Zane

Table of Contents Excerpt The Nine: Zane Copyright Dedication Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Chapter Fifteen Chapter Sixteen Chapter Seventeen Chapter Eighteen Chapter Nineteen Chapter Twenty Chapter Twenty-One Chapter Twenty-Two Chapter Twenty-Three Chapter Twenty-Four Chapter Twenty-Five Chapter Twenty-Six Chapter Twenty-Seven Chapter Twenty-Eight Chapter Twenty-Nine Chapter Thirty Chapter Thirty-One Epilogue A word about the author… Thank you for purchasing I’d hoped to get some sort of heated reaction from the guy. Some memory spark that would have him recognizing me. I got nothing but a curious look out of him. I had to remember to breathe. “Are you okay? You look like you’re going to pass out.” True. I felt dizzy. The space between us too narrow, the cabin walls too constricting. I needed air. It wasn’t until he finally broke eye contact that I took a deep inhalation of breath and released it in a slow exhale. I had always considered myself a good-looking man. I never had to work hard for what I needed in the bedroom, or the bathroom, kitchen, laundry room, or pool. Yeah, I had the all-American blond hair, blue eyes, ribbed body that had both females and males looking my way. So to be forgotten by the one man I had incessantly thought of over the years left me deflated. Maybe hurt. Surely, disappointed. But definitely intrigued. I never, ever, backed out of what I wanted. And I had wanted this man for too damn long. I wasn’t about to give up now that I finally found him. Not my style. I just had to play it to plan. Do not deviate and do not get distracted. Not even by his fine ass and thick full lips I would taste by the time my time in backcountry Maine came to an end. Ladybug be damned. The moose was mine. The Nine: Zane by Elle Arroyo The Nine Series This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental. The Nine: Zane COPYRIGHT © 2022 by Elle Arroyo All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press, Inc. except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. Contact Information: [email protected] Cover Art by Jennifer Greeff The Wild Rose Press, Inc. PO Box 708 Adams Basin, NY 14410-0708 Visit us at www.thewildrosepress.com Publishing History First Edition, 2023 Trade Paperback ISBN978-1-5092-4664-9 Digital ISBN978-1-5092-4665-6 The Nine Series Published in the United States of America Dedication To Neslie, for reading my first drafts and for the wine. Chapter One Zane A ladybug darted out between the trees. A moose closing the distance behind it. I rubbed my eyes to erase the imaginary image. I hadn’t been on an acid trip since my early days in college. The rubbing didn’t seem to work. The moose lunged onto the smaller, quicker ladybug as it tried to flank it to get to the small, dilapidated cabin twenty yards away. They both fell on the snow-covered ground and proceeded to wrestle. “What did you put in my drink?” I asked Bennett, my driver, safety specialist, and good friend who obviously spiked my drink at some point during our six-hour flight into no-man’s land somewhere in the ass crack of Maine. “This is all kinds of wrong,” Bennett said. “Should I shoot them both?” Not an unusual thought coming from a trained assassin. I was packing too. In my line of work, one couldn’t be too sure of anything. Though watching a ladybug attempting to throat punch a moose was a new one even for me. The moose scampered to his feet just as the ladybug leapt onto his back, strangling it. The moose took heavy, careful steps toward the stairs of the cabin. By this point, the moose’s head had been turned at a severe angle, so it looked like it was staring at me with dead coal-colored eyes. The ladybug's antennae hung askew. “Maybe we got the wrong place,” I whispered, hoping we got the wrong place. The last thing I needed was to get between a moose and its ladybug who were back on the ground trying to smother each other. The ladybug managed to straddle the moose and was now fisting its antlers, banging its head on the snow-packed ground. “This is the correct address,” Bennett whispered, and wiped the condensation on the windshield in front of him to see better. “Maybe we should come back some other time,” I suggested. “It took you five years to get here,” Bennett reminded me. “You won’t come back.” Bennett was right. I’d been pining for the man who had consumed my thoughts for the better part of five years. He’d been desperate and broken the one night we shared. Heartbroken by the woman he loved. I had intervened and shown him compassion. Something I’d never done before. He’d simply melted in my arms and left me needy. Needing to hold him. Needing to know he was okay. Needing to get a glimpse of how his life had turned out. Finally, Bennett called it and had me hire a private investigator where news surfaced that Eric Diaz had survived his divorce. As a successful writer, he jumped from state to state every few months, either seeking something or running. I sat on that information for eighteen months until the deal with my father had me flying to the edge of the world to seek what I truly craved. Him. To know once and for all if I had invaded his thoughts and soul, just like he invaded mine. To get him out of my system so I could