Tycoon Protector

Tycoon Protector
Elle James

Tycoon Protector

Elle James

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

Table of Contents

Cover Page (#u0eb575db-c85e-51ac-a220-aa6ef344f1ea)

Title Page (#u06f0089b-33d8-5a55-8443-0fca0eb13e11)

About the Author (#u8b565b62-28d6-5f1e-838a-88bce64a9aa4)

Chapter One (#ue83d255e-1049-5061-8096-4d273b1125f5)

Chapter Two (#uf6d666e7-a315-51a7-85b3-77dae9767ee8)

Chapter Three (#u2759e1da-57ee-5dd1-b11e-901b7d03f1ff)

Chapter Four (#ua83b36ab-8f27-5dd5-88b7-b4f0b6e40b87)

Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

2004 Golden Heart Winner for Best Paranormal Romance, ELLE JAMES started writing when her sister issued a Y2K challenge to write a romance novel. She managed a full-time job, raised three wonderful children and she and her husband even tried their hands at ranching exotic birds (ostriches, emus and rheas) in the Texas Hill Country. Ask her and she’ll tell you what it’s like to go toe-to-toe with an angry 350-pound bird! You can contact her at ellejames@earthlink.net or visit her website at www.ellejames.com.

I’d like to thank the wonderful authors who contributed to bringing this continuity together, making it come alive with action, adventure and romance. None of this could have happened if not for our terrific editors for their support and belief in us as authors. A great big, special thanks for making my dreams come true.

Chapter One

Jackson Champion stood on the Bayport Container Yard loading dock, sleeves rolled up, his cowboy hat tipped back on his head. Overhead illumination eclipsed the moon, making the busy container yard brighter than day with light reflecting off the low ceiling of clouds.

Despite the solid concrete beneath his feet, Jackson’s body still swayed to the rhythm of the ocean. It usually took more than twenty-four hours for him to get his land legs back after several weeks at sea. His two-month reprieve, delay of the inevitable, call it what it was—okay, escape was the right word—had come to an end.

The time had come to face the consequences of a night spent in Ysabel Sanchez’s arms. Yet here he was delaying the face-to-face he owed her by sticking around to direct the offloading of cargo from his ship. A task the stevedores and deckhands normally managed quite well without his presence.

Cranes lifted containers from the ship, stacking them in the container yard with artful precision. He didn’t have to be there, but he told himself he wanted to supervise the unloading of the special cargo he’d shipped for his remaining friends and founding members of the Aggie Four Foundation, Flint and Akeem. Just one more delay tactic. A twinge of regret passed over Jackson. One of their four had died recently; the pain still ached like an open wound.

The crate full of expertly designed Rasnovian saddles would bring a good price at Akeem’s auction. But the money wouldn’t buy a replacement for Jackson’s pending loss. An inevitable defeat from any angle he chose to view it.

The woman was sure to leave him. No doubt about it. She had every right. Hell, she had the right to sue him for sexual harassment if she wanted to get legal on him. Not that Izzy would do that. She was one classy lady, grown from the same stock as he was. The stock of hard knocks. A grin threatened to spill across his face. She hated being called Izzy.

No, Ysabel wouldn’t sue; she’d walk out on him. The two months enforced reprieve could be viewed as running away from his problem—although the problems he’d encountered while away had needed his on-site decision power. Jackson chose to call it delaying the inevitable. He’d missed her and he’d miss her even more when she was gone entirely out of his life.

He rolled the kinks out his shoulders and located the stevedore superintendent, the one man on the dock with a clue as to where the container holding the saddles was located and when it would be unloaded.

Being the owner didn’t make him any more anxious to interrupt the complicated task of unloading a cargo ship. Weight distribution meant everything to the successful completion of the task.

His skin twitched in the side of his jaw, impatience settling in like a case of poison ivy, making him want to scratch all over. Now that he was back in Houston, he was anxious to get to the office and see what had happened in his two-month absence from the corporation he’d built from the ground up, Champion Shipping, Inc. Everyone would have gone home for the evening, except perhaps Ysabel. If he could catch her alone, maybe he could apologize and promise not to let it happen again.

His groin tightened at just the thought of that one night of the most incredible sex he’d ever experienced. Rebound sex, he’d called it. And it could cost him his most valuable employee. Ysabel Sanchez—executive assistant, master planner and righthand man…er, woman. Ysabel was the one person he could count on to ground him in reality, tell it like it was and pick the right tie for every occasion. Even in his absence, she managed the day-to-day operations without a snag. She’d kept his schedule straight, reminded him of his social obligations and arranged his itinerary long-distance. The woman was phenomenal in more ways than he could enumerate.

Then why was he so hesitant to head back to the office?

Because he knew as soon as they were face-to-face, she’d hand him her resignation and walk out. Ysabel wasn’t a one-night-stand kind of woman. She’d want the happily-ever-after, something Jackson hadn’t believed in since his mother left him and his father twenty-seven years ago.

And after the fiasco with his ex-fiancée, Jackson was even less inclined to commit to that particular lifestyle than before. Not that Ysabel was anything like Jenna Nilsson.

The stevedore superintendent, Percy Pearson, glanced his way, Jackson’s cue he could ask his question without interrupting the man’s concentration.

Jackson closed the distance and held out his hand to the man. “Percy, good to see you. Have you seen the container with the special cargo yet?”

The man checked his handheld cargo tracking device. “Unloaded fifteen minutes ago. Should be in the second row of containers in that section.” He pointed to a row of containers on the dock.

“Thanks.” Jackson strode to the end of the row and found the container marked “Special.” When he circled behind the container, he noted the container door had been opened and part of the shipment had been removed. “What the hell?”

A forklift carrying a pallet with a crate on it headed away from the ship and the open container, moving faster than was authorized in the chaotic structure of the container yard.

“Mr. Champion? I’m Tom Walker, the super said I could find you here.” A young man probably in his early twenties hurried up to Jackson. He wore a crisp new business suit and shiny black wing-tipped shoes, fresh off the shelves. “Miss Sanchez sent me over. I’m the new management trainee on the executive rotation.”

Was this Ysabel’s idea of a joke? Not that he had time to worry about it when someone had pilfered his goods. “Did you see that?” Jackson pointed to the forklift. “I think that forklift driver took off with my property.”