I woke to an empty bed.

Blinking as I yawned, I looked around but found Dex gone.

I rolled free from the blanket and wrapped a sheet around my naked body to find Dex.

I found him at the kitchen table, dressed and looking as if he’d been awake for hours.

There was something different about him.

The distance in his eyes I felt like a physical thing.

“Are you okay?” I asked, sinking into the chair beside him. “Did you find something?”

Dex nodded. “A friend of mine left me a present in my inbox. I’ve got a direction to head in.”

“That’s good,” I said warily. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“The lead is in New York.”

“The place where all the killers were waiting to put our names on their bullet for a big payday?” I shuddered. “Yeah, that sounds like a terrible idea.”

“That’s why you are going to stay here. I’m going to go alone.”

“Fuck that.”

He was bonkers if he thought I was going to stay here like an obedient llama.

Were llamas obedient? My city girl roots were showing.

“It’s not up for discussion,” he said, shrugging. “I’m not going to take the chance of putting you in harm’s way. Besides, I can move faster without you.”

“I don’t care. I’m not staying here and you can’t make me.”

His green eyes darkened and narrowed. “Don’t push me on this, Bree.”

“No.” I refused to back down. “You are not going to leave me behind,” I said stubbornly.

“Jesus, Bree, can you just do as you’re told for once?”

“No.” Honestly, at this point he should know better. “What is this lead?”

Dex looked like he wanted to shake my head off my shoulders but I didn’t care. I wasn’t staying here and he wasn’t leaving without me. Like he said, end of discussion.

“The name Caroline Burke popped up on a birth and death certificate. Someone went to a lot of trouble to make it look as if you died when you were just a baby, which means your life has been in danger from the day you were born.”

Oompf. That was a lot to digest. Who knew that the whole time I was lamenting how boring my teenage years were only to discover that I was living a life filled with unknown intrigue.

“Who would want to kill a baby?” I asked, frowning. “That’s pretty mean.”

“Someone who stood to inherit a lot of money if the sole heir to a fortune was dead.”

My mouth dropped open. “Come again?”

Dex nodded, confirming what my ears were picking up.

“I’m...I’m...”

“An heiress,” he finished for me, which was just as well because I suddenly forgot how to form words.

An heiress? Had I just stepped into a parallel universe?

“I found a news clipping that wrote Lily Burke and her three-month-old daughter, Caroline were killed in a car accident while on a drive in upstate New York. I’m assuming either your mom faked your deaths or someone else arranged for it to look as if you’d died so she could get away without the threat of being followed.”

“Why would she do that?” I asked, flabbergasted.

“I don’t know but the Burke name is pretty big. Richard Burke, I’m assuming that’s your father, was an old-money billionaire. The Burke family came over to the States in colonial times and made smart investments with each generation. When Richard died he was worth fifteen billion.”

“Died? He’s dead?”

Dex nodded. “He died last year. And you are his sole heir.”

The words sank in, heavy as cement in my gut.

I spent my entire life believing my father had died in a car accident when I was a baby but as it turned out, my mom and I had been the ones to die.

“Was my dad a bad man?” I was almost afraid to know but I couldn’t imagine why my mom would go to such lengths to protect me.

Oh God, everything I thought I knew about my mother might be wrong. I’d spent my life wishing someone else — anyone, really — had been my mother instead of Lily.

I felt like a royal shit.

“My mom...she ran away? To save me?”

One minute my mom was the neglectful, bi-polar, manic depressive character in my childhood narrative but now...she was the desperate mother running to save her only child?

“I need a minute,” I said, rising on shaky legs to wander in circles. “An heiress? To what? And why? What the hell? Please say you have more answers for me because my head is about to explode.”

“I have some, not all, which is why I need to get to New York.”

“You mean, why we have to get to New York,” I reminded him. “You can’t drop a bomb like that and expect me to just nod and wave, bye honey, see you when you get back, oh, hell no.” I tightened my sheet around me. “I’m no obedient llama, you know.”

“Did you say, llama?” Dex asked, confused, but I was already moving on (I still wasn’t sure if llamas were obedient or not so my comparison might’ve sucked).

“Am I like, famous or something?”

“Not like Hollywood celebrity or anything but once Richard died, you became ridiculously wealthy.”

A nervous giggle popped from my mouth. “Like...really wealthy?”

“Yeah. Really.”

I needed to sit down again. “Okay, so how do I go collect my inheritance?” I had visions of buying a boat...or an island. “Would you like to sip tropical drinks with me on the beach?” I asked, still a little giddy. “I’ll even rub sunscreen on your shoulders for you.”

But Dex wasn’t into daydreaming about untold riches. In fact, that hard look in his eyes hadn’t softened. “Get serious, will you? If you end up dead, you won’t be enjoying one cent of that money.”

My excitement settled for a minute. “You have a point. Okay, so I’m an heiress...what happens now aside from an obvious road trip back into the city? There must be an executor for the will, right? I guess we could start there.”

He seemed ready to launch into another terse dissertation why I wasn’t going to go with him but he must’ve sensed the energy was wasted and switched gears.

And not gracefully, I might add.

“Fuck, you’re a pain in the ass,” he growled, to which I smiled like an angel. “All right, fine, you can come with but I don’t like it. We’re heading into the hot zone. To someone, you’re worth more dead than alive. Try to remember that.”

“That’s why I have you,” I said, ignoring his dark glower to climb into his lap. When he stiffened, I upped the stakes and let the sheet fall. His eyes glazed at the sight of my bare body. That’s more like it. I brushed his mouth with mine. “So we’d better make it quick so we can hit the road.”

I knew he couldn’t resist the invitation.

Feminine wiles had never been my strength but I was fast getting the hang of it.

And I wasn’t above using whatever I could to my advantage.

I’d climb on Dex’s back and ride him like a monkey if I had to but he wasn’t leaving me behind.

Besides, sex with Dex had pretty much become my favorite activity so getting banged like a screen door was no tragedy.

I’d willingly do whatever he liked if it meant I could feel Dex inside me.

Was this normal? I couldn’t say.

But I liked it.

A lot.