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       Prologue

      “Maybe there won’t be a wedding!”

      “How can you say that?”

      Hidden by the trash bins where he’d been working after regular customer hours, the man lingered in the shadows outside the Fairy Tale Bridal Shop near downtown Kansas City and watched as the back door swung open and the young couple stormed out into the parking lot.

      An older woman, her hair gleaming like brass in the illumination of the trendy neighborhood’s wrought-iron lights, hurried after them. “You ungrateful little girl.”

      “Please.” The shopkeeper following behind her tried to intervene but wasn’t assertive enough to be paid any heed. “You shouldn’t be making big decisions right now—”

      “No, Mother.” The young woman whirled around and he caught his breath. She was so classically beautiful. So perfect. So like … No, don’t go there. “It’s young woman. Grown woman. Not little girl. You can’t force this on me. It’s too big. Too much. I don’t want this.”

      “You still want me, right?” The tall man in the tailored suit reached for her.

      She shrugged off his touch with an unladylike grunt and no answer.

      “Sweetheart.” The tall man smiled and clasped his hands around her shoulders, trying to soothe her temper. “Let’s go to our dinner reservation and use the time to cool off. It’s been a long day.”

      “I’m not hungry.” She shook him off.

      The man in the shadows smiled beneath the mask he wore over his nose and mouth. That one had fire. An insidious awareness of her feminine strength licked through his veins and made him clench his fist around the bag he carried.

      “Then let me drive you home. We’ll talk.”

      “No!” The young beauty spun around and stamped her high heels toward the sidewalk that ran along the street. “I’ll catch a cab.”

      “Sweetheart?”

      “She really shouldn’t—”

      When the young man and mousy shopkeeper moved to follow, the mother stopped them both. “Don’t bother. She’s been like this for weeks now. I’ll try to talk some sense into her when she gets home.”

      Seriously? They were letting her march off by herself? Not that this was as dangerous a neighborhood as it had once been now that buildings were being renovated and new shops and young professionals were moving in. And the Shamrock Bar just a couple of blocks over, where a good cross-section of KCPD cops liked to hang out after hours, offered some degree of crime deterrence. Still, a woman alone, brave enough to face the city at night—too upset to be truly aware of her surroundings …

      The man glanced up. The last vestiges of graying twilight were giving way to stars and a dim crescent moon. Night was falling, and it would be a dark one. Traffic was light between the race of rush hour and the incoming surge of the city’s nightlife.

      She wouldn’t find that cab anytime soon.

      The forgettable woman went back into her shop. With a silent nudge, the bossy mother and groom-to-be climbed into their car.

      His pulse raced in anticipation at the opportunity at hand. The shop door locked. The car drove off. It would be so easy. It had been so long.

      “Don’t.” A voice of reason inside his head tried to warn him off the impulse heating his blood. “You don’t need this anymore. You’re better than this.”

      But he wanted. Hungered.

      And she was all alone.

      He dropped his bag to unzip his jacket and reach inside his pocket. Everything he needed was in his vehicle. It would be so easy.

       “I told you to get rid of those things. Don’t think this way. Stop.”

      But he’d done without for so long, he’d been so good. Still, the rage burned inside him every time he thought of … her.

      And the hurt. The humiliation.

      It wasn’t his fault. She couldn’t do this to him. Not again. He wouldn’t let her. He needed her to pay. He needed to take back all she’d stolen from him.

       “It’s not the same. You’re confused.”

      “Shut up,” he muttered, feeling his own hot breath moisten the fibers of the mask he wore.

      He moved from the shadows to peek around the corner of the brick building. The street was practically empty. Storefronts were dark. The apartments above them were far removed from a world that was quickly shrinking to the quick, purposeful strides of the blonde woman and his own raging need.

      Sliding his hand into his pocket, he turned off his phone, in case someone called and distracted him. In case someone thought they could track him down. This was just him and the woman now.

      “Stop. She isn’t worth it,” the voice argued.

      But the white-hot haze inside his brain wasn’t listening. He ran to his vehicle and started the engine. He looked to the right, to the left, then pulled out of his parking space.

      And even though the sun had set, he put on his dark glasses and followed her up the street.

       Chapter One

      I want to see you.

      KCPD desk sergeant Maggie Wheeler had never seen an uglier flower. Not that there was a thing wrong with the cultivated shape and color of the pink spring tulip or the matching ribbon and tall bud vase.