LITMIR.BIZ

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felt like a jerk for coveting the nomination, but he couldn’t completely shake the feeling. After all, DEVGRU was top of the line. A counterterrorism, special missions unit made up of the most elite operatives in the Navy. Once upon a time, some people had called it SEAL Team 6. It was a unit filled with mystery, power and prestige. And Diego wanted in.

      So he tilted his chair onto the back two legs, making as if he were carefully considering the question. He pulled off his cap, rubbed a hand over his short, spiked hair, then tugged the hat back in place. Then, giving Ramsey a look of long-faced regret, he shook his head.

      “My old man rolled with the Hells Angels as a Nomad. That’d be king o’ the hill to you and me. But he was shot down in ’91 during what turned out to be a rather heated discussion,” Diego mused, tapping his fingers on his knee as he pretended to think it through. “He did leave behind three brothers, though. The ones that are still alive are serving time, one in Quentin, another in Pelican Bay. They probably have the better access to politicians than a golf course, but I guess we’ll see.”

      Diego barely kept from offering his own sneer when he caught the looks on their faces. Disdain-covered horror with a barely concealed side helping of fear. Typical.

      “Is your mother doing time, too?” Adams asked, his usual smirk sliding back in place.

      “Dude,” Prescott protested.

      Diego’s smile dimmed.

      His momma had been shot dead three years back while sweeping the floor in the little bodega where she’d worked. No matter that he’d bought her a house, set her up so she didn’t have to slave day and night like she had most of her life, she’d insisted on keeping that job out of loyalty to Manny Cruz.

      While Diego didn’t mind using his father to get a reaction out of others, he never shared his momma. That’d be disrespectful.

      Besides, it was nobody’s business.

      But Adams’s comment required a response. Instead of going with a smart-ass comment, or better yet the brutal slap down he’d prefer, Diego figured he’d channel Savino.

      “See, here’s the thing.” Diego leaned forward, his elbows on his knees and his expression as serious as a howitzer. “I figure you had no say in your upbringing. And maybe it was awesome, or maybe it was pure hell. But whatever it was, whatever you brought with you from your past, it made you the man you are now. A solid officer, an outstanding IP tech and in your case, Ramsey, a damned good SEAL.”

      Diego took a swallow of beer before continuing.

      “Bottom line, we fight for the same thing. We have the same goal, and we serve the same team.” He had to dig deep for the rest, but, picturing Savino giving him that impatient, just-bullshit-if-you-have-to look, he managed. “I’m proud to serve with you, man.”

      It was a toss-up who looked more shocked at Diego’s words. Adams, who appeared to have swallowed his tongue. Lansky, whose expression warned that he’d puke at any minute. Or Ramsey, who tried to hide his surprise with a frown but didn’t quite succeed.

      Prescott simply grinned as he dashed his name over the bottom of the piece of paper before tearing it from the sketchbook. He handed it to Diego with a wink.

      Diego snickered. His own face stared back at him, finger pointed like a gun, cocked and ready to rock. The caricature emphasized Diego’s dark eyes, his large head teetering on a slender body weighted down with fat muscles.

      “You’re all right, Torres,” Ramsey said, his frown shifting into a grin. “I’m proud to serve with you, too.”

      Figuring Lansky really would gag if this kept up, Diego stood.

      “Congrats on your shot at DEVGRU,” he said, offering his hand. “Enjoy the beer. Lansky and I are heading out.”

      He exchanged the team’s hand slap with Prescott. To Adams he gave only a nod. Just as well, seeing as Diego and Lansky didn’t get ten steps before they heard the asshole comment, “Bet he’s full of shit about his father. He just said that to make himself sound tough.”

      “Let it go,” he muttered to Lansky, who’d started to turn back with his fists ready.

      “But—”

      “You might want to learn to watch your mouth,” they heard Prescott warn, his easy tone not disguising the threat beneath.

      “Let it go,” Diego said again, shoving open the door and stepping into the sun’s heat. He’d come to terms with his history. When he’d first joined the Navy, he’d kept his past under lock and key. Not out of shame—out of concern that he’d be thrown in the brig for giving someone a serious ass kicking over their comments about it.

      But after a while, he’d come to realize that his past was as much a part of him as his height or his skill with a knife. It made him who he was.

      A success, dammit.

      “We’ll hit Olive Oyl’s, and drinks are on me until ten-hundred hours when I head back to base.”

      Lansky frowned. “You can’t be serious. Things will just be heating up then. The hottest women don’t hit the bar until after dark, my friend.”

      “Yep, totally serious. You want to wait for women who look better in the dark, you’re gonna have to get yourself a ride back to base. Me, I’ve got a briefing in the morning, and I plan to be sharp.” Then, because Lansky was a good friend and deserved a little payback, he added, “This operation is going to shoot me to the top, buddy. A dozen of Daddy’s senators won’t help Ramsey get ahead of me after this.”

      As his friend whooped and hollered, Diego accepted the fist bump with a laugh.

      He was within kissing distance of the high point in his career. No way some blowhard like Adams, or even a rival like Ramsey, were going to mess it up for him.

      No way in hell.

CHAPTER TWO

      GOOD THINGS CAME to those who focused on what they wanted, then worked their butts off to get it.

      That was Harper Maclean’s life motto, and she figured that she was living proof it was true. As she sautéed the mushrooms, onions and garlic with an expert hand, she looked around her kitchen with a smile of delight. From the glossy planks on the floor to the custom glass-fronted cabinets to the granite countertops, the kitchen—like the house—screamed luxury.

      Holy crap, she was living in luxury. Harper added a giddy two-step as she added a dash of garlic salt to the vegetables. Six months ago, she’d been in an apartment so small, she’d had to put her desk in the coat closet. Now she was cozied up in a house five times as big and ten times as fancy.

      It was all she could do to keep from doing a butt-wiggling happy dance as she pulled a golden piecrust from the oven. But butt wigging wasn’t ladylike, and Harper had spent the last seven years transforming herself into a lady. So she settled for a tiny shoulder shimmy.

      “If I knew making me dinner would give you such a thrill, I’d have hit you up a week ago.” Andi Stamos strode into the kitchen in a wave of Black Opium, reaching around Harper to snag a mushroom out of the pan.

      Used to greedy fingers trying to sneak food before it was ready, Harper tilted her head toward the center island. “If you’re hungry, eat an apple.”

      “I’d rather have chocolate,” Andi muttered.

      Who wouldn’t? “After dinner.”

      “Fine, I’ll wait,” Andi agreed before snagging another mushroom.

      “Hey,” Harper warned with a laugh, automatically shifting the springform pan out of reach.

      Most people wouldn’t recognize the untidy waif with her black hair in a messy ponytail and her jeans ripped at the knees as Andrianna Stamos, thrice-divorced

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