Unlike everyone else around Mendez, Blake didn’t immediately jump at his command. For several beats his eyes lingered on her face before he finally stepped away from her desk. A slow trickle of air slid from Kara’s lips, tension easing from her body, at her escape from his too-knowing, too-compelling, attention. Compelling. Yes. He was compelling in all possible ways. Wickedly, intensely, hotly compelling. He demanded her attention, his presence resonating with the woman in her in a way no other man ever had. This was what every woman wanted to feel for a man, but thought she never would. And if she got lucky enough to have it happen to her, she wanted him to be the right man, a good man. In Kara’s case, this man she was responding to was without a doubt the wrong man.

After an eternity seemed to pass, when it was merely seconds, the door behind her opened and shut. Kara cast a glance over her shoulder, ensuring she was alone. Then, and only then, did she slump over her desk, letting her long, dark hair cover her face, thankful no one could see her reaction to the man who’d just taken her by storm all over again. Blake not only put her on edge, he set her on fire and left her breathless. He was dangerous to her agenda, her big picture. Her reason for everything she’d done the past six months. Everything she’d given up. Everything she’d left that mattered. He was a weakness she couldn’t afford and a problem she had to deal with quickly and efficiently before he destroyed everything she’d been working for.

Chapter Two

CHAPTER

TWO

Blake followed Mendez into his office, the lingering scent of Tiffany Snow, or Kara, or whatever the hell her name was, spiraling through his nostrils and heating his limbs. The woman had drugged him and almost destroyed his reputation with the cartel, and still she had him hot and bothered and more than a little distracted. Not so much, though, that he hadn’t seen the fear in her eyes when Mendez had assumed they’d known each other. Because she’d helped Richter for cash and her boss would see that as disloyal? Or because she was one big secret she didn’t want revealed?

Pausing midway inside the office, Blake watched Milo Mendez round his massive cherry wood desk, a picture of greed and arrogance in the way he moved, the way he wore his fine silk grey suit. And most definitely in the glint in his dark eyes as he settled into a leather chair and claimed the position of power in the room.

Not about to give him that power, Blake feigned interest in his surroundings, not the man, inspecting the wall of windows to his left and the leather couch and chair to his right with exaggerated interest. “Nice office.”