I had it.
And I would die protecting what was mine.
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About the Author
Rachel Van Dyken is the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today Bestselling author of regency and contemporary romances. When she's not writing you can find her drinking coffee at Starbucks and plotting her next book while watching The Bachelor.
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She keeps her home in Idaho with her Husband, adorable son, and two snoring boxers! She loves to hear from readers!
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Want to be kept up to date on new releases? Text MAFIA to 66866!
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You can connect with her on Facebook www.facebook.com/rachelvandyken or join her fan group Rachel's New Rockin Readers.
Website
@RachVD
Code of Conduct
April White
The first chapters of book one of the Smartypants Romance series set in the world of Quinn Sullivan's Cypher Security Systems: Shane Matthews is a PI who destroys cheaters, and Gabriel Eze is the Cypher agent whose client is in her sights. Shane's secrets become Gabriel's mission, and yet somehow, she just can't stay away...
Copyright ? 2018 by April White All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
One
Shane
“If you think they’re cheating, they probably are. Or you are, and you’re just trying to wipe your conscience.”
– Shane Matthews, P.I.
I intimidate people. It’s one of my superpowers.
I learned the benefits of intimidation early. A five foot, nine inch-tall, thirteen-year-old California girl with the finely-tuned battle instincts of a dedicated RPG gamer can wield a well-timed glare like a weapon. Now in my late twenties and six-one, I had confidence, athletic ability, and superior survival skills to add to my arsenal of intimidating glares.
I also had a pretty badass array of prosthetic legs with cool functions and Swiss Army-type gadgets at my disposal. But most of my clients didn’t even realize they got Black Widow with an Iron Man leg when they hired me. And the morons of dubious judgement who prowled the streets and bedrooms of Chicago certainly had no idea who was coming for them.
My other superpower was less “kick your ass” and more “drain your bank account and ruin your life,” but it was dangerous enough to add a little extra steel to my spine, which also helped disguise the limp that no amount of carefully-weighted titanium could erase.
The limp and the height were the reason I’d arrived early to the little, out of the way Northshore restaurant for my date with Chicago business mogul, Dane Quimby.
I say “date” because that’s what he thought it was. To me it was a job with a high probability of being mostly unpleasant, but served with a side dish of smug satisfaction.
I use the Black Widow analogy because of my Iron Man leg, but I grew up on a steady diet of Charlie’s Angels reruns. Even though I’d been compared to Jaclyn Smith, the “glamorous” P.I., I was way more Kate Jackson, the “athletic” one. My own P.I. license had taken six thousand hours and a test to earn, and as far as I was concerned, the fact that it was only legal in California where I’d lived until last year was just a technicality. To get a license in Illinois required a twenty hour training course and forty hours of firearms training, neither of which I’d done. I wasn’t a fan of guns, and didn’t really want my fingerprints on file with the State of Illinois, because … reasons.
So, here I was, waiting for a married guy to buy me dinner before he tried to get into my jeans. They happened to be my favorite skinny jeans, with enough lycra to make sitting possible without blood-flow constriction, and they were tucked into my super-favorite tall riding boots. The boots were flat and therefore comfortable. They also did a great job of hiding my prosthetic lower leg from Judgy McJudgersons and their stale notions of “handicaps.” Someone would have to get me naked to know I was a below-the-knee amputee, and no one but my dog ever saw me naked.
Dane chose the location for our “date,” which was notable for its lack of pretension and, indeed, any redeeming quality whatsoever beyond a curvy waitress and a cheap menu. I had nothing but respect for large-busted women, since I could only imagine the back pain and underwire bras they endured. I was just as happy with the two-dimes-and-a-piece of tape version of lingerie which kept my nipples from becoming a distraction that diminished my powers of intimidation.
The waitress greeted Dane with an enthusiastic kiss on the cheek when he came in, and I smirked at the difference between his internet dating profile picture and the truth of him.
My date for the evening was vertically challenged, sporting blond from a bottle, and had the athletic build of a man who did his treadmill miles with the Nasdaq scrolling under his news, and the smile of a shark who negotiated deals for a living.
His eyes found me with just the slightest double-take, and I he took stock of all my visible body parts as he approached the table.
“Sophie?” He asked, wearing his version of a rakish grin. I didn’t bother to point out the bit of something green stuck in his teeth. Sophie wasn’t my real name, of course, because I am too paranoid to use verifiable information on the internet.
I held my hand out to shake his. “Hello Dane, It’s nice to finally meet you.” Dane was obviously not paranoid enough, or just exceptionally cocky, as it actually was his real name. His wife hired me to discover if he’d been cheating on her, and it only took three internet searches and fifteen minutes to determine that he was on four internet dating sites and was practically a platinum card user of Tinder.
He sat down across from me and shook his head with a chuckle. “You look exactly like your picture. I guess that means everything else in your profile is true?”
It had taken me twenty minutes to hack into the website and data-mine his search histories, and another ten to build a profile to match his wish list. “Yes, I really am a tantric yoga instructor. Doesn’t everyone tell the truth online?” I said vapidly.
He winked. “I can’t really talk about my time in Special Forces, so I guess you could say my profile is true-ish.”
It had taken thirty minutes of background checks using mostly public databases to determine he’d been drummed out of the military for misconduct his first year. “Oh wow. Were you, like, a spy or something?”
He chuckled. “You’re from California, aren’t you?”
You mean my best Valley Girl imitation didn’t give it away? “I basically grew up on the beach.” Actually, I grew up backpacking in the Sierras, but I let him keep the mental image of me in a bikini.
“I always thought I should live in Cali,” he said. “I’d work out on the strand like those guys in Venice Beach, and be friends with movie stars.”
The effort not to laugh out loud was costing me. “I’ve seen those guys in Venice. You’d fit right in,” I said with a smile. My first job as an insurance investigator was in Venice and I had to navigate the gangbangers and homeless guys every day. Also, no one in California ever calls it Cali.
He held up a finger and did the “I’ll have what she’s having” thing to order a drink like mine. I smirked at the waitress’s raised eyebrow. Wouldn’t he be surprised when he got sparkling water with lime instead of the vodka tonic he thought I had?