Hot Target by Suzanne Brockmann Read Free Book Online

Water—
back when she was in film school. She sold her little student film to a distributor for a ton of money and put herself on the map as a mover and shaker.
    Apparently, in Hollywood, youth was in. And J. Mercedes Chadwick was still young, barely twenty-six. She dressed younger, looking like Britney Spears’ brunette twin, with long, dark hair cascading down her back and a significant gap between the below-the-hips waistband of her microskirt and the bottom edge of her shirt.
    Which was . . . quite a shirt. It had one hell of a neckline.
    J. Mercedes Chadwick was a very healthy young woman, no doubt about that.
    Her long legs were bare and as golden tanned as her stomach, her toenails painted an exotic shade of dark pink.
    She had what Decker thought of as Greek goddess eyes—bluish green and an unusual contrast with her dark hair and rich Mediterranean complexion. She was gorgeous—although not by Hollywood’s standards, because she hadn’t managed to starve herself boyishly thin.
    And that was a choice that was quite intentional—calculated, in fact. He’d realized it when they were introduced, as she’d held his hand just a little too long and gazed into his eyes just a little too meaningfully.
    She knew what most of Hollywood had forgotten. That as fashionable as it was to be whip thin, most men still liked women with substantial curves.
    But if his libido had kicked on from that soulfully probing look, it kicked off just as quickly when she gazed at Cosmo the exact same way.
    Cos, bless him, didn’t crack a smile. He just looked back at the woman with a total lack of expression, as if all that cleavage meant absolutely nothing to him.
    Of course, maybe it didn’t. Decker didn’t know the younger man very well.
    One thing he did know was that J. Mercedes Chadwick liked standing out. Hence the three-inch heels that pushed her well over six feet tall and made her tower over mere mortals such as Deck.
    There was, he also realized, probably nothing that this woman ever did that was unintentional.
    She couldn’t have been more different in height and coloring, but she made him think of Sophia Ghaffari—whom he hadn’t seen since that drink they’d shared in a bar in Kaiserslautern, Germany, over six months ago.
    Sophia was working for Tom Paoletti now—as a matter of fact, for the past four months both she and Deck had worked out of the same office in San Diego. But Decker had spent most of that time OUTCONUS, on various assignments. The few occasions he’d been back in the States, she’d been out of town.
    Which was probably a very good thing, considering.
    They all sat now—Cosmo, Tom, Decker, Mercedes, and her brother Robin who was as fair as she was dark—on a series of sofas and easy chairs in a huge room with windows looking out over the wilderness that was the back garden.
    “Isn’t a high-tech security system going to be enough?” Mercedes was arguing with Tom. “I mean, great, if HeartBeat wants to pay to install a system, I’m not going to say no. But really, with the kind of technology that’s available these days, isn’t the idea of two guards—one inside and one outside the house, around the clock—just a little extravagant?”
    Decker answered for Tom. “Considering the size of this house, Ms. Chadwick, no.”
    She was obviously not happy with the idea, but as she turned to look at him, he knew what it was about her that reminded him of Sophia. It was that smile and the eye contact as she asked, “But does it have to be day and night? I have . . . friends who can keep me safe at night.”
    Across the room, her brother covered a laugh with a cough.
    Mercedes Chadwick didn’t bring the question “Do you want to make it with me?” to the table. No, her attitude was “
When
do you want to make it with me?”
    It was an approach to being a woman in the business world that was a direct 180 from the dress-and-act-like-a-man school. Instead of trying to de-sex, Mercedes Chadwick