“It’s the prick you need to worry about, although the hot guy looks tough. Bradley was so rude to him. The guy went to introduce himself and Bradley told him to save the pleasantries for ten o’clock.” Elspeth frowned and her brows lowered.
That was rude.
“Okay, let’s do this and get it done.”
We started walking toward the office.
I opened the door for Elspeth to go in with her tray and smiled at Bradley, who was sitting smug in the chair at the head of the table. Of course he would sit there like he was king. His Armani suit looked like it was made for him and his slick black hair looked slicker than the last time I saw it. His eyes met mine and looked me over with sharpness, like he was assessing me.
Those pesky nerves of mine came right back. I couldn’t help it. But then I reminded myself I was born to do this. I was born to do this and I was going to do this. No prick of any kind was going to ruin this day for me.
“Good Morning,” I beamed, pushing my shoulders back and lifting my chin slightly. I’d read in one of my women’s health mags that doing that one little thing made you exude more confidence. A sort of body language tactic that could come in handy for times like this.
Bradley, however, didn’t answer me. He continued to look me over. From his expression I doubted he’d been informed that I’d been his chosen lawyer.
Ignoring his rudeness, I looked to the other guy who was standing by the floor-to-ceiling window looking out at the neighboring skyscrapers. He’d had his back turned and from what I could see of his crisp black suit, shoulder-length dark blond hair and powerful-looking shoulders, Elspeth was right.
Hot.
He turned and I geared myself up to see what his face looked like but my smile fell instantly.
My smile fell, and my heart…
It stopped.
It stopped beating right there in my chest and I swore the world stopped with it.
I couldn’t believe who I was looking at.
Had I fallen over and hit my head…?
If I had, I couldn’t remember.
So…this was real? How?
Was it really him?
I never thought I’d see him ever again. For a split second my heart woke up and leapt at the thought of this being real. Then I remembered what he did.
Yes, Elspeth was right. The guy was hot. I’d always thought so, right from the day I first met him. I was five years old when I first met Sam Hawthorne.
Sam was Coop’s best friend.
Sam was also my first love. The guy who asked me to marry him. He was that guy: the one who you’d wait forever to find. And the chemistry between us was explosive. It was explosive and it did, indeed, explode and take me down and out.
I was so stupid to believe in things like true love.
His large blue eyes turned to saucers when he at looked at me and I watched as recognition and shock spread over his handsome face.
Close to ten years had passed since I last saw him. That last day was horrendous.
That was the day he left.
The pain I felt that day filled me in an instant. Pain, grief and despair.
It was the same day Coop was murdered.
Coop died. Sam blamed himself and left. Just like that.
No warning, nothing. He just left.
Elspeth was saying something to me but I couldn’t hear past the drumming of my heart. The shock was too much.
I couldn’t do this meeting, no matter how important it was. So I did the only thing my brain was telling me to do and fled.
Chapter 2
Sam
Jesus…
At first I thought I’d strayed into a dream. I’d been thinking about her so much that I thought she’d materialized from my thoughts. The more I looked, the more I realized the cruel joke the universe had played on me.
It was her.
Olivia.
My Olivia, except she wasn’t mine anymore. Nothing here was supposed to be mine.
Damn it.
Seeing her was the very thing I feared in coming back to L.A.
Running into people I was trying to keep away from. I’d thought about it the minute this plan came about with Bradley. I feared it and hoped my return would go unnoticed for the duration of my stay. After all, L.A. was a big place. I was just supposed to be here for a week or two, max. Then gone again.
But shit. My fears had come to life. I saw Olivia, she saw me, and now she was running away. Hurt.
Seeing her awakened that spark I laid to rest when I left. It made me move, despite the overly curious glances I was getting from everyone in the room, and chase after her. I chased after her even though I knew I should have let her go.
I caught up with her just before she got to the elevator and grabbed her arm.
“Olivia!” I cried.
As she faced me, the words faded in my mind. The pain in her eyes robbed me of thought and her beauty wiped my brain clean of everything. Like it always did. However, more so now.
More so now because she was no longer my best friend’s little sister. The beautiful girl who was off limits to me for a chunk of my life, then off limits to me because I made it so.
She wasn’t that girl anymore. The woman who stared back at me was someone else. Someone I hurt.
Yet to me it was still her. Her long, silky, black hair reminded me of velvet, and I knew that if I touched it it would feel exactly like that. Soft and smooth, just like the warmth of the smooth golden undertone of her dark-brown skin.
Olivia.
I couldn’t believe she was right here in front of me.
Her wrenching her arm free of my grasp tore me out of my reverie.
“Is that it?” she snapped. “You’re just going to stand there and look at me?”
Those beautiful brown eyes of hers widened and she looked me over with complete disgust.
“I’m sorry.” It may have been stupid to say that, but the words fell from my lips.
“For what, exactly?” Now she narrowed her gaze.
“Look, I can—”
“Explain? I’m not interested.” She tried to step past me but I caught her arm again.
“Olivia, please.” I shouldn’t explain anything. I wouldn’t know where to begin. I couldn’t start with the part where I felt like a disappointment to her and her family because I’d practically allowed her brother to die. And I couldn’t even begin to explain why I thought leaving and staying away was the best option.
That part I couldn’t explain because in my head it still was.
“Let go of me, Sam. Leave me alone. That’s what you’re good at. That …and hurting people. Just leave me.”
That was it. Her words pierced through me and I released my grip on her. She was right and I needed to get gone again.
She rushed away and I allowed her to go.
I must have stood in the corridor for ten minutes after she left before I could move. It was shock. Shock and the myriad of thoughts that raced through my mind.
I always knew she’d make it big as a lawyer, but she always dreamed of New York. I never saw her staying in L.A. She never planned to do that. She was here and worked for this firm. That compromised everything I was here to do. Not just my heart and my past with her.
It was the reason I was here.
Fucking hell, if she ever knew the truth of my presence here she’d probably hate me even more.
* * *
With my mind in turmoil I left, drove around for a while to get some clarity, then headed back to the warehouse by the docks. That was where my team was stationed for this project.
What the hell was I going to say to them?
Nothing I thought up made sense. I knew how important this mission was, so personal problems were exactly that. Personal. I knew well enough not to mix personal anything with business. It was too dangerous. But how was I supposed to separate the two in this instance?
That was Olivia.
Bradley Henderson was being seen as
a threat to national security and right now no one knew what his plans were. The crew I belonged to was a completely off-grid, unofficial unit of the military called the Secret Force. We got hired to carry out special covert missions. The kind that needed to get done in the stealthiest way possible to take out potential threats. The kind where if any of us got caught, we’d be completely disavowed by the U.S. government.
Black operations.
That was what I was here in L.A. to do. A covert mission that could have just been compromised because I’d seen Olivia.
I drove around to the side entrance and parked my car next to the boss’s Range Rover. Pulling in a deep breath, I went inside.
All eyes landed on me the minute I stepped in. Xavier, the boss, who already looked like he was going to kill me. Oz, who cracked his knuckles, and Patrick.
Patrick at least looked me over with concern.
“Where the fuck were you?” Xavier asked, making his way over to me with his brows furrowed. His face was red.
I was supposed to check in three hours ago.
“The mission’s been compromised.” That was the best thing to say.
“What?” He narrowed his eyes at me. Oz came closer and the tattoo of a dagger on his neck pulsed with the vein that now stood out. “How? What did you do?”
“I know the lawyer. I know the lawyer they put on the case. She’s…” My voice trailed off. I actually didn’t know how to continue.
“She’s what?”
“She’s…an old girlfriend.”
“What happened? What did she say?”
“The meeting didn’t go ahead. She left when she saw me. I can’t do it. Xavier, I can’t—”
“Sam.” Xavier rested his hands on my shoulders and gave me a long hard stare. “We need you. Sam, we can’t do squat without your tech skills. We’re screwed, and then who knows what could happen?” The panic in his eyes gripped me.
We’d been hired as a crew by Norton Peters, assistant to the secretary of defense. Bradley Henderson had stolen the blue prints and prototype chip for a super-supreme antivirus software from a government research facility in Colorado. The thing was christened the Portal because it had the ability to neutralize any kind of firewall and hack into any system. It was a hacker’s dream.
We got hired to steal it back.
We got hired because of me. My tech skills. The same tech skills that won me a medal of honor for rescuing my men in Afghanistan. The same skills that landed me with these guys.
“I don’t know how I’m supposed to carry out this mission.” I bit down hard on my back teeth, trying to keep some level of control.
“Stick to the plan. That’s it. That’s what we do no matter what. Sam, we don’t know what Bradley is up to. We don’t know if he has some grand plan to hack whatever he plans to hack. We don’t know why he needs investors. Our only hope is that it’s to fund research. If we lose this chance with him, it’s going to be difficult to set up another opportunity.”
I bit the inside of my lip.
“Come on, Sam,” Oz cut in. “This isn’t you. You never let anything stop you before and, let’s face it, this mission is easy compared to most of the ones we’ve been on.”
Xavier nodded his agreement. “Just stick to the plan. Get those contracts signed, get close to the chip and work your magic. Then we’re gone.”
Gone… Yes, I needed to get gone because pain and memories I couldn’t deal with were rushing back in on me.
I was to act as the business development manager at Stephens Inc., to whom Norton offered a very handsome fee to play along. The involvement with Silvermans was to take care of the merger. They didn’t know anything about the chip.
Stick to the plan, then get gone. Could I do it?
“Sam, confirm you’re good to do this,” Xavier pressed.
I nodded slowly, but it was a confirmation. He released me and stepped back.
“We need another meeting set up,” Oz stated.
“I’ll make contact with Silvermans,” I replied.
“Good.” Xavier looked more at ease. “I’ll update Norton.”
“I’ll come with.” Oz joined Xavier as he walked away. Patrick hung back like I thought he would.
“Olivia. Is it her?” Patrick asked once Xavier and Oz went up the stairs to the upper level. He moved closer to me, shaking his head. “She’s the lawyer?”
He knew my story, probably knew more than he should, but I took him for a friend.
I nodded. “Yes. I don’t know how I’m supposed to act like some fraud in front of her.”
Fraud. That was putting it mildly.
“That sucks, man.” Patrick looked hesitant. “But, Sam, that chip is some serious shit. The worst part is the lack of knowledge we have. I know you have this history with her, but we got to work the mission.”
“Right. The mission.” I frowned.
“You know what I mean. On the bright side, we get fifty Gs each, once this is all done. That could set us up big time.”
“I don’t care about the fucking money.” I grimaced and walked away.
Money…was trivial. I didn’t care about it. No matter how much. This was a nightmare. Had to be.
I walked out to the boardwalk and looked out at the sea with the waves pulling in and out.
Olivia…
I couldn’t believe I actually saw her today.
Saw her, touched her…
She loved the sea. Anywhere that had water she could swim in.
Over the years there was very little that didn’t kick start some memory of her or remind me of her in some way.
There wasn’t a day that went by that I didn’t think about her, but that led me to thoughts of Coop too. And Joe, their father.
I really messed everything up.
There was a time in my life when I had it all. Me, the guy from the wrong side of the tracks. I had it all and I almost had a future to look forward to.
I had what most people called a bright future to look forward to because I had love. I had her, the girl. Olivia.
Then I lost it.
Now this.
Chapter 3
Olivia
My heart was still racing. It didn’t help that I’d chosen to drink three cups of coffee. I wasn’t thinking straight when I ordered it.
I got to the police station, headed to the little on site café and ordered what the guy in front of me ordered. Not once, or even twice. Three times. Now I had the jitters I always got when I consumed far too much caffeine.
And I still wasn’t thinking. The shock of seeing Sam was still in my system.
I still couldn’t believe I’d actually seen him. The worst thing was there was a little part of me that felt at peace. However, that was just down to getting closure on what happened to him.
The part of me that feared that maybe something terrible had happened, like he had died. That was what came with years of searching, having him listed on the missing persons register and then accepting that something probably did happen to him.
Like Coop. I thought at one point that Sam was dead, and it killed me all over again. Seeing him today made all those memories and emotions flood back in on me and I was so weak. It was times like this when I retreated to the one person who could help me.
Not Jada, although she was going to have a field day with this piece of news. I didn’t know what she would say because she knew Sam and knew my story with him, knew how I suffered because of him.
So maybe seeking her out would be good for me. She couldn’t help me the way my father could though. Jada was my best friend and could reach that place in my heart that was broken and soothe it. Dad, on the other hand, could always reach my soul.
It had been years since I had to run to him like this at the station and wait until he could see me. Back then he was a detective and I might have had to wait an hour or so to see him. Now that he was Captain of the LAPD my waiting time had definitely increased. I’d been here for three hours and counting.
Not because he was purposely making me wait, but because Dad was away on some sort of assignment. My father wasn’t the type to sit behind a desk giving orders, or milling through paperwork, he went on the job with his men and worked as hard as they did.
I didn’t know what he was doing today, but I got told when I got here that he’d basically be away for the day. Knowing how I’d get if I went home, I decided it was better to hang out here like I used to when I was younger.
So much had changed between then and now. Back then it was most often Coop who’d send me here. He was the typical over-protective brother, but when we fought it was like the clash of the titans. It got worse as he got worse.
“I really wish this was a casual visit, but it’s not, is it?” came Dad’s voice. It filtered through my mind and instantly made me feel better just for hearing him.
I turned to see him walking into the waiting room. He smiled and his face brightened when I got up and threw myself into his waiting arms.
Anyone would think I hadn’t seen him in years, but we saw each other for dinner on Saturdays and met up on Wednesdays for lunch.
“Olivia, what happened?” He took hold of my shoulders and looked me over once we pulled apart. “Gina said you looked like you’d seen a ghost when you first got here.”
Gina had been Dad’s secretary for close to twenty years. She’d seen me at my worst. I was certain today resembled something like that.
“I…” I attempted but I wasn’t sure what to say. Sam’s departure got to Dad, too, because he was practically a part of our family. Dad, however, never knew that we were involved. And not just simply involved. We were engaged.
God…
I tried so hard not to think about that part but it was something I couldn’t overlook. Or even leave out of the story.
I used to feel this sense of triumph because Sam and I kept our relationship from everyone and it looked like we got away with it, but now that so much time had passed I wondered if Dad actually knew what was going on. Well, not the part about being engaged, but I was certain Dad must have guessed I was seeing him.
Dear Olivia Page 2
