Maggie Price - The Redemption Of Rafe Diaz

“What happened after he hit you?” Rafe asked.

Allie shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t remember anything after that until I woke up on the kitchen floor. He had plenty of time to kill me, too.” She lifted her gaze to meet Rafe’s. “I don’t know why I’m still alive.”

Rafe’s mouth tightened. “The fact you are tells me he knew for sure you didn’t get a look at him.”

“Which is fortunate for me. Not for your client if he’s innocent.”

Rafe stared at her.

Seven years ago, she hadn’t known Rafe all that well. Still, Allie had been well aware that there had been something about Rafe Diaz, and it wasn’t only his dark, go-to-hell looks. He’d exuded some sort of innate, brooding sexiness that seemed to promise endless nights of pleasure. Watching him now, she realized that hadn’t changed.

Dear Reader,

Reconciliation. I have a soft spot for a story that brings characters back to someone they loved and lost. So, I thought, what about writing a connected trilogy of books about three couples with shared pasts? Stories where passion is intensified by memory and by deferred longing. And where better for lovers to come together again than in Reunion Square, an almost mystical enclave of quaint shops and businesses?

Three women. Three men from their pasts. Three different journeys that take us to the “ever after” part of love that was destined to be.

In the third of these books, lingerie shop owner Allie Fielding stumbles over the murdered body of a customer. To add to her shock, the private investigator who shows up to interview her is the man she helped send to prison. Hired by the slain woman’s accused lover, exonerated P.I. Rafe Diaz believes his client is innocent. And though dealing with the woman whose testimony put him behind bars stirs up a past Rafe thought he’d dealt with long ago, it also unlocks a passion neither of them expected.

Suspensefully,

Maggie Price

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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Before embarking on a writing career, Maggie Price took a walk on the wild side and associated with people who carry guns. Fortunately they were cops, and Maggie’s career as a crime analyst with the Oklahoma City Police Department has given her the background needed to write true-to-life police procedural romances which have won numerous accolades, including a nomination for the coveted RITA® Award.

Maggie is a recipient of a Golden Heart Award, a Career Achievement Award from Romantic Times BOOKreviews, a National Reader’s Choice Award, and a Bookseller’s Best Award, all in series romantic suspense. Readers are invited to contact Maggie at 416 N.W. 8th St., Oklahoma City, OK 73102-2604. Or on the Web at www.MaggiePrice.com.

For my girls, Roxie and Lexie.

Thank you for all the joy you add to my life.

Prologue

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

Epilogue

Annoyed, exhausted, Allie Fielding whipped her Jaguar into the driveway of the two-story condo in one of Oklahoma City’s poshest neighborhoods. The dinner meeting she’d attended with board members of the investment empire she’d inherited had run late. She could have headed home after that, if only Mercedes McKenzie had shown up as scheduled when Allie closed her shop before the meeting.

I should have gone home, Allie thought as she studied the condo. She frowned when she found herself comparing its dark windows to sightless eyes. In reality, she knew that going home hadn’t been an option. Not while she still had the hot pink garment bag that held the silk robe, red beaded bustier and two come-and-get-me sexy lace teddies she’d designed. The order had been rushed due to Mercedes’s needing the lingerie before she and her lover left for Paris at midnight. Allie felt certain if she didn’t drop off the items now, the long-legged redhead with a practiced pout would call, claiming some catastrophe had prevented her from showing up at Silk & Secrets, and from returning Allie’s phone calls. Then she would wheedle Allie into making a delivery to the airport.

“No problem,” Allie muttered. She was determined to prove herself in a career that had no ties to the Fielding empire her father had amassed. Some people might think Franklin Fielding had willed his fortune to his sole biological child out of love. Allie knew better. The idea of his money falling into the hands of someone with no Fielding blood coursing through their veins would have struck him as even more reprehensible than leaving it to the daughter he’d never wanted and had shunned.

As for the empire, her father’s name was the one investors, board members and bankers related to, and his was the one they trusted. So she used it—grudgingly. Her own business, however, was her baby. She’d put all of her skill and experience and creativity into building it from the ground up. She would tend and nurture—and, yes, deliver items to the recalcitrant mistress of some wealthy man willing to buy her drawers full of lingerie.

But Mercedes had morphed into more than just a client, Allie reminded herself. The woman was dead-on savvy about fashion. At Allie’s urging, Mercedes had begun designing the line of jeweled evening bags that were currently flying off the shop’s shelves.

Allie climbed out of the Jag’s cool comfort into the hot night air that was as dry as old bones. While she retrieved the garment bag off the Jag’s backseat, the wind gusted, dragging strands of her blond hair from its sleek chignon.

The garment bag draped over one forearm, she headed up the drive, promising to treat herself to a glass of cold wine and a hot, frothy soak in sea salts as soon as she got home.

Although the neighborhood had private security patrols, she couldn’t bring herself to abandon her one-of-a-kind designs on the front porch. So she continued toward the rear of the condo, the click of her heels echoing against the driveway, mixing with the sound of a car’s engine thrumming to life.

Glancing over her shoulder, she caught the gleam of ruby-colored taillights as the car sped past.

She followed the lighted walk around the side of the condo to a patio furnished with iron tables and cushioned chairs. Overhead, tree branches swayed. In one corner of the patio, a fountain gurgled, its water bubbling into a brass sea shell. It was hard, in the middle of so much motion, to believe she was entirely alone.

The thought raised the hairs on the back of her neck. She skimmed her gaze across the patio. Then quickened her steps toward the back door.

There, Allie noted a dim light glowing behind one of the condo’s closed shutters.

She draped the garment bag over a chair, then opened her purse. After jotting a message on a sticky note, she pressed it against one of the glass panes in the back door.