LITMIR.BIZ

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Steele didn’t have much time to search the CEO’s office at Alaska Oil Barons, Inc. If she got caught, the consequences could be catastrophic.

      But she was out of options.

      Brea needed answers and she didn’t know who to trust. What if she chose wrong?

      There were things far worse than prison.

      She’d made a quick search of paperwork, and now she dropped into the sleekly modern leather chair behind the massive desk. She tried not to think about the times she’d visited this space as a child, when the office had been her father’s. Saturday mornings coming here with her dad and her twin sister after breakfast at Kit’s Kodiak Café. Playing hide-and-seek under the huge desk, or watching cartoons on the big screen at the other end of the office space, sharing a blanket while they fell asleep on the leather sofa.

      Now the space belonged to another man, someone outside of the family. The desk and the corner walls of windows overlooking the frozen bay and distant mountains were the same as she remembered. But the rest of the space was now filled with new furniture—sleeker, minimalist wood and leather pieces. Her father’s office had been packed with family photos. Ward Benally had only one picture on his desk. Him with a little girl, elementary-school-aged, sledding.

      She knew he wasn’t married, but clearly this child meant something to him. And that made him more personable. More than just an arrogant leader of a company that now belonged just as much to her rivals as to her family. Her father’s oil empire had merged with the Mikkelsons’ after his recent marriage.

      Of course, Brea hadn’t really been a part of any of that, since they had believed she’d died as a young teen.

      Brea’s conscience pinched. But her sense of survival dictated that she continue looking for the damning information.

      She pulled a flash drive from her purse and plugged it into the computer. She’d lived off-the-grid for years, and while some thought that meant no computers, no communication with the outside world, she’d actually learned to use the internet without leaving a trail, building on knowledge she’d learned from her dad.

      Learning to hack and code were skills stitched and threaded through much of her young life, before the airplane crash that had taken her from her family. She had shared that with her father. Once her mind was made up, Brea could accomplish anything. Dogged, unrelenting persistence. Also like Jack Steele. Her daddy.

      Her chest went tight.

      She blinked back tears and clicked through the keys, her fingers slick from the thin latex gloves she wore to keep her prints out of the office. Paranoid? Maybe. Maybe not. Bottom line, she couldn’t be too careful.

      Someone connected to this company had played a role in the airplane crash that had killed her mother. The crash that had changed Brea’s life forever, in ways she still struggled to understand.

      She had to have answers before she could put the past behind her, before she could feel safe here. Yes, she wanted to believe her relatives had nothing to do with such horrible treachery. Yet everything she’d learned pointed to someone in the Mikkelson family having been a part of the crash.

      And now her father was married to the Mikkelson matriarch, merging their rival oil companies into Alaska Oil Barons, Inc. How surreal after their years of bitter competition and even outright enmity.

      Almost too surreal. Like there might be a setup.

      Hopefully she could find a clue here. If she didn’t? Well, she didn’t plan on giving up. She needed closure. But she also needed safety.

      She wanted to reunite with her siblings, but she couldn’t be sure where their loyalties lay. The risk of showing her hand was too high. She would be persistent. And patient.

      Glancing at her watch, she checked the time. Earlier, she’d ferreted information out of the assistant that Ward would be in a conference call for most of the afternoon. But she didn’t want to press that time to the limit.

      A file name caught her attention, one simply titled with the date of the plane crash. She stifled a shiver at memories of the aircraft’s plummet from the sky. The terror. Her mother’s tight grip on her hand.

      The air sucked from her lungs now. The same as it had then. A pull back to that day. The fear was a blood rush dragging her down. She could hear the whine of dying engines and the rustle of rapidly approaching earth.

      Brea relived this moment more often than she cared to admit. Her body time traveling to the day that drew a line in the sand of her life. An eternal before and after.

      A distraction Brea couldn’t afford right now.

      She clicked to copy the file to her flash drive, the urge to read it now overwhelming. Her heart raced, her speeding pulse hammering in her ears.

      “What are you doing in my office?”

      Brea jolted upright, the masculine voice making her heart stop.

      Not only had she been discovered in the act of spying. But she’d been caught by the man himself. Ward Bennally. The new CEO of Alaska Oil Barons, Inc. A sexy dark-haired man wearing an Armani suit, cowboy boots...

      And a heavy scowl.

      * * *

      Ward Benally had expected the first months as CEO of Alaska Oil Barons, Inc., would be challenging. He welcomed that. He lived and breathed his job.

      It was his whole life.

      It was all he had left.

      He’d just finished a brutal board meeting that had almost broken out into a fistfight over disagreements about modifications to the oil pipeline. He’d come to his office to get documents he hoped would satisfy both sides. He’d also looked forward to a few moments alone to quiet his frustration.

      Instead he found his office invaded by the last person he would trust alone with sensitive company data.

      Brea Steele, the long-lost daughter of Jack Steele. The same daughter who’d posed as an employee of Alaska Oil Barons, Inc., not that long ago, to gain access to heaven only knew what kind of encrypted information. She could not be trusted. That should be obvious to everyone. But Jack was so happy to have his presumed-dead daughter back, they all had to put up with her, even though, by all rights, she should be under prosecution.

      Ward eyed her with suspicion as she kept her hands out of sight, her brown eyes guarded as she sat at his desk.

      “Well?” he repeated. “What are you doing in my office?”

      Slowly, she rose from the buttercream leather chair, her hands now tucked in the back pockets of her black jeans. Jeans that clung to her long legs like a second skin. “I was waiting for you.”

      Her voice was cool and composed. Her sleek ponytail swished as she made her way around the desk, the silky glide of dark hair drawing his gaze like a hypnotic pendulum.

      She was a smoke-and-mirrors show.

      And his body reacted to her every time, no matter how often his brain reminded him she was trouble. “Looks to me like you were snooping around.”

      “I’m nosy.” She shrugged, watching him through long dark eyelashes. “What can I say?”

      “You call it nosy?” He strode forward, risking coming close enough to catch a whiff of...mint. “I call it breaking and entering.”

      “Your assistant let me in,” she said neatly.

      That gave him pause. He made a mental note to check her story. Even if it was true, she still should have been seated on the sofa or one of the guest chairs. “Did my assistant give you permission to use my computer?”

      Her shrug called attention to her gentle curves. He snapped his attention back to the facts he knew about her. The woman before him had lied. Pretended to be someone else. Her actions were downright criminal. Brea could not be trusted. No matter how drop-dead sexy she looked in a turtleneck sweater.

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