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Chapter 1

If Aainst ex-husbands

She took a deep breath, curled her toes over the pool deck at Boca Royce Health Club and dived headfirst into the fast lane

A law against ex-husbands who invaded a wo her body forward until she sliced back up through the surface

A law against ex-husbands who stayed fit and sexy for over fifteen years Her right arm pulled into a freestyle arc as she kicked into her rhyth the cool water block out the world

And a law against ex-husbands who held a woht, whispered words of coain

She scrunched her eyes shut against the illicit ertips brushed the smooth pool wall at the opposite end Then she twisted her body to kick into the next lap

While the politicians were at it, they should write a law against sons ounded in shoot-outs, sons ere secretly governents and sons ent to spy school without their mother’s permission

It wouldn’t take much A simple amendain have to wake up and discover she’d given birth to James Bond

Amanda pulled past the blue halfway floats

Her son Bryan was James Bond

She laughed a little desperately at that one, nearly sucking in a lungful of water

Try as she ed passport, driving exotic cars through foreign countries and pressing little res up Her Bryan loved puppies and finger painting, he lived for those sweet little crea’s on the corner

She was grateful he was getting out of the spy game He’d vowed as much to his new bride Amanda had heard it with her own ears So had Daniel

Her stroke faltered This tie refused to disappear

Daniel had coery He’d been her pillar of strength, holding her up when she swore the sheer weight of terror would topple her At tiht that over a decade and a half of anger and mistrust melted between them

Détente?

Sheoff the pool ith her feet and knifing back to the surface She swahtened as she concentrated on her strokes

Détente wasn’t even a possibility

It would never be a possibility

Because Daniel was a true-blue Elliott And Amanda…wasn’t East-West relations were a cakewalk compared to that

The truce was over Bryan ell on the road to recovery Daniel was back on his own side of Manhattan And Ae Mercer to

Her knuckles hit the wall at the end of another lap Five, she counted off in her mind

“Hello, Amanda” Daniel’s familiar voice came out of nowhere

She scra the chlorinated water out of her eyes and blinking at her ex-husband’s fuzzy i here? “Is it Bryan?”

Daniel flinched, quickly shaking his head “No No Sorry Bryan’s fine” He crouched on the concrete deck, putting them closer to eye level

Ah at the edge of the pool “Thank goodness”

“Cullen told me I’d find you here,” he said

Her anxiety rushed back at the mention of her second son “Is it Misty?”

Another shake of Daniel’s head “Misty’s good The baby’s kicking up a storm”

Amanda studied his expression His face was caled him out of the office in the

He straightened back to full height, and her gaze strayed to his muscular chest, then to his navy trunks His feet were bare, and he sported a six-pack of a stoe

Her mouth went dry, and she suddenly realized she hadn’t seen Daniel in anything but a designer suit for sixteen years The oodbye had a body to die for

She bicycled her legs, trying to restore her equilibrium in the deep water

“Then what are you doing here?”

“I’ for you”

She blinked again, trying to , they’d said their goodbyes at Bryan’s wedding and had gone back to their respective lives

Daniel should be perched behind histooth and nail with his siblings over profits and market share As he was locked in a battle for the CEO position at Elliott Publication Holdings, it should have taken a catastrophe of biblical proportions to get hi work hours

“I wanted to talk to you,” he said casually

“Excuse me?” She shook the water out of her ears

“Talk You knohen people use words to exchange information and ideas”

Clearing her ears hadn’t helped Daniel had tracked her down to chat?

He s at the waist to reach out his hand “Why don’t we get a drink?”

She pushed away fro water “I don’t think so”

“Come out of the pool, Amanda”

“Uh-uh” She wasn’t chatting, and she sure wasn’t hopping out in front of hiht one-piece

He ht look like an advertiseravitational pull inning the ith her body