Maggie K. Black - Undercover Holiday Fiancée

“No problem. Now is perfect.” Besides, she was thankful to have something to replace the dangerously attractive picture of Trent that still floated at the edges of her mind. Instead she thought about Olivia. Five years younger and almost a foot shorter, both Olivia and her one-year-old Abigail had the same startling green eyes and red hair that Chloe had. A journalist, Olivia lived with her bodyguard husband, Daniel, two hours away. “Everything okay?”

“You asked me to let you know if I heard anything about Staff Sergeant Butler’s OPP division in Bobcaygeon. There was a major gang shooting there yesterday—”

“I know.” Chloe cut her off. “I was there. I’m sorry. I should’ve told you.”

Olivia’s voice froze midstream as it switched tone between journalist and sister. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Chloe said. “I’m sorry I didn’t call you earlier. Can we talk off the record?”

“Okay. But just so you know, the newspaper will be launching a major investigation into rumors that Butler botched a drug investigation. We’ll be starting it the first week of January. We’ve been hearing it from several sources and this gang violence has given us a pretty strong hook.”

“Got it.” Chloe blew out a long breath. Torchlight News would be thorough and fair. And Chloe could no more ask Olivia not to run a news story than Olivia could ask her not to investigate a crime. “I saw Trent Henry.”

“Wow,” Olivia said. “And?”

“He asked me to help him out on an undercover case.”

“You said yes, didn’t you?” Olivia sighed. “Clo, you’ve got a rescue complex.”

“No, I don’t.” True, there’d been a time when a simple phone call from her sister would be enough to make her drop everything and rush to help her, because her sister wasn’t as strong and steady as she was. But Olivia had Daniel now, plus a whole team of bodyguards who worked for him.

“So says the woman trying to save her former training officer’s career,” Olivia countered.

“That’s different. Butler trained me. I owe him some loyalty for that. Not to mention it won’t exactly be great for my career if he’s thrown under the bus.”

Although seeing how little faith Trent apparently had in Butler was worrying.

“I told Trent no. I don’t need the headache of Trent Henry right now. I mean, I’d like in on the specific investigation. I can’t go into any details on what it’s about, obviously. It would be great for helping me land that promotion. But Trent said it would mean posing as his fiancée and when he said that something inside me just balked. Something about pretending to be dating Trent wrecks me emotionally every time. Plus, I don’t want him thinking he can just sweep into my life, disrupting everything, whenever he thinks he needs me and then just disappear again.” She liked order. Trent was chaos. And, if she did have a rescue complex, it was clear Trent didn’t want to be rescued.

“But you like him,” Olivia said. “And he likes you.”

“So? We’re not teenagers. I’m not picking a buddy to do a book report with. And even if I was, Trent’s the kind of guy who’d ditch class the day the report was due because he suddenly had something else come up.”

“You could bring him for Christmas dinner,” Olivia said. “It’s going to be a big shindig. We’re inviting all of Daniel’s Ash Security colleagues and their partners. Both Josh and Alex are newlyweds. Zoe’s fiancé has two amazing daughters. Abby adores them.”

Was her sister even listening to what she was saying? It was like she was having a completely different conversation.

“Trent Henry is the last person I can imagine sitting around a table at Christmas dinner,” Chloe said. “He doesn’t want a relationship with me. He wants to pretend to have a relationship with me when it suits him, and then walk out of my life without saying goodbye.”

She couldn’t begin to get her head around why that was so much trouble for her heart. She just knew that it was.

“What do you want?” Olivia pressed.

“A cast-iron heart that he can’t even dent,” she said. Headlights flickered past her window for a third time. She tossed the blanket off and stood. It was the same truck. “I’ve got to go. Just pray for me, okay? And I’ll see you at Christmas.”

“Will do.”

The call ended. Chloe shoved her feet into boots and yanked her arms through the sleeves of her jacket. It was probably nothing. But she’d slip through the woods by the road and watch for the truck to drive by again, just in case, and then search the plates.

She opened the door. It flew back instantly, knocking her hard in the chest and throwing her off balance. A large man—huge, bald and shrouded in winter clothes—shoved his way into her living room, kicking the door closed behind him. Her hands rose to protect herself. But it was too late.

He pushed her down onto the couch, tossing her like a rag doll. One hand clenched her throat. The other held a handgun to her cheek.

“I don’t know what your game is,” the man hissed. “But you took a cell phone off a Gulo yesterday, and you’re going to give it to me.”

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