Hero for Hire

Hero for Hire
Marie Ferrarella

HIS ONLY FEARKidnapped as a boy, Chad Andreini had devoted his life to rescuing abducted children. But this anguished mother was different. Alluring Veronica Lancaster stirred within Chad a long-buried desire to belong somewhere-and made more painful the stark dread that he never would….HER ONLY HOPETrusting a total stranger with her precious child's life wasn't easy for Veronica, but walking away from Chad would have been even harder. her child's safe return was all she wanted from this comforting yet cryptic man, until the night they turned to each other in lonely desperation–and undeniable desire….

“Maybe I’d better not stay,”

Chad whispered.

Being alone last night had been almost more than Veronica had been able to bear. The thought of being left alone again tonight drove shafts of panic through her. Her fingers tightened on his arms as she looked up at him. “Don’t go. Please.”

“If I stay…” His voice trailed off, leaving the rest unsaid.

She knew what she was asking. Knew what would happen if he remained. But she needed his comfort, needed to have him here. He understood more than anyone what she was going through. If there was a price to pay for that later, so be it. As long as she didn’t have to be alone tonight.

Hero for Hire

Marie Ferrarella

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

To Tiffany & Chris,

Here’s hoping

history

repeats itself

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 1

He saw the pain in her eyes the moment she walked into his office.

Another man not in his line of work would have noticed the young woman’s slender figure, the honey-blond hair smartly done up in a variation of a French twist with just a few rebellious hairs out of place at her temples, or the cut of her clothes. She was wearing a powder-blue, single-breasted jacket and skirt that most definitely hadn’t come off some department-store rack fingered by the general public. This woman, with her hundred-dollar-an-ounce perfume that softly entered the room with her, was someone of taste and breeding who knew exactly what was becoming to her and who could easily afford it, no matter what the price.

All those things registered, but only on a secondary level. Because the pain in her eyes captured the bulk of Chad Andreini’s attention and immediately expressed to him the fact that a life-and-death situation had brought her here.

He half rose in his chair, fragments of manners his mother had once tried to teach him before she wasn’t able to teach him anything anymore surfacing automatically. Politeness, she had liked to say, never went out of style. He hoped, in the world his mother now inhabited, that it never did.

The woman entering his office seemed oblivious to the courtly gesture. It was apparent that she was fighting for composure as she moved toward him. She was employing that strange, disembodied gait that people find themselves unconsciously resorting to when their entire worlds are crumbling down around them and they can’t understand why they are still drawing breath, still alive, when something very precious has been snatched from them. Perhaps forever, though the thought was always far too horrible to contemplate.

She had that look about her.

He’d seen it before and would see it again, but it was nothing he would ever get used to.

Carrie, the secretary he and the others at ChildFinders, Inc. all used, had buzzed him half a minute earlier, telling him that a new client was here. It was his turn to try to pick up the pieces of this latest case and glue them into some semblance of a whole as he attempted to solve the puzzle. He knew nothing more about her than her name. Veronica Lancaster.

She looked like a Veronica, he thought now, silently taking measure of her. The woman’s bearing was regal. Regal even in the time of a parent’s worst nightmare.

At least, that was the facade.

But Chad knew how easily and quickly facades could crack and break apart, letting everything within spill out. Leaving only an empty vessel and a fading memory of composure in its wake.

Veronica Lancaster, for all her effort, looked close to breaking apart.

He liked to keep his distance. It helped keep his mind clear and focused on what was important. Right now, he felt like a spectator at a pending disaster. The feeling left him wanting to do something to prevent it. It was not only his job to do something about it, it was his calling.

“Please sit down, Mrs. Lancaster.”

Veronica heard the gently worded instruction. The voice was deep, strong. It penetrated the constantly recurring fog about her brain, and she looked around the room, focusing for the first time. There was a chair right in front of his desk.

Veronica complied with the man’s urging. It didn’t occur to her not to.

Hands on the chair’s arms, she lowered herself into it slowly, as if some part of her was afraid that any sudden movement might make her collapse into it.

Or collapse entirely.

Oh Casey….baby…how could this have happened? she thought.