Dangerous Promise

By Megan Hart

A female bodyguard with enhanced abilities. A billionaire playboy committed to destroying people like her. A romance they didn’t expect…

Dive into the first book in the fantastic new Protector series set in the near future from New York Times bestselling author Megan Hart!

Nina Bronson used to be all human -- until the experimental surgeries and internal technology that saved her life and enhanced her as a soldier also forced her to leave the army for private service. Now she and her peers are facing slow, painful deaths unless their technology is upgraded, and the one man keeping those upgrades illegal and unavailable is an obnoxious billionaire. A man too gorgeous for his own good.

A man she’s supposed to guard with her life.

Ewan Donahue is the public voice speaking out against the enhancement procedures of injured soldiers. But when his lobbying leads to death threats, he needs someone to protect him around the clock. He doesn’t want to rely on an enhanced soldier—Nina’s tech goes against everything he stands for. But he really doesn’t want her to be beautiful like she is. Doesn’t want her to suffer like she will.

Doesn’t want to succumb to the searing desire he feels for her.

As a series of attacks on his life send them to a remote cabin, their close proximity brings them together in ways they never imagined. They know they must prevent the need simmering between them, resist each other at all costs. But when tensions are high and danger is close, passion burns hottest of all…

• Language: English
• Publisher: Macmillan Publishers
• Release date: Jan 2, 2018
• ISBN: 9781250119704

Megan Hart

Megan Hart is a New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author of more than thirty novels, novellas and short stories. Her work has been published in almost every genre, including contemporary women’s fiction, historical romance, paranormal and erotica. Learn more at www.meganhart.com.

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

Assess the situation.

Protect the client.

Eliminate the threat.

—Nina Bronson

Ewan Donahue looked like the worst kind of trouble.

And, despite those broad shoulders, the sleekly perfect slope of his jaw as he turned to glare at her, and that habit he had of tossing his slightly overlong dark hair out of his flashing hazel eyes, he was not the sort of trouble Nina Bronson was going to let herself get into.

Not because he was her boss, since technically he was just the guy paying for her services and not the person in charge of her. No, Nina had a lot of other reasons for putting distance between herself and one of the world’s most eligible billionaires, and Donahue himself had already made it clear precisely what he thought about her. He’d looked her dead in the eyes but gripped her hand a few seconds too briefly to keep their greeting polite. As though her skin had burned him.

Like there was something distasteful about touching her.

She couldn’t be surprised at his reaction, could she? After all, the entire world knew how Donahue felt about the enhanced, and he wasn’t the only person who’d ever reacted to her that way. Dealing with prejudice was part of this new life she’d been given, not condemned to. Nina made the effort now to keep her hands from becoming fists, her tone neutral but firm.

You were given all the specs and requirements before I arrived, she told him patiently.

Her voice didn’t rise. She kept her expression bland and deliberately nonconfrontational. Even if she were capable of rage, she’d have kept her temper in check. Donahue was a client, and clients, while not always right, at least were supposed to be allowed to think they were.

Her tone was chilly and polite, and she didn’t tack a sir onto the end of her sentence, though everyone else who spoke to him did. Nina had arrived at Woodhaven, Donahue’s vast and exceedingly private estate, twenty minutes ago. In that time, Donahue had interacted with exactly a dozen different staff members who’d practically bowed and scraped during the conversations with their employer, while he’d barely seemed to notice the obsequiousness. Or the employees themselves, as a matter of fact, something Nina noticed.

She’d arrived here directly from her last gig without even taking time to head home first, because Donahue had paid double the usual acquisition fees in order to get her there. She wasn’t tired—Nina no longer got tired, really, unless she’d been running on empty for days on end. She was, however, cranky.

You hired me, she continued, for a purpose.

"Exactly. I hired you." He jabbed a finger in her direction.

As I understand it, you did so because of a recent threat to your life that happened last night, she said, gesturing at the faint scratches on Donahue’s left cheek. Broken glass from the shattered restaurant window. You’re lucky. It doesn’t look like it’s going to scar.

Donahue paused and put his hands on his hips. He wore only a pair of loose synthcotton trousers. Bare feet and chest. That head of thick dark hair was rumpled from what Nina assumed must have been a fairly sleepless night. For a man balking so fiercely at compromising his modesty, he sure didn’t seem to be worried about being almost naked in front of her.

Lucky, too, that nobody else was hurt, she added.

That seemed to rustle him. Why do you think you’re here, now? To stop something like that from happening again.

I can’t stop anyone from attacking you, Mr. Donahue. I can only make sure that if or when that happens, you’ll be protected.

In her two-year stint working with ProtectCorps, Nina Bronson had been in charge of more than a dozen senators, CEOs, philanthropic recluses, and once, an actual princess. The princess had been the easiest to deal with. She’d been used to being protected, while the men under Nina’s care had been accustomed to being obeyed. It made a big difference in how they reacted.

Nina had learned the ways of the wealthy and powerful early on in this gig—you let them do what they thought they wanted to do while guiding them toward the safest way for them to do it, and when that failed, you took a bullet for them if you had to. If you were too slow to get them out of the way first, that was. She’d never been too slow, not yet, but then she hadn’t ever taken on a man as bullheadedly stubborn as the one in front of her.

Donahue scowled. Yeah, well, I’m a hundred percent certain that doesn’t mean you have to follow me into the toilet.

Nina had been told once by an ex-lover that the specific smile she now gave Donahue could freeze a volcano. Connor had meant it as a compliment, probably because they’d never been more than casual bed partners. Now she warmed the grimace only slightly. If you’re not going to let me do my job properly, then I’m going to have to subdue you.

She could put him on his back in seconds, if she had to. Straddle him, maybe, her thighs hugging the jut of his hips as he struggled beneath her. The thought sent a shiver tickling up and down her spine, an unwelcome and unexpected frisson of tension. Her chin lifted as she studied him. She was on the job, not on the prowl, and this man was never, ever going to be an option.

The threat, and it was a threat, not a suggestion, got him to listen. Donahue did a double take. Dark arched eyebrows rose. You’re kidding. Right?

Nina’s smile did not change.

Donahue scowled. Subdue me? What the hell does that mean?

Do you really want to find out?

He tried to stare her down, but she didn’t budge. When he tried to step around her, she stepped, too, so quickly it was as though he were the one getting in her way, not the other way around. He tried again in the opposite direction, but she was faster. She’d always be faster, Nina thought with a certain grim satisfaction but no joy.

I thought you’d been briefed on how this works. You are not to go anywhere without me. Not to your office, not to the kitchen for a snack. Not to answer the door for pizza delivery—

Someone else answers the door, Donahue said.

Of course they did.

She wanted to laugh, both at his disgruntled look and his sly retort. She might have thought it was his attempt at humor, if he hadn’t been so clearly angry. Nina remained calm. Unruffled, although she hadn’t even been here for an hour, and he’d already obstructed every single one of her instructions.

I am to be with you at all times, Nina said. "I made that clear when I arrived. Nothing about that has changed. Nothing about that will change as long as I am employed as your protector. I signed a contract. You signed a contract. There really shouldn’t be anything to argue about."

Donahue had balked at her moving a cot into his bedroom. She’d explained that her role as protector meant she needed to be there even when he slept, perhaps especially at night when he was likely to be more vulnerable to attacks. Yes, even in his own home where he had installed hundreds of thousands of credits’ worth of security systems, one of which now included her. He’d finally allowed the cot, begrudgingly, but now he was hollering about her following him into the bathroom.

Donahue spoke with his hands. Big hands. Strong. Expressive. The habit would’ve been charming on a man she wasn’t already inclined to dislike.

This is ridiculous! His hands painted the picture of his dismay in the air. When he turned to face her, he caught her staring at his fingers. He curled them into fists at his sides.

Tension sprouted between them that had nothing to do with his lean body or that handsome face. His aggression was a trigger, putting her body and senses on alert. Ready to fight, defend. Protect. Of course, she was supposed to be protecting him, not fighting him, but fortunately for Ewan Donahue, Nina had not only learned to control her reactions, but there were some triggers she simply could no longer respond to. He could try to push her into anger to get a rise out of her, if that was his thing, but it wasn’t going to work.

It hadn’t always been that way. In the first days of her recovery, she’d broken her knuckles throwing punches. Broken other people worse than that. If Donahue knew how brutal Nina was capable of being, he might not be moving so menacingly close to her, she thought, her expression indifferently bland. Her body was ready but controlled. You never knew with men like him. He might get off on the idea of pushing her to the limit.

I understand, Mr. Donahue. You want your privacy. You’re used to autonomy.

And telling other people what to do, not being told yourself.

Nina continued, "What you need to understand is that you’ve had a total of fifty-seven confirmed, serious death threats made in the past three and a half weeks. Previously, you’ve had three actual attempts on your life. Two of your former bodyguards were killed protecting you—"

Enough. Donahue flinched, his cheeks flushing the faintest hint of red. A brush of heat came off him, subtle but definite. Yes. I know. I feel like shit about it, thanks so much for reminding me I’m the reason two good men are dead.

She bit her tongue for a moment before answering, more gently this time. Leona Smart, the owner of ProtectCorps and Nina’s direct supervisor, insisted all of her employees take courses in sensitivity training. Nina had never been very good at it, although she tried. I understand how hard that must have been, Mr. Donahue. Believe me, I do.

How could you possibly? He stalked from one end of the room to the other, pivoting on a bare heel to stare at her.

She’d read his files and knew he had no martial arts or military training or anything like that. Even so, the man moved like a predator, some kind of big cat, all sleek muscles and rolling gait. She wouldn’t have been surprised to see him snarl. Her heart tried to thump a little faster at what it would be like if he did, indeed, come at her physically. He couldn’t beat her, but he might be an interesting challenge.

I was a soldier, Nina replied simply. I saw lots of good people die, and sometimes, it was my fault.

Donahue went quiet at that. Contemplative. His lightweight pajama bottoms hung low on lean hips, and his sculpted abs flexed when he paced. Donahue had the body of a man who spent a lot of time making sure he looked good. With a small, internal sneer, Nina imagined her own scars on flesh covering muscles, sinews, nerves, and bones she’d worked hard to make strong even before her enhancements. She didn’t have to be pretty. She had to be fierce.

I’m sorry, he said after a moment, surprising her. I know you were. And I respect the work you did—

Good. Many don’t.

She’d been spit on more than a few times. Catcalled. The Second Cold War had been a lot hotter than the first one, and it had not seen a lot of civilian support. In school she’d learned about the Vietnam War, how the returning soldiers had been castigated and reviled. History did have its way of repeating.

That she could not actually remember most of her time in the army was not something she intended to point out to him. Donahue was already a vocal and public opponent to the enhancement procedures she’d endured to save her life and which had made her the woman she was today. The same woman who could, and would, subdue him in order to save his stubborn, arrogant life a dozen times over, if she had to. She folded her arms across her chest and widened her stance. If he tried to push past her, she would not hesitate to put him down, panther muscles or not. At this point, putting Ewan Donahue in his place would be a pleasure that had nothing to do with how good he looked without his shirt.

He crossed his arms over his naked chest, drawing her attention to the bulging, shifting, and straining muscles of his pecs and biceps. Was he . . . flexing?

Nina was neither impressed nor intimidated by this show, although she had no trouble admiring it. I thought you had to use the facilities.

Look, he said, his tone conciliatory now. A negotiator. Lobbyist, convincer. There’s such a thing as personal privacy.

Nina wasn’t convinced. I’m fully aware of that, and of course I’m entirely capable of selective sight, which allows me to pixelate whatever it is I’m not supposed to be seeing. It’s pretty convenient.

"Oh. Right. Selective sight." Donahue’s lip curled.

And hearing, she added with a small smile, even though watching his disgusted reaction stung her in a place she could never seem to shield, no matter how often she was wounded there. It should only matter that he believed she could do the job he’d hired her for, not whatever else he thought about her as a person, but that subtle, invasive sense that Donahue didn’t think of her as a full, real person dug deep.

"In case there’s stuff I’m not supposed to hear. I mean, it’s all recorded in case someone later needs to access it. But I won’t have access to it." She added that last bit as a dig of her own, to remind him of not only who, exactly, she was, but also what. She wanted to rub it in his face. Her enhancements, what she could do in the pursuit of his safety. She wanted him to hear it and know and . . . well, to see it. To see her.

Yeah, well, I’m not capable of either of those things, Donahue said. If you don’t leave my side even for a second or so, what about when you have to use the facilities?

Her smile didn’t falter. I’m sure you’ve read all the materials about the enhancement procedures, Mr. Donahue. So then you know that I’m also capable of maintaining amazing control of all my bodily functions.

The man actually blushed this time. A rising flush crept up his chest and throat to tinge his cheeks, and she was able to register the slight rise in his body heat. It was surprising, that reaction, but it made him seem no less a predator than he’d appeared before. I’m aware of the procedures and results, yeah.

Then you know I can hold it for a long time, Nina said smoothly. But seriously, I’m sure you’re about to burst. So if you’d rather continue to argue with me until you lose control . . .

I don’t, Donahue snapped, ever. Lose. Control.

Another of her serene smiles pushed more crimson heat into his cheeks. Nina stepped aside from the bathroom door with a flourish and a small, deliberately obnoxious bow. Good. Neither do I.

CHAPTER TWO

He should fire her and demand his money back—it had been an obscene amount of money, even for Ewan, who hadn’t bothered to ask the price of an item or service in at least a decade. The cost of keeping him alive hadn’t mattered to him, but he hadn’t realized the services would come along with such a load of bullshit.

Selective sight and hearing, she’d said, as though this was news to him. What Nina didn’t know was that Ewan had funded the research that allowed for those functions in the first place, along with most of the others she could brag about. More than funded; he’d invented and programmed the original tech and enhancement software that had transformed her from a normal, human woman into some kind of super soldier.

Not a cyborg, he reminded himself as he used the toilet, his back facing her but with full awareness that she stood close enough to grab him if she wanted to, or that all she had to do was lean in a little bit to see everything nature had blessed him with. Not a robot. She hadn’t been fitted with metal limbs or artificial organs. Just a series of nanochips connected to her brain and nervous system, the tech running specialized software that allowed her greater than natural control over her bodily functions. Endurance, strength, focus. Special functions that could erase her memories of anything top secret or confidential with nothing more than a preprogrammed series of codes. None of that was supposed to come along with a smartass attitude.

It hadn’t been meant to come along with that face, either. Pale amber eyes fringed with curling dark lashes and sparkling with barely restrained humor and yeah, right now, mockery. Smooth bronze skin free of any kind of makeup that he could see. A lush, full mouth that wouldn’t quit. And her hair . . . universe help him, even pulled back into the tight, utilitarian braid at the base of her neck, he could see it was thick and silky, as dark as his deepest fantasies.

Because that what she was, right? A fantasy, something he’d dreamed up a long time ago, when he’d believed the tech would make life better for those who were enhanced. Before he realized how messed up that was. Playing at being the Onegod in a world where religion had become regarded as no more real than fairy tales.

Nina Bronson was a fantasy, all right, but one Ewan could no longer allow himself to imagine.

He turned from the toilet, half-expecting to see her smirking, but she was looking carefully uninterested, her gaze settled somewhere to his left. I need to take a shower. Sure you don’t want to climb in there with me?

He’d been aiming for sarcasm, but the second the words came out of his mouth, he realized they sounded less like a threat and more like a sexual come-on. The way her sleek black eyebrows rose made it obvious that she’d thought so, too, but scratch it, that was the last thing in the world he’d meant. Maybe not the last thing, he admitted as Nina gave him another of those frustratingly chilly smiles. At about five-four, she stood close to a foot shorter than him. Her body beneath the simple black uniform of leggings and a long-sleeved top was fit and firm and still curvy in all the places a man needed a woman to curve. She studied him like she could ferret out every scrap of a secret he’d ever tried to keep.

I could, but in the event of a rising threat—her gaze dropped for the barest second to the front of his pajamas, he was sure of it, though it happened so fast he couldn’t have proven it—I’ll need to be able to take care of it with my clothes on.

Don’t like to fight naked, huh?

She smiled. I like to do a lot of things naked, Mr. Donahue, but fighting isn’t one of them.

He’s always been a sucker for a woman with a sense of humor and a sharp wit. This particular woman, though, represented everything he was working so hard against. He’d hired her for the job in spite of his personal beliefs, not to support them. And not for any other reasons, either, her ripe mouth and quick comebacks notwithstanding.

Besides, Ewan told himself with scorn, he preferred blondes.

He reached into the glass shower enclosure to start the water running. How can I be sure you’re using that selective sight like you say you are?

Her smile vanished immediately. Her back straightened, shoulders squared. Her voice, which previously had been slightly husky and tinged with amusement, went subzero.

Because to ogle you inappropriately in the shower or in any other way would be a direct violation of my standards, both those set by the company I work for, and also my own personal set of morals and ethics. Because I do what I say I’m going to do, Mr. Donahue, and for you to assume or believe anything less is a direct affront on my character.

Before he could say anything else, glass shattered. The bathroom window above the deep soaking tub burst inward. A long metal tube hurtled through the open space and hit the tile floor, bouncing hard enough to chip the porcelain before rolling to a stop near his feet. The slow hissing of gas came first, followed next by the eye-watering sting.

Get in the shower! Nina shoved him, hard, into the glass enclosure, and shut the door behind him. Turn the water on high!

Another metal tube hurtled through the window, but this one didn’t have time to hit the floor. She grabbed it in midair, crossing the distance between where she’d been and leaping into the tub in a mere two or three strides. She knocked over a display of decorative soaps and stupid seashells one of his exes had put there, but Nina didn’t pay a second’s attention to the crash. Nor to the glass still sticking out in shards in the window frame.

One, two, three, she kicked out the glass and leaned out the empty window space. She threw the metal tube outside. All of this happened so fast Ewan barely had time to register the scalding water on his bare chest. He stepped out of the spray with a hiss as Nina drew her stun weapon from the holster at her waist.

She aimed.

She fired.

From outside came a faint scream. A moment later, alarms began to bleat. Not the ones that announced a breach of the house itself; those should’ve gone off the second the window broke. Instead, the perimeter alarms went off. Whoever had managed to get past them the first time without setting them off wasn’t so lucky this time.

Steam had barely had time to fill the shower and spill over the top of the glass enclosure into the rest of the bathroom when Nina turned and stepped out of the bathtub. The tube on the ground was still hissing gas with an acrid stink. Inside the shower with the water blasting, the smog was dissipating enough to make him cough, but not enough to knock him down.

Grabbing up the tube, Nina took another of those amazing three-four step leaps and tossed that tube out the window as well. She snagged one of the tidily rolled towels from the basket between the tub and sink. Yanked open the shower enclosure, stepping inside just enough to thrust the plush cloth beneath the water.

Then she threw it over his head and face.

The next thing Ewan knew, he was on the floor of his bedroom, sopping wet, with a puddle ruining his fourteen-hundred-credit rug. Nina lay on her back beside him, her eyes closed. Chest rising and falling rapidly. When he sat up, she turned her head to look at him.

The whites of her eyes had gone threaded with crimson, but she was grinning. Well. How’s that for a good start?

CHAPTER THREE

Donahue had ordered a special tech crew to come in and clean his bathroom of any residual gas as well as test to see what kind it had been, and he hadn’t resisted at all when Nina had given each of the crew members a complete pat down, one at a time, before she’d let any of them over the front door threshold. They’d come in with their gear and been gone in an hour or so, promising results as soon as possible. Donahue had been very quiet for the rest of the morning, at least with her.

The medicinal gel on Nina’s eyes was gooey and disgusting, but it had thoroughly rinsed them free of whatever gas had been coming out of that tube. She’d be coughing a bit for the next few days as her lungs recovered, but she’d refused the inhaler Donahue’s personal doc had offered. Irritated lungs weren’t going to slow her down.

If anything, Nina was glad that the first attack had happened so fast and had been so easy to neutralize. She was no stranger to hand-to-hand combat or weaponry engagement. She could hold her own in both. But it had been so much more impressive of her to handle this situation the way she