Read Online Hotter Than Wildfire by Lisa Marie Rice - Free Book Online

worked so hard to create a respectable life for herself and it was in shattered shards around her feet.
    “I didn’t,” she said quietly.
    Sam Reston frowned. “Of course not.”
    There was silence in the room.
    “Can we know the name of who’s after you?” Reston finally asked. “To help you, we need to know the nature of the threat.”
    Could they know the name? Ellen sat, heart thudding. Every cell in her body screamed, No! She’d spent the past year never mentioning that name to anyone.
    On the other hand, it was entirely possible she was the last person on earth to know that Gerald Montez had stolen twenty million dollars from the U.S. government and had killed at least one person to keep that secret.
    If she died, someone had to have this information.
    Ellen didn’t know these two men. But she did know that at least one of them had helped a friend survive violence and build a new life. She wasn’t endangering them. Both of them looked perfectly capable of taking care of themselves.
    And…and she’d kept this lonely secret so long . It had shattered her life. Something in her longed to let it out, as if telling them could somehow lift this dark cloud of evil hanging over her, blighting her life.
    She pulled in a deep breath and told them a secret she’d nearly died to keep.
    “The company’s name is Bearclaw. My former boss’s name is Gerald Montez.”
    The air in the room changed, like an electrical charge had been run through it. The two men looked at each other.
    It was just a glance, the merest flicker of the eyes, but it touched off a wildfire of panic inside her.
    She was used to masking her feelings, so they probably wouldn’t realize that inside she’d just gone into red alert, panic pulsing in her head like the deep siren in a submarine when a torpedo is heading its way.
    Oh God!
    They knew Gerald. They knew Bearclaw.
    They were probably friends. They were certainly in the same business, probably did business together. Might even have an interest in covering up Gerald’s crimes.
    In a flash, Ellen realized that she’d been insane to seek protection from men who were exactly like Gerald. A year on the run, and she’d just placed herself in the enemy’s hands.
    She could barely breathe, as if a giant hand had squeezed her rib cage. She had to will herself to think straight.
    Whether she lived or died depended on her actions in the next minute.
    “Here,” she said smoothly, opening her backpack. “I have photos on my cell phone, I can show you…” She stopped, frowning. Not too much, don’t overdo it, just look faintly puzzled. “That’s strange…”
    Look up and to the left, trying to remember something. Cool, casual.
    “My cell phone isn’t here…Oh!” Eyes wide, remembering. Stand up, moving slowly, even though her body was screaming for escape. “Oh my gosh! It must have dropped out of my backpack downstairs when I checked the street number. I’ll be right back.”
    Move briskly, don’t run.
    She didn’t even give them a chance to react. In a second, she was out into the reception area. She beamed a dazzling smile at the receptionist. “Forgot something,” she trilled. “Be right back!”
    In the hallway, the elevator was just closing its doors. She’d kept herself in shape, doing calisthenics in her run-down apartment every day, and a good thing, too, because she ran and caught the door by a hair, punching the ground floor button so hard it was a miracle she didn’t punch her way through the metal.
    It took forever. Finally, the doors dinged and she flew out through the huge glass street doors, blinking in the bright sunlight. And again, the goddess of runaway women was with her, because a cab swerved to the curb and let out a passenger.
    She must have looked like a wild woman. The taxi driver threw her a startled look when she flung herself into the backseat and panted out the address of the small hotel she’d booked for the night. “Double the fare if you can get