Chapter 1

      Carter climbed out of the glittering turquoise pool, water dripping down his bare chest, chiseled abs, and the swimsuit clinging to his narrow hips and trunk-like thighs. The warm desert breeze brushed over him like a caress, leaving pleasurable goose bumps in its wake.

      It was a damn nice day.

      He ran a hand over his close-cut hair and squinted against the glare of the afternoon Las Vegas sunshine. His arms and back ached from the laps he’d swum in the Olympic-sized pool separated from the wading pool by a stylized velvet rope, and his chest rose and fell with his regulated breath.

      He should’ve been more relaxed. Hell, he should’ve been a limp noodle after the fruit-heavy tropical breakfast, hour-long massage and strenuous swim he started his day with. But the dream was still riding him. Somehow, it had seemed worse than usual last night.

      So instead of feeling tranquil after a long morning and afternoon of food, pampering and winning at blackjack, Carter was tense. His whole body was a mass of coiled muscle. He barely managed not to look over his shoulder, searching for a familiar pair of brown eyes, curved lips, a sweet face that begged for promises he’d never been able to keep.

      At nearly three in the afternoon on a Tuesday, the hotel pool was as crowded as a Saturday night at a regular spot. But in Vegas, people didn’t keep regular hours. Every night was a party. Every day was a vacation.

      At his lounge chair, he scooped up his towel and roughly scrubbed it over his head, neck and chest. People watched him. Women, specifically. He could feel the burn of their eyes. Their gazes roamed his body, hard and muscled from a rigid routine in the gym, greedy and admiring.

      He was used to all that and so just shrugged it off.

      “Can I get you anything else, Mr. Diallo?” A poolside concierge paused by his chair, her white uniform shining in the sun while she held an empty tray at her side. She looked ready to get him just about anything he wanted.

      “Just another mineral water, please.”

      The woman nodded and quickly flitted away to get him what he asked for.

      Carter had had a whiskey sour earlier but quickly switched to water after he got a call that the reason for his Vegas trip was set to go down in just a few hours. Alcohol never really affected him, but he didn’t take the chance while he was on the job. When he was at work, he was at work.

      As the head of his own security company he built from scratch, personally taking care of many of the situations his high-end clients demanded with discretion, he was always very careful to separate business from pleasure. One careless slip could mean losing everything for his client, and even for himself. Carter Diallo never slipped.

      When he’d come in the day before, anticipating that the work part of his trip wouldn’t start for another twenty-four hours, he took full advantage of the perks of being in Vegas. He hit a couple of the casinos, indulged in a long evening at the late-night spa before sitting down to a solitary meal in the hotel’s rooftop restaurant. Views of the strip had been the ideal accompaniment to his perfectly cooked steak and creamy rosemary potatoes. He had slept well last night. Long and deep. Until the dream swept over him, that is.

      A tone chimed on his phone. Three fifteen.

      Carter sighed, his massive chest rising up and down with the breath.

      Time for him to get to work.

      * * *

      “Did anyone ever tell you, blackmail isn’t a very safe hobby?” Carter crossed his arms over his chest and loomed over the skinny guy cringing back in the hotel bed.

      “I didn’t do anything, man!”

      The guy, no older than twenty-five at best, did his best to melt into the headboard, his stupid hipster beard quivering like a weed in the storm.

      When would these boys stop thinking growing big beards on their baby faces was a good substitute for actually being a man?

      Carter didn’t back down. He towered over the young man and deliberately used his tall and burly frame to intimidate the guy who’d dared try to blackmail his sister. His dark gray suit, worth more money than the dude could spend in a week, only added to the intimidating picture. Carter made sure of it.

      “I swear, it wasn’t me! Alice is lying!” The kid was trying to practically climb over the headboard and into the wall now, his skinny legs bared in some ridiculous underwear with a string that crawled between his butt cheeks.

      What did Alice ever see in this guy?

      “So this isn’t you I see using the prepaid ATM card you demanded she send you to this post office box?” Carter showed him a picture on his cell phone.

      It was undoubtedly him, despite the low-drawn hoodie and shoulders hunched away from the cameras. But the idiot wore the same shoes he’d somehow convinced Alice to buy for him, limited-edition two-thousand-dollar kicks that had only come out a few days before the photo was taken.

      In the blackmail note, the kid demanded money and shoes. Greedy for everything he wouldn’t get now that Alice had seen through his crap for what it was and broken up with him.

      Anger boiled in Carter, a low and violent rage. But, as usual, he kept a tight grip on it, another aspect of his personality that secured him the title as the most placid Diallo brother, if also the most dangerous.

      Calmly, Carter scrolled to another picture on the phone. A blown-up version of the one the boy sent to Alice’s email address. In the photo, two people were obviously in an