietly behind him, and, just like that, Brodie was alone with the woman who’d been in his dreams for far too long.
Brodie almost reached out and touched Jennifer, just to make sure she was really there, but then he remembered the way desire had burned so hot and wild between them before.
To play it safe, he tucked his hands in his pockets and just inclined his head toward her. “Been a long time, Ms. Wesley.” He was impressed that his voice came out sounding so calm.
Her laughter sounded the way he’d thought it would. Sweet, light, musical. She hadn’t laughed when they’d been together in the Middle East. She’d been far too afraid for laughter. He’d hated her fear, and he was damn glad to see her like this...happy.
“And here I was worried you wouldn’t remember me,” she murmured. Her smile flashed, a wide, slow smile that made her deep brown eyes light up. “But I really think you can drop the ‘Ms. Wesley’ part, don’t you?”
Then she made a terrible mistake. She came forward and wrapped her arms around him. Her scent, a light lavender, drifted in the air as she hugged him. He probably shouldn’t have wrapped his arms around her and hugged her so tightly. Probably shouldn’t have inhaled her scent so greedily. But he did.
She fit against him, perfectly so. He’d thought that before, on that long-ago night.
Jennifer eased back and stared up at him. “You haven’t changed. You look exactly the same, even after all this time.”
He’d changed plenty. Most of those changes were on the inside, though, because he was good at keeping his mask in place. Brodie forced himself to let her go, when he wanted to hold on to her tightly.
That part hasn’t changed, either.
After the night they’d shared together, he’d wanted to grab hold of her and never let go. But the mission had waited. Her life had waited.
He eased out a slow breath, and his gaze swept slowly over her face. Her eyes were big, dark, almond-shaped and framed by the longest lashes he’d ever seen. Her hair was a black curtain around her, and her skin was a warm, sun-kissed gold.
Her face was all high cheekbones and lush lips. Her forehead was high, and her chin was a little pointed, hinting at her stubborn nature.
He’d learned a lot about her in twenty-four hours, and he’d sure never been able to forget her. Six years... That was one hell of a long time for a woman’s memory to haunt him. “You still look beautiful,” he told her softly.
Her smile flashed again. “Still charming, huh?”
There was no accent to her voice, nothing to give away her roots, but he knew she’d been raised in the South. That bit had been in the dossier he’d been given on her.
He studied her a moment longer, cocking his head. “Why are you here, Jennifer?” He liked the way her name rolled off his tongue.
“I was looking for you.”
His brows rose. You found me.
She wet her lips and threw a quick, almost nervous glance back at his closed office door. Then she focused on him once more. “I need your help.”
Right. Because she hadn’t searched for him out of any great, unrequited love.
One night. That’s all it had been, for them both.
Besides, most people came to McGuire Securities because they needed help—help getting justice. Help with problems that the police hadn’t been able to solve.
He sat on the edge of his desk and motioned to the chair in front of him. “Why don’t you sit down and tell me what’s going on?”
In
stead of sitting, Jennifer started to pace.
He almost smiled.
“I need protection.”
The urge to smile vanished. “From what?”
“Not what—a person.” She stopped pacing. Swallowed. “Someone is stalking me. I need you to make sure that this person doesn’t get close to me, not again.”
Brodie sure as hell didn’t like the sound of this situation. “Again?” he prompted. Meaning this person had already gotten to her before?
Jennifer gave a quick nod. For an instant, her expression wavered, and he saw the fear in her eyes. So it’s not gone, after all. “Three months ago, a man—he attacked me in a New Orleans alley. He stabbed me.” Her hand slipped to her right side. Lingered. “I was able to get away from him then.”
As soon as she’d said the word attacked, Brodie had leaped off his desk.
Her breath sighed out. “But ever since that night, I’ve had the feeling that someone is watching me. Following me. And last week...my home in the French Quarter was torched.”
“You need the cops,” he said immediately, the words sharp. “This guy should be in jail.”
“He would be, if the cops could find him.” Jennifer shook her head and sent her dark hair sliding over her shoulders. “But they can’t, and I’m afraid that he’ll come for me again.” Her fingers slid away from her side. “I’m scared.” Her words shook.
He’d clenched his back teeth. With an effort, he managed to grit out, “Your father—”
“Didn’t you hear?” She glanced away from him to stare out the window at the city of Austin, Texas. “He died two years ago. A yachting accident.”
Hell. “I’m so sorry.” He’d lost his own parents in the years since he’d last seen Jennifer. Only their deaths hadn’t been an accident—his parents had been murdered.
Their murder was the whole reason that he and his brothers had opened McGuire Securities. The cops hadn’t been able to find the killers, but— We will. He and his brothers had a new lead on the cold case, and they were finally getting close to delivering justice to the men who’d ripped apart their family.
