Dangerous Secrets by Katie Reus

personal cell and actually threaten her was damn terrifying. She tried Adam one more time. It rang this time but still went to voicemail. She started to leave a message but ended the call instead. After a quick shower she was going to head to work early. The call might be nothing but she’d rather be safe than sorry. Being surrounded by people was the only way she knew to stay safe.

Chapter Four
    Adam’s cell rang as he steered into the parking lot of Mad Dog’s. For the past few hours all he’d thought about was Izzy and that damn kiss. A five-mile run had done nothing to take the edge off. Neither had a cold shower. Now he had to endure the torture of working with Izzy for the rest of the night. She’d called him while he’d been out running but hadn’t left a message. Since then he’d tried to get hold of her but she hadn’t picked up.
    His phone buzzed in his pocket and after a glance at the caller ID, all that edginess tripled. For a split second he considered ignoring the caller.
    He suppressed a sigh as he flipped his cell open. “Hello, Mr. Ballantine.”
    “Hello, Adam. And for the last time, call me Edward. How are things progressing?” he asked.
    “Well sir, you know your daughter better than I do. This is tougher than I’d originally planned.” Talk about an understatement.
    Ballantine chuckled. “Yes, I imagine it is. She’s a stubborn woman. Gets that from her mother.”
    Stubborn, sexy and sweet. A deadly combination. He nodded even though the other man couldn’t possibly see him.
    “Do you think you’ll have her convinced by the deadline?” Edward asked.
    “Honestly, I don’t know, sir. She likes it here.”
    “Keep me updated.”
    The other man didn’t like to bullshit on the phone, something Adam appreciated, and he knew their conversation was almost over. He might be sabotaging himself, but if he didn’t speak up now, he didn’t know if he could live with himself. “She lives in a safe area, she’s working at a normal restaurant and she has good friends.” He paused for a moment as he thought about last night’s attack on the other woman. The guy hadn’t gone after Izzy and the truth was, no one was truly safe. Not all the time. Adam decided not to mention the incident to her father. Not yet. He veered the conversation in a different direction. “Sir, it’s becoming more difficult to keep my intentions from Izzy.
    “How so?”
    “We’re friends, we work together and…damn it, she’s a good person. I don’t like lying to her.” He couldn’t exactly tell the man he was intensely attracted to his daughter.
    Edward was silent for a long moment. “Do you or do you not want the Forester contract?”
    He gritted his teeth. After high school he’d enlisted in the Marines, and stayed in for eight years. After that he’d done two years of grueling security work in a war zone. He’d been shot at too many times to count, had been hit once and still had slivers of shrapnel embedded in his back from a roadside IED. Nothing he’d done—training stateside or covert operations overseas—had prepared him for this kind of “mission.” He’d rather be dropped behind enemy lines than continue with this façade. Lying to Izzy made him feel like the scum of the earth. Everything had seemed so simple before, but realizing Izzy was an actual person, not part of some deal, put everything in a different light. No matter what he’d done in life, he’d prided himself on his honesty. If it wasn’t for his brother, he’d seriously consider walking away from this deal right now.
    “Well?” the other man persisted when Adam didn’t answer.
    “You know I want the contract. I’m also fulfilling my part of the bargain. Five weeks protection detail. If she won’t move back, I can’t force her.”
    “I know that. It would be a lot better for you if she did, though.”
    Adam gritted his teeth. They’d signed a contract but something told him that even though he wasn’t technically