Georgia Rutherford-Beaumont has it all: A wealthy husband. A powerful father. A hit man trying to kill her…
Congressman’s daughter Georgia longs for a little excitement in her life, at least until it arrives in the form of a high-velocity bullet. With Blackwood Security on the case, Georgia hides out with reclusive artist Mitchell Gray as the team try to unravel the web of secrets, lies, and worse, actual spiders. Who wants her dead? One of her father’s many enemies? Somebody closer to home? Or is it the Horsemen, the elite band of assassins Georgia’s not supposed to know about?
Georgia’s time away from home leads her to question everything, including herself. Where does the real danger lie? In death? Or in a life not truly lived?
Gray is My Heart is a standalone romantic suspense novel in the Blackwood Security series – no cliffhanger!
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Also available as an audiobook!
Sample – Chapter 1
Sample – Chapter 2
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Excerpt – The beginning…
The world came slowly back into focus as somebody half-carried, half-dragged me across the floor. I cringed when I realised I had a gaping run in my pantyhose, from knee to ankle, and I’d lost one of my pumps. Odd that I should feel so upset about that, given the circumstances, but it was yet another layer of my dignity that had been peeled away.
I was dumped onto a couch, one of the beige ones next to a matching coffee table where the club served up drinks and a selection of petits fours if you didn’t feel like ordering a proper meal.
What just happened? My thoughts were hazy, a black fog so thick it was suffocating. Sucking in each breath took effort as the air weighed heavy in my lungs.
In. Pause. Out.
In. Pause. Out.
I tried to sit up straighter in the chair—Mama told me never to slouch—but I didn’t slide freely across the leather. My ass stuck like a piece of gum on a ballet pump.
I gingerly reached a hand up and touched my back. The hand-woven silk jacket came from a collective in Afghanistan, sold by the wife of one of my father’s friends as part of a project to empower women. Once, it had been soft as clouds. Now something gloopy covered it, but what? My fingers were splodged with maroon liquid, almost black. I sniffed, and as the coppery tang wafted under my nostrils, it all came rushing back. My pen cap. The screaming. The waiter. Oh-hell-oh-hell-oh-hell! It was his blood. I was covered in his blood. My other hand brushed against the back of my neck, and it came away wet. I stared down, marvelling at the redness, a brighter shade this time, interspersed with lumpy little cauliflowers that clung to my fingers. Another second passed as I processed that.
Bile rose in my throat, and I clutched at my stomach, leaving a crimson handprint on my cream wool sweater. It was no good—I couldn’t hold it in. I threw up right on the coffee table, the smell of vomit mingling with the odour of a dead man.
I clawed at silk, at cashmere, at my hair. “Get it off! Get it off! Get it off!”
A woman in a spa uniform rushed over to me. “Calm down, ma’am, please.”
She spoke with a Mexican accent, panicked, her words so fast I barely understood what she was saying.
“No, I won’t calm down! His fucking brain is on me!” I batted her hand away and tore at my jacket. It ripped as I yanked it away from my body and flung it as hard as I could across the room.
“Please, it will be all right. Please, ma’am.”
“Just get away from me!”
I struggled out of the sweater, forgetting to undo the buttons at the neck. For a moment, it got stuck halfway over my head, and I gulped for air, feeling dizzy as it covered my nose. I tugged harder, writhing from side to side until the seam gave way and I was free. The garment was left inside out, but the blood had soaked all the way through, and the stain spread out like a gruesome Rorschach test.
I could almost hear my therapist, his reedy voice needling at my brain. “So, Georgia, tell me what you see here.”
“Death, you imbecile! I see death! Isn’t it obvious!” I yelled in my head. Or maybe I shouted out loud, because all the people in the room who weren’t already watching me swivelled their heads in my direction.
I’d become an exhibit in a sick circus.
Excerpt – Meet Mr. Gray…
He climbed out of his Land Rover and stood at the bottom of the driveway, staring up at his mountain. Three weeks had passed since he’d been home, and he took in the changes. A fallen tree branch. The buds forming on the scrubby bushes. A faint smell of skunk. The mailbox stood at his side like a sentry, and he flipped the lid open. Empty.
Emmy was here, he knew it. He melted into the scrubby undergrowth at the side of the track, then wound his way upwards like a wraith until he stood in the shadows next to the cabin. A dim glow came from inside. Not one of the overhead lights, but maybe the table lamp next to the couch—the sort of light a person left on in case they woke at night in unfamiliar surroundings.
Well, Emmy would be waking up tonight, that was for sure.
He ran across the clearing, his footsteps silent as he climbed the steps to the front door. Years of practice had made him adept at moving noiselessly over difficult terrain. The lock was well-oiled and the key made only the faintest click as it turned, then he slipped inside. Warmth seeped into him from the central heating that his visitor had left on high. She always did like things hot.
Now, where was she? He glanced up at the loft. If he were her, that’s where he’d choose to sleep.
He avoided the squeaky fourth step as he crept up the wooden stairs. There was no door to the loft, just a waist-high railing that ran across the front of the room. He liked being able to survey the house from up there, king of his own castle. And the light from downstairs seeped up, bathing the room in a faint wash of yellow that allowed him to see straight away that someone was asleep in his bed. A woman—face down, one arm underneath the pillow and the other stretched out by her side.
Fucking Goldilocks.
His rubber-soled shoes made no sound as he crossed the room to the bed. Putting a knee on the mattress, he was on her in an instant. One hand grabbed her hair and snapped her head back. She flipped over in the blink of an eye, but he already had a knife at her throat.
“Losing your touch, bitch.”
“You’re losing yours,” she hissed back.
He felt a sharp pain at the bottom of his ribcage and glanced down to see the knife she was holding, angled up so a flick of her wrist would drive it into his heart.
“Shall we call this round a draw?” she asked.
Damn her. “Fuck you.”
DO YOU PREFER YOUR BOOKS A BIT CLEANER?
An alternate version of Gray is My Heart, minus the swearing and the on-the-page sex, is now available 🙂 Join Xavier, Georgia, and Emmy on the same great adventure, only this time, Emmy has to mind her language!
Find more details HERE!