Chapter One

The moment that Olivia Mercer stepped from her car, the hairs on the back of her neck prickled. She was being watched. No, not just watched.

Hunted.

She’d had enough experience to know the difference. Well, one experience anyway, but it’d been more than enough.

She glanced around the parking lot at the half-dozen cars and at the nearby houses. When she didn’t spot the hunter, she forced herself to release the breath that she’d been holding and got her feet moving toward the Wilde Commercial Real Estate office building.

Such that it was.

Over a century ago, this place had been in a more upscale area of Houston, on a street lined with lavish homes that only old money could buy. What homes remained now were scabbed with decay and neglect. Blistered paint. Eye-socket windows. Rust-eaten gates, creaking. Most looked ready to fall into piles of ashes. Not exactly a welcoming neighborhood.

It was the same for the Wilde building.

Its lack of welcome, however, wasn’t from neglect. The area immediately around the building had been cleared of the decaying houses, all scraped away and cemented over like tombs. The facade, updated with slick black windows squeezed between crusty blood-red bricks. Near the front door, branches from a pair of weeping willows snapped and stirred with the wind.

Pristine.

But it did nothing to stop her neck hairs from prickling even more.

With reason. It’d once been the site of a double murder, and those old, bad memories were still lingering around.

Best to get this job finished so she could return to the safety of her apartment. Especially since the job itself had been more than disturbing enough. She’d never before let research—or the person who’d requested the research—get to her, but it had happened this time.

She tried to tamp down the fear and excitement of seeing him.

Olivia stepped inside the building, the AC immediately spilling over her. No decay inside here. She could see traces of what had once been the grand house. The art deco–tiled floor and the vaulted ceilings veined with ornate moldings, but now the rooms were offices, all sterile and white.

In color, anyway.

There was still a scent in the air. Not sterile. Something that couldn’t be scraped away or cemented over.

“Death,” Olivia mumbled under her breath, and the chill slid through her, breath to bone.

The only spot of color in the massive foyer was a receptionist with auburn hair and a turquoise dress. She snagged Olivia’s gaze, and even though she didn’t miss a beat in her phone conversation, she motioned toward a gleaming wood staircase.

“Mr. Wilde is expecting you,” the woman mouthed.

Good. Because Olivia didn’t want to be here any longer than necessary to give him the report, get paid and leave. Especially leave. Perhaps then this job would stop haunting her.

She made her way up the stairs, expecting a line of office doors as there had been downstairs, but there was only one here on the second floor. It was cracked open a fraction as if someone had been peering out of it.

The feeling of being hunted went up a significant notch, and that’s when Olivia spotted the little cameras placed at strategic points all over the walls. They looked like spiders waiting to pounce, but she figured her hunter was on the viewing end of at least one of them.

Olivia eased open the door the rest of the way, stepped inside, and she jerked to a stop so she could shield her eyes from the nearly blinding sunlight that shot through the massive wall of windows.

“Ms. Mercer,” he said.

Was that relief in his voice?

Because she was squinting, it took Olivia a moment to pick through the massive room and find him. He stood behind an equally massive desk that looked more fitting for A Game of Thrones episode than a modern-day real estate investor.

Something from another time, another place. Like that scent.

Olivia blinked, her eyes adjusting, so she could take him in. He was tall and dark. Dark hair, dark suit. Dark brown eyes. Olive-tinged skin that hinted of some Mediterranean blood. Lots of angles and a solid square jaw.

Finally, you’re back, she thought.

A ridiculous thought, since she didn’t know Lucian Wilde. She’d seen plenty of photos of him on the internet, and perhaps that’d been enough for that jolt of recognition to work its way into her head. And into her dreams.

Into her body, too.

Maybe leaving wouldn’t put an end to this after all. Whatever this was. But Olivia would certainly try to forget this unforgettable man the first chance she got.

“I have your genealogy reports,” she managed to say though her mouth had gone dry. “The one for the Wildes and the Brannons. As I said in my emails, I never was able to connect the two families, but you might want to try hiring a real genealogist to do that. Family history isn’t my normal area of research.”

He motioned for her to put the one-inch thick report on the desk, and when Olivia stepped closer to do that, she saw the split screens on his laptop. No doubt shots from those spidery security cameras outside his office and the parking lot.

“You were hunting me,” she blurted out. “Watching me,” Olivia corrected.

“Yes,” he calmly admitted. “Both.”

She hesitated, hoping he’d add a smile or joke.

He didn’t.

“Seems only fitting, I suppose,” she said. “Since I know everything about you from the research I did.”

Something dark and moody went through his eyes. “Not everything.”

Still no smile. He was dead serious.

What the devil had she gotten herself into?

Or perhaps he was the devil.

He certainly fit the bill as a man of mystery, power and charisma. A self-made millionaire. The looks. A string of beautiful lovers who’d seemed mesmerized by even a glimmer of his brief attention. The ruthless reputation for destroying his competition.

The mystery part was, well, just that—a mystery.

Lucian Wilde had been born and then abandoned in a New Orleans cemetery. There was no record of his parents, though there was plenty of speculation and whispers of voodoo and black magic. Maybe even an offering to Satan.

After all, what kind of mother gave birth to her baby in a cemetery? And left the child there?

Olivia figured a desperate mother would do that, but desperation didn’t stir a juicy gossip pot the way the other theories did. And it was those theories that had given Lucian not only a sharp, dangerous edge, but the reputation to go along with it.

Lucian stepped toward her, and as she’d done for the past two years, Olivia stepped back. Or that was the plan.

It didn’t happen.

Instead, she froze. Her feet did, anyway, but the rest of her went through some kind of meltdown. Not a psychotic one, at least not of the normal variety. This one was pure heat.

The wrong kind of heat.

It started at her mouth and shot through her like fire hot enough to burn regular fire. First her tongue, then her breasts and belly. The rest of her followed along with this no-touch foreplay that zinged between them. The same kind of foreplay that’d been tugging at her body for days now since she’d seen his pictures.

Disgusted with herself, she shook her head. “I don’t like being touched. Or looked at like that. Or feeling this way.”

Lucian didn’t pull his lethal gaze from her, didn’t do anything to put her at ease. “Because of the attack.” It wasn’t a question.

Yes, hard to hide something like that.

Olivia hadn’t actually searched the internet, but there might be photos of her bruised face and battered body. She’d come within a breath of dying since a former client-turned-stalker had gotten his hands, and knife, on her in the courthouse parking lot. She hadn’t been back in a courtroom or her law office since. She’d changed professions because being a researcher required less human contact, and these days she didn’t let people touch her.

Definitely didn’t lust after anyone.

Until she’d seen those photos of Lucian, that is.

Lucian reached out, took her by the fingertips. Barely touching her, but it anchored her in place as if he were holding her in a meaty grip.

“You haven’t even looked at the report,” Olivia reminded him, hoping it would get him moving away from her and to his desk. “Considering you’re paying me a bundle for a rush job, I thought you’d want to dive right into it.”

“No. It was an excuse to get you here.”

Oh, mercy. This was bad.

She had to get out of there, and this time she actually made it a whole step before Lucian snagged her by the wrist and put her against the wall. Olivia dropped her purse on the floor and brought up her knee to ram his balls all the way into his eye sockets.

It certainly seemed like a good idea.

Until her kneecap grazed exactly what she’d considering ramming. Clearly, she wasn’t the only one in the room who was running hot.

He had an erection.

“Shit,” he mumbled, not pleased about his manly reaction.

Well, she wasn’t pleased, either, especially since it appeared to be for her.

Olivia was breathing through her mouth now. Her chest pumping as if starved for air.

The rest of her was pumping as if starved for him.

“Why’s this happening?” she asked, not really expecting an answer.

“Because you know me.”

She especially hadn’t expected that answer.

Olivia couldn’t shake her head fast enough. “I don’t.”

“Not this face. But you know me.”

Did her heart actually skip a beat or two? It sure felt like it. He was weaving some kind of spell, and she had to put a stop to it now.

Olivia managed to slap her hand on his chest to push him away, but even that didn’t work. It only reminded her that she wanted to touch him. Wanted him to touch her right back.

An image flashed through her head. Just a smear of movement she’d already seen in the dreams that she’d been having for the past week.

A hand on a perfectly toned chest.

No shirt.

Bare skin on bare skin.

Olivia caught a whisper of another scent. Not death. This time it was something expensive and totally male. But both the image and the scent were gone before she could even latch on to them.

Much to her disgust, she wanted to latch on to them.

“How?” she asked, hoping he could make sense of the string of questions. “Why? And what is this?”

Lucian stepped back, and she immediately felt the loss. Or something. Yes, she was perhaps going insane, but Olivia forced herself to stay put when he went to his desk. Best to keep some distance between them.

“You’ll want to see this,” he assured her, and he turned the laptop screen in her direction. With a few clicks on the keyboard, a photo popped up. One that she instantly recognized.

“That’s Damien Brannon,” she supplied. One of the people she’d researched at Lucian’s request. And someone Olivia had dreamed about since she’d started this whole research mess. “He was a wealthy businessman.”

“He was murdered nearly thirty years ago.”

“Yes, I know.” That definitely came up in her research and was likely the reason for that death scent she’d caught earlier.

Lucian motioned around the room. “Then you probably also know he owned this building, among others.”

She nodded. “He was murdered here.”

“Right again. Does anything about this place seem…familiar?”

Olivia felt the chill. Not from the AC, either. This chill had come from inside her, and she had another look around. Not only at the room but at Lucian himself. Everything did feel familiar. Including the sickening feeling of dread that churned in the pit of her stomach.

There hadn’t been photos of the room on the internet, but had she seen this place in her dreams, too?

“You know Damien,” he said.

“No. He died when I was a baby,” she insisted. “I couldn’t have known him, and before today, I’ve never been to this building. What’s this all about? And why did I let you touch me? With all the self-defense classes I’ve taken, you should be in pain right now.”

The corner of his mouth lifted just a fraction, but she got a smidge of that slow, killer smile before it vanished. It happened at the exact moment he put another photo on the screen.

Yet someone else she recognized. And someone else from her dreams.

“Marissa Langford,” he said. “She and Damien were murdered at the same time.”

Yet something else Olivia already knew, but again, the internet was short of photos. This shot of Marissa was pleasant enough. The camera loved her, the lens gobbling up all that tumbling blonde hair and those luscious curves. She’d been a pampered rich girl. Worlds removed from Olivia’s own, yet there was something about Marissa that felt familiar, too.

“I had an experience when I bought this place,” Lucian said, drawing her attention back to him. Not that her attention had strayed too far. Lucian had a way of monopolizing the room.

And the air.

The next photo popped on the screen. One she definitely hadn’t seen on the internet. It, too, was Damien and Marissa. Naked. Marissa was straddling him, Damien’s erection buried deep inside her. His hands were clamped on her fleshy hips, her ample breasts dangling inches from his open mouth.

Since Marissa was smiling for the camera, Olivia guessed this was some kind of personal porn that they’d taken of themselves. But it was affecting her, too.

Mercy, was it.

She could almost feel Damien’s hands on her. Could almost feel him hard inside her. The way his eager tongue would slide over her breasts. She could even feel the orgasm rippling through her. Olivia dragged in a long breath, hoping it would help. It didn’t. “Why are you showing me this?”

His gaze came back to hers. “Because that’s us. That photo was taken in this very room.”

Lucian paused, pointed to a spot on the floor a few yards away from his desk. “And that’s where we were murdered.”