Chapter 1
Maybe her mother was right.Maybe she shouldn’t have joined the CIA. Maybe she shouldn’t have traded in her cheerleader uniform for a badge.
Kate Richard’s swallowed her groan and pushed the disturbing thoughts out of her mind, spinning the small right-hand silver ring on her finger.
Aside from an imminent terrorist attack or death, those were words that would never pass Kate Richard's lips. Unfortunately, the upcoming meeting with her boss, Agent Lamar Franks, was going to be enough to make her wish she was dead.
But facing her creepy boss wasn't as bad as following her mother's Betty Crocker recipe for life.
Start with a solid wealthy man from her hometown, mix in a wedding and a couple of kids, sprinkle on becoming president of the PTA, then bake in the oven at 300° for a cookie cutout way of life according to Georgia Elise Richards. Unfortunately for her mother, her youngest daughter had been sour milk to begin with, so Kate mixing with the perfect man had been doomed from the start.
If she’d played with more Barbies growing up, instead of helicopters and plastic army tanks, she’d have been fifteen percent more likely to choose oversized hair bows and thecolor pink. That could have led to her focusing more time on makeup and teenage crushes than studying for the SAT and having an intense Tom Clancy novel obsession. Which could have prevented her mother's undying look of shame and horror when Kate had announced to the family a month after graduation that she'd joined the military.
Of course if she'd read Cosmo, she would've paid more attention to her body and that strange occasional blip in her chest and discovered she had a slight heart murmur. That could have saved her the embarrassment from the medical review board telling her she wasn't qualified as a candidate for the Air Force.
And she might not be hemmed in a private meeting room on the second floor of the CIA headquarters. The meeting room with stark white walls and humming florescent lights and concrete floors with metal chairs that no one else outside of her small group of coworkers knew about.
Civilians would call it an interrogation room. Kate called it her silent refuge from assholes.
After the current president banned the Patriot Act, the soft interrogation room had morphed from a chamber of light torture for terrorists and traitors to a place where ambitious CIA operatives secretly met to decide whose careers thrived and died. In a way, the actions performed in this room now were more cutthroat than any waterboarding or sensory deprivation techniques. They were cruelly executed secret maneuvers against their own team members in the act of ultimate betrayal.
The only time Kate had been in here in the past was to escape the quiet ridicule and sexual mocking of her male counterparts who didn't think she could cut it in the intelligence analyst world.
Contrary to popular belief, her coworkers weren't big buff alpha men – most of them were lanky nerds who wore thickglasses and still carried a chip on their shoulders from years of teasing in high school. As one of the only female analysts in the unit, Kate had been cast as something much worse - an object of sexual objectivity. The harassment hadn't taken a leap to the physical side, yet.
The only reason she’d put up with their crap this long was the fact that she was now the most senior member on the team, and the man above her had recently moved, leaving a slot open perfect for her shoes to fill.
The heavy-metal door creaked open and Kate slowly turned to watch her boss slink inside. Lamar Franks was one of the most nondescript men she'd ever laid eyes on. Hell, he was so average even she had trouble remembering what he looked like when he wasn’t in the same room. Average height, average build, average features. The only thing extraordinary about him was the deadly cunning in his gaze. A gaze currently riveted on her with malicious intent.
She stood, putting herself more on his level. Franks slunk close enough she could smell his disgusting cologne.
Suck it up buttercup.She could keep her mouth shut long enough to accept her promotion and never have to worry about being under Frank’s too touchy thumb again.
Kate squared her already ramrod straight shoulders. “Sir.”
As per usual, Franks gave her a once-over followed by sneer. “Agent Richards.” Franks gaze swept over her a second time.
She ignored the chill creeping up her back. His obvious perusal of her clothes, or what he thought was beneath them, made her skin crawl. “You wanted to see me?”
“That goes without saying doesn't it?” He stroked his chin thoughtfully.
Kate curled her short-trimmed nails into her palms, fighting the urge to slap the hungry look off his face. Franks moved in, palming the wall beside her head, the low wave of heatemanating from him left her ice cold.
“I thought I’d give you another chance to take me up on my offer.”
She leaned back, her shoulders digging into the equally cold wall behind her. “My answer hasn’t changed.”
“I can help you. I know what you want. This job is everything to you, just like it is for me. We share a common goal.” Franks, in a move he’d never been bold enough to try before, traced a single finger across her jaw.
Her heart whacked her ribcage and she had to fight to keep from squeezing her eyes shut.Was he really doing this to her?And why wasn’t she kneeing him in the balls?
Sensing her weakness, Franks pressed his body flush to hers, his arousal obvious. “I can see you’re thinking more like me. You want your promotion? I can give it to you.”
The walls seemed to shrink around her. This wasn’t happening. He’d given her looks, made insinuations, even asked her to hook up – but he’d never laid hands on her.
Think. Think. Think. If she kneed him, she’d lose her promotion and her job.
Her heart pounded faster.
