The Professional Read Online Free PDF Page A

Forces. That’s impressive.”
    Yes, it was, she had to admit, particularly considering he’d served during a time of war. That took courage and a level of conviction and loyalty to a greater good that was becoming increasingly scarce. Both of her grandfathers had served in the military and even her father, possibly the most selfish man who’d ever walked the planet, had been in the reserves.
    She considered it his one and only redeeming quality.
    Thankfully, she hadn’t heard from him—or her mother and brother, for that matter—in a couple of months. They’d always periodically terrorized her, even after she’d moved in with her grandmother. And since her grandmother’s visitation service, when they’d cornered the family attorney and discovered she’d left them just enough to prevent contesting her will, and the rest of her estate to Sophie, things had only worsened.
    Naturally the terms of the inheritance had gone over like a lead balloon and had resulted in a restraining order Sophie had faithfully updated every six months. The fear came from never knowing when they were going to strike. She’d been used to the occasional horrible letter, the unexplained vandalism of her car, the crank calls. Seeing them from a distance in a crowd.
    But since Gran had died, they’d upped the viciousness with heart-breaking results.
    When the restraining order had prevented them from coming near her or the house—they had just enough self-preservation to avoid jail—they’d lobbed poison over the fence and killed some of her animals. Did she have any proof? No. But she’d known it was them all the same. As a result, she’d had to build a fence within a fence to keep everything inside it safe. And while the three-hundred yards they were required to keep between them was enough to avoid physical injury, it wasn’t enough to prevent her from hearing them. “We’re coming for you, Sophie, you little bitch.”
    A bad seed, her grandmother had once confided, the heartbreak evident in her voice. Her father was living proof for the “nature” argument, that was for sure. He’d been nurtured by two loving, caring parents and had still turned out bad. The expulsions from school had started in the first grade, when he’d stabbed another child in the hand with a pencil just to see if he could pin it to the desk beneath. Having been permanently expelled from every public and private school in the area in his teens, he’d been sent to a “reform” school similar to a military boot camp. That’s where he’d met her mother—who was even more…unstable—and the rest, as they say, was history.
    They were bitter, twisted people, capable of horrible, horrible things, and she’d learned at an early age to steer clear of them. She absently rubbed the scar on the inside of her arm and shook off a sudden chill.
    It was then that she caught him looking at her, a bold considering gaze that caught and held hers so thoroughly she couldn’t have looked away if she’d wanted to. It left her feeling pinned and paralyzed, breathless and exposed, as though he were privy to each thought that tripped through her suddenly muddled head. Ridiculous, she knew, but the sensation held fast and quickly inspired…others. Impossibly, a spool of heat unraveled low in her belly and an answering warmth responded in her nipples, making them pucker behind her bra. She couldn’t have been any more shocked if they’d caught fire. She’d never merely looked at a man and had that sort of reaction, much less in the form of the stranger-across-the-crowded-room scenario.
    Thankfully, Ethel arrived with their pie, momentarily blocking his line of sight, and the brief interruption was enough to sever the bizarre connection.
    Good Lord…
    Right, Sophie thought, feeling a bit like a martini—shaken and stirred. Time to go, because this was as close to Foy’s impossible grandson as she ever intended to be. He was off-limits. Out of bounds. Trouble in a pair