Don’t Lie to Me

by Amber Bardan

  “Is everything okay?” he asked, gaze darting from me to Haithem.

  “Fine, I’m just leaving,” I said.

  He opened the door and I rushed into the crisp outside air and ran to the corner, then froze

  Once again what was I doing? I needed him. Hadn’t even managed to get a last name from him. What was wrong with me? I peered around the corner at the lobby doors. Emma warned me about this. That there was a chance my reproductive system would eventually turn on me. Sex brain. Or as I fondly referred to it—horny-stupid.

  The door flew open.

  The massive length of him emerged. I sank my back to the wall. My heart hadn’t slowed down, not for a second. My lips were still bruised. Desire still rained a plague of tingles in my fun area. I could fix this entire issue. Take care of both sex-brain and exposé at once. I just had to step out of hiding and call his name...

  I looked around the corner. A black car pulled up at the curb. My throat thickened.

  Nope, couldn’t. Duplicitous sex wasn’t going to be the thing to haul my ass out of celibacy. Haithem strode to the car.

  I held my breath.

  He couldn’t just get in the car and disappear. I’d never get my story. I’d never see him again. Fate gave me a last chance with Haithem in that elevator. There wouldn’t be another. As I knew so well, fate could be cruel like that.

  Haithem opened the rear passenger door. The ruthless beat in my ears turned pounding. I looked up at the orange-pink sky between office towers. I needed to get home. Soon. He slipped into the car. I raced to a cab at the corner.

  Last chances were final.

  Haithem

  “YOU MUST SEE THIS,” Karim called from the office next to my cabin. I joined him by the windows, took the binoculars he offered and peered outside. He indicated to the building across from us.

  A flash of movement streaked beside the wall towards the corner.

  The muscles in my arms coiled like a snake. My heart went hard. Head clear. Throat dry.

  We’d been found.

  Dread formed a crust around me. A crust of memories made up of blood and fear and loss.

  Then I saw it—that same white blouse draping her lushness, the patch of sunlight turning a mass of hair from chestnut to red. The same hair I’d had my hands buried in not a half an hour ago.

  Her.

  Angelina was here. Why the hell was she here? My stomach clutched around a lump in my abdomen.

  “It seems your chance meetings today were no coincidence.”

  I adjusted the focus and the sight of her sharpened. The burn deepened. “Perhaps she’s desperate to see me again.”

  Angelina stepped out from the edge of the building and her head dropped back. White fabric rippled at her sides and her breasts. Her hand moved to shield her eyes to the glare of dusk.

  I didn’t see her eyes, yet I saw them so clearly. The way her lashes had beat over captivating green irises. The way that beat quickened when her gaze set on mine.

  Real.

  She was real. What happened in the elevator was real. Her hair had been baby soft. The scent of shampoo clinging to her, clean and sweet. I tasted her breath in my mouth. The strain of need tightened my cock. How natural that was. For an instant I’d been myself.

  When had I last?

  “I’ve never known you to be naive.”

  The accusation barreled through my thoughts.

  My chin snapped toward Karim. “Look at her. That is the single worst spying I’ve ever seen.”

  The one thing we could count on was that anyone sent for us would be the best. The best and the worst. Hair whipped across her face and she tore it from her mouth, spitting.

  “That is not a professional.” I handed Karim the binoculars.

  We had intimate knowledge of professionals. If my past had taught me anything it was that you never see the devils until they’re breathing down your neck, their gun wedged to your ribs.

  “You remember the Russian girl?”

  Or in the case of Natalya, until they were riding you like a carnival attraction, pulling a razor from beneath their underwire.

  “She was different.”

  “I warned you off her too, but you wouldn’t listen.”

  “You booked her.”

  Karim lifted the binoculars, but his neck flushed. “And I tried to send her away when my suspicions piqued.”

  He had indeed.

  By that time I’d already seen her. The first chance I’d had for “recreation” in the longest months of my life, and she’d been five-eleven with legs for miles.

  The rules should’ve protected us.

  Escorts only.

  Never the same agency.

  Turned out there was no such thing as safe.

  “Just like they pique now.” He peered at the girl on the wharf.

  “Maybe she’s hunting adventure. You saw the way she watched me in the café. Then the way she kissed me in the elevator. She’s probably spoiled and bored.”

  “She spies, Haithem.” Karim stepped out from the window. “She followed us here.”

  I strode to the desk, opening my laptop. “There’s one way to find out.”

  “What are you doing?”

  I pounded the keys. Karim would resist my decision. He wasn’t one for risks. Except, my life was already a gamble. If I had one bet to place, I’d place it on my own instincts. Right then that instinct bored deep, hooked an idea, wouldn’t be shaken. “I’m going to find out who this girl is. Then we will make ourselves a new friend.”

  The binoculars in his hand fell to his side.

  He spun around. “You can’t intend—”

  “I do. We have weeks of waiting ahead of us.” Weeks where I’d lose my mind. Perhaps I already had. But something shifted under my skin—need—excitement. “If I am right and all she wants is adventure, then she’ll have her adventure.” My lungs filled deeper than they had in years. “If you’re right, if she’s here to spy, I’ll show her a wealthy brat. Prove there’s nothing to see here.”

  Those ideas wrapped together nicely.

  Win, win.

  My favorite way for a thing to be.

  Karim moved to stand on the other side of the desk. “If I’m right then you’re inviting the snake into the nest.”

  “If you are right, then someone already knows we’ve been here. This would be the chance to extract information. You should be happy, Karim.”

  I belted out an email as we spoke. Usually, I preferred more information to feed my partner, Avner. But there was a lot he could do with only a name.

  If Angelina Morrison is really her name.

  “I’m not.”

  I hit Send. Done. Too late. A smile crept into the side of my cheek. Another new thing that seemed to be happening today. “You know what they say about where to keep enemies...”

  “We bury them, don’t we?”

  I slammed the lid closed, but I couldn’t slam shut my head. Or the images there. Nor the haze of terror and regret.

  “What if I’m right and she finds something?”

  I shoved away the laptop. Tried not to look outside. Not to think about the girl there. But mostly, I tried not to think about that sliver of glee that had nothing to do with danger and everything to do with desire.

  I wanted this game.

  “Then I’ll do what has to be done.”

  Don’t miss DIDN’T I WARN YOU by Amber Bardan.

  Available now wherever

  Carina Press ebooks are sold.

  www.CarinaPress.com

  Copyright © 2016 by Amber Bardan

  Gregory Ryans is a dead sexy, stratospherically wealthy CEO. Scarlett Heath is a gorgeous London lawyer. Their sexual conne
ction is electric. Their devotion knows no bounds. VENGEFUL LOVE by Laura Carter is sinfully sexy white-collar romance at its very best. Read on for a sneak preview!

  Gusting wind pushes me through the revolving glass door into one of London’s glossiest high-rise buildings and the home of Saunders, Taylor and Chamberlain LLP, my firm. Shaking my head and running a hand through my now-tatted long brown hair, I ride the lift to the tenth floor. Removing my coat somewhat awkwardly whilst holding my laptop case and handbag, I step out onto the grey carpet of the glass and chrome-lined corridor.

  “Good morning, Miss Heath, erm, Scarlett.” I smile back at my new secretary as she flashes her blinding white teeth and adjusts the tortoise shell glasses on the end of her nose; they’re secured around her neck with a delicate gold chain.

  “Good morning, Margaret. It’s horrid out there. Would you take this for me please?” I ask, handing her my black knee-length mac.

  “Of course. Would you like coffee?” she asks as I make my way along the corridor to my office.

  “Please. You’d better get one for Jack too. We have a nine-thirty in his office.”

  “I’ll bring them through.”

  I dump my bags on my desk, set my laptop in its dock then hit the switch to light up my computer screen.

  “Oh, and Margaret,” I call, popping my head around the office door, “thank you.”

  Crossing one leg over the other, I perch myself in my desk chair and wait for Outlook to load, casting my eyes around what’s my humble abode for seventy hours a week, give or take. It’s a small office but more than big enough for one. Most lawyers below partner level have to share but my previous roomie fell pregnant. In a firm like Saunders, you get pregnant and you get out. There’s no time for playing family. The partners here are in the top percentile for intelligence in the country, they know exactly how to get rid of a woman without breaching the Equality Act 2010 or leaving scope for a legitimate claim in the Employment Tribunal. I don’t necessarily agree with the approach but that’s how it is. That’s why law is still a man’s world and to be successful as a woman you don’t just have to match them, you’ve got to better them. So now I have my own space, with a modest L-shape wooden desk, walls lined with full filing cabinets and a small coffee table where Cynthia’s desk used to be.

  Outlook sings to life. Ninety-seven emails from Sunday alone. How dare I go a day without checking in? I slowly work through the backlog, shuffling the emails into various sub-inboxes and flagging them in order of priority. I have just enough time to read one or two urgent messages before my meeting with Jack. In anticipation of him being more grouchy than usual, I’ve worn my most professional trouser suit to work today. Jack is the kind of man a young woman can handle better in trousers. He’s been on holiday for a fortnight and if the rumours are to be believed, his latest wife has found out about his latest affair.

  “Boys and their toys, lawyers and their secretaries,” I humour myself.

  Here’s the thing: being a lawyer in London isn’t like being a lawyer in the United States, or at least the perception of lawyers perpetuated by shows like Suits and LA Law. In England, you study for four years and you train on the job for two, so there’s less study time than in the US. Maybe that’s why we aren’t able to turn our hand to criminal law one minute and float a company on the Dow Jones the next. We specialise in one area and I chose to specialise in corporate mergers and acquisitions, M and A. Basically, my clients buy and sell companies and occasionally float them on the FTSE. Another difference is that we’re paid a lot less than the yanks, enough to mingle with the middle classes, sure, but our pay per hour doesn’t dazzle in quite the same way. What’s not fiction is that we have to be turned out well, not quite so glamorous as on American television but dressed and blow-dried in a way that lets the client know he’s paying over the odds for a package. Not only is he buying in to someone educated but also someone slick who knows how to get the job done—or at least looks like they do. Nevertheless, the sad truth is, the men I work with don’t look like Harvey Specter or behave as gentlemanly as Mr. Darcy in Bridget Jones. They look and act like Jack.

  Don’t miss VENGEFUL LOVE by Laura Carter.

  Available now wherever Carina Press ebooks are sold.

  Also available in print at select retailers.

  www.CarinaPress.com

  Copyright © 2016 by LBM Media Limited

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you to my husband, whose support makes my dream job possible. Thank you to our parents, the grandparents of our kids, for always helping out. Thanks to my sister, Melissa, for being my cheerleader.

  To everyone at Harlequin Carina Press, thank you for your fantastic work and for giving this series the perfect home. It has been a privilege working with my editor, Angela James, whose insights have made these stories shine.

  I am tremendously grateful for my agent, Laura Bradford, for her constant dedication.

  A million times thank you to my dear friend Dani, for all your wisdom and guidance.

  Thank you to my publicist, Lisa Filipe, for your wonderful work and for making my job easier. Thanks to all my lovely friends at Melbourne Romance Writers Guild and also at Romance Writers of Australia for making this journey an even greater one.

  My dear critique partner, Eden Summers, thank you for the many hours of critiquing and cheerleading; your support has meant so much.

  This writing gig can be lonely. Thank you to all my virtual friends; connecting with you keeps me sane and grounded. Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to leave messages, reviews, comments and tweets about my books. Your support means everything.

  Also available from Amber Bardan

  and Carina Press

  Didn’t I Warn You

  Didn’t You Promise

  About the Author

  After spending years imagining fictional adventures, Amber finally found a way to turn daydreaming into a productive habit. She now spends her time in a coffee-fueled adrenaline haze, writing thrillingly erotic romance.

  She lives with her husband and children in semirural Australia, where if she peers outside at the right moment she might just see a kangaroo bounce by.

  Amber is an award-winning writer, Amazon bestselling author, and member of Romance Writers of Australia, Melbourne Romance Writers Guild and Writers Victoria.

  You can find out more about Amber by visiting her website, www.amberabardan.com. Connect with Amber on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/amberabardan or Twitter at www.Twitter.com/amberabardan.

  Introducing the Carina Press Romance Promise!

  The Carina Press team all have one thing in common: we are romance readers with a longtime love of the genre. And we know what readers are looking for in a romance: a guarantee of a happily-ever-after (HEA) or happy-for-now (HFN). With that in mind, we’re initiating the Carina Press Romance Promise. When you see a book tagged with these words in our cover copy/book description, we’re making you, the reader, a very important promise:

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  Craving more romance action? Don’t miss Mafia Made, the seductive new series from #1 Amazon bestselling author Scott Hildreth!

  He’s in the business of bad. She’s left that life behind. But the gun runner has her in
his sights. Prepare. Because after Michael Tripp, there is no other.

  The Mafia Made series

  THE GUN RUNNER (Mafia Made, book one)

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  ISBN-13: 9781460396889

  Don’t Lie to Me

  Copyright © 2016 by Amber Bardan

  All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, M3B 3K9 Canada.