He loved Shayma bint Amr Kahlan. Loved her more than anything in this world.
And he’d do whatever was necessary to win her back. Give up his life, his career, his home in New York, if necessary.
One of the agents tapped him on the arm and cocked her head toward the far end of the concourse. “You might want to try the VIP lounge, sir. She’d been sitting in there earlier.”
Stunned, he nodded then swallowed hard. “Thank you.”
“Good luck,” the other agent said.
“Thanks.”
Each step down the tiled walkway seemed like a thousand and time seemed to slow the nearer he got to the lounge. It was like in those horror movies or nightmares where you’re trying to get to the doorway, but it only seems to get farther and farther away. People jostled him as he walked, but Murphy hardly noticed, his attention focused like a laser on the frosted glass doors ahead. For years, he’d lived under the belief that he and Aileen were alone in the world, that they had each other as anchors and no one else, that he was happy with his life that way and nothing and no one would ever change it.
Then Shayma had appeared and now he couldn’t picture his life without her. Loving Shayma didn’t diminish his love or bond with Aileen at all, only strengthened it and him. Loving Shayma made him feel invincible, like he could solve any problem, conquer any foe, if only she was by his side. They’d find Aileen and bring her home safe. Together.
He hesitated with his hand on the door, the metal cool beneath his sweaty palm. Then he checked his reflection in the glass and straightened his uniform before taking a deep breath for courage.
At last, he entered the VIP lounge and found utter chaos. Not exactly the romantic scene he’d been hoping for. The place was packed with travelers, some sleeping on benches, some on the floor. Several clusters of small children were running willy-nilly through the crowds, playing tag while a waiter and a bartender tried to help corral them for their harried-looking parents. The air smelled of fried food and air freshener and Silent Night was playing, ironically, over the PA system.
Murphy stood inside the doors and scanned the area, finally spotting Shayma against the far wall, in front of the windows, at a tiny table for two. She was turned away from him, staring outside he presumed, so she hadn’t noticed him enter. Careful to avoid stepping on someone, he made his way over to her table and looked at her for a moment, all midnight curls and warm curves, before clearing his throat to gain her attention. “Is this seat taken?”
Shayma looked at him, surprise and hurt warring on her gorgeous features. She gave a small shake of her head then clasped her hands in her lap as he took the empty seat across from her.
“Bet you’re wondering why I’m here,” he said, his usual small talk deserting him under the importance of this moment.
“It had crossed my mind, yes,” she said, so quietly he would’ve missed it if he hadn’t been paying attention. “We said our goodbyes back at the hotel, Murphy.”
He lowered his head, taking the burden of fucking up what was between them upon himself, then casting it aside in favor of the future he wanted to have, with her. “We did, that’s true. But you see, I can’t do it.”
“Do what?” She hazarded a confused look up at him.
“Let you go.” He shifted in his seat, folding his hands atop the table as he leaned closer. “See, I thought I could. It’s what I’ve always done. Let people go. Everyone but my sister. For a long time, I thought that’s how it was meant to be, just me and Aileen. But then you came along and showed me a different way. Showed me I could love more than one person.”
She raised her head and met his gaze now, her dark eyes unreadable. “And do you?”
“Love you? Yep. Afraid so. It’s terminal too, from the feel of it. Has been since that first day I saw you outside that restaurant and you blocked me from my quarry, tossing those silly packages of yours everywhere.”
“Those were presents.”
“Whatever.” He leaned even closer and inhaled deep of her scent—cinnamon and spice and everything lovely and wonderful. “My point is, I love you Shayma bint Amr Kahlan and I don’t intend to ever lose you again. No matter what happens, no matter what your father thinks about me or our relationship, no matter what life throws our way. I love you. Now and forever. And I intend to spend the rest of my days proving that to you, if you’ll have me.”
For the first time since he’d met her, Shayma appeared speechless, and he had to laugh. She blinked at him several times and then smiled and soon she was laughing too. Other people in the crowded lounge turned to stare at them but Murphy didn’t care. It felt so good to let go and relax with her at last. She reached up to tuck her hair behind her ear and he seized the moment and took her hand, lacing their fingers together.
“I love you, Shayma.”
She covered their joined hands with her other one and leaned forward until her forehead was touching his over the tiny table. Her beautiful eyes now shone with such deep love and devotion it humbled him. “I love you too, Murphy Coen. You stubborn, impossible, incredible man. Though I hope you didn’t push yourself too hard to find me.”
He shrugged, one side of his lips quirking into a smile. “I might have pushed a little.”
“You know by now the airports are closed because of the snow, right? I wouldn’t have left here until at least tomorrow afternoon at the earliest.”
“Right.” He kissed her cheek then nuzzled her soft skin. “And now?”
“Now what?” she asked, her voice sounding breathy and distracted and slightly husky with want, just how he liked it.
“Now when are you leaving?” He kissed the corner of her mouth, his breath held until he got her reply.
“Is never too soon?” Shayma bumped noses with him and giggled.
“Never sounds perfect to me, darling.” Murphy gave up the fight and kissed her then, slowly, deeply, sweetly, as the open strains of Let It Snow drifted from the overhead sound system.
End of A SEAL for Christmas
All I Want for Christmas is... Book 2
PS: Do you love sexy military men? Then keep reading for an exclusive extract from SEAL Defender.
Blurb
Snow is falling in Central Park, but this Christmas is going to be hotter than ever when a smart-mouthed journalist unravels a tightly wound billionaire.
When billionaire businessman Heathcliff Goldwin III returned home for the holidays, he never expected to be at the heart of a New York society scandal that thrusts him into the spotlight.
Attention is the last thing Heath wants, so when he learns his friend Murphy hasn’t heard from his journalist sister, Heath sees the chance to lay low and repay a debt to Murph. He’ll locate Aileen, keep her safe, and the whole scandal thing will blow over. But when he finds the petite brunette disguised as Santa and tailing a shady senator, Heath knows she’s in over her head. He should just tell Murphy where Aileen is and move on, but he’ll give her the chance to get her story…even if it means not letting her out of his sight.
Journalist Aileen Coen is hot on the trail of a crooked senator about to bilk innocent people of billions when her brother’s friend steps in to try and stop her. Even if Heath Goldwin hadn’t served in the Navy with Murphy, Aileen would recognize the Manhattan mogul’s handsome face and intense gaze from the tabloids all over town. He may be rich and powerful, but when Heath wants to drag her home to her brother, Aileen won’t back down…even if it means bringing Heath into the investigation with her.
As they work together to take down the corrupt politician, the chemistry between Aileen and Heath reaches the boiling point. Tight-laced Heath isn’t one to give his trust easily, but will Aileen be the woman to make him come undone?
1
There was something off about Santa.
Either that, or he’d gotten a whole lot shorter, skinnier and female since the last time Heath Goldwin, III had seen him. From the shadowed alcove where he’d taken up residence, Heath split his atten
tion between the odd-looking bell-ringer and the doorway to the office building nearby.
He was here on this chilly late December night waiting for a glimpse of his quarry, Senator Milford Lawrence of Kentucky. A man about as crooked as they came, at least from the investigation Heath and his team had conducted, and a person of interest in his best friend Murphy Coen’s little sister’s disappearance.
Well, if one considered the age of twenty-five little. Heath honestly didn’t know anything about having a sibling, being an only child himself. But he did consider the guys from his old special ops team—Murphy and another man named Daveed Rafik—about as close to brothers as he was going to get in this lifetime. And if Murphy needed Heath’s help to find his sister, then he’d damn well see the mission done.
A particularly biting wind swirled and Heath gathered his thick wool coat closer around his body. Normally, he stayed indoors during the surveillance work he and the guys did on projects or persons that interested them. He’d been the leader of their special ops team back in the Middle East and his specialty was strategizing—working out the intricate details of the group’s plans and implementing them in the most effective, efficient way possible. It was what had made him such a good solider and what had made him rich in his own life as a civilian outside the military. And yeah, Heath had come from a wealthy family, but he’d never rested on those laurels, choosing instead to build a tech company on his own from the ground up and using that to leverage his trust fund into a billion-dollar business.
In other words, he wasn’t usually out in the field getting his hands dirty. Not that he minded hard work. It was just that analysis suited his style better than brute physicality.
Heath hunkered against the brick wall beside him as another gust of arctic wind whistled through the alcove. The snowy weather in Manhattan this year had hit early and with brutal force, leaving a constant foot of snow on the ground and a persistent chill in Heath’s bones.
Hell, you sound like an old man.
He wasn’t, only thirty-six. But there were times since he’d gotten back from his last deployment in Afghanistan with The Three Doves—a name he and the guys had chosen because even though they were military, their ultimate goal was peace—when Heath felt truly ancient. It was more mental exhaustion, he supposed, than anything. Seeing the horrors of war firsthand and the brutal, selfish lengths some went to in order to gain and keep power made his stomach turn and his soul shrivel. That was another reason why he was out here. From what they’d uncovered, Senator Lawrence was on some kind of power trip himself, both literally and figuratively, and he intended to put a stop to it. As soon as he located Aileen Coen, of course.
Maybe by finding her, hopefully alive and well, Heath could pay back the huge debt he owed Murphy for saving his ass more than once back in the desert. Maybe Heath could find some of his old enthusiasm for life too. But unfortunately, today at least, all Heath had found was frustration and frostbite.
He winced slightly as he adjusted his weight. His left leg was going numb again, dammit. Nerve damage and arthritis from an old riding injury. Which only served to make him feel even older. With a sigh, he leaned his shoulder against the freezing brick and shifted his attention back to the mysterious Santa impersonator again. He figured the charity was probably equal opportunity just like everyone else, but there still seemed something odd about her. Behind that fluffy white fake beard and bushy gray wig, the woman’s features were too delicate, somehow familiar and those eyes—like the finest amber, sharp and wary as if looking for trouble behind every stranger’s face. He’d seen those eyes before, Heath was sure of it.
Not to mention how the woman seemed as keen to keep an eye on the doorway of that office building as Heath. More telling, she’d not once glanced at any of the people streaming in and out of the shop behind her, even the ones sliding coins and bills into the red bucket suspended on a tripod in front of her. Just kept ringing that bell in her hand and staring at the entrance. Strange that, given how supposedly her entire purpose in being here was to raise money for the underprivileged.
The glass revolving doors to the office building began to spin and Heath snapped his attention back to the real task at hand—finding Senator Lawrence and getting close enough to him to ask him questions about Aileen Coen’s disappearance. That office building held the corporate offices of EnKor Energy, allegedly one of the nation’s most innovative green energy companies. The research Heath’s team had collected suggested otherwise, however, and seemed to suggest that Senator Lawrence—who also happened to be head of the Senate’s Energy and Natural Resources Committee—was somehow involved in the fraud. The fact his nephew, Frank Kent, was CEO of EnKor didn’t help to ease Heath’s suspicions either. The senator stepped outside, but before Heath could cross the busy street, a black SUV swerved up to the curb and blocked his view. Cursing, he moved farther down the curb to try and get a better view, wading through the snow and ice in his hand-stitched leather boots from the same company in London that made waders for the Queen, battling the thick holiday crowds along the way.
Soon, the SUV pulled away, taking the Senator with it. And there went his best shot at getting new information about Aileen’s whereabouts.
Shit, piss, and damn.
Mumbling under his breath, Heath trudged down the packed sidewalk, following the slow progression of the SUV in the late afternoon traffic and then turned back slightly to see what his female Santa was doing at that point. But he found she’d packed up her gear and was heading down the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street in the same direction, her gaze locked on the SUV as well. Alarm bells went off in his head and an idea started to form, nebulous at first, but gaining ground with each step he took.
He’d met Murphy’s sister Aileen a couple of times over the years and remembered her being about a foot shorter than his own six-three. He also remembered what she lacked in height, she made up for in attitude. Heath snorted as he dodged a group of tourists taking photos on the sidewalk, then spotted the SUV stopped at the red light ahead. Murphy and his sister were both of Irish-Jewish decent, with dark hair and big personalities. But where Murphy had dark eyes and tended to look almost Arabic, Aileen had a paler complexion and light, amber-colored eyes…
Holy shit. It couldn’t be that simple, could it?
The light turned green and Heath crossed the street, keeping an eye on the SUV and Santa at the same time. If the itinerary hadn’t changed, Senator Lawrence was due to stop at a venue in Central Park to do some glad-handing with his constituents. Midterm elections were coming up the following year and all the elected officials in his party were eager to retain their majority in Congress. Throbbing pain zinged up Heath’s leg, but he pushed it aside as usual. He’d broken his left leg when he’d been a kid by tumbling off one of his father’s prize polo ponies while trying to impress him. Even after hiring the finest orthopedic surgeon money could buy to patch up Heath’s shattered bones, the leg had never quite healed correctly, leaving him with permanent nerve damage and a slight limp. It ached worse in the cold, another gift from his early-onset arthritis. At least his disability hadn’t kept him from joining the Navy. His father’s influence and the family’s money had turned out to have some advantages in the end.
Ahead, about a half a block away, the SUV swerved to the curb again near the Charles A. Discovery Center. The driver put the blinkers on then got out and came around the vehicle to assist the senator. Two hulking bodyguards, along with a small contingent of Secret Service agents, flanked the elderly man as he stepped down onto the sidewalk. Another reminder that looks could be deceiving. Milford Lawrence looked like someone’s kindly old grandpa, with his slightly stooped posture, balding white head, wire-rimmed glasses, and kindly smile. But behind that façade was a businessman every bit as ruthless as the sharks that swam down on Wall Street.
The notes left behind by Murphy’s sister Aileen before her disappearance suggested she might’ve gotten too close to a story about Lawrenc
e for her own good. She was a reporter for the New York Globe newspaper and fancied herself a hard-hitting investigative journalist, though up until now the most controversial story she’d covered had been an alleged case of stolen dog food at last year’s Westminster Dog Show. Turned out to have just been a mix up with the tags backstage, but Murphy always joked that Aileen was like a pit bull when it came to a story. He said his sister refused to give up on an idea until she had irrefutable proof it wasn’t viable. If that was true, and she’d gone after the senator to prove he had shady dealings with the energy companies he was tasked to oversee, then that could have cost Aileen her freedom. Or worse.
In the right circumstances, Heath could understand her kind of loyalty and dedication, even admire it. But this mess with the Senator wasn’t one of them. And after he and his team had uncovered evidence of what appeared to be evolving into a massive conspiracy between Senator Lawrence and his nephew Frank Kent to commit fraud involving EnKor, well that put finding Aileen at the top of Heath’s to-do list.
He finally crossed with the light over to the Central Park side of Broadway and spotted his mysterious woman in the Santa suit just ahead, setting her bucket of money down beside a homeless man with a dog cuddled on his lap, then ditching the tripod in the bushes before running along the perimeter of the park. Heath’s earlier suspicions grew into more. She was the right height and build for Aileen and if the way she’d given that money away without a second thought was any indication, she sure as hell didn’t work for the charity she’d claimed back on the corner in front of the office building.
All I Want for Christmas is…: The Complete Series Page 25