LITMIR.BIZ

       Chapter One

      The moment that Olivia Mercer stepped from her car, the hairs on the back of her neck prickled. She was being watched. No, not just watched.

       Hunted.

      She’d had enough experience to know the difference. Well, one experience anyway, but it’d been more than enough.

      She glanced around the parking lot at the half-dozen cars and at the nearby houses. When she didn’t spot the hunter, she forced herself to release the breath that she’d been holding and got her feet moving toward the Wilde Commercial Real Estate office building.

      Such that it was.

      Over a century ago, this place had been in a more upscale area of Houston, on a street lined with lavish homes that only old money could buy. What homes remained now were scabbed with decay and neglect. Blistered paint. Eye-socket windows. Rust-eaten gates, creaking. Most looked ready to fall into piles of ashes. Not exactly a welcoming neighborhood.

      It was the same for the Wilde building.

      Its lack of welcome, however, wasn’t from neglect. The area immediately around the building had been cleared of the decaying houses, all scraped away and cemented over like tombs. The facade, updated with slick black windows squeezed between crusty blood-red bricks. Near the front door, branches from a pair of weeping willows snapped and stirred with the wind.

      Pristine.

      But it did nothing to stop her neck hairs from prickling even more.

      With reason. It’d once been the site of a double murder, and those old, bad memories were still lingering around.

      Best to get this job finished so she could return to the safety of her apartment. Especially since the job itself had been more than disturbing enough. She’d never before let research—or the person who’d requested the research—get to her, but it had happened this time.

      She tried to tamp down the fear and excitement of seeing him.

      Olivia stepped inside the building, the AC immediately spilling over her. No decay inside here. She could see traces of what had once been the grand house. The art deco–tiled floor and the vaulted ceilings veined with ornate moldings, but now the rooms were offices, all sterile and white.

      In color, anyway.

      There was still a scent in the air. Not sterile. Something that couldn’t be scraped away or cemented over.

      “Death,” Olivia mumbled under her breath, and the chill slid through her, breath to bone.

      The only spot of color in the massive foyer was a receptionist with auburn hair and a turquoise dress. She snagged Olivia’s gaze, and even though she didn’t miss a beat in her phone conversation, she motioned toward a gleaming wood staircase.

      “Mr. Wilde is expecting you,” the woman mouthed.

      Good. Because Olivia didn’t want to be here any longer than necessary to give him the report, get paid and leave. Especially leave. Perhaps then this job would stop haunting her.

      She made her way up the stairs, expecting a line of office doors as there had been downstairs, but there was only one here on the second floor. It was cracked open a fraction as if someone had been peering out of it.

      The feeling of being hunted went up a significant notch, and that’s when Olivia spotted the little cameras placed at strategic points all over the walls. They looked like spiders waiting to pounce, but she figured her hunter was on the viewing end of at least one of them.

      Olivia eased open the door the rest of the way, stepped inside, and she jerked to a stop so she could shield her eyes from the nearly blinding sunlight that shot through the massive wall of windows.

      “Ms. Mercer,” he said.

      Was that relief in his voice?

      Because she was squinting, it took Olivia a moment to pick through the massive room and find him. He stood behind an equally massive desk that looked more fitting for A Game of Thrones episode than a modern-day real estate investor.

      Something from another time, another place. Like that scent.

      Olivia blinked, her eyes adjusting, so she could take him in. He was tall and dark. Dark hair, dark suit. Dark brown eyes. Olive-tinged skin that hinted of some Mediterranean blood. Lots of angles and a solid square jaw.

      Finally, you’re back, she thought.

      A ridiculous thought, since she didn’t know Lucian Wilde. She’d seen plenty of photos of him on the internet, and perhaps that’d been enough for that jolt of recognition to work its way into her head. And into her dreams.

      Into her body, too.

      Maybe leaving wouldn’t put an end to this after all. Whatever this was. But Olivia would certainly try to forget this unforgettable man the first chance she got.

      “I have your genealogy reports,” she managed to say though her mouth had gone dry. “The one for the Wildes and the Brannons. As I said in my emails, I never was able to connect the two families, but you might want to try hiring a real genealogist to do that. Family

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