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  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2019 by Jodi Ellen Malpas

  Cover design by Elizabeth Turner Stokes. Cover copyright © 2019 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Malpas, Jodi Ellen, author.

  Title: Leave me breathless / Jodi Ellen Malpas.

  Description: First edition. | New York : Forever, 2019.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2019017664| ISBN 9781538745212 (softcover) | ISBN

  9781478995722 (audio download) | ISBN 9781538745229 (ebook)

  Subjects: | GSAFD: Romantic suspense fiction. | Love stories.

  Classification: LCC PR6113.A47 L43 2019 | DDC 823/.92--dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019017664

  ISBNs: 978-1-5387-4521-2 (pbk.), 978-1-5387-4522-9 (ebook)

  E3-20190923-DA-NF-ORI

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter One: RYAN

  Chapter Two: HANNAH

  Chapter Three: RYAN

  Chapter Four: HANNAH

  Chapter Five: RYAN

  Chapter Six: HANNAH

  Chapter Seven: RYAN

  Chapter Eight: HANNAH

  Chapter Nine: FIVE YEARS AGO

  Chapter Ten: RYAN

  Chapter Eleven: HANNAH

  Chapter Twelve: RYAN

  Chapter Thirteen: HANNAH

  Chapter Fourteen: RYAN

  Chapter Fifteen: HANNAH

  Chapter Sixteen: RYAN

  Chapter Seventeen: HANNAH

  Chapter Eighteen: RYAN

  Chapter Nineteen: FIVE YEARS AGO

  Chapter Twenty: HANNAH

  Chapter Twenty-One: RYAN

  Chapter Twenty-Two: HANNAH

  Chapter Twenty-Three: RYAN

  Chapter Twenty-Four: FIVE YEARS AGO

  Chapter Twenty-Five: RYAN

  Chapter Twenty-Six: HANNAH

  Chapter Twenty-Seven: RYAN

  Chapter Twenty-Eight: HANNAH

  Chapter Twenty-Nine: RYAN

  Chapter Thirty: HANNAH

  Chapter Thirty-One: RYAN

  Chapter Thirty-Two: HANNAH

  Chapter Thirty-Three: RYAN

  Chapter Thirty-Four: HANNAH

  Chapter Thirty-Five: RYAN

  Acknowledgments

  Discover More Jodi Ellen Malpas

  About the Author

  Praise for Jodi Ellen Malpas

  Also by Jodi Ellen Malpas

  For my readers.

  Without you, I am just a woman with a crazy, overactive imagination.

  Thank you for being in my world.

  JEM x

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  Chapter One

  RYAN

  Something isn’t right. I left MI5 ten years ago, but my sixth sense is still as strong as ever, a kind of danger detector, and I’m detecting danger right now. My skin is prickling. Adrenaline is starting to pump through my veins.

  I scan the vicinity outside our client’s house, seeing nothing unusual. There’s been nothing unusual since our personal security agency accepted the contract two weeks ago. Our client, a model from Canada with a devoted stalker, leaves for the airport any minute with her six-year-old daughter. It would be a fucking travesty at this point to run into a threat.

  My partner, Jake, is tense, too, his big shoulders high as he scrutinizes the street beyond the iron gate that separates this house from the rest of London. He’s quiet. I’m quiet.

  “Yo, Jake,” I call, watching as the big guy leisurely takes backward steps away from the gate until he’s at the door with me.

  “There’s a black Audi across the street.” He goes to his phone. “Blacked-out windows. It’s been there for over an hour and the driver hasn’t gotten out.”

  I fucking knew it. “You checked with Lucinda?” I move to the gates to take a look, seeing the RS 7 parked up the road, the passenger window open a fraction.

  “The plate’s a clone.” Jake confirms what I feared.

  I check left and right casually. “And here I was thinking how easy this job had been.” I back away, feeling the weight of my Heckler pushing into the base of my spine. Fucking hell, I haven’t had to draw my gun in years. Yes, this job has been boring as shit, just like every other in the ten years I’ve served at the agency, but boring is safe. Boring means I make it home to Hampton.

  Jake looks over his shoulder as the front door opens and our client emerges with her daughter. “Miss Warren, we’re going to have to ask you to step back inside for a few minutes,” my partner says coolly.

  She blinks, surprised. “But my plane leaves in two hours.” There’s panic in her voice, and she scans the street beyond. “Is there a problem?”

  “Let’s just get you back inside,” Jake says softly, walking toward her and taking the little girl’s hand, leading her back into the house with her mother.

  Miss Warren’s eyes flick between mine and Jake’s, clearly trying to find an answer to her question. Then she opens her mouth to speak but quickly thinks better of it, turning to her daughter and crouching. “Darling, I think I’ve left Paddington on the couch. Why don’t you run along and fetch him.”

  “Okay.” The little girl dashes back to the living room, and Miss Warren stands, turning toward us. “Please, tell me what’s going on.”

  “There’s an unidentified vehicle across the street that we need to check out,” I explain.

  Her eyes immediately widen, her inhale loud. “Oh my God, it’s him.”

  I look to Jake, wondering if he’s sensing what I’m sensing. “Him, as in your stalker?” he asks, confirming he’s suspicious, too.

  She starts blinking rapidly, her hands shaking as she tucks her hair behind her ear. “Yes.” She looks away, and I can no longer keep my thoughts to myself.

  “Miss Warren, is there something else we should know?”

  “I don’t have a stalker,” she more or less whispers, her eyes clouded as she finds it in herself to look at us. “I have an ex-boyfriend who’s a less-than-desirable character and would do anything to hurt me.”

  I recoil. “Why?”

  “Because I left him.”

  “Name?” Jake demands, going straight to his phone. I watch as she breathes in,
as if bracing herself to tell us. Nothing about this is boding well.

  “Corey Felton.”

  “What?” I blurt, hoping I heard her wrong. Jake curses under his breath, smacking at his phone with his thumb. “The drug trafficker?”

  She can only bring herself to nod, and I see a million apologies in her eyes. Jesus Christ, Corey Felton is wanted in ten countries for various crimes. But he’s elusive. Untouchable. And judging by the fear I can see in Miss Warren’s eyes, he’s just as nasty as the whispers suggest. “The police wouldn’t help me unless I assisted with their inquiries,” she rushes to explain. “I just need to get back to Canada, and I know he’ll do anything to stop me.” Miss Warren peeks past us to the gates again.

  “We’ll get you and your daughter to the airport safely, don’t you worry.” I give her my best reassuring smile, and she nods, backing up and shutting the door.

  “What’s the deal?” I ask as Jake stares down at his phone.

  “Backup’s on the way. If it’s him, we’ll need it.”

  If it’s him? “Of course it’s him.” My blood sizzles with adrenaline. “You ready to dance?” I ask as we walk back toward the gate.

  “If I don’t make it home to Cami and Charlotte in one piece, she’ll be coming after your blood, you know that, right?”

  “I know,” I say quietly, my eyes set on the black Audi across the street. Jake and I go way back, though it’s only been the past couple of years we’ve worked together on assignments. Jake taking a partner was a condition laid down by his wife if he wanted to remain in the business. I was the perfect man for the job.

  I slip out onto the pavement—just as our backup truck skids into the street. “Subtle,” I mutter.

  “He’s been underground for years,” Jake says, joining me. “Every police force from here to the States wants him.”

  Just as I start striding toward the RS 7, reaching back to pull my Heckler, the growl of the Audi engine starts up. A buzz of excitement that I haven’t felt in years comes over me, no matter how hard I try to push it back. He’s about to make his getaway.

  Just let backup deal with it, I tell myself. No need to go all Jason Bourne in the middle of London. But my legs move faster of their own volition, my jog turning into a full-on run. I race across the street toward the Audi, hearing car horns blare and the screech of tires as it tries to pull away from the curb into oncoming traffic. It doesn’t get very far, wedging its front end in between a bus and a BMW. But the bus starts to reverse to give the Audi space to pull out. To escape. Fuck no.

  The damn fucking suit they insist I wear hindering me, I sprint into the road, spotting a black cab heading straight toward me. The driver catapults back in his seat, bracing for impact. “Shit, shit, shit.”

  “Ryan, what the fuck are you doing?” Jake booms behind me. I keep my eyes forward, watching as the cab gets closer and closer and closer, the screeching of its tires deafening. “Ryan!”

  At the last second, the driver turns the wheel, and the loudest bang erupts when it slams into the Audi just as it breaks free through the line of traffic, blocking it in between the BMW and the bus again. Without even pausing to think about it, I pull open the back door of the cab and slide through to the other side, ignoring the stunned face of a businessman in the back with his phone to his ear.

  The Audi begins to reverse, ramming the parked car behind it, but comes to a screeching stop when the backup team pulls up alongside us. “Going somewhere?” I yank the door open, grab the driver, and haul him out, my gun immediately wedged under his chin.

  “Fuck,” I hear Jake say from behind me, just as I register that the man I have pinned to the side of the mangled Audi isn’t Corey Felton.

  Realization hits me like a brick. “It’s a decoy!” I yell, releasing him and throwing myself over the hood of the car. The second I land on my feet, I break into a sprint, my focus set. The fucker.

  I’m back at the house in seconds, kicking the front door open, my arms at full length before me, my gun steady in my grip.

  Miss Warren runs into the hall, frantic. “What’s going on?” She comes to a startled stop when she sees me. She’s in one piece. Still here. So…

  “Where’s your daughter?” I ask.

  “Oh my God.” Her hands go to her mouth, her eyes wide. “He’ll take her. He’ll use her to keep me.”

  My jaw tenses as Jake appears, and I give him the nod, telling him to get Miss Warren out of here just as the thud of a door shutting sounds from the back of the house. I’m flying down the hallway, and the moment I enter the kitchen I feel something push into my temple. I freeze.

  “Drop the gun,” he says calmly, and I immediately lower the weapon to my side, seeing the little girl out the corner of my eye, held to his front. My brain works fast, noting her position, his position, his hold, her fear.

  It’s now or never. Drop the gun, Ryan! But I know the second my gun is out of my grasp, I’m out of the game, and that little girl will be gone. I feel my muscles twitch. My heart rate increases. My eyes refocus. Now or never.

  My arm flies up fast, hooking back and knocking the gun aside as I turn and grab his arm, freeing the girl before I thrust him up against the wall, slamming his hand into the plaster so he drops the gun. God, there’s nothing I’d love more than to tear him a new arsehole…but the girl. So I reluctantly kick his feet from under him and take him down to his front, immobilizing him with his arms up his back. He whimpers like a fucking baby as I look up at the little girl, giving her my most dashing smile. “Baddies always get caught,” I whisper, and she grins, filling me with relief as I glance to the door, willing backup to hurry the hell up. “Did he hurt you, sweetheart?”

  Her little head shakes from side to side, and she presents me with a bear. “But he stomped on Paddington.”

  “He did?” I shudder for effect just as Jake bowls into the room, looking ready to attack. He soon finds me on the floor. “Hi,” I say, grinning up at him. “Got any cuffs?”

  He visibly relaxes and shouts down the corridor for backup, and we’re quickly joined by six more men, all kitted out in armor, all armed. “What took you so long?” I ask drily, letting them claim my prey. I get up, dust myself off, and slip my gun into the waistband of my trousers. “Come on, you.” I scoop the little girl into my arms. “Let’s get you and Paddington back to Mummy.” I pace out the kitchen and hear Miss Warren before I see her, crying her heart out.

  “Oh, thank God!” She charges for me and grabs her daughter, squeezing her tightly.

  “She’s fine.”

  She smiles up at me through glassy eyes. “Thank you.”

  “All in a day’s work,” I lie, heading through the crowds to find some air. I make it outside, hearing the angry yells of Corey Felton as I go, and prop myself up against a fence, my heart still going ballistic in my chest.

  “What the fuck were you thinking?” Jake bellows, stomping toward me, and just like that my adrenaline drains from my body and I blink a few times, checking myself over. “You should have let backup deal with it, for fuck’s sake, Ryan.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” I retort for the sake of it, not needing Jake to kick my arse. I’m suddenly doing a damn fine job of that myself. Fucking hell, what was I thinking?

  Jake must notice my sudden shakiness, because he wraps an arm around my shoulder on a sigh and starts walking us to the gates. “You’re such a fucking maverick.”

  He’s right, I am. “Guess it never leaves you, huh?”

  “And stupid. You could’ve gotten yourself killed.”

  “I’m breathing, aren’t I?”

  “Yep. And now you’re gonna get a severe headache from the top.”

  I snort. Coming from Jake Sharp, that’s fucking rich. Besides, it’s not my damn fault we weren’t furnished with the whole story. “I can deal with a headache.” What I’m struggling to deal with is how fucking stupid I’ve just been. Damn instinct. I need a drink.

  “You of all people know that when you car
e about shit, you look after yourself,” Jake reminds me.

  “All right, you can stop lecturing me now.”

  He releases me when we get to the gates. “It’s not only yourself you’re putting in danger,” he mutters moodily.

  Guilt. More of it sweeps right on in and punches me in the gut. Jake’s wife is heavily pregnant, and now she’s worrying even more every time he leaves for work. “How’s Cami?”

  “Ready to pop.” His cheeks inflate, and I laugh a little. “Three weeks left.”

  “Excited?”

  He’s quiet for a second, and I know why. He was a lone wolf for so long, swamped by his demons. He’s had it tough. I’ve spent so much time with Jake over the past couple of years, we’ve had no choice but to get along. He’s talked. I’ve listened. He deserves his happiness. “Yeah,” he eventually says, looking across to me. “I’m looking forward to doing it right this time.”

  And there’s me putting us in unnecessary danger. I reach up and slap his shoulder, all manly, as I always do when things get a little deep from time to time. “Beer later?” I ask, nodding to the pub over the road.

  “I’m game.”

  We both slow to a stop when we see Lucinda’s car screech around the corner. Fuck me, that car sounds angry. I look at Jake as Jake looks at me. “Beer now?” I ask, heading away from our fiery handler who is about to go fiery on my arse.

  Jake’s with me, both of us backing up. No one wants to be around Lucinda when she’s after blood, and she’s currently after mine. So I’m running scared.

  * * *

  We enter a quiet space, with only a few patrons scattered around. “Two Buds, thanks.” I toss a note on the bar and pull up two stools. We’re both silent as the barman gets our drinks, reflective, and we chink bottles and slurp together, releasing appreciative gasps at the same time. I haven’t even placed my bottle down before Lucinda stalks in and scans the bar. Oh boy. She finds us, and I recoil somewhat, her formidable glare making me shrink.

  “Should’ve known.” She strides past us toward the back of the pub. “Come.”

  I look at Jake, who’s in the middle of an epic eye roll. “If I wasn’t so fond of her, I’d tell her to fuck off at least ten times a day.” He slips down from his stool, and I follow on a light chuckle.