Kingston's Ransom (Kingston Security 1)

By Carole Mortimer

KINGSTON’S RANSOM (Kingston Security 1) is the first book in USA Today and Amazon International #1 Bestselling Author, Carole Mortimer’s, NEW Contemporary Romance series.

Rosie needs the arrogant Max Kingston’s help, and she doesn’t care what she has to do to get it.

Except, gaining the head of the powerful Kingston family’s attention, is virtually impossible. Unless, or if, Max decides he wants to see or speak to you. If that should be the case, then he will be the one to arrange a meeting, at his convenience, and at a place of his choosing.

Rosie doesn’t have time for that and decides to take matters into her own hands.

A move Max takes exception to. To a degree Rosie becomes his prisoner in the Kingston fortress, otherwise known as Kingston Manor.

Will Max agree to help her, or punish her for the intrusion?

Other books by Carole Mortimer

Dance with the Devil – Contemporary Romance series:
MATTEO (Dance with the Devil 1)
LEON (Dance with the Devil 2)
KILLIAN (Dance with the Devil 3)
JERICHO (Dance with the Devil 4)
KIERAN (Dance with the Devil 5)
Series now complete

More books by Carole Mortimer

Regency Scandal
WANTON (Regency Scandal 1)
WILD (Regency Scandal 2)
WAYWARD (Regency Scandal 3)
SINFUL (Regency Scandal 4)
More books to come in this series
Russian Dragon Heat
VLADIMIR (Russian Dragon Heat 1)
VAUGHN (Russian Dragon Heat 2)
VIKTOR (Russian Dragon Heat 3)

Regency Club Venus:
Bks 1-5 Series now complete

Steele Protectors contemporary romance Series:
Bks 1-6 Series now complete

Regency Men in Love – MM romance written as C A Mortimer
HIDDEN LOVER (Regency Men in Love 1)
HIDDEN DESIRE (Regency Men in Love 2)

Regency Lovers Series:
Bks 1-6 Series now complete

Dragon Hearts:
Bks 1-8 Series now complete

Regency Sinners Series:
Bks 1-8: Series now complete

Regency Unlaced Series:
Books 1-9: Series is now complete

Contemporary Romance Knight Security Series – spin-off to Alpha Series:
Books 0.5–6: Series is now complete

Contemporary Romance Alpha Series:
Books 1-8: Series is now complete.

Carole Mortimer has written over 270 books, in contemporary romantic suspense, Regency romance, MM Regency romance & paranormal romance. She became an indie author in 2014. In May 2017 she received a Career Achievement Award from Romantic Times. She is the Recipient of the 2015 Romance Writers of America’s Lifetime Achievement Award. Is an Entertainment Weekly Top 10 Romance Author—ever. Carole is a 2014 Romantic Times Pioneer of Romance. She was also recognized by Queen Elizabeth II in 2012, for her “outstanding service to literature”.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Carole Mortimer
• Release date: Jan 26, 2022
• ISBN: 9781914336010

Carole Mortimer

Zu den produktivsten und bekanntesten Autoren von Romanzen zählt die Britin Carole Mortimer. Im Alter von 18 Jahren veröffentlichte sie ihren ersten Liebesroman, inzwischen gibt es über 150 Romane von der Autorin. Der Stil der Autorin ist unverkennbar, er zeichnet sich durch brillante Charaktere sowie romantisch verwobene Geschichten aus. Weltweit hat sie sich in die Herzen vieler Leserinnen geschrieben. Nach der Schule begann Carole Mortimer eine Ausbildung zur Krankenschwester, musste die Ausbildung allerdings aufgrund eines Rückenleidens nach einem Jahr abbrechen. Danach arbeitete bei einer bekannten Papierfirma in der Computerabteilung. Zu diesem Zeitpunkt schrieb sie ihren ersten Liebesroman, das Manuskript wurde abgelehnt, da es zu kurz war und die Handlung nicht den Ansprüchen des Verlags genügte. Bevor sie einen zweiten Versuch wagte, schmollte sie nach eigenen Angaben erst einmal zwei Jahre. Das zweite Manuskript wurde dann allerdings angenommen, und es war der Beginn ihrer erfolgreichen Karriere als Autorin von modernen Liebesromanen. Sie selbst sagt, dass sie jeden Augenblick des Beginns ihrer Karriere genossen hat, sie war die jüngste Autorin des Verlags Mills & Boon. Carole Mortimer macht das Schreiben viel Freude, sie möchte gern mindestens weitere zwanzig Jahre für ihre Leserinnen schreiben. Geboren wurde Carole Mortimer 1960 in Ost-England, und zwar in einem winzigen Dorf. Sie sagt, das Dorf sei so klein, dass, sollte der Fahrer beim Durchfahren einmal zwinkern, er den Ort vollkommen übersehen könnte. Ihre Eltern leben immer noch in ihrem Geburtshaus, ihre Brüder wohnen in der Nähe der Eltern. Verheiratet ist sie mit Peter, ihr Mann brachte zwei Kinder mit in die Ehe, sie leben in einem wunderschönen Teil Englands. Die beiden haben vier Söhne, zusammen sind es sechs Kinder, zwischen dem ältesten und jüngsten bestehen 22 Jahre Altersunterschied. Außerdem haben sie einen Kleintierzoo sowie einen Hund, der zur Hälfte von einem Kojoten abstammt und den die Familie aus Kanada mitbrachte.

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

Kingston Manor,

The South of England

You’re sure it’s a woman? Max eyed the figure sitting on the couch in the room on the other side of the two-way mirror. They wore a black baseball cap pulled low enough to hide any facial features and hair, and the bulky sweater and skinny jeans could have been worn by a male or female.

Oh yes. Adam, Max’s cousin and a senior member of the Kingston family’s security company, gave a grimace. If nothing else, her voice gave that away.

What did she say?

The other man gave a grin. ‘Get your fucking hands off me’ was, I believe, the gist of it.

Max’s brows rose. Adam was several inches over six feet tall and one scary fucker, both to look at and to deal with. He had tattoos visible on his neck and arms, but there were a lot more on his body beneath his clothes. Piercing dark eyes and a swarthy complexion, gave him a dangerous edge.

The two men had grown up together as brothers from the age of twelve, after Adam’s parents, Max’s aunt and uncle, were killed in a car crash. The two men had also joined and served together in the military when they were twenty-one.

Max didn’t find anything about Adam scary, but he had seen many women do a double take, some retreating altogether. That the small woman in the other room hadn’t backed down in the slightest was to her credit. Unless she just didn’t care? Which, considering she had dared to break into the Kingston family home, was a definite possibility. Did you tell her who you are and that she was trespassing?

Adam grimaced. It really wasn’t that sort of conversation where I introduced myself.

Max could imagine what sort of conversation it had been. Has she said or done anything since you put her in there? He continued watching the still figure.

Not that the woman would know he could see her when the room she was in appeared like any other impersonal sitting room in a large manor house. The ornate two-way mirror dominated one wall, paintings displayed on the other three.

She could also have no idea that this adjoining room was the hub for all the security cameras placed strategically about the one-acre walled garden surrounding the main house, and others directly outside and inside the house itself.

She hasn’t moved an inch since she sat down almost two hours ago.

Impressive. Max had received the call about the intruder those same almost two hours ago, but as he’d been in town at a charity dinner, he’d had to instruct Adam to lock them down until he could make his excuses and then take the hour’s drive down here.

His brother, Sinclair, lived in one wing of the manor house, but they all knew he didn’t do people. He also had his own security feeds.

You want impressive? Come and look at this. Adam indicated one of a dozen monitors on the far wall.

Max stared at the black-and-white image as a small figure, so slender as once again not to be recognizable as being either male or female in that bulky dark sweater and black skinny jeans, approached the outer wall of the gardens. That damned baseball cap not only hid the facial features, but also hair color and length. Obviously deliberately so from the way the person always kept their face angled away from the security cameras too.

Max’s eyes widened as, rather than walking along the length of that wall until they reached the front gate, the intruder took a run at the ten-foot-tall wall itself.

Instead of falling back to the ground after that jump, the slender figure somehow used that initial momentum to leap from side to side as they climbed the wall. Once at the top, they straightened briefly before jumping and landing lightly onto the grass on the other side of the wall, now inside that supposedly secure perimeter.

Max had never seen anyone perform parkour outside of a movie before.

Watch what happens next, Adam prompted.

Max’s gaze turned to another monitor. The intruder was now standing completely still in the middle of the lawn at the front of the house. Two Rottweilers were heading toward her at considerable speed, snapping and snarling as they went, their drool flying into the air with each angry toss of their heads. He knew Adam would have released the dogs after the pressure sensors in the lawn had alerted him to the intruder.

Instead of turning and running away, the intruder dropped into a crossed-legged position, arms bent and elbows resting on denim-covered knees, the fingers of both hands clenched into tight fists. A low humming sound emanated from her as the dogs pounced.

Max winced as he waited for the screams that would indicate the dogs had attacked.

Instead, that low humming sound continued, and the two dogs stopped snarling. The puzzled animals were now sniffing and circling the totally still person sitting on the ground.

Slowly, so slowly it was almost impossible to discern the movement, the clenched fingers opened. The dogs immediately went to investigate, a nose buried in each palm, before they moved to sit either side of the still figure. Both of them were noticeably chewing something.

Only then did the figure move, slowly lifting slender hands to rest on what minutes ago had been the raised hackles on the back of the both dogs’ necks, but was now a smooth and glossy black coat.

What did she give them? If she’d drugged or harmed the dogs in any way, Max was going to be as pissed as Adam obviously was.

Raw meat, Adam rumbled. They ignored all their months of training and apparently rolled over for a couple of pieces of fillet steak! he added with disgust.

Max ran a finger across his lips to stop himself from smiling at his cousin’s indignation. "Maybe it’s time for Thor and Loki to undergo a little retraining? One that involves them not caving for raw fillet steak."

Adam snorted. Ya think?

What happened after that? Max prompted briskly.

I went out and confronted her, took a firm grip of her arm, and offered to ‘assist’ her off the property.

Which is when she told you to get your fucking hands off her, Max guessed.

Adam nodded. Her excuse for being there at all was that her car had broken down and she’d come here to ask if she could use the telephone. He grimaced. Putting aside the unlikelihood of jumping over the wall and not approaching the front gate like a normal person would have done, then bribing my dogs with chunks of uncooked meat, we did find her abandoned car about a quarter of a mile away. She’s right, it definitely isn’t working. Vehicles have a habit of doing that when one of the spark plugs has been removed. We found it in the spare-tire well in the trunk, along with her cell phone.

Max continued to study the woman in the adjoining room. She was probably only a couple of inches over five feet tall, and very slender. The black baseball cap was still pulled low onto her forehead, hiding her face as she stared down at the carpet. He still couldn’t see even an inch of her hair to know whether she was a blonde, brunette, or redhead. Her clothes indicated she was probably young, maybe in her twenties, but Max couldn’t see enough of her face to confirm that impression.

Oh, I almost forgot, Adam ground out in a voice that said he hadn’t forgotten a damn thing. She also said, and I quote, ‘I’m not going to say any more to you because I want to speak to the organ-grinder, not his monkey.’

This time Max had to bite his top lip to hold back his smile, knowing Adam wouldn’t appreciate the humor at his expense.

The other man had spent the same years in the military as Max, advancing to the rank of captain to Max’s major. They had both left nine years ago, after which the Kingston family had pooled their talents and formed Kingston Security.

Having been a military officer, Adam didn’t allow anyone to question him, least of all a slim slip of a woman he could bench-press in his sleep.

Yeah, you grin away. He scowled at Max. "I can’t wait to see what she’s going to say to you when she sees you’re the one wearing the monkey suit."

Max glanced down at his perfectly tailored tux, worn with a white silk shirt, black bowtie, and slim-legged black trousers. He realized Adam had a point.

Except the tux and accoutrements were exactly that, a mask Max wore in public.

A mask that didn’t, couldn’t, completely hide the hard glitter in the gray eyes set in a face carved out of stone. Or the fact he preferred to wear his dark hair shaved close to his head.

Those who cared to look closely into his eyes would see Max for exactly what he was: a ferocious tiger attempting to disguise himself as a domesticated housecat.

To be fair, social events weren’t Max’s natural habitat. He was more of a shoot-’em-and-ask-questions-later type. His brother Sinclair had always been the social face of the Kingston family, but all that had changed five years ago when Sinclair’s wife had been kidnapped and murdered.

The police had never found, let alone been able to prosecute, the people responsible.

They wouldn’t find them now either. Or their bodies.

Losing Cathy in such a violent way, and the media frenzy that had followed, had resulted in Sinclair retreating from being seen in public again. Certainly never at the sort of social event a member of the Kingston family had been asked to attend this evening.

Kingston Security had been exactly that at the time of Cathy’s kidnapping. A company worth millions of pounds from providing security in both a personal and business capacity, with state-of-the-art technology as well as human bodyguards where necessary.

None of their considerable money, or various talents, had been enough to find and rescue Cathy before her kidnappers murdered her.

On the surface, Kingston Security was still the same security company it had always been.

But beneath that façade was the arm of the company Sinclair now controlled and from where he rained down justice on anyone the law seemed unable to find and punish, despite having dared to take away someone’s freedom against their will, and possibly their life too. Most of those kidnappers never even saw Sinclair coming. Even when they did, it wasn’t for long enough to save them. Sinclair’s justice was as swift and final as a samurai sword.

Max gave a shrug in answer to Adam’s comment. As you know, I was out to dinner when you called me. He continued to watch the young woman. She didn’t give a name?

Refused to.

Max scowled. You didn’t think to remove her baseball cap and get a better look at her?

At that moment, Max caught a glimpse of a lush pair of lips when the woman moved her head slightly. They were unadorned by any of the cloying gloss Max so disliked on a woman’s lips. It always felt to him much as he would imagine kissing an oil slick might. Her jawline was sharply defined, her chin stubbornly pointed. That lack of visible hair also meant the slender vulnerability of her neck was completely exposed.

A deceptive vulnerability?

After all, this woman had not only removed one of the spark plugs from her own, admittedly older car, in order to disable it but also attempted to hide her cell phone. Before then coming to the house, leaping over a ten-foot wall, and then literally bribing two Rottweilers, who were trained to kill, with pieces of raw meat. The fact she had then sat and waited for Adam to come out of the house indicated she knew she wasn’t about to get any further than that.

Adam gave a disgusted snort. As you saw, she wasn’t exactly cooperative. Short of using physical force, which I wasn’t sure you would want me to do at this stage, I decided to leave the cap on.

Did you call her bluff and just offer to let her use the phone to call a garage for assistance?

Strangely enough, I did, Adam was obviously still rattled enough by this woman to let his sarcasm show. The two men were physically well matched, but Max’s proficiency in half a dozen martial arts gave him an edge over the other man. That’s when she said she wanted to speak to Max Kingston.