Deja Vu (Titan World Book 0)
Page 1
Contents
TITLE PAGE
LETTER TO READERS
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
EPILOGUE
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
COPYRIGHT
Déjà Vu
A Titan World Novella
Cristin Harber
LETTER TO READERS
Dear Readers,
Welcome to the Titan World books with stories ranging from military romance to paranormal to contemporary romance. There’s something for everyone—action-packed romance, swoon-worthy moments, and happily ever after!
When I started the Titan series, I wanted to combine my love of steamy stories and action-packed suspense. I wrote strong men and women who I hoped readers would fall in love with. I can’t think of anything more exciting than opening my world up to very talented authors to extend that experience so that you, the reader, can have a deeper connection to more than one book series at a time.
You will meet new characters and see them interact with familiar ones; you will also see the interpretation of the Titan universe through another author’s eyes. I hope that you take the time to experience each book in the Titan World series!
This project was a labor of love. It was a gift for people who believe in #TitanStrong as much as it is someone checking out all the fuss. For every email and message on social media, for every Titan meetup around the globe and empowered post, I know that these books—our books—are more than just romance novels. The characters are our friends when we need a confidante, a hero to save the day when life is just too hard…
I started writing the Titan series about five years ago and never would I have guessed that years later, we would have Team Titan, where I can call you my friends. The books have inspired life goals, tattoos, and relationships. But I believe they have created so much more. You get what you give, and Team Titan is collectively good for the soul.
As for my Titan World contribution, DEJA VU is about a sexy doctor and a CIA spy with amnesia uncovering her past. You’ve seen Dr. Tuska occasionally in Titan books, but here’s a chance to meet the good doc and see how a Titan outsider saves the day with a little help from the team we all know!
Readers, thank you for supporting this project—thank you for believing in me. And, also, thank you for reading and supporting the authors who took time out of their busy writing schedules to participate. The result is amazing.
Titan Hugs and Happy Reading,
Cristin Harber
CHAPTER ONE
Three stories was a long way to fall onto a frozen ice-slicked sidewalk. That made hanging on to the brick windowsill as sleet pelted against her the only option. “Who comes home early from a honeymoon in an ice storm?”
A better question was why did she choose this window to escape? Seriously, any other window would have been a better choice, but she had chosen the one over a break-her-spine sidewalk. Tragic miscalculation.
Her exhausted muscles screamed for relief. Strength had never been her strong point. Neither had a good manicure, and right now, the pads of her fingertips were probably bleeding as her aching fingers tried to hang on a little while longer. Having pulled herself up once—and God, pull-ups while shivering in the freezing rain were like a task from Satan—she’d seen that the newlyweds were just getting into their… personal time. Just a few more minutes, and she could slip back through the window while they were in the throes of distraction and safely escape.
A gust of fierce wind howled. The sleet sliced into her raw cheeks and knuckles as she shivered. Each pelt stung, and her eyelids burned. Watering eyes were the pits, forcing her to blink uncontrollably. There were times instinct served her well. Apparently, there were also times like now.
“The traitors won’t win today, damn it.” Her teeth chattered as she tried to reposition her frozen fingers on the sill. Everything was numb; she couldn’t feel anything. Not her fingers, and not the ledge. Only the frozen pain that was beginning to seep into her bones.
Time for another pull-up. At this point, who cared if the happy lovebirds were getting down and dirty? She needed inside.
Harsh gusts of sleet blew from both directions. The near gale-force winds swayed her body. If curiosity killed the cat, what would be said about the CIA agent who died falling out of a journalist’s bedroom window?
This house was supposed to be vacant for another day. The reporter wasn’t scheduled to come home yet. She’d been lost in his files and paperwork, busy trying to map out intel leaks that were too close to home. She had even briefly seen the name of her boss and Michael Cobin, the secretary of defense.
At least the happy, horny newlyweds had been nice enough to announce their arrival with giggles as they dropped their luggage and groped their way to the bedroom.
Another strong blast of wind almost tore her from the wall. Damn it! Agonizingly, she pulled herself up, checking to see if the couple was very distracted—thank God! They were under the covers.
She pushed an elbow and her chin up on the windowsill. Her lungs were on fire with the frigid air and exhaustion. Shakily but carefully, she pushed the bottom of the window, sliding it up enough to crawl through. This wouldn’t be as graceful as what she’d planned in her head. Her muscles shook. All she needed was enough space to fit through, then to hell with being covert. She would burst in and run like hell through the bedroom. The couple wouldn’t know what had happened, and surprise would be on her side, giving her a head start over the two naked people in bed, under the covers. The new plan was as good as it was going to get—
Shit. Her elbow slipped, and her chin scratched down the brick.
Don’t fall. Don’t fall. The conspiracy theorists would have a field day—if they ever found her body. Which they wouldn’t, now that she thought it through. The CIA probably had eyes on her as she dangled, not that they would help her out for going rogue.
She never should have done this. She could have made an appointment. But what would she have said? The truth was nearly impossible.
Hot tears slipped free as she struggled to find her grip. Her hand came loose, and she lobbed it numbly above her head. “Get back inside.”
She thrust her free hand up, but the other hand came loose. One blissful, euphoric second washed over her in the sleet. Her muscles rejoiced.
No exertion.
No effort.
Pure relaxation.
No! Her brain kicked into action, forcing her cramped hands to reach for the rapidly disappearing windowsill. She fell back in silence, mouth gaping in a nonexistent scream, as she plummeted toward the dark ground.
***
“It’s a whole new world out there.” Jared Westin cracked his knuckles as he stood at the front of the small auditorium. He paced and glared around the war-room table at his Titan and Delta teams and at the faces of other elite security teams and his contemporaries. With the hell that the world had seen lately, Titan and a select group of firms had decided that it was in everyone’s best interest to summit. Jared had offered their Virginia-based building to host the meetings, and af
ter a few days’ worth of operational, tactical, and strategic meetings of the minds, everyone seemed better for it. But… what he hadn’t counted on was having to play host by offering his building.
“After this summit, I think we’re all comfortable knowing we have each other’s backs. If there’s anything you get out of these meetings, know that. I’ve got your six as much as you have mine.” Heads nodded. “Small talk isn’t my thing, so I’ll end this with a simple thanks for coming to Titan. We’ll see you out in hell.”
Around the room, claps, hurrahs, and thanks broke out from men and women Titan conducted joint operational activities with, along with those from various government and private security firms. But as the meeting adjourned, he watched Beth Hart staring at her phone. Throughout the wrap-up, she’d checked it more than she should have—which was never—and that was out of character.
He walked off the elevated platform. “Hold up, Beth.”
She froze and waited while others filed out and down the hall until it was just the two of them.
“Yes, sir?” Beth smiled and gave him the DC socialite presentation the CIA had trained into her and none of the straight shooting he liked.
“Now I know we have a damn problem, Miss Priss.” Jared rubbed his face. “Spit it out.”
“What?” Her eyes sparkled with a dare.
“Beth, I swear to God, do not make me go fishing into the CIA lake of bull-freaking-shit.”
“Company business,” she said with a slight lift of her shoulders, giving him the go-get-your-reel response that likely required a bottle of headache medicine and extra paperwork.
“You want to deal with The Company, you do it on someone else’s time.”
“The clock’s ticking on this one.” She tapped her cell phone. “I didn’t have much choice.”
Jared didn’t care for the CIA’s priorities, and sometimes splitting her time with them was more of a hassle than not. “Unless you read me into whatever you’re distracted by, I give no shits when they distract you from me. Got it?”
There was her socialite smile again. “You gave a great ‘rah-rah, let’s be friends’ speech. I could glance at my email.”
“Now I know you weren’t paying attention.” He didn’t rah-rah cheerlead his own team, much less others. His style of management was much more in the vein of Get the job done. For this woman to give him the runaround… Ah. She was purposefully testing him. “Explain.”
“I don’t have anything to explain, Boss Man.”
He turned around and pounded boots toward his office. “You better be following me, Beth.”
“You already know that I am.”
He hid what would’ve been a smile because she was right. Whatever Beth was about to explain, she was now on record as putting up a fight before he’d worn her down. And that was noteworthy. Beth played games better than almost anyone, and she had just pulled a CYA to deal with a CIA headache because she probably smelled something that stunk.
CHAPTER TWO
Another day, another case in which the CIA dropped off a patient with a list of asinine ground rules for James to abide by. If it wasn’t one over-the-top thing in the name of national security, it was another. This time, he was to monitor the patient’s health and well-being, ensuring that she was medically brought back to life as a civilian as quickly and safely as possible. They called her Amnesia Allie. In no uncertain terms was he or his team to assist in recovering her memories. As soon as the spooks had realized one of their own had sustained significant memory loss after an accident, they had decommissioned the asset. Meaning, Amnesia Allie no longer worked at the CIA.
James sighed as he flipped his tablet cover closed, shaking his head about how particular the Agency was. Yet so was he. That had likely made their extensive working relationship so successful over the years.
“Hello… Allie.” James gave his patient in the hospital bed a once-over as she spoke to the nurse. Also hovering nearby, Beth Hart, the CIA’s babysitter, and someone he happened to know personally from Jared Westin’s Titan Group, stood on guard to monitor Allie.
The nurse barely glanced up from the chart, and Beth acted as though they’d never met. But his patient studied him as if he were the savior who might walk on water. Her stare was altogether unnerving and entrancing. James wasn’t sure he’d ever been assessed so quickly, harshly, and intently in his life.
“That’s him.” Allie’s sure voice was directed at him and answered a question from the chart that had been asked before he walked in. Her desperate words held the ragged edge of a plea, which no one else seemed to notice.
The nurse shifted in her plastic-soled shoes, causing them to squeak as Beth sucked a breath of air in surprise so hard she coughed. “You’re mistaken, Allie.”
Three sets of eyes lay on James so keenly that he could feel them, none stronger than the woman’s in the bed. Her gaze implored. It was persuasive and convincing, as well as desperate.
“He”—she pushed up on her elbows in the hospital bed—“is my fiancé.”
Wait. What did she just say? The nurse gave her a pitying glance, and Beth’s eyebrows knotted in annoyance. Apparently, amnesia wasn’t supposed to go off script in Beth’s world.
The words “I’m not” rested on his tongue, but he stood dumbstruck and locked into a silent conversation with the classic beauty before he tore away and took a nanosecond to consider the spy stuck in bed.
Was she delusional? Imagining that he was her fiancé? James chewed his cheek. The nurse wasn’t paying any mind, but Beth and Allie were in an all-out silent war for his response. Allie had sent him an SOS without a word, and other than her medical information, all he knew was that she was a CIA asset with amnesia, incorrectly told she had been in a car accident. He had no medical basis on which to make any decision other than to treat the woman and walk away. To do no harm… He had no reason to engage in a discussion, to play to a potential fantasy and put his career on the line.
What did she know that the CIA wanted her to forget? That didn’t matter.
It’d been decades since his time in the Army Rangers, but not a day went by in which he didn’t see fallout from special operations. Real life had taught him there was a time for the rule book and a time for gut instinct. Right now, his gut instinct fired like an AK-47, so hard and fast that he needed prescription-grade antacid.
James let disbelief wash over his face. “Allie?”
“Doctor.” If looks could kill, Beth would have just pushed him out the eleventh story window of this hospital room with a hope-it-hurts smile.
He took a step forward, and no one moved. Not Beth, her friend, as had been explained to Allie when she woke. Not the nurse, who had busy-bodied in his personal life, or lack thereof, for far too long. And not Allie.
What was he even thinking? He didn’t know the decommissioned CIA asset. Yet he had already acknowledged that they had some sort of agreement. “Hi.”
Allie’s eyes darted to the name embroidered on his white coat. “James.”
He fumbled for the next move. “It’s been a while…” Playing pretend wasn’t his thing. He didn’t know what was he doing, but he couldn’t stop. Adrenaline spiked in his blood as the cadence of his heartbeat increased.
“It has?” Her confident question went hoarse, and she sounded nearly heartbroken. To any onlooker, it was the raw emotion of two lovers reconnecting. But James knew it for what it was. Raw relief. Terror washing away. His need to protect her grew stronger.
“We aren’t engaged any longer,” James offered softly, playing to her amnesia that only the two of them knew wasn’t a factor.
The nurse gasped at the revelation of the “truth” and this bit of gossip, while Beth’s irritation ricocheted off the walls.
Allie’s face fell. “We’re not?”
He gave a quick nod over his shoulder. “I need the room.”
“Doctor,” Beth hissed.
He couldn’t think. Electricity spiked on his skin as thoug
h he were about to jump out the back of a chopper into the inky black night. Having no idea how the next moments would go exhilarated him as much as it made him hungry to get to know Allie.
Consciously, James took a deep breath to slow his heart rate. “I’d like to speak with my patient privately, and I think Allie would like a familiar face at a time like this.”
Beth stepped closer to the bed. “Allie, I can stay.”
“I’m fine.” She tucked the blankets around her legs on the bed and stared as the nurse slowly made her way to the door.
“We have catching up to do.” He sliced Beth with a stare that was all but an order. If she wanted to play the good friend, she could step out. But if she wanted to wear the CIA’s hat and not leave them alone, then Beth could have that conversation right now, but they both knew that wouldn’t happen.
“All right, Allie. We have a lot to catch up on from what you do remember.” Beth pasted on her socialite charm and acted the role of the caring friend. “I’ll be right out in the hall if you need anything.”
Allie didn’t respond, having buttoned up a layer of invisible armor. Her eyes locked onto him just as Beth’s had. Two sets of stares, both with very different meanings. There would be hell to pay for this breach in the CIA’s script, but sometimes, even the strict doc needed to go with the flow.
He hadn’t built a niche, concierge medical practice overnight that catered to the types of special requests he received from the CIA, to be bossed around on a pointless job.
Beth shifted her weight in her high heels, pivoting so that she could take them both in. “Allie, I’m your friend.” She took a step closer. “He’s your doctor.”
“Again, I’m fine,” Allie insisted and pushed back in her bed.
Beth didn’t budge, and he didn’t expect her to. A bullish white-knight urge came over him, and he wanted to protect Allie from Beth.
“Allie—” Beth tried again.
She put her hand up as if to physically block the word away from her. “I don’t know you.”