Rochelle Alers - Secret Agenda

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Dear Reader,

Many of you have asked about the extended family and friends of the Coles, who were first introduced in Hideaway. My response is Secret Agenda. This latest novel continues the ongoing Hideaway Legacy series, with Diego Cole-Thomas taking center stage in this romance.

Stranger in My Arms provided a glimpse of Diego when he assumed control of ColeDiz International, Ltd. But as CEO of a privately held conglomerate, he takes the company in a new direction with its first stateside venture. However, when his business commitments conflict with his many social obligations, he hires recently widowed Vivienne Neal as his personal assistant. He is awed by her sensual beauty, intelligence and social grace, and Vivienne becomes his stand-in date and constant companion.

But when Vivienne finds herself doing double duty as a personal secretary and social escort to the CEO, who is well-known for his brusque manner and intimidating reputation, she doesn't realize until it's almost too late that she needs him to do more than just satisfy her long-denied sexual passion. Pursued by an assassin who will stop at nothing to retrieve her late husband's little black book, Vivienne must rely on the only man who can protect her from harm and restore her faith in love.

I invite you to join Diego and Vivienne on their journey of passion and intrigue, an adventure that will test their willingness to risk it all.

Yours in romance,

Rochelle Alers

PART ONE

Diego Cole-Thomas ColeDiz International Ltd.

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

PART TWO

Vivienne Kay Neal

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

James McGhie turned the key in the ignition of the stolen car, and put the heat on its highest setting. Despite wearing a pair of his mama's hand-knit woolen gloves, his fingers were beginning to stiffen up from the cold. He knew sitting in a car with the engine running was certain to draw attention, but he wasn't going to risk the freezing weather, because then he would have to explain to Mrs. McGhie why her precious baby boy—as she referred to him—had frostbite. There were some things he told Mama but many more things he didn't. James realized there were hazards to his job, but losing a digit or two was not in his game plan.

He'd sat patiently waiting for his target to reappear, but the frigid D.C. temperature made his wait very uncomfortable. He took a quick glance at his watch. Forty minutes had passed since U.S. Representative Sean Gregory entered the bank across the street from where he sat in an old black sedan.

He sat up straighter, one hand going to the earpiece. “I just spotted him.”

“Where is he, Jimmy?” asked the gravelly voice in his ear.

“He just came out of the bank near the Dupont Circle Metro.”

“Stay with him.”

The man who'd been trained by the country's best intelligence agency peered through a pair of binoculars, his gaze fixed on his target. He'd spent days waiting for the brash young politician to leave his Georgetown town house. The day before, McGhie had gone to the town house but Gregory's housekeeper had told him her employer wasn't feeling well and wasn't receiving visitors. But from the looks of the nattily dressed man sauntering down the street, he appeared to be the picture of health. Everything about him—his cashmere topcoat and expensive, tailored dark suit—reeked of arrogance, and that included his walk.

“He just got into his car,” James whispered into the microphone under his jacket lapel.

“Follow him for a couple of blocks, and then we'll take over.”

He followed the late-model Lexus sedan until a black Ford Crown Victoria smoothly maneuvered in front of his bumper several yards ahead. He'd done what he'd been instructed to do and now the rest was up to the men in the Crown Vic. Personally, he liked the Connecticut congressman. But he couldn't afford to let his personal feelings interfere with completing his assignment.

He'd been instructed to follow Congressman Gregory and report back when he was alone. If the men who were hired to take out Sean Gregory didn't find what they were looking for on him, then it was up to McGhie to break into the congressman's home and search for the little book that could become a huge political scandal.

James sat in a well-worn recliner watching CNN, while enjoying his second beer after several helpings of his mother's delicious lamb stew. He'd stopped off to have dinner with her, leaving with enough plastic containers filled with leftovers to last him for several days, before retreating to his sanctuary—a furnished studio apartment in a middle-class D.C. neighborhood.

He turned up the volume on the remote when the program he had been watching was interrupted for a breaking news story. An obviously grief-stricken Speaker of the House announced that Connecticut Congressman Sean Gregory had succumbed to injuries he'd sustained in a hit-and-run earlier that morning as he'd stepped out of his car only yards from his Georgetown residence.

The camera shifted to a scene outside the town house where the media, police, the crime scene unit and a crowd of onlookers had gathered. The television reporter announced that the late congressman's wife, who'd flown in from Stamford, Connecticut to attend a fund-raiser, was unaware that her husband had been fatally injured until she arrived at their home. A spokesperson for the Gregory family reported Vivienne Gregory was too distraught to talk to the press.

Cursing under his breath, James pressed a button on the remote and turned off the television. Vivienne Gregory's decision to make a visit to D.C. had changed everything. His cell phone rang seconds later and he answered it before the third ring.

“Yeah,” he drawled, dispensing with any pretense of being polite. While he detested the man who'd paid him to do his dirty work, it was his voice that he hated even more.

“He didn't have the book on him, and with the little wife in town it means that you have to figure out another way to get into—”

“I know it changes everything,” he said testily, interrupting the caller on the other line. The man who he took his orders from had messed up—big-time! In his attempt to eliminate the popular congressman they'd forgotten about his wife. They were lucky if Gregory took what he knew to his grave. If not, then whatever Gregory had uncovered was certain to rock Capitol Hill to its venerable core.

The young woman who'd befriended Gregory's chief-of-staff had told James that the congressman carried a small leather-bound notebook at all times—a notebook James's boss suspected contained the names of other congressional members who'd received kickbacks on government contracts in their districts. Another source at the Justice Department revealed that Gregory had requested and had been given immunity if he informed on those “on the take.”