Table of Contents
CHAPTER ONE “Come on, beautiful, let’s go. It’s showtime.” Nina Bronson didn’t so much as blink at Ewan Donahue’s murmured compliment, even though she had every right to consider it presumptuous. She merely offered him her hand so he could help her get out of the transpo. She didn’t need his assistance, really, not even wearing these extravagantly high heels and the tight crimson dress that showed off curves in places she’d forgotten existed until she’d shimmied into the sleek fabric. She allowed him to take her hand not because she needed him, and not because she wanted him to touch her. It was all for show. An elaborate charade, with her participation guaranteed by a sum of credits so bountiful it meant she’d never need to work again for the rest of her life. As one of the world’s thirteen remaining “super soldiers,” Nina was forbidden from using her enhancements for any work but private hire. So here she was, once again in the employ of one of the world’s most eligible bachelor bill
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO Ewan had often enjoyed these galas. Excellent food and outstanding drink, the company of people he could convince to fund his projects . . . at the very least, the scenery was generally enjoyable. He’d usually gone home with someone who was as disinterested in seeing him the next morning as he was them. Women like Ginger Tanaka, who’d finally given up her pursuit when he made it clear that tonight he only had eyes for one woman. Nina. “I was wrong,” he said to her now, leaning close so that nobody else at the table would be able to hear him. Not that he cared if they did. He’d have shouted his feelings from every rooftop, if it would have made a difference. “About the dress.” Nina had been sipping from a glass of red wine and looked at him now with the liquid teasing her lips. She put the glass down and ran her tongue along the crimson droplets, a perfect match to her dress. Her brow furrowed. “It doesn’t look good?” Ewan shook his head. She frowned, glancing at herself. “N
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE Nina hadn’t said a single word to Ewan on the way home. She’d never imagined herself the sort of woman who’d use cold silence as a weapon, but the truth was she couldn’t find anything to say to him that wouldn’t come out scathing. Angry. Bitter. Disgusted. Wounded. She wasn’t going to show him any of that, not a single hint of it, because underlying the entire tangled pile of hateful emotions was the knowledge that she’d been a fool. Clearly, her recently recovered ability to experience intense emotions meant she’d been feeling too hard, too much, too fiercely, and it had led her astray. She’d been on the verge of letting herself give in to the risky, unexpected, and loathsome hope that she could trust him again. That something was still possible between them, if only they could figure out how to make it work. She’d been wrong about him. Again. “Hey,” he said now as she went on ahead of him into the house. “Nina. Wait.” “It’s late,” she replied. “Nina.” This time, the war
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR Ewan had never been one to sleep late, but this morning he’d woken even earlier than normal. Actually, he hadn’t really slept at all. The sex last night had been phenomenal, but it had left him wishing he’d done exactly what he’d told Nina he wasn’t doing . . . resisting. It had taken him less than an hour to finalize the dissolution of the contract. All it needed was the signatures from him, Nina, and ProtectCorps, and she would be free to walk out of his life. This time, Ewan thought, it would truly be forever. He saved the updated document without sending it. In the kitchen, he cracked eggs and toasted bread as the coffee brewed, knowing the scent of breakfast would lure her down. She came in through the back door, not from the hallway, surprising him. She smiled at his expression and glanced at her clothes. Instead of her usual uniform of black leggings and shirt along with a harness of equipment, she wore a pair of butt-hugging shorts and a matching tank top. He’d see
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE About a month ago, Ewan’s former partner and co-inventor of the enhancement tech, Wanda Crosson, had been arrested for the repeated attempts she’d made on his life. Wanda had been one of the few who knew about Ewan’s family cabin in the mountains, where Nina and Ewan had gone to hide out until the threats died down. Wanda had shown up there with her own guard-for-hire, another enhanced soldier who was the only one who could take on Nina and expect to get out of it alive. He hadn’t. Wanda had been only one part of several groups, including the League of Humanity, that had been threatening Ewan. Some for his involvement in the original enhancement tech, others for his efforts at pushing the laws making the tech illegal for anything beyond use in private service, as well as those forbidding any upgrades. Since Wanda’s arrest, any threats of real importance had ceased. The sudden abandonment of what had been years of ongoing threats only proved Nina’s theory that the focus on
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX Ewan hadn’t planned for anything beyond the trip to the lab today, but he also didn’t want to go right home after. His estate at Woodhaven had been vast, outfitted with every entertainment option he could think of, from the media room to the large gardens. In contrast, the modest home he’d moved into, while updated with every possible convenience tech, still sometimes felt too small. He’d thought it would be cozy with Nina staying there, but he realized now he’d been trying too hard to recreate those idyllic weeks at the cabin. Nothing would ever bring those times back. It would never be the same as it had been when they’d been falling in love, even if she took him to bed a thousand times. He glanced at her from the corner of his eye without turning his face in her direction. Nina had made it clear that the sex had been solely physical. A thing that had happened, meaning nothing. Her exact words. He still hadn’t told her that he had the terminated contract signed and waitin
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN One of the benefits of using the transpo service instead of private cars was that transpos could bypass regular traffic by using both normal roads and the raised rail lanes. It wasn’t a perfect system, though. Now, for example, a sudden electrical storm had disrupted the rail service and stalled the transpo lanes. Ewan tapped at the control screen but sat back with a frustrated sigh. “Backups all along the rails. We can’t even get off to take the highway until things start moving.” The transpo control beeped and said in its gender-neutral voice, “All routes will be returned to normal passage as soon as possible.” “Stupid,” Ewan said. “The whole point of this system is so you don’t get stuck in traffic.” Nina laughed at his frown. “You should know as well as anyone that no matter how advanced the tech is, you can’t rely solely on it.” “I wanted to get home,” he told her with a raise of his eyebrows that made her laugh. She made a show of looking around the passenger compar
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT “Work harder.” The bro in the navy scrubs is not a doctor. His name is Marco, and he’s not a drill sergeant, either, although he’s actually more demanding than any one of those that Nina’s ever had. “Push.” She’s pushing, all right. Harder, faster, stronger. Every time she thinks she’s going to have to quit, another surge of energy bursts through her, and she keeps going. Nina stopped taking pride in this a few days ago, when it really sank in that none of this was because of anything special about her. It’s all the tech. Everything hurts, but it’s not the pain that drives her. There will always be pain of some kind or another. Nina is convinced of that. She pushes herself because once she proves to them that she can do everything they want her to do, be all that they’re expecting her to be, maybe then they’ll release her from the hospital. She’ll be able to go home. See her family. Get back to the life she left behind. There are huge parts of that life missing from her m
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE The dream
from last night lingered with Nina even now, the morning after, as she pushed her body to its limits. She’d gone to Ewan’s bed knowing it was stupid, but in the middle of the night it was always easier to make bad decisions than good ones. She’d left him still sleeping and come downstairs to exercise in the small room Ewan had designated as a home gym. With one wall of mirrors and a padded floor, along with a few pieces of simple but effective equipment, it was a good workout space even if it wasn’t very big. She didn’t need a huge room. She needed to concentrate . . . and doing that was more difficult right now than she wanted to admit. She kept thinking about the dream and about her time training in the research facility after the surgeries. She hadn’t thought much about those days for a long time. Her memories of those months were littered with a multitude of blank spots because of the testing they’d done to see how well the tech worked as a security measure.
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN The alert had pinged to Ewan’s personal comm from the sec team, remotely monitoring his house. He’d gone to the workout room to talk to Nina about it not because he was truly worried, but as an excuse to find her after waking up alone. He’d overheard her talking to someone and waited until she was finished. At no time had another ping come through alerting him to someone actually gaining access to the property, yet the front bell had rung twice, now. “Probably someone selling cookies,” he said lightly, watching her. She’d gone into protection mode, and even if he’d been concerned that someone really was trying to get to him, the sight of her so fierce, so strong, so beautiful—it made his heart stutter. He did believe she would keep him safe, which was a big part of why he wasn’t worried. The other part was, as she’d pointed out, he had people who were monitoring the area and no true threats had been reported. The doorbell rang once more. Nina gave him a wry smile. “Sure. Be
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN Nina wasn’t often bored. If she wasn’t engaged in whatever activity she was doing, she almost always managed to find a way to entertain herself. Not today, though. If there was ever place more dull than this cocktail party, she’d never been there, and that included the endless, mind-numbing days of recovery in the hospital. At least there she’d had pudding to look forward to. She scanned the room for a view of Ewan and found him deep in conversation with a tall woman Nina recognized. Katrinka what’s-her-bucket, she thought, forgetting the woman’s last name. She tried again, searching her memory, trying not to fret when nothing came up. There was no blank spot to probe around or worry the edges of. The knowledge simply was not there. Frowning, Nina thought harder, still coming up blank. She turned quickly at the tap on her shoulder, though, very aware that while she wasn’t unarmed, without her harness and gear she was definitely not as prepared as she was used to being. “
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE The ride home in the transpo after the gala auction had been a million years long and colder than the surface of the butchered moon. Ewan had wisely not tried to make conversation with her, and although Nina had found herself with a dictionary’s worth of words to say to him, she’d been unable to form a single sentence because of how hard her jaw was clenched. They’d gone immediately to their separate rooms and she’d lain awake for so long it had become evident she wasn’t going to get to sleep. So, pancakes. “I’ve been craving them since we got back,” she said now without turning. She’d heard the soft pad of Ewan’s bare feet in the hallway outside the kitchen doorway a few minutes ago. Wisely, he hadn’t tried to come in or say anything to her. “They’re what my mother always made for me when I was a kid and stayed home sick from school. Middle of the night, it didn’t matter. She’d make me these pancakes, and no matter how bad I felt, I’d feel better.” “Do you feel bad abou
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN Ewan hadn’t grown up with money, and neither had Nina. Somehow it had never occurred to him that wealth affected men and women differently. Or at least it affected the expectations made of men and women in different ways. He had a single closet of clothes and never thought much about what he was going to wear, not even before a big meeting or a fundraising party. Nina, on the other hand . . . “I have no idea where we’re going to put all this stuff.” Nina kicked at a box full of clothes and accessories Katrinka had sent over that morning. There’d been at least half a dozen similar boxes. Ewan studied the piles of fabric and boxes of coordinating jewelry and footwear. “Look over what you want and send the rest back.” “I don’t think I want any of this.” Nina lifted a flowy kind of tunic-thing patterned in bold stripes. She held it up against her, then shook her head. “Not my style.” Ewan took her in his arms and kissed her lightly. “Send it all back. We’ll go shopping . .
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN A few short weeks ago, Ewan would have said he might never be truly contented again in his life. Now, waking every morning with Nina in his bed, he couldn’t imagine ever being happier. Everything that had happened between them hadn’t gone away of course—it wasn’t that simple. There were still times when he caught her looking at him when she thought he didn’t notice, mostly after they’d made love and they were drifting to sleep. The expression on her face was inevitably thoughtful, a little difficult to interpret. Always beautiful. She hadn’t had any glitches in the past week or so, and the doc he’d called to come check her out had found nothing out of the ordinary, but that worried Ewan more than if they’d come back with a bunch of diagnoses. He’d been working hard with Katrinka toward planning the events that would support the change in the legislation, along with working even harder on writing the new language that needed to get to all the right government officials.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN “I guess there’s no graduation ceremony or anything. Too bad. I was kinda looking forward to like, throwing my cap up in the air.” Al gives Nina a wide grin that doesn’t quite reach her eyes. She shifts her NorthAm Army duffel over her shoulder and runs her hand over her freshly cropped white-blond hair. “So. This is it, Bronson. They’re kicking us out.” “This is it,” Nina agrees. She has a duffel bag of her own, although there isn’t much inside it. She has a couple sets of her army fatigues, along with the hospital scrubs she’s been wearing for the past few months. Her civilian clothes feel binding. Strange. She’s not sure how she’s going to adapt to the outside world after all this time, only that the idea of the freedom everyone seems so set on giving her feels more like a burden. Al shades her eyes, maybe looking for the transpo that was supposed to pick them up twenty minutes ago. “Any ideas where you’re going to go? I have a couple job leads. Nothing I’m supposed
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN Ewan had not expected Nina to be a very good convalescent, but she turned out to be surprisingly amenable to his caretaking efforts. After bringing her home, he’d settled her in the master bedroom with the media remotes, a stack of reading material, and comfortable pillows, along with a silly menu of options that he’d printed off his computer. “Foot massage?” Nina raised an eyebrow and wiggled her toes from under the blankets. “My feet might be the only part of me that don’t hurt.” Ewan sat on the edge of the bed to rub a hand along her thigh. “I’m happy to massage anything else you need.” “How about my lips?” She tapped her mouth lightly. “I can always use a massage there.” He kissed her, gladly, but keeping the pressure gentle. He couldn’t stop himself from nuzzling her neck before he pulled away, but although he’d gladly have spent more time inhaling the scent of her skin, all he had to do was look at the pattern of bruises on it to remind him that she’d been badly i
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN Because Nina was no longer contracted to protect him, she wasn’t required to go with him when he went to meetings. Ewan had asked her to go along, though, because Udo Villanova was exactly the sort of man whose support could make big changes in legislation. Getting him to vote their way would be a huge advantage. “I’m very aware that I should be sort of offended,?
?? Nina said now as the transpo eased away from the rail system and onto the final bit of road that would take them to Udo’s estate. She gave him a sideways smile. “You know. That I’ve been reduced to a pretty face without a voice.” Ewan winced. “You will always have a voice with me.” “I know.” She’d been staring out the window. In profile, lit with the glow coming in through the glass, she had an ethereal quality that set his heart thumping. As if she’d noticed—random hells, she probably had—she looked at him now. “This guy has a lot of power, huh?” “Yeah. Big pull. He’s one of the last remaining life-term sen
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN “You ready to do this?” Ewan looked from his own reflection in the mirror, where he’d been straightening his bow tie, to Nina’s. She shook her head, then turned her face from side to side to study herself in the mirror. She wore a floor-length tunic-gown hanging from one shoulder with a several strands of glittering beads. Both the dress and the beads were red, the color he loved best on her. This time, she’d refused his offer of a makeup artist and hairdresser coming to the house and had pinned her hair up in a complicated series of twists at the top leading to a full explosion of her curls down her back. She was so beautiful that she took his breath away. “Absolutely not,” she answered after a moment. “No way.” He laughed and turned to take her in his arms. “Baby . . . you’ll be fine. Your speech is terrific, you don’t need to worry about that. They’re going to love you.” “I do have experience speaking in front of crowds, Ewan. I’m not scared about that.” She gave hi
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN It wasn’t really the clothes, the hair, the shoes, or cosmetics. Nina thoroughly enjoyed a little bit of glamour now and again, even if she was eternally grateful that looking pretty had never been necessary for her job. It was the idea that in order to convince them that they had to support rescinding the law, she had to make them think she was somehow . . . less. Her pride was never going to make this easy, she admitted to herself as she forced a wide, bright, and slightly vacant smile and took Ewan’s arm so they could enter the ballroom. Yes, the enhancement surgeries had given her the ability to use her body in ways none of the people in here would ever be able to. Yes, too, she needed the upgraded tech to keep herself not only capable of using those enhancements, but also to keep herself cognizant and alive and functional. It still rankled that she had to play on their sympathies, to portray herself as someone who was in any way, or who could ever be, helpless. It