Read Exposing the Heiress for Free Online Page A

themselves after a tragedy, into deep remorse then used that to control her. What she’d needed was love and maybe some counseling to help her cope. Hunt had seen the police report—it was shown by the media every year on the anniversary of Jenna Brook’s death. The accident had been the result of a torrential downpour on a treacherous road. Of course, the press highlighted the part about an inexperienced driver—Alyssa—being stated as a contributing factor. Anger drove spikes into his gut. “You didn’t know what would happen. You can’t blame yourself when you didn’t know.”
    Alyssa shivered. “By the time we got in the car, Mom was even sicker.” She shut her eyes in memory. “Why didn’t I check?”
    Self-hatred weighed down her words. “Check what?”
    She wrapped her arms tighter. “Her seat belt. I put mine on, but never checked hers. She hadn’t put it on. When we hit the tree, she was thrown in the car and the head trauma killed her.”
    That had been in the accident report too, but it was her guilt and pain that roused his compulsion to comfort her. Don’t do it. But his need outweighed common sense. Getting up, he caught her hands and pulled her to her feet.
    She tilted her head up. “What?”
    The loneliness mixed with remorse in her eyes cut him with an all too familiar knife. His self-preservation warned, Don’t do this. Keep your distance , but he couldn’t fight the need to care for her. “You’re cold and upset, and I don’t like it. Come here.” He sat and tugged her down onto his lap. She filled his arms with a weight that stirred a longing for more. So much more. Things he couldn’t have.
    “You don’t have to do this.”
    “Yeah, I do.” No one had protected her. Hunt had left the day after her mother’s funeral to go back to duty. His mom and Erin went home to their lives and they left her at the mercy of her stepfather.
    She’d been young, stricken with guilt and grief, and pregnant. She’d needed someone to stand for her until she was strong enough to stand for herself. And he’d had the gall, the utter nerve, to tell her that it wasn’t okay that she’d let her ex not care for her pleasure. No one had taught her that she was worthy and that was changing now. This wasn’t about sex, it was about showing her that she was a woman of worth.
    “Why?”
    Considering that, he asked, “Remember that first day your mom brought you here for the summer? You were six, I think, and carrying that stuffed dog.”
    Her eyes softened. “My dad gave him to me. After he died, I carried him everywhere for a year.” A smile ghosted her lips. “I still have him.”
    That sounded like her, so sentimental. “I’d broken my arm the day before you got here. The plan had been for me to go on my dad’s rock sculpting job to Australia for a few weeks but I couldn’t go with a broken arm. I was so pissed.”
    Alyssa frowned. “You were crying in bed that night.”
    Hunt rolled his eyes. “Men don’t cry.”
    “You weren’t a man, you were a sad boy. You wanted to go with your father.”
    He stroked her silky hair. “You came in and gave me your dog, told me he helped you when you missed your daddy.” He would never forget that little girl comforting him. Her dad had died, but she was trying to comfort him because he missed out on a trip. Even then, Lyssie was special.
    “It made sense to me at the time.”
    Hunt tugged her head back, looking into her eyes. “And this, holding you and being your friend when you need one, makes sense to me now.”
    She curled into him, her warmth pushing back years of loneliness, her sunshine and vanilla scent chasing out the stench of death that clung to him.
    She stirred in him a longing to be a man capable of love, but that part of him had died out in the deserts of the Middle East. What was left was a man with a switch—when triggered, Hunt went right into sniper mode. A cold hard killer.
    …
    The nightmares woke him. Hunt didn’t bother