Chapter 1 Baby, Sleep Well The cursor blinked incessantly, but not its usual comforting pulse. This was ominous, frightening. The beat a little too fast, matching the sudden spike in the rate of my heart. It didn't help that as I'd sat here - numbed, chilled, utterly blind-sided - more than half an hour had passed and the sun no longer illuminated the sky outside the window where I was. Just an eerie electronic glow from the computer screen in front of me, interrupted with the taunting flash of the cursor on the screen; waiting for my next command. But I didn't have one. I couldn't think. All I could see was the now blurred outline of code on my screen. Code that I had stupidly thought would impress Jaxon, but instead changed everything. How had I been so blind? My hands shook as I reached for the keyboard, fingers trembling as I finally began erasing my footsteps. Knowing I needed to be thorough. My life depended on it. Knowing there had to be absolutely no trace that I had ever been here, seen this. That I knew. Bile surged up my throat as line after line of text decrypted before my eyes. But it was too late. I'd read it. I couldn't undo that fact. I couldn't rewrite my brain as easily as I rewrote this code. For the rest of my life I would know. But I couldn't let a single soul realise I did. How the hell had I missed this? You think you know someone, really know them. You think you understand their hopes and desires, their loves and hates. Their aspirations, their beliefs, their core values. But you don't know them at all. How had he hidden this side of himself from me? Abruptly the bile surged further and I barely made the rubbish bin at the side of the desk. Retching into the container, feeling my insides crawl up my throat. My chest ached. My heart fluttered erratically. Tears streamed down my cheeks. Oh dear God. How do I hide my reaction to this? I can't. I just can't. I have to leave. But Jaxon would never let me go, not without reason. That's what attracted me to him in the first place. Slightly arrogant, extremely confident, and totally obsessed. With me. There's nothing better than having a handsome, self-possessed male do the chasing. But whereas I'd always looked at his determined pursuit in a flattering light before now, I wondered if in fact I'd just been his prey. How to escape? I was too entrenched, too intricately woven into the fabric of his life. For fuck's sake, he'd paid for my tuition. He'd posed for photos at my graduation. He'd moved me into his luxury apartment. He paid my wages, he directed my career. He owned me. If I'd had more in my stomach to vomit, I would have. As it is, I was sure I was doing damage to my oesophagus, the acrid bile burning a path up my gullet. I sat back in the chair, sweat beading my upper lip and across my brow, and stared at the now blank screen before me. Relief was brief in its visit. If what I'd seen was true, then Jaxon could possibly already know secured files on the system had been opened. I was good at what I did, but was I good enough? My fingers flexed, the urge to recheck my retreat all consuming. But the best way to hide your tracks is to overlay them with something else. Hidden in amongst a plethora of inconsequential details. Random clusters of irrelevant data, making the real reason you were there seem lost in the chaos. I started meticulously opening and closing unsecured files. Making notations, doing what I was now paid to do. Ensuring the system was foolproof. That's what my new job title included. Security IT consultant to C&C Enterprises. I much preferred my old employee responsibilities. Waitressing and once-upon-a-time dancing at an exclusive gentleman's club suddenly held appeal it had all but lost in recent months.

Swinging around a stripper's pole never felt so carefree before tonight. Not that Jaxon let me dance anymore once we started dating. I moved from on top of the stage, to in front of it. Champagne flutes and silver trays my props, rather than glitter covered, itty-bitty bikinis. An hour later and I was sure I'd done a decent job of hiding my trail. My hands still shook. I was coated in sticky perspiration. My stomach a churning ball of fire. I'd masked what I'd discovered, but I hadn't nearly gotten a handle on how I felt. Nor did I have an answer on how I would escape this nightmare I'd woken up in. I glanced around the office, thankful this had transpired while at home. Home. I shook my head. This wasn't my home now. It felt more like a prison. Every inch of this space reminded me of where exactly Jaxon had got the money for his lifestyle. Of how exactly he'd obtained the necessary cash to live like this. The desk was antique. Mahogany, I think. The chair was one of those ultra lumbar supporting ones, an orthopaedic design to aid in correct posture. Couldn't have his perfect princess stooping, now could we? Why hadn't I seen his control for what it undoubtedly was? The artwork was a mix of modern and impressionist. I stared harder at a painting of an English countryside scene and wondered if it wasn't a print, like I had previously suspected. Was the art stolen? Was it his way of laundering cash? My hand rubbed my belly as panted breaths escaped my pursed lips. Pack a bag and run, my heart told me. He'd chase you down and put a bullet in your head, my mind replied, a little too chillingly. I knew too much. I was part of this world, even if only blindly, ignorantly until today. I was employed by one of the top men in a former drug lord's immediate circle of trusted confidants. And not just to entertain his clients. I was now part of the security team designed to hide his devious acts. Did he know I'd find that file? Was it a trap to see how I would react? Behave? Was he, even now, loading a bullet in a gun to silence me forever? I couldn't believe he'd be so naive to think I couldn't have cracked that code. Did he just think I wouldn't go there? Not the curious type. I'd given him reason to suspect that, I supposed. Never questioned his late night calls. Never asked how the manager of a gentleman's club could afford luxury accommodation such as this. Never demanded to know where he went in the middle of the night so unexpectedly. But I'm a live-and-let-live kind of girl. Jaxon treated me right, looked after me, supported me; emotionally, physically and professionally. I had no reason to believe his motives weren't pure. So why did I open that file when I saw it was encrypted? Because code is the only place I have ever wanted to delve into. Strip back. Lay bare. Not the man I was sleeping with. Not the place that paid my wages and put me through university. Not the hand that fed me. But code. Glorious, spell-binding, line after line of intricate command... programme code. I have lived for computer data since I first found my way onto my father's desktop iMac at the age of thirteen. Late for some hackers. But I was a quick study. Started writing my own code six months after stripping back Dad's computer. Turned the operating system into a gaming console, locked my father out, and made him think the machine had just malfunctioned. I moved it from the rubbish pile into my room. The first of many. It's not that I'm devious. I just lose all perspective when faced with code. Had Jaxon seen that in me? Is that why he singled me out and nurtured my career? I was already eight months into a computer science degree at Auckland University when he took an interest in me. I'd been dancing at the Champagne & Chandeliers Gentleman's club for three months by then. Paying my course fees, rent and the petrol in my small ancient Mazda car. Five months later he'd worn me down. Shifted me from up on the stage to waiting on the tables, moved me into his apartment, and replaced the Mazda with a brand new Peugeot 208.

And I let him. Because he understood my love of writing code. Encouraged me, made it possible to do the expensive advanced courses at uni, showered me with state of the art computers and challenged me with the occasional complex code. With a shock I realised it was all a lie. A ruse to manipulate my training to exactly where he needed it to be. He'd been careful, made sure I only saw innocent programmes that on their own were benign. My mind hurriedly went back over what Jaxon had shown me, let me work on, and with dawning mortification I understood their implications if seen in a different light. Combined in a different fashion. I stumbled from the office and entered the large lounge. The full floor length windows showcasing an uninterrupted view of Auckland's skyline, including the iconic Sky Tower. Safety beacons glinted off vessels in the Hauraki Gulf. House lights on Waiheke Island blinked back across mirror calm waters. The city was waking up for another mesmerising night, full of promise and seduction, luring the weak, trapping the innocent. Filling the air with a type of passion that bordered on the insane. I loved this city. I had never been so afraid of it before now. I stared at those lights for too long. My body shivering from a chill that did not exist on the air in the temperature controlled opulence of this room. It was all me. Inside me. Slowing my reflexes down, making it impossible to think of what to do next. He'd hidden it so well. Treated me so good. I'd never suspected this. I felt betrayed. I had to leave. I couldn't stay. I needed to escape while I still could. The front door rattled, a key being inserted in the lock. Panic gripped me. He was home. Earlier than expected. Because he knows what I've done, what I've seen? Because he suspects I'll run. And he won't let me. Frantically my eyes scanned the dark space I stood in, glued to the priceless Persian carpet on the parquet floor. Heavy brass lamp base on the table to the left. Marble statuette of Venus on a plinth to the right. Murano glass bowl on the table before me. The kitchen was too far away, but I knew a butcher's block of sharp knives stood next to the six burner stainless steel gas hob at the far end. The ivory coat stand in the entranceway housed two pointed-tipped golf umbrellas. That was it. The gym was down a floor, the dumbbells in it as good as useless from here. The bedrooms up a floor and although I knew Jaxon kept weapons in the walk-in-wardrobe, they were locked in a gun safe and inaccessible to me. The office was the seat of the crime, and I wasn't going there again any time soon. I realised too late that I was standing in the darkness. No lights had been turned on. So, when Jaxon flicked the switch in the entranceway and bright white flowed to the room, I was momentarily blinded. Several hard and fast blinks of my eyes later and he was already standing at the door. Watching me. Face expressionless. The width of his shoulders making it appear he brushed both sides of the doorway frame. He was dressed for a night at the club. Slight sheen to his made-tomeasure silk suit jacket, dark colours complemented by a splash of blood-red in his tie. Red is for passion, he'd once told me. I'll always wear red if you're in my life. Red was also the colour of blood. The blood on his hands. "Baby? What are you doing hiding in the dark?" He sounded like Jaxon. Deep, gravelly. I used to think sexy, now I just knew it for what it was. A smoker's voice. A criminal's voice. Hardened, not sex-roughened. Sinister, not husky. "I just walked in here," I managed to say and was surprised at the normalcy in my tone. His eyes darted down the hall, no doubt noting no illumination there either. If I'd just walked in

here, why wasn't the hall or office light on? I'd never noticed how he took so much in before. One simple glance. One assessing gaze. He could derive so much from such a casual move. Whip-like intelligence. Something else that had attracted me to the man. Now it could be my downfall. He hadn't pounced. He wasn't holding a drawn gun, although I knew weapons would be concealed on his form. He didn't look angry. Just puzzled. And concerned. I made a rash decision, an instant assessment of my own. He didn't know. With my blood thundering through my veins, and a sickness I wasn't sure I could quell inside my stomach, I took a step toward him, attempting to plaster a natural expression on my face. There'd be a reason why he was home early and if it wasn't because I'd cracked his security code, then it was for something else. And under normal circumstances, I'd have asked. I needed to behave like everything was normal. God help me, because it most certainly was not. "This is a nice surprise," I said, my voice only quivering slightly. "Did you come home for me?" To kill me. To silence me. "I missed you, baby," he purred, closing the distance between us and somehow falling for my ruse. His arms wrapped around my body, making me realise just how buffed Jaxon actually was. I'd always liked the muscles. Who wouldn't? Now I just saw them as tools for him to do harm. I felt so fragile in his embrace. I felt trapped as his lips trailed over my sweat soaked skin. I felt sick as he licked a trail up the side of my neck. "Have you been working out?" he growled, low. "You know how I like it when you're all hot and sticky." I was going to be sick, stomach contents or no stomach contents. I was about to puke up all over the murderous, lying, manipulative bastard before me. I just knew I was. I didn't reply. I couldn't. I stood too frozen in his embrace. I should have been reciprocating. I should have been entwining my fingers in his slightly too long blond hair. I should have been nibbling on his ear, like I always did. But I couldn't. He was going to figure it all out. And I couldn't even pretend to save my life. His lips brushed along my jaw. His erection prodded my belly. Jaxon's several inches taller than me, something I've always loved. Feeling cocooned in his frame, when he lowers his upper body over me, wrapping his impressive six-foot-two height around me. Not anymore. I felt trapped. His mouth found mine. My lips stayed glued shut. My hands fisted at my sides. My back rigid. His tongue licked the lower curve of my lips, a request for me to open up, to give myself to him. I knew I had to. I had to pretend. I couldn't walk out of here with him present. I had to wait until he went back to work. I had to hope that he would. It was still too early in the night for him not to make an appearance at C&C. I willed my lips to open. A moan of distress escaped before I could stop it and Jaxon stilled. Then pulled back and glared down at me. "Baby, have you been sick?" Oh, fuck. The vomit. In the rubbish bin. In the office. Where I discovered his lies. I nodded, my hand going to my stomach, starting to rub in a motion I knew was designed to calm the panic, but must have just made me look miserable. Because in the next instant I was up in Jaxon's arms and being carried towards the stairs. Towards our bedroom. "Why didn't you tell me?" he demanded, but all I could detect was weighted concern. He really didn't know. I might survive this night after all. "You surprised me," I whispered. The truth always sounded so much more believable. "Ah, baby. You should have said." We entered the bedroom, Jaxon pulling back the covers on the bed and laying me down on the

cool sheet's surface. He reached over and flicked the lamp on beside us, bathing the room in a soft yellow glow. He started to remove my shoes and socks, then moved on to my jeans. I must have paled, because he paused and looked at my face, his lips pressed in a grim line. Then without a word he pulled my jeans away, leaving me in pale pink lacy knickers and my t-shirt and matching bra. I watched him, like you watch a wild animal, as he crossed to the dresser and removed one of his old workout t-shirts. The size making it a good choice for me to sleep in. I always slept in his tshirts. I wanted nothing to do with that shirt he held in his hand as he turned back to the bed. "Now the top, baby," he murmured, his eyes fixed on my breasts as they rose and fell a little too quickly. Jaxon liked my boobs. All natural, but certainly impressive even lined up next to the other surgically enhanced exotic dancers at the club. I was just lucky to have been born with the perfect physique for a pole dancer. One Jaxon took great pleasure in every single day. I cursed my genes now. "Let me help you," he whispered, even though I hadn't made a move to remove my own t-shirt at all. He leaned forward, gripped the bottom of the shirt's hem, and then pulled the garment slowly up my chest revealing what lay beneath. Even when I smelled of rancid puke he makes a show of unwrapping his present. My whole body shook with the distress of my current predicament. I'd been in lust with this man this morning. I'd let him do decidedly raunchy things to me in this very bed. Then again over the bench in the kitchen not fifteen minutes later. I'd moaned my enjoyment out at his every touch, his every command of my body. And yet I'd never opened my heart to him. Not in the twenty months I'd been living in his home, sleeping in his bed. Why? Because I saw the darkness. I recognised it, even if I ignored why it would be there. He kept me safe. He made me feel secure. And now he was the enemy in my bed. The one who could do far more harm than any man had ever inflicted before. Did I doubt what I'd found tonight? Not for an instant. Because somehow I'd already suspected. Not exactly what he was or what he had done. But what he was capable of. Part of that attraction had been a lure towards his dark. Towards that bad-boy image he portrayed. Like a cliché I'd fallen for the act, not allowing myself to acknowledge it was real. You can't get more bad-boy than Jaxon Harding. The man who was stroking my breasts as he removed my bra, and leaning down to lick and suck a nipple because he can't say no to my body, even if I'm supposedly sick as a dog. "Sorry, baby," he mumbled, slipping the t-shirt over my head at last. "You know I can't ignore the twins." A term I'd never be calling my breasts ever again. "Are they bigger than normal?" he asked, covering my body blessedly with the sheet, cutting off all other nefarious action on his part. But his casual tone and carefully picked choice of words left me quaking. "Your period's due, isn't it?" He always kept a close eye on my cycle. Marking it on a calendar more meticulously than I ever did. "Baby," he murmured, sitting himself down on the side of the bed, his hand reaching out and brushing my dark hair off my face where it had begun to cling. "Don't worry about a thing. I'll take care of you." His hand rested on my turbulent tummy and started to gently rub. "I'll always take care of you." He leaned forward and pressed a kiss to my belly. "And if we're lucky, we'll be tied together forever through the little person growing inside your belly." Oh, fuck. If he'd been possessive before, Jaxon would be intolerable if he thought I was carrying his child. Impossible. Or at least, improbable, as the only thing I was meticulous about concerning my cycle was taking my birth control tablets. Pills Jaxon was not aware of.

God. The writing had been on the wall. Even my subconscious had known it. Then why the hell hadn't I? He'd treated me like a treasure. He'd fooled me. No. I'd let him. "Baby, I gotta go back to work. Want me to get you anything before I do?" I forced myself to smile. To reach up and cup his jaw, like I would usually do. To look him in his pale blue eyes. "I'll be fine," I whispered with a shake of my head. "You take such good care of me, Jax." "Always," he whispered back, then kissed me softly on the lips despite the sick smell that must have lingered there. "Don't forget it," he warned against my skin. "I always take care of what is mine. And you are mine, aren't you, Amber?" I nodded. It was expected. "Baby," he purred as he pulled away, "I will never let you go." He stood, my heart about to leap out of my chest, my mind already deciding what I would pack and what I would leave behind as soon as he walked out that door. I had no plan of where I would go, but I did know I wouldn't be looking back. Running was my only option now. I watched him cross to the doorway, then he paused and looked over his shoulder, the pale blue of his eyes darkening to a steel-grey. "Spoke to your dad this evening," he said, so casually, so easily. "Told him I'd be paying the bill for his care in the next few days. Bit of a relief, I think," he added. "They were about to organise his transfer to the public hospital. I hadn't realised it had gotten that bad." He had. I'd told him. One month ago when he said he'd paid for my father's specialised care up until the end of the year. I hadn't checked. I believed him. And Dad seemed happy when we last spoke. Paying the bill wasn't the issue. I could have paid it, but Jaxon had insisted. He wanted to take care of me and what was mine. What was a worry, though, was the fact that moving Dad elsewhere would be detrimental to his health, could even kill him. If I ran, I couldn't hide Dad. I couldn't move him. Even if I paid his health bill, what would Jaxon do to him to lure me back? Dad wasn't long for this world, we all knew this. But could I stay until he passed, just to avoid what Jaxon might do? And why was he mentioning this now? He held my gaze as I nodded, either in thanks or because I was acknowledging the implied threat. Did he know? Was he playing me even now? I forced myself not to bite my bottom lip, to show a weakness such as that. But it was too late, my fingers were gripping the sheet at my chest too tightly. White crested my knuckles and I was sure Jaxon had seen. "Baby, sleep well," he said and I let a breath of air out carefully. He started to walk away, but not so quickly that I couldn't hear him clearly say, "Next time you go that far into the system, make sure you don't stay there longer than sixty seconds. The tripwire's set to go off after that." He knew. He'd known all along. That's why he'd come home. To deliver the warning. Run and I go after your dad. Run and I'll chase you down. Run and I'll never let you out of my sight again. Baby, I will never let you go.