Calculated Risk. Stephanie Doyle

      “Do you think it’s impossible that a second chance might be exactly what I want?” Sabrina asked.

      “You’ve been out of the game a long time, Bri. What makes you think you can handle Kahsan—a terrorist for hire with more resources than you?” her former trainer, Quinlan, replied.

      “Yeah, well, you’re not exactly operating at top speed, either, chief. All these years, and you still haven’t caught him.”

      “Touché. Okay. For now I’ll buy it. But you’re stuck with me. No negotiating on this one. If Kahsan bites—”

      “If? I would say it was more a question of when.”

      Outside the door, a snap echoed. The two froze then stared hard at each other, no communication necessary for what they both understood.

      They had company.

      Dear Reader,

      You’re about to read a Silhouette Bombshell novel and enter a world full of excitement, suspense and women who stand strong in the face of danger and do what it takes to triumph over the toughest adversaries. And don’t forget a touch of thrilling romance to sweeten the deal. Our bombshells always get their men, good and bad!

      Debra Webb kicks off the month with Silent Weapon, the innovative story of Merri Walters, a deaf woman who goes undercover in a ruthless criminal’s mansion and reads his chilling plans right off his lips!

      Hold on to your hats for Payback, by Harper Allen, the latest in the Athena Force continuity. Assassin Dawn O’Shaughnessy is out to take down the secret lab that created her and then betrayed her—but she’s got to complete one last mission for them, or her superhealing genes will self-destruct before she gets payback….

      Step into the lush and dangerous world of The Orchid Hunter, by Sandra K. Moore. Think “botanist” and “excitement” don’t match? Think again, as this fearless heroine’s search for a rare orchid turns into a dangerous battle of wills in the steamy rain forest.

      And don’t miss the twist and turns as a gutsy genius races to break a deadly code, trap a slippery terrorist and steal back the trust of her former CIA mentor, in Calculated Risk, by Stephanie Doyle!

      Strong, sexy, suspenseful…that’s Silhouette Bombshell! Please send your comments to me, c/o Silhouette Books, 233 Broadway Suite 1001, New York, NY 10279.

      Sincerely,

      Natashya Wilson

      Associate Senior Editor, Silhouette Bombshell

      Calculated Risk

      Stephanie Doyle

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      STEPHANIE DOYLE

      is a dedicated romance reader who began writing her own romantic stories—some funny, some adventurous, but all delivering the quintessential happy ending—at age fifteen. At eighteen she submitted her first story to Harlequin and by twenty-six she was published. Now in her thirties, she struggles between the demands of her day job—writing—and trying to find a little romance of her own. She lives in South Jersey with her two cats, Alexandria Hamilton and Theodora Roosevelt. She wants to get a dog, but the cats have outvoted her.

      For my brother, Bob

       My version of what happens to those really brainy kids from MIT…

      Contents

      Chapter 1

      Chapter 2

      Chapter 3

      Chapter 4

      Chapter 5

      Chapter 6

      Chapter 7

      Chapter 8

      Chapter 9

      Chapter 10

      Chapter 11

      Chapter 12

      Chapter 13

      Chapter 14

      Chapter 15

      Chapter 16

      Chapter 17

      Chapter 18

      Chapter 19

      Chapter 20

      Chapter 21

      Chapter 22

      Chapter 23

      Chapter 1

      I’m dead now. You know what to do, G.G.

      S abrina Masters stared at the e-mail displayed on her computer screen and released a deep breath. Arnold was gone.

      A true believer in the art of science and math, he’d been a mentor. Certainly, he’d been one of her few intellectual equals. But more importantly, he’d cared about her. More, she knew, than her own father ever had. At least Arnold always looked out for her.

      Her head fell forward because it seemed too heavy to hold up. She could feel the tears well behind her eyes and wanted to stop them. But she decided that Arnold deserved a few tears.

      He’d been alone in the world. No wife, no children, no family to speak of. He’d made the computer his wife. The work his child. But the computer wouldn’t cry and the work wouldn’t mourn for him.

      She wondered if he realized now that he was gone that there had never been anyone truly significant in his life. If he did, if that knowledge somehow made him sad, she hoped he at least knew how heartbroken she was.

      You know what to do, G.G.

      The old nickname brought a smile to her lips. G.G.: Girl Genius.

      Sabrina glanced at the number typed at the bottom and instantly memorized it, plugging it into her brain alongside every other piece of information that she’d ever stumbled across. Sometimes she wondered if one day her head might fill up to such a capacity that it would simply explode from the strain. The gruesome image did nothing to improve her mood.

      “I don’t know if I can do this, Arnold,” she stated aloud to the almost empty room, in the practically empty house that was her home in an out-of-the-way, nowhere town in Pennsylvania.

      Briefly, she entertained the idea that as a ghost he might be able to answer her. She waited a beat. Nothing. If there was a heaven and Arnold was in it, he was trying to strike up a game of chess with Einstein. Probably convinced that he could beat him, too. The last thing Arnold would care about after his death would be the fate of the nation. Not when he barely had cared about it when he was alive.

      You and me, G.G. We’re a lot alike.

      He used to tell her that all the time. She’d always thought he was talking about their strange intellect. But maybe he wasn’t. The idea that they had more in common worried her. In fact, it frightened her.

      Sabrina slipped her hand into the back pocket of her jeans to extract her cell phone. She dialed the number Arnold had given her and waited.

      “Hello?”

      “Is this Assistant Director Krueger?” she asked, somewhat surprised. Arnold must have given her the CIA director’s personal cell phone number as a way to cut directly to the chase.

      “Yes?”

      “Arnold Salinski is dead.”

      “I know. Sabrina Masters?”

      “Yep.”