Novels by Terry Sterling

Chapter 4Damian cross the restaurant floor with controlled urgency. The ice from his office was gone, replaced by a dark focus that made my stomach flip. Three years ago that look had meant he was coming for me. Tonight it meant he was trying to protect what he had already lost once.He didn’t look like a CEO executing a termination. He looked like a man trying to outrun something that could destroy all three of us.“You need to come with me,” Damian said, ignoring his brother entirely. His eyes locked onto mine, hard and demanding. “Now, Ivy.”“Excuse me?” Nathaniel stepped between us so fast the air shifted. The loose charm evaporated into a rigid, territorial line. Heat rolled off him as he blocked Damian’s path, shoulder to shoulder with me. “She’s having dinner. With me. You don’t get to march in here and reorder her evening.”“There’s a leak.” Damian’s voice dropped to a harsh whisper. “Someone has been selling Special Projects’ internal data for months. And twenty minutes a

Chapter 3The dark glass wall of the private booth suddenly felt less like exclusive luxury and more like a high-end cage.Three years ago I had sat across from Damian Cross in a place almost exactly like this same low light, same expensive wine, same dangerous promise in the air and believed the heat between us meant I was safe. Tonight I was sitting across from his brother, and every instinct I still possessed told me safety had never been on the table.“You came,” Nathaniel said, the tension in his shoulders visibly dropping as he rose to pull out my chair. He had ditched the suit jacket, sleeves rolled up his forearms in a way that felt entirely calculated and entirely effective. The sight of those strong, tanned arms made something low in my stomach tighten the same way it had the nights I let myself look too long when Damian wasn’t watching.“I have questions,” I said, staying on my feet a second longer than necessary just to keep my ground… and to give myself one last chance to

Chapter 2“Is she any good?”The words on the page burned into my retinas. Three years ago Damian Cross had asked the same question about me in a darkened hotel suite after we closed the Harrington account right before he pinned me to the wall and proved exactly how good he thought I was. Now the question was about me again, only this time it came from a man who used to wake up with my hair across his chest and now looked at me like a liability he couldn’t quite discard.“My brother doesn’t do anything without a secret motive,” Damian said, arms crossed tight over his slate-gray suit. He leaned forward, anchoring me to the leather chair with that cold, assessing gaze that somehow still made my pulse skip the way it used to when he would watch me undress. “If Nathaniel wanted you here before I even looked at your résumé, you aren’t just an employee to him.”I slammed the folder shut. The heavy cardstock cracked against my knees. “Then what am I?”“A piece he’s moving on a chessboard.

Chapter 1The paper crinkled under my thumbs. My chest felt tight, like the elevator doors had closed on my ribs instead of opening.Three years. That was how long it had been since Damian Cross last looked at me like this across a conference table, slate-gray eyes cold and assessing, deciding I was useful. The same eyes that used to watch me fall apart in his hotel suite after we closed a deal. Back then I had still believed the heat between us meant something. I had still believed the late nights, the shared victories, the way his voice dropped when he said my name in the dark meant I was more than a temporary asset. I had been wrong.Damian didn’t look up from his laptop. “Everything they had on you. Every failed pitch. Every time they told you that you weren’t enough.”“That’s private,” I said. My voice came out thinner than I wanted. “They had no right”“Nathaniel doesn’t care about rights when he wants something.” Damian finally raised his eyes. That same slate-gray gaze p