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  And he had to stay there for years, acknowledging the fact that he might never see the sun again.

  It did shit to a man to live that reality.

  It hardened him.

  It molded him into a different shape.

  But it didn't change what was beneath the surface; it didn't undo twenty some odd years of being told the right way to act, to live your life.

  So it didn't matter that he had spent almost a decade in the trade, it was still, at his core, a source of extreme shame and embarrassment.

  Which was why this was so important.

  This, this job opportunity, this chance to start his life over again.

  It meant fucking... everything.

  So his first day had to go perfectly.

  Come hell or high water.

  TWO

  Espen

  She was hungry.

  Not literally. Figuratively.

  But the sensation was much the same. It was clawing. It was constant. You couldn't escape it. Not in sleep. Not in daily activities. It was always there, a churning, maddening, unavoidable thing.

  All her life, she had always been underestimated.

  Maybe it was her small stature.

  Maybe it was the safety net that had been working for her father, the idea of her position being attributed to nepotism instead of hard-earned work.

  Hell, maybe it was as simple as being female in a male dominated world.

  Whatever it was, she was sick of being seen as a joke, as a liability, as a nuisance. She was tired of being a 'girlie,' 'honey,' 'sweetheart,' and 'little lady,' of being a tit to graze or an ass to grab when her father was looking the other way.

  So she broke away.

  She waved goodbye to all those bastards using only two fingers.

  Fuck them and their sexist bullshit.

  Fuck them and their underestimating of her abilities.

  She could bury them with her skills.

  And she planned to prove that.

  But to prove that properly, she had to leave. She had to start over. She had to make her own way.

  Granted, she wasn't going far.

  She was staying in the city. She was just jumping companies. She was leaving behind her father's reputable, long-established private investigation office in a nice area with all its expensive, modern, sleek decor, and the men in suits inside it, somehow thinking those expensive threads could hide their godawful personalities.

  And she was starting again in, well, a bit of a slum, but a newly renovated building, working for a man who likely didn't even know what the brush of a dress shirt felt like on his skin, and a reputation so dark and professionally blurry that other investigators - like her father and his men - knew better than to even talk shit about him.

  Xander Rhodes was the one who took the cases that they were all too chickenshit to take on. Gangs. Pimps. Corporate espionage. Hell, even the goddamn mob if the rumors were to be believed.

  Could the man rub shoulders with men like her father?

  No.

  But the thing was - he didn't want to.

  That was the beauty of it all.

  That was what had her quitting her father's practice - and the very steady, very nice paycheck that came along with it - to go slum it in the gutters.

  No one could ever say she was given anything working for a man like Rhodes. No one would ever be able to accuse her of riding her father's coattails, of only getting where she got in life because someone else handed her things.

  Because she was good, damnit.

  She was so good.

  She was way too damn good to be stuck behind a desk doing research because no one wanted to be 'shackled' with her in the field. She was too skilled to be left behind because 'the boss wouldn't want anything to happen to his little girl.'

  The thing was, her father had never raised her to be meek or weak or 'troubled' by the supposed 'inherent weakness' of her gender.

  He had been expecting - and likely wanted - a son.

  But when the doctor rolled her in pink instead of blue, it hadn't fazed him in the least. She still went to karate classes. She still played catch in the park on weekends with him. She climbed - and fell out of - trees. She broke bones. She came home bloody more than she came home unscathed.

  She was tough.

  He raised her to be as tough as any of the boys.

  He raised her to hold her head high, to never back down, to always believe she was just as worthy as the guys were.

  That being said, his business was big and ever-growing, so he wasn't always able to see all the undercurrents in his own building. Namely, the sexism she had been subjected to since she joined on when she was twenty-two, after she finished the college he demanded she attend. She got her bachelor's in computer forensics.

  And had been promptly stuck at a desk.

  By the office manager, mind you, not her father.

  Kenny, the office manager, was what one might accuse of suffering from an inflated sense of self.

  Espen, however, would just accuse him of being an asshole. Who likely had a pencil dick, if his fragile ego was anything to go by.

  He had been who she needed to report to, all gung-ho with optimism, practically bouncing into work that day, sure she was going to be put on a case, and sent out into the world.

  "Espen, angel face," he had said, making a sliver of ice slide down her spine. Every woman knew that tone, that condescending one that implied they thought your pretty little female brain was full of shoes, and party dresses, thoughts of making babies, and pleasing men. She knew right then what was going to happen.

  She hadn't prepared for it.

  That was the worst part.

  It never occurred to her that she would be treated as anything other than an equal. In fact, given that Kenny just barely passed the PI licensing exam, she figured she might even be treated with respect for the extra knowledge she had to bring to the table.

  Silly, immature optimism.

  She didn't live in a bubble. She knew that not all men truly believed women were equal. And, to be fair, she knew many women in college who perpetuated the idea of a clueless, careless, damsel in distress - making it harder for everyone else.

  But she maybe always figured that that level of sexism was for old men, men of different generations, men she maybe couldn't even fault for it.

  It was like being pissed at a grandfather who couldn't figure out his cell phone or TV remote.

  They didn't know any better.

  But Kenny was someone she had known for years, him only being two years older than her in school. He had grown up in the same apartment building, and their fathers had been good friends. Which was how he ended up at her father's company.

  He was only twenty-five at the time.

  He should have known better.

  Especially so because he had grown up with her, seeing her leading crazy, daring missions with the other neighborhood kids, a fearless leader, a black belt in fucking karate by age thirteen.

  Apparently, she still had a lot to learn in the world.

  Like how people she once saw as friends and equals saw her as beneath them. Due mostly to her sex.

  She had been thrown at a desk in the back of the building, given a computer, and a stack of files to do research on. When there were open cases, one of the men would drop computers, external hard drives, CDs, and cells, expecting her to come up with miracles.

  To her credit, she delivered a helluva lot of them.

  Though, that was easily forgotten on the rare occasion when things had been wiped thoroughly or nuked in a microwave, or dropped in a bucket of water for days.

  Then she got not only condescended to, but actually yelled at for her supposed incompetence, being told that with her shitty skills, if it weren't for her father, she would never find a job.

  She would have to physically bite down on her tongue - occasionally until she tasted blood - to keep from mouthing off.

  And she didn't want
to go to her father. She didn't want to 'cry to daddy,' as she was once told when she had felt the sting of tears in her eyes when Kenny was on a particularly nasty rant about her subpar work performance.

  So she just bore it.

  Well, that wasn't entirely true.

  She let it change her.

  It was in little ways at first, ways she didn't even notice. It was almost silly but, she would sit outside the office for a couple minutes, taking deep breaths, pretending to put a shield down over her emotions, knowing the worst thing she could do was show any weakness around them. But soon, it wasn't a practice. It wasn't something she could remove any more. She just had a shield. She just became harder.

  Bitch, they would call her when she would go back at one of them.

  Jesus, take a fucking joke, Espy, they would say when she wouldn't laugh at some bullshit sexist joke one of them was telling in the break room.

  After a couple years, it weighed on her. She felt heavy.

  Gone was the excited, optimistic, and maybe a bit naive girl she had been.

  In her place was someone tougher, jaded, and world-weary.

  Then she heard the guys talking about Rhodes expanding his business. They did so with a small amount of curiosity, of wonder. Because they knew he operated on the side of the law that they themselves could never get away with.

  Hell, maybe their reaction about the job opening had been more of the deciding factor than anything.

  Sure, she wanted to prove herself, to stick it to them.

  But it was also cool to maybe be able to get a job that they envied. Even if it was only a small amount.

  Her, the office chick they always looked down on, doing badass shit with one of the city's most notorious PIs.

  Her father had been despondent at the news, when she finally got the guts to walk in to give him a copy of the resignation letter she had already slammed down on Kenny's desk.

  "Espen, why?" he'd asked, holding his hands out, palms up.

  Atien Locklear had aged well. In his youth he had been, by all accounts, almost unnaturally attractive with his tall, wide-shouldered build that he kept in exceptional shape, his tan Native skin, his long, flowing black hair he had always been so proud of, and the bone structure that spoke of his ancestors, that was reminiscent of drum circles, of rain dances, of sacred traditions.

  Sure, he had grown. He had a few lines beside his eyes. He cut off most of his hair, but he still had a well-conditioned body beneath expensive suits.

  And he was still, at fifty, exceptionally attractive, and he could still get any woman he wanted.

  And given that Espen's mother was nothing but a memory of a specific smell that was a mix of vanilla and chamomile, he did that. Have whatever women he wanted.

  Looks wise, Espen took after him. She had the same somewhat-diluted through the generations copper-colored skin, the sharp cheekbones, the dark eyes, the long black hair.

  But where Atien was long and wide, Espen was short and somewhat delicate, holding most of her weight in her thighs and ass.

  There was no denying the resemblance between them.

  And there was also no denying the betrayal in his voice when he learned of her plans. Or the worry.

  In fact, it was maybe the only time in her life that she remembered having a full-on argument with her father, one that made the unfamiliar sting of tears start in her eyes, horrifying her, so she turned and stormed out of the building mid-fight.

  She didn't begrudge him his anger.

  Because he didn't know what she had been dealing with since she started working for him.

  But the words had hurt nonetheless.

  Careless.

  Reckless.

  Irresponsible.

  Those weren't words she wanted to hear, words she wanted him to associate with her.

  They were words she planned to prove wrong. As soon as humanly possible. Which was why when Xander Rhodes' woman, Ellie, called to ask if they could move up her meeting, she had jumped. She needed in, and she needed it about ten minutes ago.

  The sooner she got her foot in the door, the faster she could start proving herself, making a name for herself.

  She needed it.

  She took a deep breath, running her hands down her sleek hair, hair that stayed pin straight - without even a hint of kink or frizz when the air got humid - much to the envy of the girls she had known growing up. But given that she didn't really care too much about things like hair or makeup or anything girly at all, she never really paid it much mind. In fact, she always slid a handful of black hair ties around her wrist to use to tie the huge mass of it up when it started to tick her off.

  She dressed simply in black skinny jeans, a black tank top - given that it was about five-thousand degrees in the shade in a city full of blacktop, too many people, and car exhaust - and her old, trusted, steel-toed boots that had been a gift from Biyen, her cousin who had been much like a brother, to celebrate her new job at her father's firm.

  You need steel toes for all the ass you'll be kicking, he had told her.

  Maybe, for the first time, they would be used for that.

  She was more than a little excited about the prospect as she slipped her wallet into her back pocket, and her keys onto the loop of her jeans, and headed out onto the street to catch the subway that would bring her to Xander's neck of the woods.

  The building was in the same neighborhood that his old place had been, but about five times as big as the old place which had, if she heard right, been taken over by Xander's friend Gabe to expand his skip-chasing business.

  She could see the sign for Rhodes Investigations - a simple wooden thing above the doors with black, bold font - when something else entirely caught her eye.

  Someone else entirely might be more accurate.

  She wasn't sure what it was that got her attention at first. In a city full of over four million men, the good-looking ones were about a dime a dozen. They were literally everywhere. So much so that she didn't even notice them much anymore.

  But this guy caught her eye for some reason.

  No, he didn't just catch her eye. He actually froze her mid-stride, making some jackass behind her run bodily into her shoulder and murmur 'get the fuck outta the way, lady' to her as he shoved past.

  What could she say, he was simply that... impressive.

  That was the only word she could think of. Truly, the man had been kissed by the gods to look that good. He was massive - six-four if he was a foot, with linebacker shoulders, tree trunk thighs, and coiled, huge arm muscles. She knew, she just knew that under his black tee she would find an impressive set of abdominal muscles. A six-pack. Eight or ten packs were for skinny guys. This man was not skinny. He was solid. And she would bet her first paycheck that the grooves of his abs would be deep enough to slip her fingers between.

  Even the thought of that made a strong pre-orgasm fluttering start between her thighs.

  And, hell, his body wasn't even the most impressive part of him.

  No, that honor belonged to his face.

  Chiseled.

  That was the right word.

  He had a jaw that could cut glass, cheekbones that carved deep, strong, almost stern-looking dark brows over the lightest green eyes she had ever seen, something as unique as finding a unicorn because this man was mixed-race. Her money would be on half-black with his flawless medium skin tone.

  She had the almost overwhelming urge to go to him, to speak to him, to hear him speak.

  And that was not the kind of woman she was - the flirting kind. Sure, she could chat with a guy at a bar, maybe get to know him, go on dates, whatever, like any normal red-blooded woman who had a healthy sex drive. She just wasn't the kind to go out of her way to talk to a guy because she had a weird desire to hear his voice.

  Even as she shook off the sensation and kept walking, though, she felt a stirring low in her belly, one she could only name for what it was - desire - as he just kept advancing on her from the othe
r direction.

  Her heart about stuttered in her chest when they both stopped in front of the same door, both reaching out for the same handle.

  His fingers brushed the tops of hers, and she swore she felt a spark. Not static electricity, though, something else entirely, something she didn't exactly have a name for.

  Surprised, she snatched her hand back like he'd burned her.

  "Go ahead," she said immediately, waving toward the door.

  "I insist," he countered, the voice even more intriguing than she had imagined. She maybe had been thinking it would be deep and full of glass and gravel. And while it was deep, it was smooth. Like whiskey. Something sexy like that. It shivered across your skin, melting inward, and sliding through your insides.

  "You reached for it first," she insisted, perhaps coming off a little more snippy than appropriate because she was trying to cover what she felt was obvious desire in her tone.

  "Then allow me," he said, lips curving upward slightly, like he found her sass amusing. His arm reached out, grabbing the door, and holding it open for her.

  "Well... are you going in, or what?"

  "Honey, you're stubborn as fuck," he said, a chuckle in his voice.

  Honey.

  Ugh.

  What could she say?

  She was sick of men using cutesy names on her. Condescending to her. Treating her like less.

  Sick. Sick. Sick of it.

  "Don't honey me, honey. I can open my own doors," she insisted, raising her chin.

  "Christ," another male voice said, drawing her attention toward the inside of the office. "What now?"

  And there was Xander Rhodes.

  Even if you didn't know he was a badass private investigator known for bending the law, you might actually be able to guess that just from his presence alone.

  He was every bit as tall as the man still holding the damn door open, with black hair, dark eyes, strong masculine features, and a sort of competent cockiness that he seemed to wear like an old favorite shirt.

  Thrown off, not wanting her first introduction to her possible new boss to be of her sniping with some random hot guy, she went ahead and moved inward.

  A pretty, petite, blonde woman pulled away from Xander with a small smile. "Those are your last two candidates," she informed her husband, making Espen stiffen.