Be Your Everything [All for Love] (BookStrand Publishing Romance) Read online

  Be Your Everything

  As an undercover insurance fraud investigator working with the local authorities, Matthew Bourke aka Manny Baker’s job is to build a case against the suspect, Gilbert Grayson. He cultivates Heather Graham, Grayson’s secretary, anticipating she will prove to be a valuable source as well as a pleasing diversion. What Manny doesn’t anticipate is that he’ll fall hard for Heather, just as she falls for him. He gives into the attraction, unable to wait until the investigation is over, when he plans to tell Heather the truth and ask for her understanding.

  Manny seduces her. Accidentally finding out Manny isn’t who he says he is, Heather retreats and inadvertently tips off Grayson. The man has already killed once to cover his tracks, and her boss needs something from his secretary, something Heather doesn’t know she has. Manny searches for the love of his life, desperate to protect her and be her everything.

  Genre: Contemporary

  Length: 37,233 words

  BE YOUR EVERYTHING

  Peri Elizabeth Scott

  ROMANCE

  www.BookStrand.com

  ABOUT THE E-BOOK YOU HAVE PURCHASED: Your non-refundable purchase of this e-book allows you to only ONE LEGAL copy for your own personal reading on your own personal computer or device. You do not have resell or distribution rights without the prior written permission of both the publisher and the copyright owner of this book. This book cannot be copied in any format, sold, or otherwise transferred from your computer to another through upload to a file sharing peer to peer program, for free or for a fee, or as a prize in any contest. Such action is illegal and in violation of the U.S. Copyright Law. Distribution of this e-book, in whole or in part, online, offline, in print or in any way or any other method currently known or yet to be invented, is forbidden. If you do not want this book anymore, you must delete it from your computer.

  WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.

  If you find a Siren-BookStrand e-book being sold or shared illegally, please let us know at

  [email protected]

  A SIREN-BOOKSTRAND TITLE

  IMPRINT: Romance

  BE YOUR EVERYTHING

  Copyright © 2013 by Peri Elizabeth Scott

  E-book ISBN: 978-1-62242-986-8

  First E-book Publication: June 2013

  Cover design by Harris Channing

  All cover art and logo copyright © 2013 by Siren Publishing, Inc.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  PUBLISHER

  www.BookStrand.com

  DEDICATION

  For my critique partner Jennifer Simpkins who writes love stories and encouraged me to submit Be Your Everything. Thank you.

  BE YOUR EVERYTHING

  PERI ELIZABETH SCOTT

  Copyright © 2013

  Chapter One

  “I have an eleven o’clock appointment with Mr. Grayson. Matthew Bourke.” Holy crap, how did he manage to get through the door and across the room to her desk without her noticing? He hadn’t made a sound, or even pushed air ahead of him. The document she was typing wasn’t all that interesting. She hadn’t been concentrating that hard. And he was a big guy, not a small, sneaky sort of guy who might have slunk in. He took up a lot of space. And she was sounding like a ditzy blonde right inside her own head.

  Heather Graham checked out Matthew Bourke’s ruggedly handsome features. His eyes were set deeply beneath dark brows, the black lashes surrounding milk chocolate eyes thicker and longer than any man’s had a right to be. She loved chocolate. His nose made a statement—Heather had a theory about noses. She thought they reflected a person’s character. His was an uncompromising blade, and sported a bump on the bridge, suggesting an unscheduled impact with an unforgiving object. That would make him determined and dominant, not easily swayed. Matthew’s mouth softened his look, the lips perfectly chiselled, sculpted yet soft and perfectly opposite to…

  “Miss? My appointment?”

  She blinked. And blinked again. Son of a bitch. The hottest man in her recent experience was standing not three feet from her and she’d been off in la-la land. She regrouped. What the hell was wrong with her? Asked and answered. Hot. Hotter. Hottest.

  “Of course.” Cutting her eyes to the computer screen Heather unobtrusively tapped a key. Matthew Bourke. Eleven o’clock. Stitching what she sincerely hoped was a professional smile on her lips, she nodded toward a chair set against the far wall of her office. “Please take a seat, Mr. Bourke. Mr. Grayson will be ready to see you in a minute.”

  His back view was nearly as nice as his front. She took the opportunity to thoroughly check Matthew Bourke out, ensuring when he turned around to take his seat she was apparently engrossed in her computer screen. As was her wont, she catalogued her thoughts. It was how she came up with her best designs. Tall, dark and handsome. Dark-brown hair, sable brown. Those chocolate eyes. Cheekbones to die for. Perfect mouth. Broad shoulders. Built. Nice ass. Really nice ass. Dresses well. Sexy voice. Sighs loudly. She closed the document, declining the prompt to save it. What would she save it under? Hot Guy at Eleven O’clock? Eye Candy for Any Home? Heather suppressed a smile and checked the time.

  Pushing her chair back, she stood to lead the way to her boss’s office and announce Hot Guy. Mr. Bourke watched her, just as he’d watched her type, intently. He seemed very aware of his surroundings and his gaze hadn’t made her feel uncomfortable. Not really. Heather wasn’t vain enough to think she was worthy of his attention. A man like Mr. Bourke could have any raving beauty crossing his path. She positively ogled him earlier, to his amused recognition and her subsequent embarrassment, but a cat could look at a king. There was her mother’s influence again, those eccentric quotes attached to her DNA right along with the programming for her hair and eye color. And her small breasts.

  Tapping on Mr. Grayson’s door, opening it slightly at the sound of his muffled voice, she poked her head inside. She announced the arrival of his appointment, using Matthew Bourke’s proper name, smiling inside. As she turned around to invite Mr. Bourke to enter he was no more than six inches away from her and her inner smile froze. How did he do that? He was so close she could smell him, a heady bouquet of sandalwood, spice, and male. Heather fought against closing her eyes and inhaling like some fool from a laundry detergent commercial. Her sense of humor was irreverent at best, but even she couldn’t laugh at the way she felt in that very moment.

  Stepping backward, invading Mr. Grayson’s sanctum, she did a little stutter step in dismay, feeling her boss’s annoyed stare pierce her. Heather was rarely allowed in there. Nervousness made her fumble for words, a failing virtually unknown. If she’d saved Mr. Bourke’s document she might have added disconcerting, annoying, pushy. Even great-looking guys had their foibles. He eased past her, the very heat of him evident, giving her a smile to make her girly parts tingle. Maybe not annoying. Heather stepped out, carefully avoiding Mr. Grayson’s eyes, and shut the door quietly.

  Standing motionless and staring into space didn’t get any work accomplished, although the rumble of voices in her boss’s office w
as a nice counterpoint to her daydream. Get with the program, girl. With her luck, Mr. G would want something and come looking for her. If he found her mooning outside his office door, eavesdropping, it wouldn’t bode well. He was the first boss she’d worked more than a few weeks for, and Heather was determined to cultivate the stability. Her days of temping were over. Mr. G prized his privacy and had some strict rules for his staff. It wouldn’t do to screw up.

  Heather decided to finish the morning off with an Internet search. Mr. Grayson’s latest statistics needed updating and he’d asked her to do a comparison of two other companies. It was a task better suited to a personal assistant or someone in research, but she was bored, in truth, and welcomed the variety. Although she was hardly feeling bored at that moment, but rather, edgy and restless. Maybe Mr. G would see her as filling Meredith’s shoes. She flinched. It was too soon to think about Meredith. She hadn’t known her very well because Meredith was as private as their boss, but the personal assistant was a nice young woman. And she’d been killed, right in the company parking lot, after hours, working late for Mr. Grayson. Heather pulled up the relevant data and studied it.

  She tried. She really did, but nicely disturbing thoughts of Matthew Bourke kept intruding, helping her forget about Meredith’s untimely end. So she checked up on him instead. Her notations, made at the time he phoned for his appointment, informed her Matthew Bourke was a technical rep from the parent company back east. Had his voice hinted at its owner’s attributes? She couldn’t recall. In fact, she wondered if he’d called personally. Jameson and Company was a household name in insurance, so she went into the personnel directory and scrolled through the Bs until she found his moniker. Just as she’d noted, tech rep. Specializing in revamping systems. Mr. G was vice president of Benefits and Payouts so she supposed they were streamlining the process. Heather had a general grasp of all the departments at Jameson and Company because she’d temped in all of them.

  Wondering how long he’d be liaising, she again checked the time. She went for lunch at noon, without fail, because that’s what Mr. Grayson wanted, the old tyrant, and she hoped Matthew Bourke’s appointment was finished before then, or dragged on until she returned so she might see him again. Cats and kings. He made her think of rumpled satin sheets and tropical islands with warm breezes and hot sand. The man made her think about doing something different with her life, other than being cooped up in an office all day. This was so not like her.

  Heather was predictable. She was a dependable employee, met her design needs by decorating her apartment and helping others with theirs, stayed out of trouble, spent time with a few people she felt comfortable with and went to visit her mother. She didn’t screw around, didn’t have one-night stands, and while she noticed members of the opposite sex and appreciated masculine beauty, she rarely reacted like this. She enjoyed sex, what little she’d had, but required the emotional component of trust and respect, affection and acceptance to support it. Incredibly handsome guys tended to feast on the smorgasbord of opportunities out there, although sometimes settled for mundane fare. Heather learned that little gem in college when she and her friends were caught up in the social melee and sex was merely a part of the scene.

  She once dated someone she didn’t know well and didn’t really like, although he’d been very pretty. His looks hadn’t made up for his shallowness, or his entitled attitude, particularly condescending to strange, only reasonably attractive Heather Graham, left a nasty taste. That taste was regurgitated in gossip and innuendo for weeks afterward. It was an altogether depressing, hurtful experience and one she was determined not to repeat.

  Heather dated, and if things progressed and her criteria were met, she slept with the man. That’s right. Singular. One, in all those years after college. That one relationship lacked any real spark. It faded quickly, although she and Mike were still good friends, and once in a while, friends with benefits. Mike was seeing someone else now, so even that perk was unlikely. She probably had the least amount of sex of all the women she knew, and she knew a lot of women. She didn’t get to finish college. Her dad died and there was no money, a problem with policies at his workplace negating an insurance payout. Heather lacked the ambition anyhow, because she couldn’t imagine taking care of her mom, working to pay for college, and going to school. Instead, she found secretarial work with Jameson and Company. It suited her financially and she could care for her mom, too, although it had initially felt strange to be working for an insurance company when having her dad’s policy denied had meant considerable financial hardship. At least J and C was a different company.

  But a couple of years ago her mom’s situation had changed. A review of those workplace policies by the government resulted in a considerable insurance settlement, enabling Wanda to move into a care facility perfectly meeting her needs. But Heather remained stuck. She needed to become unstuck if she didn’t want to spend the rest of her life as a secretary. She wasn’t getting any younger. Turning thirty had, quite frankly, scared the crap out of her. Life was passing her by. And why had her recent decision to try the long term secretary career suddenly lost its appeal? Where had this restlessness come from, this desire to step outside the box? It was a puzzle, and one she didn’t care to examine too closely at the moment, because surely laying eyes on a strange man hadn’t precipitated it.

  Checking the clock periodically didn’t make the minutes creep by any faster. Heather couldn’t find any further information on Matthew. He didn’t need a last name any longer. It was probably okay to have a fantasy boyfriend without a last name. She wished the company had pictures of all their staff, because then she’d be able to sneak a peak periodically. Sad, Heather. Really sad. Juvenile, too. She went back to her real work, the one that paid the bills. At ten minutes to twelve her line rang and she snatched it up. Moesha’s loud voice blasted her eardrum.

  “Wanna get lunch? I am so done with this morning. Or did you bring yours?”

  Heather didn’t cook. Not anymore. She’d cooked most of her life because her mother didn’t, and her dad liked to eat at home and she liked her dad. She ate out a lot now, keeping it simple, and didn’t eat anything that had a mother. Freudian? Hardly. She hoped.

  “Heather? Are you off in your head again? C’mon, girlfriend. It’ll be nice to go out.”

  Heather and Moesha worked for the same big insurance company, albeit in different departments. Moesha was the brainy type, and did the numbers thing. Whereas Heather tended to live in her head and talked to herself, Moesha put it out there and what one saw was what one got. No subterfuge, and Heather loved her for it. Moesha was her polar opposite, and Heather lived that life vicariously, her inner Moesha longing to bust out on occasion.

  “Sure. Mr. G has an appointment so I’ll slip away in five unless they break before then. Meet you in the lobby regardless. Let’s go to that new health food place.”

  Moesha groaned loudly. “I need beef. Rare. I’ll have it in a salad but tofu doesn’t cut it. We’re going to Alfred’s.”

  Heather smiled. Could she and Moesha be any more different? “Okay. In five or so.”

  Pulling out her purse, she locked her desk drawer and shut down the computer. It was password protected and cycled every few minutes if left unattended, but Mr. G was paranoid. And with good reason. People’s lives were on her hard drive, coded or not. Taking one last look at Mr. Grayson’s door, savoring the memory of Matthew’s total package, Heather grabbed her purse and a sweater against the chill of Alfred’s. The last hour of her morning had made her entire day, although she reflected the experience opened a door inside of her, too.

  * * * *

  “So Grayguts has somebody from head office looking over his shoulder!” Moesha’s voice carried over the hubbub of Alfred’s. The bistro served tasty, quick fare because the menu was short and sweet. It was a big favourite among the people who worked in the area, and was jam-packed as usual.

  “Shhh! God, Moesha! There’re other people from J and C he
re!”

  “Shoot. Sorry. You hardly ever talk about work. In fact, you never talk about it. Other than to roll your eyes when I mention your boss’s name. And that doesn’t qualify. So what’s different?”

  “Nothing.” Heather’s urgent whisper had Moesha’s attention, evidenced by the thinning of the other woman’s lips. “I shouldn’t have said anything! And Matthew’s here to liaise with Grayg—with my boss. Not look over his shoulder!”

  “So then it’s this Matthew.” Moesha said it quietly and thus had a far greater impact.

  Heather froze. Oh. My. God. Blame it on all those romance novels she consumed lately, a steady diet of love at first sight, or maybe lust at first sight and all those happily ever afters. She couldn’t drag her gaze away from her friend. Heather was horrified and realized she had no ability to hide it. Mooning after a man she’d likely never see again? Not just high on her reaction to him?

  “Girlfriend. Heather my bestie.” Moesha needed to quit with the down home crap. Her tall, slender body and Nefertiti face belied the bizarre stuff sometimes falling out of her mouth, although it was part of her charm. Sometimes.

  Pasting on a smile, Heather shook her head. “He’s hot. I’ll give you that. He must be, to explain how my brain cells just shorted out. Crap. I’m like one of those little nerdy girls in high school drooling over the big, bad jock. I found myself thinking about blowing the secretary deal off this morning and kicking over the traces. All because I met Prince Charming. C’mon.”

  Heather’s sense of humor asserted itself and Moesha smiled back, teeth flashing white against her warm, cocoa skin. Heather practised some recovery breathing and took a gulp of green tea.