An Inconvenient Affair. Catherine Mann

       “Can you just walk away from this?”

      “It’s just physical reaction,” Hillary insisted.

      Troy stepped in front of her. “Hillary, damn it … You confuse the hell out of me. I’m worried about you, and hell yes, I want to make love to you. But I also want time with you.”

      “Honestly?”

      “Spend a week with me. Get me out of your system so you can return to your regular life without regrets.”

      “What makes you think you’re in my system?”

      “Really? Are you going to look me in the eye and tell me you don’t feel the attraction, too? Remember, I was there when we kissed.”

      “Okay, I’ll admit there’s … chemistry.”

      “Explosive chemistry …”

      Dear Reader,

      Welcome to the launch of my new series, THE ALPHA BROTHERHOOD. Some characters whisper to me as I write. Others boldly shout as I type. However, computer mogul/ Interpol agent Troy Donavan devilishly winked.

      I adore edgy characters, and exploring the sketchy pasts of The Alpha Brotherhood offers a vast landscape for telling my next Mills & Boon^® Desire™ books. These men have a Robin Hood sense of justice that leads them each to a no-holds-barred life … and love.

      And so THE ALPHA BROTHERHOOD begins with An Inconvenient Affair. From Chicago to Costa Rica, I hope you enjoy Troy and Hillary’s passionate adventures!

      Cheers,

       Catherine Mann

      About the Author

      USA TODAY bestselling author CATHERINE MANN lives on a sunny Florida beach with her flyboy husband and their four children. With more than forty books in print in over twenty countries, she has also celebrated wins for both a RITA^® Award and a Booksellers’ Best Award. Catherine enjoys chatting with readers online—thanks to the wonders of the internet, which allows her to network with her laptop by the water! Contact Catherine through her website, www.catherinemann.com, on Facebook as Catherine Mann (author), on Twitter as CatherineMann1, or reach her by snail mail at PO Box 6065, Navarre, FL 32566, USA.

       An Inconvenient Affair

      Catherine Mann

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      To my stellar editor, Stacy Boyd! Thank you for the

       wonderful brainstorming session that gave birth to

       THE ALPHA BROTHERHOOD.

      It’s a joy working with you.

       Prologue

       North Carolina Military Prep

       17 years ago

      They’d shaved his head and sent him to a reform school.

      Could life suck any worse? Probably. Since he was only fifteen, he had years under the system’s thumb to find out.

      Hanging around in the doorway to the barracks, Troy Donavan scanned the room for his rack. The dozen bunk beds were half-full of guys with heads shaved as buzz-short as his—another victory for dear old dad, getting rid of his son’s long hair. God forbid anyone embarrass the almighty Dr. Donavan. Although, catching the illustrious doc’s son breaking into the Department of Defense’s computer system did take public embarrassment to a whole new level.

      Now he’d been shuttled off to this “jail,” politely disguised as a military boarding preparatory program in the hills of North Carolina, as per his plea agreement with the judge back home in Virginia. A judge his father had bought off. Troy clenched his hand around his duffel as he resisted the urge to put his fist through a window just to get some air.

      Damn it, he was proud of what he’d done. He didn’t want it swept under the rug, and he didn’t want to be hidden like some bad secret. If the decision had been left up to him, he would have gone to juvie, or prison even. But for his mom, he’d taken the deal. He would finish high school in this uptight place, but if he kept his grades up and his nose clean until he turned twenty-one, he could have his life back.

      He just had to survive living here without his head exploding.

      Bunk by bunk, he walked to the last row where he found Donavan, T. E. printed on a label attached to the foot of the bed. He slung his duffel bag of boring crap onto the empty bottom bed.

      A foot in a spit-shined shoe swung off the top bunk, lazing. “So you’re the Robin Hood Hacker.” A sarcastic voice drifted down. “Welcome to hell.”

      Great. “Thanks, and don’t call me that.”

      He hated the whole Robin Hood Hacker headline that had blazed through the news when the story first broke. It made what he did sound like a kid’s fairy tale. Which was probably more of his dad’s influence, downplaying how his teenage son had exposed corrupt crap that the government had been covering up.

      “Don’t call you that … or what?” asked the smart-ass on the top bunk with a tag that read: Hughes, C. T. “You’ll steal my identity and wreck my credit, computer boy?”

      Troy rocked back on his heels to check the top bunk and make sure he didn’t have the spawn of Satan sleeping above him. If so, the devil wore glasses and read the Wall Street Journal.

      “Apparently you don’t know who I am.” With a snap of the page, Hughes ducked back behind his paper. “Loser.”

      Loser?

      Screw that. Troy was a freakin’ genius, straight As, already aced the ACT and SAT. Not that his parents seemed to notice or give a damn. His older brother was the real loser—smoking weed, failing out of his second college, knocking up cheerleaders. But their old man considered those forgivable offenses. Problems one’s money could easily sweep under the rug.

      Getting caught using illegal means to expose corrupt DOD contractors and a couple of congressmen was a little tougher to hide. Therefore, Troy had committed the unforgivable crime—making mommy and daddy look bad in front of their friends. Which had been his intent at the start, a lame attempt to get his parents’ attention. But once he’d realized what he’d stumbled into—the graft, the bribes, the corruption—the puzzle solver inside him hadn’t been able to stop until he’d uncovered it all.

      No matter how you looked at it, he hadn’t been some Robin Hood do-gooder, damn it.

      He yanked open his duffel bag full of uniforms and underwear, trying to keep his eyes off the small mirror on his locker. His shaved head might reflect the light and blind him. And since rumor had it half the guys here had also struck deals, he needed to watch his back and recon until he figured out what each of them had done to land here.

      If only he had his computer. He wasn’t so good at face-to-face reads. The court-appointed shrink that evaluated him for trial said he had trouble connecting with people and lost himself in the cyberworld as a replacement. The Freud wannabe had been right.

      And now he was stuck in a freaking barracks full of people. Definitely his idea of hell.

      He