The Perfect Hostage (A Super Agent Novella) (Entangled Edge) Read Online Free Page A

believe your intentions are proper?”
    Proper? Yeah, right. “I don’t care what you believe, Mr. Morgan, but my intentions are to treat Lucie the way she deserves to be treated. You might do the same.”
    Broom and dustpan in hand, Lucie returned and stopped. Just froze, scanning both their faces. She knew trouble when she saw it, and she pasted on a fake smile. “Everything okay?”
    The tension in the room was as thick as the frosting on the cake. John took the broom and dustpan from her and started sweeping. “Your pop was saying what an amazing party this was, weren’t you, Mr. Morgan?”
    The man harrumphed and opened his mouth to respond when his cell phone rang. Setting his jaw, he gave John the stink eye and turned on his heel, answering the phone with a terse, “Morgan.”
    As he left through the side door, Lucie gave John a worried glance. “What happened?”
    He made work of cleaning up the kitchen floor. “Just bonding with your ol’ man.”
    She was silent for a long minute. So long, he almost dropped the broom and resumed their make-out session. Anything to get her to stop worrying about gaining her father’s approval.
    John knew from experience that hanging out in your head only led to regret. Guilt. Embarrassment.
    Way to go, John . He may not have cared about family, but like Lawson and Zara, Lucie did.
    And now, here he was dropping to hands and knees to scoop up the last of the crumbs on the kitchen floor, wishing all the messes he made in life were as easy to clean up.
    Two pink shoes came into view, planting themselves in his way. He didn’t look up, just sat back on his haunches. “Look, Luce. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”
    “The sooner we feed them cake,” she interrupted, “the sooner they’ll leave.”
    Taking his time, he did a slow perusal from her feet up her shapely calves, then higher, soaking her in just the way he’d planned. He had to touch her thighs, so he did, running his hands up under her dress. Lucie’s chest heaved in and out. She swallowed hard.
    Her cheeks were still flushed. Her hair as mussed as his.
    He stood, set the broom aside. “Cake it is.”
    She went for the cake server, washing it off in the sink. He grabbed the plates.
    The sharks were circling, but not for much longer. No one—not even the billionaire who owned the place—was going to make John leave Lucie’s side.
    She called it. Lawson and Zara were still eating cake when the other Morgans began packing up and drifting out the door, parting with air kisses and promises of future get-togethers. Agent Saunders was long gone, saying he wanted to beat the incoming weather, but not before he’d taken a minute to thank Lucie for inviting him, holding her hand and complimenting her on the food and decorations. Lucie had beamed and John had felt a spurt of pride.
    Snow fell in earnest as Zara’s mother, Olivia, stood at the door, wrapped in a fur and tapping an impatient foot. “Where is he?”
    “I don’t know,” Zara said. Lawson had taken some plates to the kitchen, so she looked at John with pleading eyes. “Would you see if you can find my father?”
    Gaining the Morgans’ trust was John’s first step in building an insurgency inside enemy territory. “I’ll be happy to look for him.”
    “Thank you,” she said, and Olivia offered him a reserved smile.
    In the past twenty minutes, Charles had been on his cell phone constantly, disappearing into the bowels of the house every time it rang, and looking disgruntled when he came back. When he did rejoin them, all he did was complain about the cell service. And how the whole world wanted a piece of him and his money.
    When he’d said that, he’d looked at John.
    John acted oblivious. Let him think whatever he wanted. Meanwhile, every time Charles left the room, John went to work infiltrating the Morgan clan. While surreptitiously holding his shirt together, he befriended Charles’s brother, chatted with Zara’s mother, and had