GABE DOUBLE-CHECKED THE STREET around him to make sure it was empty and shifted his position in the tight space. The rented sedan was short on interior space. Moving his seat back a notch so he could stretch his cramped legs, he kept his gaze trained on the small house with the red door punctuated with a wreath made of faded silk flowers. He glanced at his watch. If her pattern held, Gayle Esbenshade should be home from her job at the insurance company any minute. He sunk lower in his seat so he wouldn’t risk being spotted.

Since the moment Andrews’s program found a match for her face, he’d been working on compiling as much information as he could find. Gabe had a name and a face. He had credit card and phone records and a Facebook feed full of inspirational memes, kittens, and every bit of PR ever written about Blake. If he had any doubt they’d found the right woman, it evaporated in the face of her obsession with his cousin. Esbenshade was delusional, with a side of psychosis.

He also had an address. He could watch the woman move from one place to another throughout her day. He’d had a tail on her on and off since they got a hit on her identity.

What he didn’t have was a legal way to keep her away from his cousin and his family, and he was running out of time—not just to catch the woman stalking Blake but to give his cousin some peace and some answers before the baby was born. He’d stopped considering the idea that Gayle might be carrying Blake’s child. Beyond a thickening around her waist that could be nothing more than her body type, there was no evidence she was pregnant—no baby purchases or recent doctor appointments. He couldn’t know for sure and the idea was too awful to consider. And until they had her in custody, he couldn’t do anything about it but worry and there was no profit in that. The whole thing was starting to make him crazy, and he couldn’t afford to get distracted.

It felt like he was bumping up against some kind of arbitrary deadline with Berlin too. After the party on Saturday, she’d be on to her next job. It didn’t mean she’d be out of his life. He’d make sure of that. They’d always known their jobs would pull them in different directions. That didn’t mean they couldn’t make this thing between them work. He was determined to make it work, but it still felt like she was getting ready to say good-bye. He refused to let that happen. Not when everything between them was so much better than he imagined it could be. She felt it too; he knew she did.

He needed a way to get Esbenshade out of the picture and then he’d be able to concentrate his efforts on convincing Berlin that they were more than fuck buddies. He suspected a lot more and he wanted a chance to find out. With the evidence they had, the best he could hope to accomplish was to get a restraining order, but after seeing how twisted up the woman was about his cousin, that felt like using a Band-Aid to stop arterial spray. He needed better options.

His mind kept circling back to the idea of finding a way to push Esbenshade to take some kind of decisive action in a controlled environment where he and his men could keep Blake and his family safe. Since they found her, she’d limited her travels to going back and forth to work with an occasional trip to the grocery store thrown in. Since the dinner at the Hotel Roanoke, she had kept a low profile, but he knew for certain she’d been there that night or at least in the area. When he searched her bank records, he found a charge for a Sheetz down the road from the hotel.

It made him angry and a little edgy to realize she’d been so close and none of his people had laid eyes on her. But if there was one skill she seemed to have, it was the ability to hide. With the difference in her appearance between the security footage at the Regency and the photos from the bowling alley, he was beginning to think she was something of a chameleon. A dangerous one.

Whatever he set up had to be in public. He didn’t know how they’d push her out into the open otherwise. Her place was less than fifteen minutes from the Regency, which explained how it had been so easy for her to map out the locations of the cameras. She’d have plenty of opportunities. And when he hacked into her Gmail account, he found a Google alert set up for Blake. She’d gotten a copy of the press release announcing his meeting with the company in Westport at the Regency two weeks before his visit. After that, it was a matter of waiting for an opportunity and seizing it.

He could get Berlin to set something up for Blake at the Regency, put out a press release and see if history repeated itself. After she ate Benson for lunch the last time they were there, Gabe was pretty sure the older man would cooperate. Something about it didn’t feel right, though, and he couldn’t shake the idea that it would be like giving Esbenshade the home court advantage. He wasn’t about to cede any ground, not when his family’s safety was at stake.

A small beige Sentra pulled into the postage stamp-sized driveway and Gayle Esbenshade got out of the car, carrying a laptop bag and a huge flowered purse. She unlocked the door and hurried inside, her movements furtive. It killed him to know she was so close and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it. Waiting wasn’t an option anymore. If he couldn’t use the Regency, he’d have to come up with another plan. He wasn’t going to let the threat to Blake and Samantha and their baby go on any longer.

Which left him with one obvious choice but Berlin was going to hate it.

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“YOU WANT TO do what?” Berlin needed him to say the words again so she could be sure she’d heard him correctly.

“I want to use Blake as bait at the party tomorrow night so we can catch Esbenshade doing something bad enough to at least slap her with more than a restraining order.”

Yep, that’s what she thought she heard the first time.

“Putting aside for the moment that the entire team from Edison, including the whole family, will be there to celebrate a merger that the ink’s not even dry on—one that will benefit your cousin’s business immensely—how are you thinking any of this is going to work?” It wasn’t about the merger and her role in projecting the story she’d been telling for months. It wasn’t just about that, anyway. She cared about Blake and Samantha and she wanted them to be safe, to be able to welcome their new baby into the world without all of this nastiness hanging over them. But she literally didn’t see what Gabe thought he could do in a hotel full of people, more than half of whom she needed to keep in the dark.

“We’re going to create an opportunity for her to get close to Blake and pray that she takes it. Assuming she does something like a repeat of the Regency, we could have enough evidence to actually send her to jail.”

“What about Samantha? You’re not worried the woman will try to do something to hurt her? Or that her presence will be enough to discourage her from acting in the first place?” She could tell by the way his jaw clenched, he’d put a fair bit of time into thinking about it already.

“I’m putting Liam on it. Blake is going to leave the party and head for the bar or some other public place, giving Esbenshade a chance to get him alone. Samantha won’t be anywhere near the action. Liam will keep her safe.”

She could tell he didn’t like being questioned about it, but she wasn’t about to apologize. Managing details was what she did; she had no intention of stopping just to soothe his ego. Not when the stakes were so high. She had to admit with Liam guarding Samantha, it was hard to imagine her client’s wife coming to any harm. The guy was like a freaking tank and she had no doubt he’d put himself between Samantha and any danger that came her way.

“So what happens to Blake?”

“If we’re lucky, Esbenshade drugs him again and we catch her after she tries to abduct him but before she gets him upstairs.”

“I’m not sure you understand what lucky means,” she said, searching his face.

For the first time since he walked into her office, his face relaxed enough to smile.

“I think I do,” he said, and the heat in his gaze made her swallow. Hard.

Her spidey senses said they weren’t talking about Blake anymore. She wasn’t ready to face what was going on between them. It was more than a couple-nights-stand; she knew that, but she didn’t want to give a name to the alternative. She planned to throw a kick-ass party, finish her job, celebrate for one more night with Gabe and then move on, giving them both some space to work out their feelings. If it felt like her heart was breaking every time she thought about it, then she’d just have to find a way to deal with it. The one thing she wouldn’t be was reactionary. She knew she was covering new ground, but that didn’t mean she intended to go racing over it, looking for a mythical happily ever after. She’d get through the party and then she’d pack up and head to Philadelphia and a pharmaceutical company with an image problem. And Gabe would go to wherever his next job took him. That was that.

“What do you need me to do?”

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SAMANTHA GETTING SICK wasn’t the worst thing that could happen, thought Gabe, rolling his eyes when he realized how skewed his perspective had gotten. He hated that his cousin’s wife was unwell, but it wasn’t serious and it meant he could keep her completely out of danger. And it opened up a lot more opportunities for Esbenshade to take a run at Blake. Berlin was going to stand in for Samantha for the more structured part of the evening to schmooze the Edisons one last time, but Blake would be on his own after that.

The Southerland Security team had been working for thirty-six hours straight to make sure they had the hotel covered and every entrance accounted for. He had to practically sell his soul, but they’d convinced the management to let them put pencil cameras in the bar so they had complete coverage of the place where Blake would hang out as soon as the speeches were over. If Esbenshade showed up, they’d see her and they’d have video if she tried to put anything in his drink.

A handful of Gabe’s men would show up before Blake, pretending to be salesmen from a sports equipment company out on the town for the night. They’d hang out in the bar, being loud and drinking beer. And keeping an eye on Blake. Gabe wanted all of them there so they could make sure the bar was covered at all times, and so they could follow if the woman tried to get Blake to leave the bar.

Jacob lobbied hard for the assignment but with Samantha staying home for the night, Gabe decided it was better to have Liam on site. He’d put Jacob in charge of the pregnant woman, for which the younger man had received endless rounds of ribbing. None of them thought they were in any real danger. The likelihood of Esbenshade having a weapon was slim. She didn’t have a gun permit, and she didn’t seem likely to have black market connections. But nobody was taking chances. That was the quickest way to end up dead in their business.

Blake had only seemed mildly apprehensive but Gabe hated the idea of using his cousin as bait. The only consolation was that if everything went the way they planned it, by morning Blake and Samantha would be out from under the threat. Of course, nothing ever went according to plan, but even Gabe’s backup had backups. Things could go completely tits up and they should still be good, but there was no way in hell he’d say it out loud. No reason to tempt fate. The fickle bitch had knocked him on his ass more than once over the years.

“Ballroom is secure.” Liam’s voice came through Gabe’s earpiece.

He’d worn his tux so he could move seamlessly through the crowded ballroom, but he was acting security for the night, not the client’s cousin. He wanted to be the one who coordinated operations and with Berlin at Blake’s side, there was no reason for him to be anywhere else. He pushed aside the unreasonable twinge of jealousy he felt at Berlin walking in on his cousin’s arm. His head knew it was stupid. Ridiculous. Irrational. His gut wanted to get to the end of the night, get her naked and show them both that they belonged to each other. First, he had a stalker to catch.

“Good,” he said into the tiny mouthpiece, pitching his voice low enough only he could hear. “I’ll see you in twenty.”

He walked down the empty hall, nodding to the camera they’d slipped into the tower of flowers standing on the table against the wall. Aside from the cameras in the bar, which he’d needed to get in specific places, he’d operated on the it’s better to apologize than ask for permission assumption. The place was covered with wireless cameras no one ever had to know about. If Esbenshade showed up, they’d get her on video. Before he left to watch Samantha, Jacob had set up the camera feeds to run through the facial recognition software in as close to real time as they could get. It had a couple of minutes delay, but if she showed up—please let her show up—they’d know about it almost immediately.

“Yes,” he said, thumbing open his phone as he crossed to a point where he could watch the people entering the lobby. It was the same point he’d seen Berlin watching him during the first Edison dinner at the hotel.

“I’ve lost her.”

“What?” asked Gabe, cold sinking into him. It took him a fraction of a second to realize the man on the other end of the line wasn’t talking about Berlin and another fraction of a second for him to get punched in the chest with how much she meant to him. He loved her. Damn.

“Esbenshade,” said Jones, the man he’d put in Westport to tail her. He was covering all his bases and leaving nothing to chance. “She’s on the move. I followed her from her place, but I lost her before the bridge. It got too hard to tail her without being seen. I didn’t want to risk spooking her, so I held back, figuring I could catch up with her on the other side of Springfield, but I haven’t seen her since we crossed into Virginia.”

“Head to me. Let me know if you see her again but don’t risk giving yourself away.” The last thing he wanted to do was spook her. If she was scared, she might not take a chance when Blake was alone, or worse, she’d head home without making contact at all. “We’ve got the GPS tracker on her car. We’ll pick her up when she gets here.”

He hung up, feeling surprisingly optimistic considering the first wheel had just slipped off his plan. That was okay; he was running on eighteen wheels instead of four. Standing at the top of the stairway, he scanned the lobby. It was too early for Esbenshade to make an appearance. If she drove like a racecar driver, it would still be another forty-five minutes until she showed up. That was okay. She was on her way. By morning this would be over.

Gabe glanced over and saw the guy he had in the lobby—a guy younger than Jacob who’d washed out of the military because the blind obedience thing rubbed him the wrong way. He wore khakis and a polo and looked like he’d just stepped off the golf course. His body language was wrong, though. Even sitting in one of the lobby chairs, he was too straight, and his bearings screamed military. He’d never manage undercover work if he couldn’t get his body language under control. He stiffened with all the subtlety of a bird dog on point and Gabe followed the direction of his gaze. He’d have to talk to the guy later but for now all he could think about was how fucking gorgeous Berlin looked and how much he hated it that she was walking through the door on his cousin’s arm instead of his.

She wore a silky yellow dress that slid over her body in a slender column. Every time she moved, he could see her soft curves shift under the fabric, making the whole thing sexier than it would have been if it was tighter. Narrow ribbon straps held up the plain sleeveless bodice that dipped in a V between her breasts. His mouth went dry at the outline of her gorgeous breasts under the silk. He’d have bet money she didn’t have a bra on, and he had every intention of confirming the fact before the night was over. Her hair hung in a smooth curtain, the purple-black made more prominent by the color of the dress. She’d lacquered her lips a gloss red and he felt his blood rush away from his brain.

As if she felt his gaze caressing her, she glanced up to where he stood and her smile lit up her face. He could spend every day for the rest of his life trying to put that smile on her face and it wouldn’t be enough. He intended to spend every day that way. The certainty hit him like a train. He’d give her the time he needed, but he was all in and he wasn’t going to back down. He loved her.

She pursed her lips in a mock kiss and then she and Blake headed across the lobby to the ballroom. When they walked past him, he saw the back of her dress—or rather, lack of a back. The dress dipped down to skim the top of her ass. The only thing marring her creamy skin was two narrow crisscrossed ribbons. One wrong move and she’d show the world a lot more than she intended. Thank God she didn’t make wrong moves, he thought, digging his fingers into the banister so he didn’t go bolting down the stairs after her. He had a job to do. Catch Blake’s stalker first; spend as much time as he needed to convince Berlin they belonged together afterward.

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BERLIN CHECKED HER reflection in the bathroom mirror, pausing to touch up her lipstick. The night had gone exactly as planned. The Edisons seemed charmed by the event and even more so by Blake’s speech. He talked about family legacies and embracing new opportunities in a way that melted even her cynical heart. She had local and national press coverage in place and now that the merger was official, her mailbox was filling up with requests for follow-up stories. Dealing with the requests she’d already received would take her another couple of weeks. Time she wouldn’t have to spend thinking about Gabe and what happened afterward.

Of course, if his planning worked out as well as hers, by morning the woman threatening the Southerlands would be in custody and there would be no reason for him to stick around. Tucking her lipstick back in her bag, she pushed that thought aside for the moment. She wasn’t going to think about anything but the next twenty-four hours and how much she wanted to see his reaction to her dress firsthand. The look he’d given her in the lobby had been enough to make her reconsider almost everything she believed about relationships. Everything about Gabe had her rethinking that.

She turned toward the exit and narrowly missed bumping into a woman hurrying in. She wore a bulky coat, much too heavy for the season, and had her head down. If it hadn’t been for the angular, almost gothic cut of her inky-black hair, she’d have looked like she stepped out of one of Van Gogh’s paintings of Russian peasants. At first glance, she didn’t look like a hotel patron and Berlin pushed back against her feelings of uneasiness.

“Excuse me,” said Berlin, trying to move past the woman.

The other woman glanced up, her hand shooting out to grab Berlin’s arm. She was struggling to figure out why the woman behind the psychedelic glasses looked familiar when she felt the needle pierce her skin. She opened her mouth to scream, but the other woman simply smiled, dropping the needle and jamming a gun in her ribs.

She had to do something. They were in a public place. Gabe had men all over the place. There had to be a way for her to get help.

“You stupid slut. You’re not even his wife. She’s nothing more than a dumb pregnant cow, but he can’t just toss her aside. He’s too honorable a man to do that, but you? You’re nothing more than a quick fuck dressed like a cheap whore.” It sounded like she was talking to herself as much as Berlin, trying to convince herself. “He’s a man. It’s not his fault. How is he supposed to resist when you show up practically naked, your tits on display for everyone to see?”

She grabbed Berlin through the silk of her dress, twisting hard. Pain lanced through her nipple but it was dulled, not as sharp as it should have been. That scared her more than the other woman touching her. Whatever she’d given her was dampening her reactions, as if her nerves were being smothered with a wet wool blanket. When she opened her mouth to scream, her lips didn’t work right and her tongue felt thick. She barely managed a croak and she had a hard time staying steady on her heels.

“Good. It’s working. I wasn’t sure how much to give you.”

Berlin heard the words, but it was like listening in a long tunnel and she had a hard time concentrating on what they meant. She started to sway and the other woman wrapped her arm around her, one hand like a vise on her arm while the other kept the gun jammed in her ribs.

“Let’s get you out of here while you can still walk.”

Berlin breathed in the overly sweet floral perfume, but she barely felt the scratchy coat against her cheek. Propelled by the other woman’s arm around her, she stumbled out of the ladies’ room.

“Poor dear,” she said, sounding like a psycho kindergarten teacher. “The champagne went right to her head, dear lamb.”

Berlin tried to lift her head, to look at whoever the woman was talking to, but she couldn’t make her neck move.

“Let’s get you home,” the woman said.

She felt her shove her gun hand into her side but she didn’t feel the dig of the gun into her flesh. She was starting not to feel anything.

She had a fleeting thought of just giving in to the exhaustion and falling to the ground. The other woman couldn’t drag her unconscious body through the hotel. But the hatred in the woman’s eyes was enough to make her think she’d just as soon shoot her as leave her. She didn’t want to take the chance. Gabe and his men had cameras everywhere. They’d see something. They’d save her.

Except they were watching Blake, waiting for the woman hauling Berlin out of the side door to show up. She clung to the image of Gabe’s face, Gabe smiling down at her, Gabe loving her. And then her world went dark.