Liquid Lies

A chill raced over her. The air around them screamed in alarm.

Yoshi grinned, slick and crooked. “And I’ll take you, too, Gwen.”

The goon behind him whipped out a gun—metal flashing like fire, barrel aimed straight at her.
Think, Gwen. Think. How can you turn this asshole’s hubris to our benefit?

She took too long. Griffin burst like a kraken from Vaillancourt Fountain.

Water gushed upward from the low pool, assuming the strong, lean shape of Griffin’s human body. Translucent waves flowed over the valleys of his stomach muscles. White froth cascaded over his square jaw and the hard cut of his arms. His torso darkened, solidified. Water droplets skittered across his skin, soaking in. From the waist down he remained a brilliant, shimmering waterfall balancing on the fountain’s bubbling surface. Frighteningly beautiful, unmovable as rock.

One of Griffin’s arms went liquid and shot out, fast as a bullet, to wrap around the stunned bodyguard and yank him forward into the fountain. Griffin’s watery legs flowed over the Japanese goon, holding him under the surface. His chest and shoulders heaved with channeled fury.

Gwen transformed her own arm into a liquid whip and snapped it at the
Mendacia
box sagging in Yoshi’s fingers. Reversing the suction, she peeled it from his grasp and flung it back into her own hands. As her arm returned to solid, she felt the familiar, cool tingle of ebbing waters.

LIQUID
LIES

HANNA MARTINE

THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) • Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England • Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.) • Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.) • Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India • Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.) • Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are 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 publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

LIQUID LIES

A Berkley Sensation Book / published by arrangement with the author

PUBLISHING HISTORY

Berkley Sensation mass-market edition / July 2012

Copyright © 2012 by Hanna Martine.

Excerpt from
A Taste of Ice
by Hanna Martine copyright © 2013 by Hanna Martine.

Cover photo by Claudio Marinesco.

Cover design by Rita Frangie.

Interior text design by Tiffany Estreicher.

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,

a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

ISBN: 978-1-101-56900-9

BERKLEY SENSATION
^®

Berkley Sensation Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,

a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

BERKLEY SENSATION
^®
is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

The “B” design is a trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

10  9  8  7  6  5  4  3  2  1

If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

ALWAYS LEARNING

PEARSON

For Mom, who would have been so proud.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank the wonderful people who helped make the dream of my debut novel become a reality.

Early on, the Online Writing Workshop for Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror was instrumental in teaching me how to give and receive critiques. Among those who read the earliest first chapters—and whose comments would eventually steer the book in the direction it needed to go—were Rae Carson, Aaron Brown, and Joanne Anderton.

Jodi Meadows, Rhea Ference, and PJ Thompson read my first complete draft and provided valuable comments about editing and pacing that I still carry with me today.

Jill Myles also helped with my early drafts, and her support over the years has humbled me. Perhaps even more importantly, she was the one who pointed me in the direction of the Romance Writers of America (RWA) and said, “I think this might be good for you.”

Without a doubt, the publication of this book never would have happened without the encouragement and wisdom of the Chicago-North chapter of RWA. My deepest gratitude to you all. To my Aphrodite Writers, whom I also met through RWA, your passion and advocacy is inspiring.

Katie Junttila, one of my oldest and dearest friends, critiqued the manuscript from a reader’s (not a writer’s) perspective, and opened my eyes to so much.

Clara Kensie astounded me with her acute observations. This book is better because of her.

Erica O’Rourke and Eliza Evans are two of the smartest women I’ve ever met and I trust their opinions regarding craft, the industry, and social media implicitly. I’m privileged to call them critique partners, but even more blessed to call them friends.

Holly McDowell’s honesty and spirit have pulled me over many humps, and she has been my unfailing champion when I needed it the most.

Without Ellen Wehle, this book, and my writing in general, wouldn’t be a quarter as good. And that’s not an exaggeration.

In 2000, I told my husband I wanted to fulfill my life’s dream and become a writer. He’s always supported me—even when I turned down fun things to sit in front of my computer—and I love him for it.

And finally, to my agent Roberta Brown, whose unparalleled enthusiasm, initiative, and drive made this all happen; and to my editor, Cindy Hwang, for believing in unusual stories, the power of voice, and for saying
yes
.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Table of Contents

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-one

Twenty-two

Twenty-three

Twenty-four

Twenty-five

Twenty-six

Twenty-seven

Twenty-eight

Twenty-nine

Thirty

Thirty-one

Thirty-two

Thirty-three

Thirty-four

Thirty-five

Thirty-six

Thirty-seven

Thirty-eight

Thirty-nine

Forty

Forty-one

Forty-two

Forty-three

Forty-four

A Taste of Ice

ONE

Deals always went down near water
.

At 3 a.m. Gwen Carroway and the Chairman of the Company waited in an idling limo on the Embarcadero. To the left, the bay curled around a sparkling San Francisco. To the right, water poured incessantly from Vaillancourt Fountain’s hulking mess of squared concrete tubes. Water everywhere—soothing her, whispering to her, offering her protection.

She peered through the tinted windows. On the opposite side of the fountain, two male figures in dark suits appeared between a line of palm trees. Their steps slowed as they started across the angular half-moon of the plaza.

“They’re here.”

Her father, Chairman Ian Carroway, stopped poking at his phone and set it on the seat next to his thigh. “You sound a little nervous. Are you?”

She sucked in air through her teeth. “Maybe a little. New client jitters, I guess. It’ll pass.”

His sharp, brown eyes warmed as he patted her knee. “You’ve done this a dozen times. The Company trusts you.
I
trust you.”

She blew out a breath and tilted her face to the jagged line of city buildings cutting into the night sky. “I know, I know. I just wish it wasn’t so out in the open.”

The phone buzzed and her father reached for it again, thumbs dancing across its face, as he typed one thing and said another. “The location is for their comfort, not ours. You’ll be fine, kiddo.”