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  “Seems to me we have a little problem here,” the man said, eyeing the four of us. “Which one of you sent the information on the research to the CIA?”

  “I did,” I said, stepping forward. “No one else had anything to do with it. I’m the one you want.”

  “Bullshit,” Carter hissed, pulling me back against his body. “State your case, Reaper. But know if any of us die tonight, your ass will be dragged.”

  “Interesting,” The Reaper said, turning his attention to Nancy. “And how are you, Nancy?”

  His voice was smooth and Nancy’s color heightened. She raised her brow and lifted her middle finger to him. What in the ever-loving hell was happening here?

  “It’s nice to see you haven’t changed,” he said.

  “And it’s pathetic to see you haven’t changed either,” she replied, rudely.

  There must be a hell of a backstory that was missing right now, but I had a plan. It was a little flimsy, but…

  “The information wasn’t just sent to you,” I said.

  “I assumed that,” The Reaper replied. “I’d very much like to know who else you sent it to.”

  “And I’d very much like to shove your head up your ass,” Carter said.

  The Reaper’s swift intake of breath didn’t really bode well for us getting out of here alive. Carter needed to be quiet.

  “That’s information you’ll have to kill me to get,” I told the huge imposing man. “However, the information is set to go to every major news outlet in the world if anything happens to any of the four of us. It’s damning and will bring the CIA to its knees. You’re also implicated in the recordings I made this evening.”

  Holding the remote out in my hand, I pressed the button and smiled.

  The Reaper’s eyes narrowed to slits.

  “That will be on the CIA main board shortly, along with several other locations.”

  The Reaper inhaled sharply and then smiled. It wasn’t a pleasant smile at all.

  “What do you want?” he asked, staring daggers at me.

  “I want to die in an explosion tonight,” I said flatly. “Carter Davis and I will die in the explosion here tonight. After tonight, we will be erased from every fucking dossier you have—forever.”

  “No money?” he inquired tightly.

  “No money.”

  “And what explosion are you referring to?” he asked.

  I glanced over at Caleb who nodded and grinned.

  “The one that will be set after you and your men leave. The two bodies that will be found are the bodies of Carter Davis and myself,” I explained nodding at the dead bodies of Wenbo and Jarred.

  “And how am I supposed to explain the disappearance of Wenbo and Jarred?”

  “Not my problem. That’s for you to figure out. I mean you are The Reaper, aren’t you?”

  “You’re certainly a piece of work,” he said dryly,

  “She’s mine,” Carter said with such pride, I laughed. “She’s my piece of work.”

  I’d been through unspeakable things, but this day took the cake for surreal.

  Nodding and giving a silent command to his men, The Reaper continued to stare at me. His men filed out of the warehouse just as quickly as they’d stormed it.

  “Are you really an animal?” he asked.

  “I don’t exist,” I shot back. “What I may or may not be is of no interest to you.”

  His laugh almost made him attractive, but he was too terrifying to really be handsome.

  “You will be living on thin ice for the rest of your lives,” The Reaper pointed out once we were alone with him.

  “Been doing that for a decade,” Carter said. “Not a problem. Now on the other hand, if that ice gets too thin, you’re going to be the one with the problem. You feel me?” he said, using my phrase.

  “I feel you,” The Reaper said, with a smile that didn’t come close to reaching his eyes. “I will make this happen and I don’t ever want to hear about you or see you again for the rest of my living days. Am I clear?” he snapped, looking straight at Carter and me.

  “I can work with that,” Carter replied. “However, I think it’s time for you to leave. You can find our bodies tomorrow.”

  With a curt nod and a last look to Nancy who didn’t so much as blink in response, The Reaper turned on his heel and walked slowly out of the warehouse.

  We stood in shocked silence for at least ten minutes after he left.

  “There is a lot of story there I’m pretty sure I don’t want to know,” I said, glancing at Carter in question.

  “Trust me. You don’t want to know,” he said.

  Nodding, I began to pull down the cameras and pack them away. We needed to contact Tex and tell him what the hell had gone down, but that would have to wait. Right now we still had work to do.

  “You have enough explosives to blow this whole structure up?” Carter asked Caleb, eyeing the enormous barn.

  “Does the Pope wear a pointy white hat?” Caleb asked with a wide grin.

  “That he does,” Nancy said, pulling her eyes away from the door that The Reaper had left through.

  “Then I guess you have your answer,” Caleb shot back. “Let me do my work. You freaks wait outside and get the cars all warmed up. We’re gonna have to drive like bats out of hell once I detonate this shit.”

  “I want my cake. Tonight,” Carter said, taking my hand and leading me out of the warehouse. “Chocolate.”

  “You can have a cake everyday for the rest of your life,” I told him with a giggle.

  “You all heard that, right?” he yelled. “I get cake forever.”

  “You gonna share?” Caleb asked as he started wiring the barn with explosives.

  “The cake? Yes. Georgia? No. She’s all mine.”

  And I didn’t want it any other way. Carter Norbert Davis was the broken piece that made me whole and I was his.

  Forever.

  And Ever.

  And Ever.

  Happily ever afters can happen for anyone if they can happen for us.

  He was my Beauty and I was his Beast.

  Epilogue

  Carter

  I was nervous. I wanted the gift to be perfect. I wanted to make her cry happy tears. I wanted to be her hero. Damn it, I wanted to be her everything, just like she was mine.

  “Carter, can you tell your sister to turn off the landmines? I’m almost ready to leave,” Georgia yelled from the kitchen.

  “On it,” I yelled back as I looked around our new home.

  My brother, sister and I owned over a thousand acres in the deserted mountain area of North Carolina. After the explosion we’d died in, we’d lived with Nancy and Caleb while our own house was built a mile down the road. It wasn’t as large but it was equally as beautiful. It made Georgia happy and that was all that mattered to me.

  I hadn’t had a place to call home in years—never wanted one until my crazy cat woman came into my life and turned it upside down. Of course, it wasn’t all sunshine and roses. I was a pain in the ass and working on forms of communication that didn’t include holes in the plaster. But Georgia said I was a work in progress. I could live with that.

  We were never going to be a white picket fence kind of couple, but what we had was perfect for us. Every day we somehow became a little less broken. Waking up with her in my arms calmed my raging soul and brought light into my dark world.

  Georgia’s blood had lost all of the poison, but her enhanced senses were probably always going to be part of her. She’d talked about having plastic surgery on her scarring, but decided against it. I loved her scars as much as I loved her. They were her battle wounds and I worshiped them on a regular basis. My battle scarring was more internal, but with time and talk I was beginning to heal as well.

  “Your sister wanted a vanilla cake with chocolate icing,” she said with a bright smile and frosting on the tip of her nose. “I think this is a good one.”

  “All of them are good ones,” I replied wonderi
ng if the time was right. “Umm, I’d like to give something to you.”

  “I have something for you too,” she said in a rush of excitement. “Let me get it.”

  She tore off to the bedroom, her wild blonde hair flying behind her. Her beauty still stunned me. I had more than half a mind to blow off my siblings and chase her to our bedroom. I couldn’t get enough of her—would never be able to get enough of her.

  “Here,” she said shyly, handing me a large envelope.

  Taking it in my hands I handed her my gift that looked alarmingly like the gift she’d just handed me. The confusion on both of our faces would have made me laugh if I wasn’t so edgy about giving her this particular gift.

  “Should we open them at the same time?” she asked with eyes shining.

  “Yep,” I said. “On mi.”

  Her laugh filled the room and every dark corner of my heart.

  “Do, re, mi,” Georgia said and tore into her gift.

  She was faster than I was and froze when she discovered what I’d done.

  “Oh my God,” she whispered, grinning like a loon. “Open yours. Now.”

  And I did.

  I shook my head and started to laugh.

  “No fucking way,” I said.

  “Way,” she shot back, as her eyes filled with tears—happy tears. “Can we go twice?”

  “We can do whatever the hell we want, Georgia from Georgia.”

  I held airline tickets to Austria in my hands along with chalet reservations and tickets to the Sound of Music tour. And Georgia held the exact same packet—different dates—in hers. What were the odds? But then again I suppose it shouldn’t surprise me. She was my soul mate—my other half—the light to my dark. The Maria to my Captain.

  “Wanna get married there?” she asked.

  “Are you asking me to marry you?” I inquired with a grin. “I’m the man and I’m supposed to do that.”

  “Whatever,” she said with an eye roll and a laugh. “I beat you to it. So?”

  “So?”

  “You gonna marry me?”

  “Hmmm, can I think about it?” I teased.

  Her second eye roll was enormous. It was fucking delightful and hot.

  “No. You can’t think about it. You will answer me now or I’ll never ask again. Unless you say no and then I’ll ask again. Probably every Tuesday.”

  “Yes. I will marry you. I will marry you a thousand times if that’s what you want,” I told her. “But how about this…”

  “What?” she asked as she threw her arms around me and kissed me until I was definitely sure we wouldn’t be seeing my brother and sister tonight.

  “Let’s get married in Austria,” I suggested.

  “Yessssssss,” she yelled and kissed me again. Pulling back she scrunched her nose in thought. “Do you think Nancy and Caleb would be upset if we didn’t go over there tonight?”

  “I was just thinking the same thing.”

  Wrapping her legs around my waist, I moved us to our bedroom in record time. My dick—or thingie as Georgia was still fond of calling it—was so hard I was in pain. All she had to do was look at me and I was hard.

  “You want to climb every mountain tonight?” I whispered as she giggled at my ridiculousness.

  “Until we find our dream,” she said in a voice so sexy I was sure we were going to be busy all night long.

  And that was fine by me.

  In fact, it was more than fine. Georgia was everything I was missing in my life that I didn’t think I’d find and then some. There would be no so long, farewells for us. There would only ever be something good.

  —The End… for now—

  Note From The Author

  If you enjoyed reading Discovering Beauty, please consider leaving a positive review or rating on the site where you purchased it. Reader reviews help my books continue to be valued by resellers and help new readers make decisions about reading them.

  You are the reason I write these stories and I sincerely appreciate each of you!

  Many thanks for your support,

  ~ Robyn Peterman

  www.robynpeterman.com

  Robyn’s Book List (in correct reading order)

  HOT DAMNED SERIES

  Fashionably Dead

  Fashionably Dead Down Under

  Hell on Heels

  Fashionably Dead in Diapers

  A Fashionably Dead Christmas

  Fashionably Hotter Than Hell

  Fashionably Dead and Wed

  Fashionably Hotter Than Hell

  Fashionably Fanged

  SHIFT HAPPENS SERIES

  Ready to Were

  Some Were in Time

  No Were To Run

  Were Me Out

  MAGIC AND MAYHEM SERIES

  Switching Hour

  Witch Glitch

  A Witch In Time

  Magically Delicious

  A Tale Of Two Witches

  HANDCUFFS AND HAPPILY EVER AFTERS SERIES

  How Hard Can it Be?

  Size Matters

  Cop a Feel

  If after reading all the above you are still wanting more adventure and zany fun, read Pirate Dave and His Randy Adventures, the romance novel budding novelist Rena was helping wicked Evangeline write in How Hard Can It Be?

  Warning: Pirate Dave Contains Romance Satire, Spoofing, and Pirates with Two Pork Swords.

  About Robyn Peterman

  Robyn Peterman writes because the people inside her head won’t leave her alone until she gives them life on paper.

  Her addictions include laughing really hard with friends, shoes (the expensive kind), Target, Coke Zero Cherry with extra ice in a Styrofoam cup, bejeweled reading glasses, her kids, her super-hot hubby and collecting stray animals.

  A former professional actress with Broadway, film and T.V. credits, she now lives in the South with her family and too many animals to count.

  Writing gives her peace and makes her whole, plus having a job where you can work in your underpants works really well for her. You can leave Robyn a message via the Contact Page and she’ll get back to you as soon as her bizarre life permits! She loves to hear from her fans!

  Fun Ways To Connect With Robyn

  www.robynpeterman.com

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