01 blamedbloo 7h0PtOOw

Blamed
By Edie Harris
Born into a long line of spies, sanctioned killers and covert weapons developers, Beth Faraday
carried out her first hit-for-hire when she was still a teenager.
That part of her life—the American spy royalty part—ended one year ago, with a job gone wrong in
Afghanistan. The collateral damage she caused with a single shot was unfathomable and, for Beth,
unforgivable. She’s worked hard to build a new life for herself, far away from the family business.
But someone, somewhere, hasn’t forgotten what Beth did in Kabul. And they want revenge.
As the Faraday clan bands together to defend Beth and protect their legacy, Beth is forced to flee her
new home with the unlikeliest of allies—MI6 agent Raleigh Vick, the only man she’s ever loved. And
the one she thought she’d killed in the desert.
Book one of the Blood Money series
84,000 words


Dear Reader,
Welcome to the November 2014 edition of the Dear Reader letter. This month, Carina Press and I
share an anniversary: five years since we joined Harlequin! Harlequin has been an amazing home for
both of us, showing support, enthusiasm and offering a team environment for both the business and for
authors. I’m thrilled to have seen Carina Press and our authors grow to great success in sales,
reviews, careers and awards in the five years since we opened our doors, and we believe things can
only get better from here.
In honor of the holiday season, two authors bring us holiday novellas. First, in Shannon Stacey’s
contemporary romance, Her Holiday Man, two people, both wounded by love in the past, are brought
together by a widow, a child’s joy, and the spirit of Christmas. Later in the month, star-crossed lovers
Gabe and Cat meet again at Christmas after five years apart—just a week before she’s set to marry
another man, in the historical romance A Christmas Reunion by Susanna Fraser.
Lauren Dane is back with the third installment in her urban fantasy series, and this one is more
romantic than ever! Don’t miss Rowan and Clive in Blade on the Hunt.
As a follow-up to his incredibly popular romantic suspense Fair Game, male/male romance author

Josh Lanyon brings us Fair Play, in which ex-FBI agent Elliot Mills must figure out who is willing to
kill to keep his former ’60s radical father’s memoirs from being published.
In Tempting the Player by Kat Latham, a rugby player’s extreme fear of flying keeps his career from
taking off—until a sexy pilot tempts him into her cockpit to help him overcome his phobia...of planes
and commitment. Joining Kat in returning with a contemporary romance is Stacy Gail with Where
There’s a Will, the much-anticipated story of Coe, who won reader’s hearts in Starting from Scratch.
This is one hero who will steal your heart, all because of the milk!
Designed for Love by Kelsey Browning is also in our contemporary romance lineup in November. A
former Houston socialite is out to prove she’s more than a blonde bobblehead by managing a huge
construction project. When an environmentalist mucks up Ashton’s plans, she must rely on the bluecollar contractor who can either help her build her dreams or crush them.
Last, but not least, of the fantastic contemporary romances is male/male romance In the Fire, the
second part of the In the Kitchen duology by Nikka Michaels and Eileen Griffin. After spending the
last eight years apart, chefs Ethan Martin and Jamie Lassiter have to decide whether to face the fire to
get what they want or live a lifetime apart. Don’t miss the chemistry and emotional angst between
Ethan and Jamie in this explosive duology.
Two murders in two mansions in two weeks—what’s going on in Naples’ most glamorous
neighborhood? For cozy mystery fans, Jean Harrington’s Murders by Design series should not be
missed. Pick up her newest release, The Design Is Murder, or catch up with Designed for Death,
The Monet Murders, Killer Kitchens and Rooms to Die For.


This month we’re thrilled to welcome Edie Harris to our publishing team with Blood Money, her
romantic suspense series that follows the lives and loves of a family of spies. In Blamed, A Blood
Money Novel, we meet the first of the siblings. Beth Faraday, a former assassin who wants nothing
more than to stay retired, finds her new life turning anything but normal when sexy British spy and
ghost from her past Raleigh Vick shows up in Chicago, determined to protect her from the bounty
that’s been placed on her head.
Coming in December: Leah Braemel caps off her sexy cowboy romance trilogy, new author Caroline
Kimberly is back with her sophomore historical romance, Michele Mannon concludes her knock-out
MMA trilogy, and so much more!

Here’s wishing you a wonderful month of books you love, remember and recommend.
Happy reading!
~Angela James
Editorial Director, Carina Press (Five years and counting!!)


Dedication
For T.M.
For K.C.
For B.W.
And always, always, for my mother.


Acknowledgments
As the daughter of an editor, it has always been my belief (and chagrined experience) that every
writer, no matter how talented, needs an editor. More than that, a writer needs an editor who won’t
cater to the arrogant whims of said writer, but will best serve the interests of the book—characters,
plot, the works. It’s been a privilege to collaborate with one such editor, Kerri Buckley of Harlequin
Carina Press, as we kick off the Blood Money series together with Blamed. This book is far better
than it would otherwise be because of her; thus far, it’s been a trial not to fly across the country and
tackle-hug her for all the wonderful work she’s done and continues to do with the Faraday clan.
Thanks must also be given to Angela James, for believing in this series enough to acquire the first five
books in one fell swoop, and to my agent, Laura Bradford, for making all the behind-the-scenes
publishing-business stuff happen like magic. You ladies are bomb.
Also? Thank you to my father for making me watch Harrison Ford’s The Fugitive at what was likely
too young an age. I imprinted on it (and Die Hard, let’s be honest), and look where we are now. Love
you.


Author’s Note

Fun fact: Beth and Vick started life as a weekly serial feature titled “In Her Sights” on my website in
2011. Yes, you heard me—2011. Then I sent them into time-out on my hard drive until they agreed to
play nice with one another...and were reborn into bigger, better, brighter characters three years later
when I submitted a 140-character Twitter pitch during #PitMad in January 2014 to Angela James, the
editorial director of Harlequin Carina Press. My tweet:
She was an assassin; now she’s retired, but a sexy MI6 agent from her past missed the memo. The
price on her head doesn’t help, either.
And lo, the Blood Money series was born.
There’s lots I could—should—say about writing Blamed, but the most important thing is this: Please
don’t go looking for a secret storage wing, like Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, in the
Art Institute of Chicago. I took what we call “creative liberty” here, and the very nice museum
security guards will totes escort you from the building. And probably ban you for life. And that would
be the worst, so consider yourself warned.


“Forgiveness is a virtue of the brave.”
—Indira Gandhi


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
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen


Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Epilogue
Life in Death: The Faraday Story by T. S. Marcus, PhD
About Ripped
Excerpt From Ripped
About the Author
Copyright


Prologue
The blood in her mouth tasted like hot pennies.
Flinching as a secondary arterial spray lashed her face, she kept her fingers clenched in her
tormenter’s hair, holding his head aloft for the slice of the blade she’d stolen from his tool kit when
his back was turned.
That mistake had just cost him his life.

Her stomach lurched, and she shoved the dead man away, wishing he’d deafened her when he
boxed her ears on the second—third?—day, so she couldn’t hear the back of his skull hit the concrete
floor with a sickening thwack. Her hand shook, the knife threatening to slip from her mangled fingers,
but once it fell, she knew she wouldn’t be able to pick it back up, and she couldn’t afford to be
weaponless. Injured knuckles white around the slick rubber grip, she staggered back until her
shoulders hit the far wall of her prison.
Her torture chamber.
The blood cooling on her face ratcheted her panic up a notch. Every breath was pure agony, broken
ribs prodding like iron pokers against her lungs. Every square inch of skin on her back burned like
hellfire. Her body was one giant bruise, her mind a tangled mess. Tears spilled down her cheeks, wet
and warm—and silent.
She’d not made a sound when she slit her captor’s throat. Her family would be so proud.
The thought made her tears fall faster. A longing for home and the Queen Anne Victorian in which
she’d grown up, the same longing she had buried deep for the past year, threatened to bring her to her
knees, but no. No. It was just like the knife—if she fell, she’d never get back up, and eventually,
someone was going to come looking for the man she had killed.
John. He’d told her his name was John, but surely that was a lie. Monsters never told the truth.
Swallowing her nausea, she stumbled toward John’s crumpled body. The thick pool of blood was
unavoidable, though she shuddered when red seeped between her bare toes. Dizziness swamped her
when she dropped into a crouch, the hand not holding the blade searching the pockets of the dead
man’s cargos for his key card.
Her victory upon locating the card was short-lived when she remembered what came next.
Each time John had “visited” her, it had become harder and harder to stay conscious. Everything in
her hurt as she’d never hurt before. The temptation to let her eyes slide shut forever had been so
strong, John singing soothingly while he disinfected his tools from their session.
Lullabies. He sang her lullabies. Rock-a-bye baby, on the tree top...
She had always remained awake long enough to watch him leave, knowing he’d be back to resume
her torture. The key card was merely half the equation when it came to unlocking the door. John’s
fingerprint was the other.
When the wind blows, the cradle will rock...

Dragging John’s body to the scanner mounted next to the door was not an option, not in her
weakened state. Her gaze caught on his limp hand, and a tremor wracked her. There was no choice.
Flattening his palm against the bloody floor, she lowered the knife.
When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall...
She couldn’t help it—she vomited. But when her retching ceased, she gingerly picked up the


severed finger and rose from her crouch. She almost didn’t feel the wetness underfoot anymore,
which meant blessed numbness had nearly arrived. Key card first, then the bloody print on the
scanner’s screen, and she held her breath.
And down will come baby, cradle and—
The near-silent snick of the steel door unlatching shook John’s voice from her head. Freedom. Oh,
God, freedom from this hellhole was so close, so amazingly close she was dizzy with it.
Her tears fell harder. Fuck. Why couldn’t she stop crying?
With a soft whirring noise, the door slid open, and a bunker-style hallway cast in eerie greenish
light was revealed. She was underground, as suspected. A memory flashed, of John using a medical
scalpel to dig the GPS tracker out from behind her ear. There had been nothing clinical or precise in
how he’d wielded that blade.
Can’t have them finding you before we’re done here, little girl.
She didn’t bother looking back at his lifeless form as she eased through the door, still clutching his
finger and key card. They might still prove useful in helping her escape this prison; John would not.
Adjusting her grip on the knife, she crept down the hall, ignoring the black spots clouding her
vision and the vicious pounding of her head. It felt as though her brain were trying to punch its way
through her skull, and she simply didn’t have time for that nonsense, because someone was watching
her. Her hazy thoughts pictured the camera mounted in the corner of her cell, its little red dot blinking,
always blinking. Someone would know what she’d done to John, and she refused to wait for
retaliation to find her.
Run now. Collapse later.
The concrete was cold beneath her sticky, blood-soaked feet, with a chill that crept up her ankles,
her calves, making her knees knock together. She was so tired. It had been at least a day since John

had given her anything to drink, and he’d never provided food. As she slowly made her way down the
empty corridor, her senses began to fail her, the muted buzz in her ears blocking out the faint echo of
her rasping breaths. Her adrenaline rush from the kill was over.
Perhaps...perhaps she wouldn’t make it out of here, after all.
A loud sob escaped against her will.
The sounds of footsteps, heavy and booted, broke through the encroaching deafness, and then there
he stood in front of her, limned in the faint glow of the bunker lights, a tall man with ice for eyes and a
nasty-looking gun.
“Beth.”
She blinked at him through her tears, her relief short-lived as a wave of bitterness swept through
her battered body as she saw where, precisely, that gun was aimed. Her voice cracked, breaking low
and hoarse when she spoke. “Shot through the heart, and you’re to blame.”
She hummed the rest.
You give love a bad name.


Chapter One
One Week Earlier
The problem with dating, Beth Faraday decided, was that it involved socializing with people other
than oneself. And people were the worst.
“I can’t remember the last time I was so scared. I mean, the mayor at the chef’s table! I was
convinced I would dump the soup course all over him.”
Mark was a sous chef at a posh Chicago restaurant, which was why Beth had agreed to go out with
him—she was a hungry single woman, after all, and her cooking abilities started and stopped with
microwave instructions. Dating a man who could whip up a meal? He didn’t even have to be good in
bed.
He was required to not bore her senseless, however.
Mark kept talking as she unlocked the gate, trudging wearily up the steps to the front door of the
historical Lincoln Park three-flat in which she lived.
“But the mayor, he was so nice, Beth. He talked to everyone, and did I tell you that Oprah was with

him? Like, for real, Oprah.”
Rahm Emanuel and Oprah Winfrey terrified this man. Beth couldn’t decide if she wanted to laugh
or roll her eyes. Mark had no idea what real terror was like. No. Idea.
He fell silent when she jiggled her keys in one hand, and she glanced at his face. It was a nice
enough face, with a sharp chin and brown eyes that watched her expectantly, obviously hoping she
would invite him in.
She sighed. There’d been no spark, no chemistry—only pleasant smiles and shared appreciation of
tapas and triple-shot espresso. “Thanks for a great time tonight, Mark.” She offered him a small
smile. Just because she didn’t especially like people didn’t mean she couldn’t play the game. She was
a Faraday, after all, and Faradays were born with bullshit in their veins.
Mark’s gaze warmed as he sidled closer to her on the stoop. “The night doesn’t have to end now.
We could go inside. I could throw some dessert together.”
Uh-oh. “I don’t have anyth—”
“Trust me, whatever you have in your kitchen, I can make it work.” His grin was the same charming
one that had convinced her to say yes to this date in the first place, when she had stopped by his
restaurant to deliver an oil painting on loan from the Art Institute. That grin, combined with the fact
that Beth had never once turned down dessert, tempted her for the briefest of moments.
But then she looked past him and up, homing in on the third floor of the large house across the
street. The darkness behind the prominent bay window indicated clearly enough that no one was
home. She felt a pang in her chest.
Smiling at Mark again, a little tighter, a little colder, she waited for him to notice the flashing No
Vacancy sign she’d just stamped across her forehead. “Thanks again, Mark.” The first rule of letting
someone down, according to her fussy lawyer brother, was saying his name in a firm, apologetic
manner. Done and done. “Have a good night.” She slid the key into the lock and opened her building’s
front door.
His grin slipped, but he nodded. “G’night, Beth.” He left the small square of her front yard with a


wave and a wry smile, thankfully not pushing her for more.
As soon as the door closed behind her, she leaned heavily back against it. Idiot. Mark had been

sweet—boring, but sweet—interested in her, and friendly. A chef, for God’s sake. He could have fed
her yummy food for the rest of her life, made even more delicious because she wouldn’t have had to
make it herself. She, who burned Lean Cuisines nine times out of ten.
When Mark had asked her to dinner, she’d told herself he was exactly the sort of guy she should
want, yet she had just sent him away after only a couple of hours in his company. How could she
make any real decision about who he was or how they’d suit after little more than two hours? Sure,
his idea of extreme stress was serving soup to a publicly elected official, while hers...
She thought of the house across the street, of its dark windows and the man who lived behind them.
Yes, her idea of stress, extreme or otherwise, was a world apart from Mark’s. The sous chef
would never slink his way into her heart and latch his claws onto the thumping organ until she bled.
Since she still appeared to be oozing blood a year after the last set of claws released her, she
couldn’t in good conscience open herself up to more emotion.
With more energy than she felt, Beth sprinted up two sets of stairs until she reached the welcoming
white door of her top-floor apartment. Her alarm system beeped at her as she entered, and she quickly
typed in the disarm code before locking the door behind her, sliding home both the deadbolt and
chain. She didn’t bother turning on the lights.
The high heels of her boots clicked succinctly against the reclaimed wood floors as she moved into
the kitchen. Tossing her clutch purse and black peacoat on the counter, she boosted herself up onto its
granite surface, the coolness of which seeped through the seat of her dark jeans. Routine. It was all
about the routine.
Knowing she was tone deaf didn’t stop her from singing about the applause Lady Gaga lived for as
she slowly, carefully lifted one leg straight up into the air, the muscles along the back of her thigh
groaning in protest at the stretch. The snowy slush of Chicago’s streets in winter made running a pain
in the ass, which meant Beth, whose new motto in life was to avoid pain—physical, emotional,
whatever—at any cost, hadn’t tied on her Nikes since Christmas, and it was now February.
Unzipping her boot, she set it silently on the counter next to her, then repeated the process with the
other. “I live for the applause, applause, applause. Live for the applause-plause, live for the
applause-plause.” Feet covered in thin black socks, she dropped soundlessly to the floor and began
her search. Falling into her pattern was easy as she padded over to the sideboard next to her unused
dining set and hit Play on her sound system. The strong belt of Lady Gaga filled the front room,

picking up where Beth’s screeching had left off.
The layer of baby powder dusted over the windowsills behind the sideboard remained
undisturbed. Following the line of the wall, Beth moved along to the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves
flanking her pristine, white-painted brick fireplace. No sign that her books and knickknacks had been
bothered, but she checked the backs of picture frames and stuck her fingers behind the uneven rows of
paperback novels and hardcover biographies, anyway.
Unable to resist compulsion, she lifted the heavy mirror she’d found at a flea market last September
over the mantel and continued her rounds across the room. The large, three-pane front window, the
down pillows on her sofa, floor lamps and seat cushions and the shadows behind her mismatched
furniture. All the while, the music muffled her footsteps, keeping her location within the apartment an
auditory mystery to anyone who might or might not be listening in.


Routine. The kitchen was next, with the drawers and cabinets gliding smoothly open and closed.
Her cooking utensils remained ironically unused, and Beth smiled wistfully, remembering how her
mother had fluttered and lamented over her younger daughter’s lack of culinary talent, even as she’d
overstocked Beth’s new kitchen a year ago.
She hadn’t seen Sofia Faraday since she had placed the final spatula in the ceramic holder next to
the stovetop. Beth missed her mother so fiercely her heart clenched in her chest.
Thinking of the family she’d left behind when she gave up the business and moved to Chicago was
a distraction Beth couldn’t afford, not until she completed her routine. The powder room was next,
followed by the empty, never-used guest room, before she eased into her subtly feminine bedroom,
with its pale blue walls and gauzy curtains, at which poor, dull Mark would never get a peek.
Her movements were quick, swift, her particular neuroses a honed blade as she checked the vanity
and its matching tufted stool, the overstuffed bed pillows, the cherry wood headboard and bedside
tables...the lush California king she’d never broken in, not in the way a soft, pretty bed ought to be.
And if that wasn’t deserving of a thwarted sigh, Beth didn’t know what was, even as she ruthlessly
shoved aside thoughts of men who lived behind darkened windows, stirring her dormant curiosity
more than they ought to.
The clear fishing line strung between the handles of the French doors to her balcony was unbroken,

and the walk-in closet and luxurious master bath were subjected to the same thorough scrutiny. She
was aware that she’d unconsciously silenced her breathing and slowed her heartbeat, tricks she’d
learned at her father’s knee, but finally, the routine was complete. No one had been inside her safe
haven in the two hours and thirty-seven minutes she’d been gone on her date.
Being a retired assassin sure had its trials.
She flopped backward on the bed with a gusty groan. Dating was hard. Normalcy was hard. Why
had she ever thought she could get a good thing going with an Average Joe—er, Mark? Average
Marks didn’t fall for a woman whose paranoia went beyond federal background checks and straight
into bugging her potential boyfriends’ apartments—all before the first date.
Not that she’d done that with Mark, or any other guy, for that matter. But she had considered
planting a listening device in his Logan Square apartment for a hot second, and that alone was enough
to piss her off.
Suddenly uncomfortable, she twisted an arm beneath her body, writhing until...there. The small
pistol she carried in the belted holster riding the center of her spine slipped into her hand. The weight
of the Beretta, warmed from her skin, felt so comforting against her palm.
That sad fact said more about her stupid attempt at leading a normal life than anything else had thus
far.
Beth suddenly, painfully wished for a pet—something to come home to. She wouldn’t even care if
it messed up her security measures, forcing her to spend double the amount of time combing her home
each night to make sure it remained the perfect sanctuary. A dog, maybe?
No, not a dog, because dogs needed yards bigger than the postage stamp of grass in front of her
building. Not to mention Beth wasn’t home during the day, and didn’t dogs need to be let out to do
their business regularly? No chance in hell she’d ever allow a stranger into her apartment—a stranger
much less aware than she—to walk and relieve her puppy.
An awkwardly floppy, wheat-colored puppy with oversized paws she would name...Waffles.
Beth grinned up at the ceiling. “Waffles,” she whispered.


With Waffles the Imaginary Canine in her mind, she rolled from the bed to unwind the fishing line
from the balcony doors, unlatching them to step out onto her meticulously shoveled and swept deck.

Escape routes must always be accessible, no matter the season, after all.
The cold night air snatched the oxygen right out of her lungs as she leaned against the wood rail to
stare down at the fenced-in patio and alleyway at the rear of her building. Nope. No way could she
keep Waffles three stories up on an eight-by-twelve-foot balcony.
“Damn it.” She had gotten rather fond of Waffles in the past thirty seconds.
An angry shrill from inside the apartment—the annoying landline phone her oldest brother had
insisted she install—had her tucking the gun into the back waistband of her jeans. But as she turned,
something about the building next door’s snow-covered third-floor deck caught her eye, erasing all
thoughts of Waffles.
In that typical way of Chicago’s older neighborhoods, the houses were situated close together,
often with only a few scant feet separating one brick wall from another. Though Beth had maintained
a fairly hermit-like existence since moving in, she knew her nearest neighbors, and the owners of that
specific deck, Bob and Keith, were wintering in Tucson and had been since November, not to return
until April.
So why were there footprints pressed into the six inches of un-shoveled snow covering their deck?
Fresh, human-sized footprints.
The back of her neck prickled when she stepped into her apartment again, locking the balcony
doors behind her as she hurried to pick up the cordless phone from its cradle on the wall next to the
fridge. “Hello?”
“What the hell is that noise?”
Beth realized the music was still blaring, though Lady Gaga had been replaced by—”Katy Perry,”
she informed her oldest brother, Casey, unable to help the smile that curved her lips even as her mind
lingered on the snowy footprints. “Don’t you listen to the radio?”
“Yeah, no. Turn it off, will you?”
Moving to mute the heavy pop beats thumping from her speakers, she reached behind her to idly
stroke the gun at the small of her back. She wouldn’t give in to the urge to grip it, check the chamber
and flip off the safety. She was stronger than her paranoia, so she would not do what her instincts
screamed at her to do. “Let me guess—there’s no radio where you are. I can’t think of any other
reasonable explanation for you not to know Katy Perry.”
“There’s radio in Belfast,” Casey Faraday grumbled, his trademark military-man gruffness shaping

every syllable. “I just have more respect for my eardrums than you do.”
Tucking the phone between her ear and shoulder, she went to rummage through the purse she’d
abandoned on the counter, needing to do something with her hands other than caress her firearm.
“You’re in Belfast.” Not that she believed him for a second—Casey was the man who’d taught her the
routine she performed tonight and every night. No way would he give away his real location across
the landline, when anyone could be tapping in and listening to their conversation. “Shoot.”
“What?”
Turning the clutch upside down, she stared down at her cell phone, ID, credit card and cash. “I
can’t find my Chapstick.”
There was a pause on the other end of the line. “It’s nice to hear you complain about something
so...inconsequential.”


“Cracked lips are not inconsequential, Casey,” she muttered as she dug into the pockets of her
jeans.
“So, should I ask how your date with Mark went?”
Now it was her turn to pause. “I never told you I had a date.” Or who with.
“Oh, didn’t you?” Too calm, too innocent.
“Casey.”
“What?”
“Who do you have watching me now?” Please say it wasn’t the FBI this time.
“No one.”
She pinched the bridge of her nose, squeezing her eyes momentarily shut. “Damn it, I don’t need
you keeping tabs on me anymore.” Footprints on the balcony. “I’m good here, inconsequential
chapped lips and all.”
His voice was suddenly serious, the stern and authoritative soldier breaking through his brotherly
demeanor. Whenever Casey used that tone, it meant that orders were forthcoming and argument would
not, under any circumstances, be tolerated. “No, you’re not good, Bethie, and that’s why I’m calling.”
Crap, but she hated when he went all bossy-britches on her. She’d worked under his command for
a decade, back when her role in the family business had been her reason for breathing, and old habits

died hard. Stalking through her unlit living room to the front windows, she peeked through a slat in the
teakwood blinds at the night outside, dark and cold. No sign of life on the street below...or in the
window across the way. “If you guys are so concerned about me, why isn’t one of you here yet?”
“Tobias is on his way to you.”
“What?” Her other older brother—the fussy lawyer—was probably the last family member she’d
expect to show up on her doorstep in Chicago. “Why?”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you. We’ve got trouble.”
“Then why...why didn’t you call my cell?” Her cell was secure, but anything they said on the
landline could be overheard, and likely was, given her storied past. It was why Casey had demanded
she get a landline in the first place, so anyone listening would witness Beth being a normal—capital
“N” normal—civilian when she spoke to the cable company or one of her coworkers at the Institute.
“Because I want them to know we know.” Casey’s voice was brutal and as cold as the weather
outside her apartment. “A hit’s been put on you.”
She froze, her stomach cramping. “You really are in Belfast, aren’t you?” she whispered as
everything clicked into place. Tobias flying to see her. Human footprints on Bob and Keith’s balcony.
The dark window across the street.
Wait. Not so dark, not anymore. Flashes of light, the kind that signaled discharge by a firearm, lit
up the bay window that hadn’t shown any sign of life in nearly forty-eight hours. His window. “Shit.”
The Beretta was back in her hand before she took her next breath, dropping the cordless phone to
the rug on her brother’s concerned shouts. Not bothering to find shoes, she dashed down the stairs and
out into the street—an empty street that held new menace, every shifting shadow a possible threat—in
nothing but her socks. The freezing winter air cut through her thin blouse, sharpening her senses as she
sprinted up the shoveled sidewalk.
She had to save her friendly neighborhood spy.


Chapter Two
The front door handle depressed with a quick click, and Beth moved into the dark stairwell. The turnof-the-century limestone mansion with its gorgeous wrought iron detailing had been rehabbed into a
nouveau three-flat much like hers, meaning that the door to her left was the entrance to the main-floor
apartment. Taking the stairs as silently as possible on feet frozen from her run, she ascended to the

third floor.
Routine was one thing, but this necessary stealth, this adrenaline rush...it was a different beast
entirely, shoving her back into her past with all the subtlety of a bomb blast.
Her palms grew slick when she reached the top of the stairwell and saw his open door, her pulse a
heavy drumbeat in her ears. Three seconds. She had three seconds to get her brain and body under
control. No freaking out or flashbacks allowed, not when she had no idea what waited for her inside
that apartment.
One. Two.
She might be out of the family business, but she refused to stand by and watch lives be lost when
she had the power to save them.
Three.
Keeping her back to the wall as she entered the open-plan living space, Beth gave her eyes a
moment to adjust before taking in the black shapes of his oversized couch and large club chair facing
a sleek, wall-mounted television. The dining table to her right would seat six comfortably, and on its
surface sat a closed laptop and a briefcase that had fallen open on its side. Papers spilled from it onto
the floor, next to a forgotten suit jacket.
Other out-of-place details caught her eye as she cleared the front room. The huge print of Manet’s
Music in the Tuileries over the fireplace hung askew, and a plush faux-fur cushion had fallen halfway
off the piano bench in front of a baby grand. The chic, moneyed interior, so clearly provided by a
professional decorator, lent few clues as to the personality of the man who’d lived here for the past
six months.
There was no noise in the place, nothing at all. Even the soft hum of heat through the ventilation
was absent. Beth frowned, noticing for the first time that it was definitely cold in here, the
uncomfortable kind of cold that meant the furnace had been turned off for an extended vacation, the
owner returning from balmy Tahiti to a meat locker instead of a living room. Except she doubted this
particular owner was currently taking vacay on a tropical island.
Three bullet casings in the corner snagged her attention, indicating the shooter had been hiding
behind the piano. Whoever it had been hadn’t bothered to bus the scene, which meant—
Which meant the shooter either didn’t care about getting caught...or was still here.
That was when she saw the blood. A trio of droplets marred the hardwood floor, leading away

from the piano. More red appeared in the massive kitchen, and she flowed silently past the marble
countertops, rich wood cabinetry, and huge appliances.
Overcompensating much? She let herself smile as she passed the laundry room and half-bath. It
would be absolutely karmic if a guy as gorgeous as the one living here packed a peanut beneath his
belt.
The hall split off into two rooms, one of which appeared to be an empty office. To her left,


opposite a linen closet, was the partially closed door to what looked like the master bedroom, and
from deep within, she heard the first noises since entering: the steady drip-drip-drip of a faucet not
turned all the way off.
Blood marked the door.
Dread curdled her stomach as she inched inside, noting the wide-open balcony as she cleared the
room. With the muzzle of her gun leading the way, she skirted the armoire and entered the attached
bathroom. The dripping grew louder, angrier, more ominous, and the Beretta shook in her hands.
Chest tight, lungs pumping, she stared at the closed shower curtain circling the elegant claw-foot tub.
At the streaks of blood on white fabric.
Oh, hell no. She’d seen Hitchcock movies—she knew how this shit went down. If anyone was still
in the apartment, process of elimination said that person was behind the bloodstained shower curtain.
Options, she needed options. The Beth of one year ago would have already mentally articulated
half a dozen actions and outcomes, but the Beth of one year ago had gone to ground, and for very good
reasons. This Beth, the Beth with shaking hands and choppy breathing, was more than out of shape
physically—she was out of shape psychologically, as well. She wasn’t made for danger and intrigue
any longer.
Damn it. She should have let Mark feed her dessert tonight.
The infamous Faraday nerves of steel having long since deserted her, Beth made her decision and
prayed it was the right one. If not, she’d be dead, and that would piss Tobias off like nothing else:
flying halfway across the world for nothing.
She shifted the gun to her left hand and exhaled. Knowing she’d only have a split second in which
anyone in the tub would be surprised and blinded, Beth smacked the light switch on the wall before

lunging forward to fling back the shower curtain.
And came face-to-face with the business end of a nine-millimeter Ruger.
Her man was sprawled in the tub, pale-faced and bleeding from a gunshot wound in his side, but
his aim was confident, his arm steady. “Neighbor,” he drawled casually, but there was a hard glint in
his ice-blue eyes.
Beth had almost had herself convinced, before this very moment, that the man on whom she trained
her gun wasn’t a spy. She’d almost believed that those little zings down her spine whenever they’d
nodded a greeting to one another had been basic attraction, not like recognizing like. Perhaps the
quirked half-smiles when they ran into one another at the Starbucks two blocks over weren’t because
Beth had caught him following her, but merely because they were in the same place at the same time,
again. Maybe when he had come into the Institute gift shop to buy the print of the painting that even
now hung haphazardly in his living room...maybe it had been pure coincidence, when he’d seen her
walk past the shop on the way to her office and waved to her through the glass.
And all the nights she had sat curled in the cozy armchair in front of her window, staring out across
the street instead of focusing on curatorial paperwork, and seeing him quietly staring back at her?
Maybe it had been a meet-cute waiting to happen, and her life was less Thriller Drama and more
Romantic Comedy. Maybe her neighbor really was a normal, handsome, suit-wearing thirtysomething: Preston Barnes, Commercial Real Estate Developer, just like the card she’d glimpsed
when he’d dropped his wallet one Saturday morning at the nearby Whole Foods.
Commercial real estate developers, as far as she knew, didn’t make a habit of bleeding out in their
bathtubs, or holding a gun on their neighbors. “Neighbor,” she intoned wryly. “How are you this fine


evening?”
He smiled, different from the half-smiles in the coffee shop. The coffee-shop smiles were more a
cute twist of firm lips, a flash of humor permitting a dimple to appear in his smooth cheek. This smile,
on the other hand, was all white teeth, feral and sharply amused and far more threatening to her peace
of mind than the pistol he had pointed between her eyes. “Dandy. Can’t you tell?”
Surprised to find her gun hand steady—finally—she swept her gaze over him, noting his shiny
black dress shoes, tailored charcoal trousers, now-ruined white button-down, and buttery yellow silk
necktie, loosened ever so slightly at the unbuttoned collar. He’d obviously been caught unawares by

the shooter, his clothing showing all the signs of a businessman just home from a long day at the
office. She remembered the jacket on the floor next to the open briefcase. “Rough night?”
He huffed out a pained laugh, wincing when it affected his wound, and clamped his free hand
against his side. “You could say that.” As she allowed him movement, he did the same to her, letting
her grip the Beretta in both hands. “Beth, isn’t it?”
She smirked at his attempt to maintain cover. But her smirk faded when he grimaced again. “You
need a doctor, pal.”
Expression tight, he tilted his head slightly to the side, assessing her with that intelligent blue gaze,
and she allowed herself a leisurely look at him for the first time since he’d moved in across the street
six months ago, instead of quick, stolen glances. His pale eyes were thickly lashed beneath slashing
black brows, the contrast of his neatly trimmed ebony hair against fair skin incredibly striking. He
possessed an angular face, with the faintest of hollows beneath its contours, and the sharp lines of his
jaw and chin and nose, not to mention the prominent cheekbones, gave him a harsh, masculine beauty.
Without a doubt, he was one of the most gorgeous men Beth had ever seen, and the day’s worth of
rakish dark stubble only made him more so.
“I can’t go into an ER with a gunshot wound.” When she merely arched an eyebrow, he gave her a
pitying look. As though he expected her to be better at playing this game than she was. “Mandatory
reporting.”
She blinked innocently. “You mean you don’t want the police to look into your shooting tonight?
You don’t want your attacker brought to justice?” Justice. Now there was a word she hadn’t so much
as thought in a year. It made her shiver, and she realized he was right to look at her with pity—she
couldn’t play the spy game anymore, too out of practice and out of patience, not tonight and certainly
not with him. “I can’t let you bleed to death in your bathtub, Mr. Barnes. It’s undignified.”
His shoulders rolled in a faint shrug. “This? Just a flesh wound. Relax.”
That made her teeth clench. “I’ll relax when you’ve handed me your weapon.”
He seemed to consider that for a long moment. “Was the rest of the apartment clear?” When she
nodded, he sighed. “Good. I thought I heard him go out the back.”
“The balcony door was open when I got here.”
As though it were just that simple for him, Barnes spun the Ruger on one long finger and handed it
to her, grip first. Seeing her no-doubt shocked expression, his smile changed again, back into the cute,

lopsided Starbucks grin that never failed to set butterflies loose in her stomach.
God, what was wrong with her, that this lying liar-face of a man’s smile got to her when Mark the
Sous Chef’s didn’t? Why was it, she wondered, mind suddenly frantic, that she had been unable to
shed her danger-junkie approach to men, as she had shed her old life? Beth wanted normal, damn it—
not just a year of it, but a lifetime.


The only conclusion left to draw was that she was too broken from all her bad deeds to understand
normal. To deserve it.
Swallowing her bleakness at the thought, she snatched the Ruger and tucked it into the back
waistband of her jeans. Hesitating only a moment, she extended a hand to help haul him out of the tub.
“I’m taking you to the hospital.”
“No.” But he took her hand anyway.
Boy howdy, was that a mistake. The second they touched, Beth’s skin sizzled, her breath catching
in her throat as her gaze locked on his. She watched his pupils dilate and a hectic flush flag those toopale cheeks, mesmerized by his visceral reaction to her touch.
Which made her wonder what he saw in her reaction, to make his eyes dart over her features as if
he were drinking her in, memorizing her. “I—I don’t—” She cleared her throat, trying to rid herself of
its suddenly husky quality. “I can probably dig out the bullet if I have to, and I can stitch and clean
you, but I don’t have anything on hand to replace the blood you’ve lost. And, buddy—” she surveyed
the bottom of the tub, his stained clothing, “—you’ve lost a lot of blood.”
Tightening his hold on her, he levered himself up with a groan. “Looks worse than it is, I promise.
Just do what you can.” Once standing, he released her, planting his hand on the counter when he
swayed.
She moved to steady him without thought, one arm looping around his waist. He was a big man, at
least six-two and a solid two hundred pounds, maybe more. Under her arm, his torso felt muscled and
firm, and Beth fought against the instinctive urge to lean into him, regardless of the fact that she was
the one holding him upright. “Any idea who your late-night visitor was?”
His chuckle was completely without humor. “Oh, yes, I’ve got an idea.”
Pulling his heavy arm across her shoulders, she led them through the bathroom, into the master
bedroom. “Care to share with the class?”

“You won’t like the answer.”
She rolled her eyes, kicking shut the balcony door before urging him out into the hallway toward
the living room. “Try me, anyway.”
“Now there’s an invitation.” His voice was softer now, slightly wheezy, as if he was having
difficulty taking a full breath. Beth worried her bottom lip, wondering—hoping—her rudimentary
medical skills would be enough to fix the damage to his side. They would have to deal with things
between them eventually, things such as who he was and why he’d been watching, yet never truly
approaching, her for the past six months. For now, though, she had to make sure he didn’t up and die
on her before he gave her the answers to those questions.
They halted in the front room, Beth leaving him leaning against the kitchen counter as she slid the
laptop into the briefcase. She tossed him his suit jacket from the floor and collected the scattered
papers before slinging the case’s strap over one shoulder and returning to him.
“I quit my job today,” he informed her as they hurried out the front door. He dug in his pocket and
produced a key, fitting it to the lock, which she found ridiculous—someone had already broken in, for
goodness’ sake. “My boss is...unhappy.”
“I had no idea commercial real estate was so cutthroat,” she quipped, supporting as much of his
considerable weight as she could as they made their way down the stairs.
“Do you need me to spell it out for you, Elisabeth Laïla Faraday?”
She nearly lost her footing on the steps at his use of her real name, a name that wasn’t on her door


buzzer across the street, or her long-term lease, or her paychecks from the Art Institute, or her State of
Illinois driver’s license. Every aspect of her new life carried the name Beth Ann Bernard, a name she
had taken great pains to keep secure. Her evening routine, the gun she slept with, it wasn’t for fun—it
was for life. Her life, precious and fragile, silly though it might be when compared to the life she
once led.
So even though she kept her arm securely around his waist, and even though they kept moving down
the stairwell toward the cold outdoors, Beth pressed the muzzle of her Beretta into his uninjured side.
“I hope you’re a good speller, pal.”
His sigh sounded...sad. But that didn’t make sense. “I’m the man who’s meant to kill you.”

Chapter Three
There were worse things than having a gun held on him by a beautiful woman, he supposed. Such as
glancing down in time to watch the pink heat drain from her honey-gold skin when he told her he was
supposed to kill her.
That was worse.
He sucked in a breath as they hit the street, the chilly night air swirling around them as Beth hustled
him to the other side of the block. “Not sure going back to yours is the best idea,” he mumbled,
hissing as each step jarred the wound in his side. He hadn’t been lying when he told her it was a flesh
wound, but he could feel the bullet lodged against his lowest rib, pinching and scraping and being
generally uncomfortable.
She shouldered open the front door to her building. “Do you want me to get that bullet out of you or
not?”
“I do,” he grated as they ascended the stairs. “But we’ve got a limited window before they send
someone to do my job for me.” He let her push him into her apartment, taking a seat at the dining room
table while she set the alarm and locked the door.
“And by job, you mean me, right?” She didn’t look at him as she dropped his briefcase to the floor
and disappeared down the hall, emerging a moment later with a hefty black nylon case that resembled
an oversized lunch cooler. Drawing his surrendered gun from the waistband of her jeans, she
replaced it with hers, setting his Ruger aside on the kitchen counter before she unzipped the case and
began pulling out various medical supplies: latex gloves, sterilization pads, tweezers, an actual suture
gun.
Thirty seconds later, she was kneeling next to his chair. “Lift your hand and take off your shirt.”
“Bossy. I like it.” But he complied, yanking his tie over his head, unbuttoning and shrugging off his
shirt, and was relieved to find that the bleeding had slowed to a trickle.
Dark-lashed hazel eyes glared up at him, their gold-speckled gray flashing under the light of the
chandelier above the table. “You flirt with me, I make this hurt. Understand?”
“What about the phrase, ‘Do no harm?’”
Ripping open a sterilization packet, she snorted, wiping away the mess surrounding the wound.

“Do I look like a doctor to you?” A small pile of bloody wipes started to grow on the dining table.
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“Question?” He was having trouble focusing, which could be due to any number of reasons: his
employer had just tried to kill him, he’d lost a decent amount of blood from a gunshot to his side...he
was shirtless in Beth Faraday’s apartment and she was touching him. Of the possibilities, blood loss
seemed the safest choice, really.
Holding a piece of gauze beneath the wound, she reached for the tweezers. The look on her sweetly
ovular face was one part frustration, one part worry, and two parts I-want-to-punch-you-in-the-balls.
That expression shouldn’t make her prettier. “You’re supposed to kill me, huh? Then I’m assuming
your agency is behind the hit. You tell me you quit your job, whatever the hell that means, but the hit’s
still there, right?” Without warning, she slid the tweezers into the wound. “Right.”
He swore, loudly and repeatedly, eyes stinging as excruciating pain stole his breath, but her torture
lasted only a minute, and then the pressure on his rib lessened as she drew out the bloody bullet.


Using the gauze to staunch the flow of fresh red, she dropped the tweezers and bullet on the pile atop
the table. “Who do you work for, Barnes? CIA? NSA? No way you’re FBI,” she murmured, more to
herself than to him, “you’re too subtle to be a Fed.”
Barnes. He hated her calling him that. Preston Barnes was imaginary, as were all the other names
he’d used over the years. Sharing his real name wasn’t an option, even if he had technically given
Management his resignation. Like any good spy, an alias and appropriate documentation waited for
him in the wings, separate from his former employer, his bank account, et cetera. As soon as this
strange interlude in Beth’s apartment came to a close, he could gather what he needed and fall neatly
into the new life he’d created for himself.
Not unlike what Beth had chosen to do a year earlier.
So instead of answering, he studied her. It was habit to watch her; the past six months of his life
had been spent watching her, after all, day and night, night and day. His orders were never to
approach, but to insinuate himself peripherally...and wait until the order came through.
The order had come through two days ago.
He’d bought himself—and Beth—some time. Turned down the thermostat in the flat across the

street, closed up the cover office he kept in a high rise in the Loop, knowing the space would rent
again immediately upon the lease running out, given the view of the Art Institute’s majestic lions. Part
of him would miss the days he’d spent in that office, cameras and scopes trained on the entrance and
exits of the museum, not to mention the surveillance equipment planted in her little white-walled
office.
Her door read Beth Bernard, Assistant Curator, Impressionist Art. Every once in a while, one of
his cameras would catch her staring at the words etched on her office door, a wistful smile on her
face. As though she couldn’t quite believe this was her life. As though she were spectacularly grateful
that it was.
He’d tossed his phone and laptop and purchased new with cash this morning, but not before
sending a succinct message to Management.
Fuck you.
Yes. “Succinct” covered it quite nicely.
Gaze rapt on her as she rose from her crouch, he permitted her to place his hand over the gauze,
keeping pressure on the seeping wound while she grabbed the suture gun and flexible bandages from
the counter. Beth moved with an economy of motion that screamed—to him, anyway—of her training
as a human weapon. To anyone else, she simply appeared to be a confident, graceful woman in her
mid-twenties. And she was that, of course, but there was so much more to Beth Faraday than met the
eye.
Tonight, her straight, dark-brown hair had been swept up in a high ponytail, showing off the
colorful bohemian earrings dangling from her lobes. She wore a delicate blouse of midnight silk and
dark jeans that molded to every inch of her endless legs. The file Management provided him claimed
she was five-eight, but Beth was a woman who loved her high heels—the only time he had ever seen
her in flat shoes in the past half a year was during exercise, until tonight. Slender yet deceptively
strong, she’d taken his weight easily tonight on the dash from his place to hers, and he wished he’d
had more presence of mind to enjoy having her amazing body tucked against his.


Even if she had been holding a gun on him at the time.
Speaking of guns.... “Don’t stitch me closed.” When she gave him a questioning look, the gray

plastic suture gun already held in one gloved hand, he nodded at the stack of bandages. “If you have
any saline on hand, use that to flush it out, then bandage it. Sewing up a GSW increases the risk of
infection.”
A blush spread over her cheekbones, even going to so far as to redden the tip of her upturned nose.
“I knew that.” She placed the suture gun back in the case, then braced her hands against the counter.
Her head drooped between her shoulders. “I swear I knew that. Or I used to.”
Something tightened in his chest at her tone. “It’s okay.”
She looked at him, lush pink lips twisting in a grimace. “It’s really not.”
Deciding no response was the best response, he kept silent as she snagged a sealed plastic bottle
from the case, along with more gauze and a handful of bandages. She knelt again, and this time, with
the pain seriously lessened by the removal of the bullet, he could appreciate having her near.
It had been so damn long since he’d been this close to her, shirtless and feeling her breaths puff
against his naked rib cage. Since he’d felt her fingertips play over his sensitized skin. Christ, he ached
for her, as he had done every day for...hell, for years.
And she didn’t have a fucking clue.
He laughed the second the saline hit the wound—not because it was funny, but because it was laugh
or cry, and crying was absolutely not an option around her. Her touch remained gentle as she irrigated
him, wiping away the excess fluid and blood streaming down over his hip and staining the waist of
his trousers. More gauze patted him dry, followed by a breathable adhesive bandage, and then she
was moving away from him, gathering the trash and tools and making quick work of the cleanup.
Slipping his arms back into his sleeves, he kept the shirt unbuttoned over his chest and propped his
elbows on the table. His eyes slid closed as he rested his forehead on his clasped hands and listened
to Beth move about the kitchen: the zip of the case, the snap of latex gloves being yanked off, water in
the sink, a cabinet opening and swinging shut. A quiet clink sounded next to him, and he opened his
eyes to see that she’d set a glass of water and four white pills near his elbow. Grunting his thanks, he
tossed back the painkillers and drained the water.
When he finally glanced up, he found her sitting across the table from him, body language casual
and Beretta pointed directly at his chest. “Ah. I see. I forgot to say thank you.”
“Har har, funny guy.”
His lips twitched, but his voice was appropriately serious as he said, “Thank you, sincerely.”

Performing surgery on oneself was, generally speaking, heinous, and regardless of how this evening
turned out—judging by the gun pointed at him, it might still require him to bleed—he was thankful she
had relieved him of that particular burden.
Beth inclined her head, but her mercurial eyes remained hard. “Do I even want to know how you
ended up in the bathtub?”
“Probably not.” The shooter had caught him by surprise, the fiery bullet punching him in the gut as
he stumbled back from the table, struggling to retrieve his Ruger from the briefcase. For a moment, his
mind had blanked, forgetting who he was and why he was being shot at, and he’d given chase without
thought, grappling with the intruder all the way into the bedroom. One solid punch had sent him
sprawling into the bathtub, however, and, dazedly, he’d stayed down, bleeding and dizzy.
He supposed he should consider himself lucky he hadn’t received another round in his head and