stairs and my body stopped. Oh shit. Pictures of the guy didn't do him justice. He was standing close, in dark suit pants and a crisp

oadsword and carry it into battle. He had black hair, a little shaggy and in need of a trim, a rugged face

prime fantasy material. The ladder shifted beneath me. Oh shit. I tried to straighten myself, failed and overcorrected, and the ladder began to tilt. I sucked in a breath. It all happened so fast. I fell and h

ened. I jumped up and made a shooing motion. "Get going, I need to finish my work." His eyebrows rose. Oh, I bet the grumpy billionaire was used to people bowing and apologizing, not smartasses. "What did you say?" he said. "Oh, this is where you use the old 'do you know who I am?' line. Because I hope you're not

came on. It had been a long day, with an afternoon of endless meetings. He took off his jacket and threw it over

e grabbed a beer from the fridge and uncorked it. It was one from a microbrewery he liked. He'd found the brewery on his trip upstate with Zane and Liam for a long weekend. He took a sip of

dark eyebrows. Mav rolled his eyes. No matter how many times he showed her the tablet's camera and how to get it right, the lesson never stuck. "Wait, wait," Maria Rivera said. "There." Her smiling face appeared. She was going gray and didn't care. She told him,

r with dinner." "Mom, I just walked in the door. I'm about to heat up some of your empanadas."

aid you're dating someone." His hand curled around the bottle. "I told you not to read that crap, Mom. They make shit up." "Maverick, that mouth." He pressed his hand to

en." "So you should be happy." "I want you to be happy, Maverick." "Mom, I'm happy." He waved his arm toward the fancy kitc

laugh and doesn't let you get your way all the time." "Mom-" "It's all that woman's fault," his mother spat. God, Mav didn't w

t he said. "Yeah, then you need to stop letting what she did still control your life." He fell silent. He j

inc and Nora?" Mav asked. Asking about the grandchildren was a surefire way to distract his mother. "I know what you're doing." She gave him a resigned look

ening." "Te quiero, Mom." "Te quiero, hijo mio." Mav ended the call. Just then, his computer pinged. His pulse raced. It was a security alert. He tapped on the keyboard and opened his monitoring program. Hmm, a hacker was scanning again. He tracked the hacker. Th