This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2018 by Katee Hird
Cover design by Elizabeth Stokes. Cover image © Geber86/GettyImages. Cover copyright © 2018 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
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First Edition: April 2018
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ISBNs: 978-1-4555-9710-9 (mass market), 978-1-4555-9709-3 (ebook)
E3-20180222-DA-NF
Contents
Cover
Title
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Discover More Katee Robert
About the Author
Also by Katee Robert
Acclaim for Katee Robert's Novels
Fall in Love with Forever Romance
To Kristen Nave
Acknowledgments
This book was definitely a labor of love, and that old saying that it takes a village was never truer than while drafting and editing it. I may have been the one writing, but this book would not have come into being without several key folks.
More thanks than I can ever say to Leah Hultenschmidt for helping me whip this beast into shape. Thank you for having faith in me despite a few false starts, and for helping me get Beckett into true hero shape. I love this story so much, and I wouldn’t have pulled it off without your input!
I will be forever grateful to Cherry Adair for picking apart my plot in all of thirty seconds—and then giving me the tools to fix the issues. I’m officially a reformed pantser, and shall be plotting with sticky notes forevermore!
Thank you to the ladies in the IECRWA for sitting down and plotting with me, and then giving me high fives and positive vibes for tackling the story. You’re the best!
Big, big, BIG thanks to Lauren Hawkeye and Piper J. Drake for holding my hand through the emotional roller coaster of drafting and editing and rewriting. You ladies were always there to whip out the pom-poms and override the doubt that this would be the book that beat me. You were right! It wasn’t! And it ended up being a better book for your support. Thank you!
Huge thanks to Kristen Nave and Terri Wakefield for always being there in a pinch to wrangle the resident honey badger so I could work, and for your words of encouragement. Thanks to Hilary Brady for showing up at opportune times for coffee and snacks.
Last, but never least, thanks to Tim for being my rock in the midst of the insanity of this year. You never doubted that I could do this, and you never hesitated to kick my ass into gear when I needed it and take over dinner duty for weeks on end. I love you like a love song!
Prologue
Beckett King had no good reason to be in the hotel bar. If he wanted to celebrate winning the bid for his father’s company, he should have gone out to be sure he wouldn’t run into the competition. Instead, he stood there in the entranceway, scanning the dim room for a distinctive head of dark hair.
A low laugh drew him like a magnet to a lodestone. He might not like the woman it was attached to all that much, but she never failed to make an impression. Beckett shifted, zeroing in on the sound.
There.
Samara Mallick leaned against the bar, laughing at something the bartender said. She wore the same black dress she’d had on to give her presentation, and it hugged her mouthwatering curves and left miles of her medium brown skin exposed. She’d taken her hair down since he’d seen her last, and it fell around her shoulders in wild waves of black.
She looked good enough to taste.
Beckett took a step toward her before he caught himself. Samara worked for the competition. There wasn’t a woman more off-limits. They’d gone head-to-head over bids for oil territory leases half a dozen times over the last few years, and while Beckett won the contracts more often than he lost them, he couldn’t afford to miss a step. If he did, Samara would be there, stealing the next bid out from under him before he had a chance to blink.
He couldn’t blink.
She caught sight of him and grimaced, which was enough to propel him toward her. Just need the reminder of why she’s not for me. They couldn’t be in the same room without bickering, and he needed that vicious edge to regain control of himself.
Samara raised dark brows and swept her hair off one shoulder. “The heir decides to make an appearance. Come to gloat, Beckett?” She made a show of looking at the muted beige carpet beneath her heels. “I’d get down on my knees in the presence of royalty, but…Oh wait, no I wouldn’t.”
The pull he felt didn’t dim with her words. If anything, their proximity only made it worse. This close, he could see the tempting curve of her bottom lip, a little fuller than her top, and he caught a whiff of her lavender scent. Damn it. Beckett ordered a whiskey and took the spot next to her. “Don’t play coy, Samara. You spend plenty
