A Dangerous Widow (A Dangerous Series)
Read A Dangerous Widow (A Dangerous Series) Online
Authors: Christina Ross
A Dangerous Widow
By
Christina Ross
A Dangerous Widow
is a new book with ties to the
Annihilate
Me
series, which has sold more than 1.5 million books worldwide.
This is a stand-alone novel.
But readers might enjoy it more if they first
read the original
Annihilate Me
series, then the
Unleash Me
series, and finally the
Annihilate Me 2
series and
Ignite Me
as it shares some of the same characters.
BELOW ARE THE U.S. LINKS TO ALL OF MY BOOKS.
ANNIHILATE ME, HOLIDAY EDITION
Also by Christina Ross:
Stand-alone novels
For my friends and my
family.
For Erich.
For my best friend, Erika
Rhys.
And especially for my
readers, who mean the world to me.
Your support of my career
is unfounded.
Copyright and Legal Notice
: This publication is
protected under the US Copyright Act of 1976 and all other applicable international,
federal, state and local laws, and all rights are reserved, including resale
rights.
Any trademarks, service marks, product names
or named features are assumed to be the property of their respective owners,
and are used only for reference. There is no implied endorsement if we use one
of these terms. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any
electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or
information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the
author.
First ebook edition © 2016.
Disclaimer
:
This is a work of fiction. Any similarity to
persons living or dead (unless explicitly noted) is merely coincidental.
Copyright © 2016 Christina Ross. All rights reserved worldwide.
To every thing there is
a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: a time to be born, and
a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted.
Ecclesiastes 3:1-2
By
Christina
Ross
PROLOGUE
New York City
October
Just hours before his brutal and unexpected
death, Michael Stone woke to greet the day just as he had every day since he’d
married Kate seven years ago—with optimism, with a hunger to tackle the
day head on and to see what would come of it, and with the same burning sense
of love he had for his wife.
In the master suite of their Park Avenue
townhouse, he looked over at the clock on the bedside table and then turned
onto his side, came up close behind Kate, kissed her on the base of the neck,
and held her next to him as she woke up.
“It can’t be morning yet,” she said.
“Like clockwork, the globe has turned.”
“Didn’t we just go to bed?”
“Technically, we went to bed around
eleven.
But in reality, we went to
sleep around twelve-thirty.
You
know, after I had my way with you.”
“That was nothing short of a marathon.”
“It was meant to be one.
And let’s just call this day what it
is—a celebration.
StoneTech
remains mine.
Thank God I didn’t
sell it.”
When she turned to face him, Michael thought
how beautiful she was, even fresh from the throes of sleep.
He watched her sweep her long brown hair
away from her face before she leaned in to kiss him.
“Sorry about the morning breath,” she said
when they parted.
Her brown,
almond-shaped eyes sparkled at him.
“But consider it my gift to you—if you weren’t awake before, you
certainly are now.”
“I’d exchange morning breath with you any
day, love.
And Kate, I want to
thank you again for listening to me over the past week, and for helping me come
to the decision I made.”
“You made the right call, Michael.
I know how difficult it was for you to
do what you did, but in the end, StoneTech is your baby.
You’re the one who built it into what it
is today.
You’re the one who
created a company that apparently everyone wants, and for good reason.
You’ve turned it into a billion-dollar
powerhouse.
Let’s just be grateful
that you never took the company public, because if you had, anyone with serious
capital reserves—such as Apple, for instance—could have come in
with an aggressive takeover strategy, and you’d be dealing with a whole host of
other problems right now.
I know
that yesterday was hard on you because you let down two of your closest
friends, but in comparison to a hostile takeover, that was minor.
At least all you had to do was to give
them an honest explanation for why you weren’t going to sell StoneTech, and
then walk away from the deal that they proposed to you.”
“The deal that I’d pretty much promised them
would happen,” he said.
“You had the right to change your mind.
But I get it.
I understand how you feel about letting
people down, especially when it comes to Mark and Tom.
They thought that everything was set to
go.
Legal was present, the papers
had been drawn up, and everyone was excited for the buyout to happen.
But in the end?
It was your choice not to sign those
papers.
Yours hardly is the first
deal to fall through in this city, that’s for sure.
And it won’t be the last.
We both know it—and so do they.”
She kissed him again on the lips.
“How about some coffee?”
“I’d love some coffee.”
“Then let me make us both a cup.
Because with the slate of meetings I have
in front of me today—and after what you did to me last night—let’s
just say that this girl needs one.
Or three.
Probably three.”
She slid out of bed, and he admired her
naked body as she crossed the room with the same unaffected confidence that had
attracted him to her the moment they first met in grad school at NYU.
Back then, each had been pursuing their
graduate degrees in business, and when they met, the mutual attraction was as
swift as it was powerful.
Two years
later, the summer after they graduated, they married in a small ceremony that
included only family and close friends, because, at that point in their lives,
they were so broke, they couldn’t afford a large wedding.
Each had hailed from modest backgrounds, and
with hefty student loan debts hovering over them, there literally was no money
for the sort of big, expensive wedding Michael wished he could have given Kate.
And look at us now
, he thought as he watched her slip into a
silky white robe.
Christ,
we’re lucky.
A
t thirty, Kate Stone was a senior vice
president of finance for Bank of America in Manhattan.
At thirty-one, Michael headed a
multi-billion-dollar company that had made its fortune on the encryption
software he’d written and perfected.
It was now considered the industry standard in data protection.
StoneTech had been revising and selling
versions of its software for the past seven years.
Its clients included the government, the
banking, insurance, medical, retail, and hospitality industries, as well as the
airline industry, the global marketplace in its many forms, and also a whole
host of other corporations and businesses that needed to ensure their clients
that their personal data was locked down.
That’s where StoneTech shined—and
that’s where Michael Stone had made his unlikely fortune in only a matter of a
few short years.
It was his deep
affection for what he’d built that had stopped him from signing over his
company—despite the three billion dollars he would have reaped in the
process.
Neither he nor Kate denied that the lure of
that kind of money was enticing.
But the more he thought about the deal and giving up StoneTech—and
the more he talked to Kate, who was against it because she thought that he’d
eventually come to regret it—the more he realized that she was
right.
He would come to regret
it.
Until he and Kate decided
to have children, which each wanted sooner rather than later, StoneTech was his
child for now.
With new software in
the works, there was a whole host of other opportunities to explore that
excited him.
He wondered what he would have done with his
life if he’d sold it.
Since the
contract had carried with it a non-compete clause, he couldn’t have designed a
better version of his encryption software.
So, where would he have gone next?
Where would he have fit in?
How could he ever duplicate that kind of success?
Knowing that he couldn’t unnerved him,
and so, with Kate’s support, he decided to keep the company, despite the anger
and disappointment of too many people to count.
“Meet me in the kitchen?” Kate said from the
bedroom door.
“Right behind you.”
She winked at him.
“Just not behind me like you were last
night, OK?”
“I can’t promise you that,” he said.
“Not when you’re looking like that.”
*
*
*
After Kate had showered and dressed, and was
ready to leave for work, Michael stood in the townhouse’s grand entryway in
nothing but his boxer shorts with their towering Great Dane, Bruiser, sitting
by his side.
Each watched her come down the curving
staircase.
She was wearing a fitted black business
suit, her long hair had been whipped up behind her head in a tight chignon, and
the only jewelry she wore were her wedding and engagement rings and the diamond
solitaire earrings he’d purchased for her last Christmas.
He thought she looked beautiful.
When she saw him, she just stopped
mid-staircase and looked down at him.
“How can you stand there looking like that?”
she said.
“You know I can’t handle
seeing you like that.
You’ve been
spending so much time in the gym lately, I’ve become a wanton woman.
Look at how ridiculous your pecs have
become—and those abs.
And
then there’s your curly head of black hair, which you know I want to rake my
fingers through.
You’re nothing
short of a tease, Michael Stone.
And it’s not fair.”
“Maybe I’m trying to convince you to stay
home with me…”
She grinned when he said that, and then
started down the stairs again, her black briefcase swinging at her side.
“I wish I could, but today is so jam-packed
with meetings, I already know that it’s going to be the day from hell.
I can sense it.
In fact, it’s probably going to be worse
than I imagine because I know whom I’m dealing with at those meetings.”
“Well, that’s just another good reason to
stay home.”
“Believe me when I say that I wish I
could.”
She furrowed her brow at
him.
“Lydia comes today, doesn’t
she?”
“She does.”
“And thank God for that!
When she cleans, would you mind asking
her to leave my office the way it is?
I know that it’s a hot mess, but in that mess, I also know exactly where
everything is.
And since I’m in the
middle of writing up an important report, there are post-it notes everywhere
with items that I need to include in that report.
I’ll straighten things up before she
comes next week.
Tell her that’s a
promise, even though she’ll already know that I’ll probably fail to pull through.
Still, I’ll try.”
“You’ve got it.”
“You know, I’m glad that you’re staying home
today,” she said as she crossed over to him and placed the palm of her hand
against his cheek.
“I know the
workaholic in you wants to get back at it, but you need this day for yourself,
if only to decompress from yesterday.
Read a book.
Watch a
movie.
Take Bruiser out for a
walk—he could use one, and so could you, if only to clear your mind.
And, please, forget about the upcoming
takeover of MicroCom—that’s weeks away at this point, and you don’t need
to be thinking about it.
Even
though I know you will.
Still, after
what you went through yesterday, you should try to do your best to relax, OK?”
“I’ll do my best.
I love you, Kate.”
“I love you more than you’ll ever
know—and I mean that from the bottom of my soul.
I don’t know what I’d ever do without you.”
“I can say the same.”
When he said that, Bruiser, who long had
been jealous of their relationship, made a low growling sound deep in his
throat and stomped his foot on the parquet floor.
“And I love you, too, my giant Bruiser,”
Kate said as she scratched his head and rubbed the steel-gray fur beneath his
jaw.
“Where would we be without
you?”
The dog barked.
“Exactly,” she said.
“So, keep your father company today,
OK?”
The dog stomped his foot again.
“That’s a good boy.
You’ve always been the best boy.
And since you’ve put your foot down, I’m
going to take that as a ‘yes.’”
“Dinner out tonight?” Michael asked.
“Absolutely.
I’m up for anything, because the last
thing I’ll want to do when I come home is cook.”
She reached down, pulled back the waistband
of his boxers, and released it so it slapped against his skin.
“But just make sure that you’re properly
dressed, stud.
Otherwise,
you
might be the main course.
Now, give me a kiss.
I should leave.”