Amelia Autin - Liam's Witness Protection

Dear Reader Dear Reader Contents Cover Back Cover Text Introduction Dear Reader Title Page About the Author Dedication Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Epilogue Extract Copyright , When I wrote McKinnon’s Royal Mission, part of my Man on a Mission miniseries, two characters who intrigued me were Princess Mara’s other two bodyguards—Diplomatic Security Service agents and brothers, Alec and Liam Jones. Alike in many ways, and yet so different in others. They are emotionally close, as brothers should be, so I started writing their stories simultaneously, weaving the plots together into a cohesive whole, although each book stands on its own, as it should. But it was the brothers’ differences that caught my imagination. While both men are protectors, Liam, the younger of the two, is more—more concerned, more protective, more emotionally involved. Liam is also more idealistic than his pragmatic brother. As I saw him, he should have been born in the twelfth century, roaming the world as a knight-errant, saving damsels in distress. So the only woman for Liam was either pure as the driven snow…or something else. And I settled on the something else for my heroine because she was more appealing to me. True or not, Caterina “Cate” Mateja has judged herself unworthy of a good man’s love after everything she has survived. Can Liam convince his lady otherwise in Liam’s Witness Protection? I love hearing from my readers. Please email me at AmeliaAutin@aol.com and let me know what you think. Amelia Autin

Title Page Liam’s Witness Protection Amelia Autin www.millsandboon.co.uk

About the Author AMELIA AUTIN is a voracious reader who can’t bear to put a good book down…or part with it. Her bookshelves are crammed with books her husband periodically threatens to donate to a good cause, but he always relents…eventually. Amelia returned to her first love, romance writing, after a long hiatus, during which she wrote numerous technical manuals and how-to guides, as well as designed and taught classes on a variety of subjects, including technical writing. She is a longtime member of Romance Writers of America (RWA), and served three years as its treasurer. Amelia currently resides with her PhD engineer husband in quiet Vail, Arizona, where they can see the stars at night and have a “million-dollar view” of the Rincon Mountains from their backyard.

Dedication For Sharon Treister, Stephanie Hyacinth, Susan Kyser Frank, Debbie Oxier, Sharon Wade and a host of other readers whose emails, book reviews and posts kept me going in 2014 and helped me make my deadline for this book—this one’s for you. For my sister, Diana MTK Autin, Esq., who helped me get the legal details correct (any errors are mine and mine alone). And for Vincent…always. Acknowledgments Though itself part of the US Department of State, the Bureau of Diplomatic Security is the parent organization of the Diplomatic Security Service (DSS). The DSS is the primary tool by which the DS carries out its security and law enforcement mandate. For more information, please visit www.state.gov/m/ds . I have the highest regard for the work these federal agencies perform. Nothing in this story is intended as a negative representation of the Bureau of Diplomatic Security or the Diplomatic Security Service, their duties or their employees.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Epilogue

Extract

Copyright

Chapter 1

She didn’t look like a prostitute. That was the first thing that came to Liam Jones’s mind when he saw her standing next to a bench outside the courtroom. He didn’t know what he’d expected—not exactly—but it wasn’t a fresh-faced woman in her midtwenties wearing a summery dress in pastel swirls of pink and green, bare legs and sandals. Her blond hair was shoulder length, clean and shining, and held away from her face by cloisonné combs in a way that made her look heartbreakingly young.

There was a definite family resemblance to her cousin, Liam’s new sister-in-law, Angelina Mateja. So she had to be Caterina Mateja. Which meant looks were deceiving. If he hadn’t known who she was, if he hadn’t known she was testifying in his brother’s human trafficking and prostitution ring conspiracy case, he’d have pegged her as a model—tall, slender, almost delicate in appearance, aloof, with a touch-me-not air. And a definite attitude. She was listening to two men in impeccable dark suits and power ties that shrieked they were the prosecutors on the case—one a dapper man in his fifties, the other younger than Liam. Prepping their witness? he wondered idly. Isn’t it kind of late for that?

And though he couldn’t hear what they were saying, he knew damned well Caterina Mateja wasn’t at all happy with whatever they were telling her. Two other men wearing identical black outfits, badges and sidearms—all of which Liam recognized—stood on either side of her, obviously providing her with protection.

A longtime Diplomatic Security Service special agent, Liam wasn’t there in a professional capacity. Not officially. Officially he was on vacation for the next three weeks. But his brother Alec, also a DSS special agent— not just a special agent, he reminded himself with a smile of familial pride in his brother’s accomplishments, the regional security officer at the US embassy in Zakhar —had asked him to meet him at the courthouse this morning for the start of the trial. As a witness Alec had been precluded in a pretrial motion from sitting in the courtroom for the proceedings. But there was nothing stopping Liam from being there, and Alec had asked him to attend as a special favor. Not that Alec had told Liam a lot about the case ahead of time, nor would Liam discuss the trial with his brother while it was under way. But this case was important to Alec—a career maker—and Liam would do anything for his brother.

Liam glanced at his watch. He was early, but that was par for the course with him. He planned his days carefully—planned his entire life that way, actually—and he didn’t like leaving things to chance. Traffic in Washington, DC, was rarely predictable, often troublesome even in the summer, so Liam almost always arrived early for whatever he had going when he was in town. He was never late. Not even in New York.

He leaned casually against one of the rotunda’s marble pillars, careful to keep his distance as he waited for his brother. Alec had told him US Marshals were guarding Caterina Mateja since she was a crucial witness in this trial, more crucial than Alec, who had orchestrated it all. So even if Liam hadn’t recognized their outfits and badges he would have known who the two men were.

Liam was armed—he’d had to display his DSS badge and show the guards his SIG SAUER P229R in its shoulder holster in order to bring a weapon into the building past the metal detectors—and he had no intention of making the marshals think he was a threat to their witness.

But even from this distance he couldn’t help notice how beautiful she was. How graceful her hands were as she tried to make some point to the prosecutors. How altogether classy and patrician she looked standing there arguing with them but never losing her cool. Anyone less like a hooker he’d yet to see.

Movement out of the corner of his eye had Liam turning sharply in its direction, then he grinned. “Hey,” he said as Alec came up to him.