Critical Mass (Lantern Beach Blackout: Detonation #4)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER

ONE

Natalie Ravenscroft watched as the fading sunlight flickered across Timothy Shaw’s face. He sat across from her at a table by the window of their favorite oceanfront restaurant in Virginia Beach.

Outside, the bustling boardwalk offered endless entertainment—bikers, rollerbladers, tourists with ice cream, and surfers coming in after a long but exhilarating day in the water.

This was the perfect place for people watching—and spending time with Timothy.

For a moment, Natalie forgot about everything else. All she could think about was the way Timothy’s eyes crinkled when he smiled. The careful attention he paid to every word she said. The strong set of his jaw.

He was almost too good to be true.

“You’re thinking too hard again.” Timothy’s voice sounded warm with affection as he gazed at her. “I can practically see the gears turning.”

She laughed and pushed a strand of hair behind her ear. “Sorry. It’s just been a long week at work.”

“Curating lots of positive publicity has got to be a hard job sometimes.”

“Something like that.” She loved that he remembered the little details about her work, her life.

After three months of dating, Timothy still asked questions as if her answers actually mattered to him. He made her feel respected and valued, not just like arm candy.

She’d never felt this way about anyone before, and sometimes she pinched herself to make sure this was real. After years of dating the wrong men, had she finally found her Prince Charming?

Her phone buzzed in her purse, and she glanced at the screen.

Dad.

Her stomach clenched.

“I’m so sorry.” She stood. “I need to take this.”

Timothy nodded, understanding as always. “Take your time.”

She stepped outside into the breezy evening, her heels clicking on the sidewalk as she moved away from the windows. It was always best to have some privacy when speaking with her father.

“Hi, Dad.” She tried to sound cheerful.

“Natalie.” Her father’s voice carried the crisp tone that meant business. “Where are you?”

“Out with a friend.” The lie came easily—too easily. She’d been practicing variations of it for weeks now.

Her father could be overprotective and overbearing.

Sometimes it was nice to make decisions without having to explain herself, get the third degree, or worry about her father’s approval.

He never approved of the men she dated, and she just wanted to enjoy her time with Timothy without her father’s feelings tainting everything.

Her father was a powerful man, used to those around him doing exactly what he said. People practically kissed his feet.

For a long time, so did Natalie. But not anymore.

She loved him, but she couldn’t let him control her.

At twenty-eight, she deserved some independence—which was exactly why she was considering not working for her father anymore.

Any other job would probably mean a pay cut, but she’d decided it would be worth it.

She needed to stand on her own two feet, to plan her future autonomously.

She appreciated her father’s help and protectiveness, but it was time to prove to herself she could manage life on her own.

She simply hadn’t gathered the courage to tell her father yet.

“What friend are you out with?” he demanded.

She glanced through the window at Timothy. “Just someone I met at cooking class.”

That wasn’t a lie.

She and Timothy had met three months ago at a local cooking class. She’d signed up to learn to cook Pad Thai and green curry, wanting to do something to get out of the rut she’d found herself in.

Timothy had been at the station next to hers. When her coconut milk had spilled across the counter, he’d smoothly slid his milk over with a grin and a joke about how he’d “always been more of a takeout guy anyway.”

They’d laughed through the entire class, bonding over their mutual inability to properly julienne vegetables and their shared love of obscure indie films. He’d known her favorite director, remembered quotes from movies she’d mentioned in passing, and even shared her opinion that butter pecan ice cream was vastly underrated.

Their meeting had felt like fate, like the universe had conspired to put them at adjacent cooking stations.

“Natalie.” Her father’s voice sharpened. “Stop lying to me. I know you’re on a date. With Timothy Shaw.”

Her blood turned cold, and she glanced around.

Did her dad have spies following her? Sure, he ran one of the largest shipping conglomerates on the East Coast. He was wealthy, smart, and a shrewd businessman.

But spies?

“How did you—?” she started.

“It doesn’t matter how I know. What matters is that you’re seeing someone you haven’t told me about. That concerns me.”

A knot formed in her gut. “Dad, I’m twenty-eight years old. I don’t need your permission to—”

“You don’t need my permission, but you need my protection. I can’t protect you from someone you keep a secret.”

She sucked in a breath. “You’re going to have to learn to trust my judgment at some point, Dad. You raised me to be competent. Now let me be that person.”

Silence stretched between them, filled with the distant sound of people on the boardwalk and her own thundering heartbeat.

“Just be careful, sweetheart. Men aren’t always who they pretend to be—especially in our line of work. You should always be cautious. I shouldn’t have to tell you that.”

He had, in fact, told her to be cautious before. Many, many times.

But before she could answer, the line went dead.

Natalie stared at her phone, her hands trembling slightly. Her father’s words echoed in her mind as she walked back toward the restaurant.

Men aren’t always who they pretend to be.

But Timothy wasn’t pretending. He was kind, attentive, and genuine in ways that had slowly demolished every wall she’d built around her heart. All the bad relationships she’d been through seemed worth it once she’d met him and realized not all men were jerks.

She glanced at him as he sat at the table, patiently waiting for her to return.

His striking profile sent shivers down her spine.

He had a strong jawline and the kind of bone structure that belonged on a movie screen rather than at a table at a beachfront restaurant.

His hair was styled casually, darker on the sides with lighter tones through the top that caught the golden sunset streaming through the windows.

When he smiled, the expression transformed his face from handsome to devastating, crinkling the corners of eyes that seemed to shift between blue and gray depending on the light. Natalie would be perfectly happy to stare into those eyes all day, studying their changes.

He had the build of someone who spent serious time in the gym—broad shoulders that filled out his dark shirt and arms that suggested both strength and discipline.

But it was the way he carried himself that really caught her attention: confident without arrogance, attentive without being overbearing.

He was the kind of man who looked like he could handle anything life threw at him.

Which made the moments of vulnerability—like now when he reached for his water glass and she caught a flicker of something uncertain in his expression—all the more compelling.

He must have sensed her gaze on him because he looked up, flashing her an earnest smile that made her heart melt just a little.

He was real . . . wasn’t he?

She turned as the skin on her neck rose.

What had caused that sudden uneasy feeling?

Her gaze stopped on a man leaning against the boardwalk railing. She didn’t recognize the man, who was dressed casually in jeans and a white T-shirt. Though he wore sunglasses, he appeared to be looking at the water.

But as she stood there, the man slowly looked over his shoulder.

Looked her way.

At her?

She couldn’t be sure with the sunglasses.

As easily as he’d turned her direction, he casually turned back toward the water.

Who was that man? Had he been watching her? Or was her imagination working overtime after that phone call with her father?

She wasn’t sure.

But she hurried back inside, suddenly feeling exposed.

Something was wrong.

Hudson Roberts—alias Timothy Shaw—watched as Natalie returned to their table. Even in the fading sunlight, she was striking.

She was petite and graceful with delicate features that could shift from girl-next-door approachable to elegant sophistication in a heartbeat.

Her dark-brown hair fell in soft waves past her shoulders, and those expressive brown eyes, which had captivated him from their first cooking class, now held something he couldn’t quite read.

She had the kind of classic beauty that didn’t need enhancement, though the way the light played across her fine-boned face made her look almost ethereal.

However, right now her smile seemed too bright, her movements just a fraction too careful.

For the past hour, she’d exuded a warmth that had made him forget exactly why he was here.

Which was dangerous within itself.

But now that warmth had vanished and was replaced with . . . something he couldn’t put his finger on. What had changed with that phone call?

“Everything okay?” he asked as Natalie slid back into her chair.

“Just work drama.” She reached for her water glass, but her hand wasn’t quite steady as she lifted it. “You know how it is.”

He did know what work drama was like, though his version involved hostile extraction zones and split-second decisions that could get people killed. Missions that went sideways when intelligence turned out to be wrong. Partners who didn’t make it home.

The kind of work where “drama” meant bullets flying and blood on your hands, not office politics or difficult clients.

His work drama also required lying to people he cared about.

The knowledge sat in his chest like a lead weight. Getting to know Natalie had been a long-term assignment.

It had required three months of careful deception, three months of “dating” Richard Ravenscroft’s daughter while investigating her father and trying to figure out if he was the leader of Sigma, a terrorist organization determined to bring mass destruction to the United States.

Falling for Natalie hadn’t been in his job description.

But some things couldn’t be predicted.

He snapped from guilt-ridden thoughts and turned his focus back to Natalie, remembering he still had a mission to accomplish. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not really.” She managed a smile. “I’d rather talk about you. About us.”

The words hit him like a physical blow. There was no “us”—not really. There was Hudson Roberts, Blackout operative, and there was Timothy Shaw, the fictional persona he’d created for this assignment.

Then there was Natalie Ravenscroft, daughter of potential crime lord Richard Ravenscroft and corporate communications director for his shipping company. She was caught in the middle of something she couldn’t possibly understand.

And now Hudson was in deep—too deep.

Everything was converging on a single point—every secret, every lie—and Natalie was the one who would pay the price when it all blew up.