At First Sight

Whether foiling hackers, rooting out terrorists, or providing on the ground protection against stalkers, the operatives of Chicago-based Global Security Unlimited are on the job, even when romance threatens to derail everything.

 

At First Sight

Global Security Unlimited Book 1

by Sharon Michalove

Genre: Romantic Suspense

Twenty years ago, Cress Taylor and Max Grant were strangers in Oxford, England, but when their paths crossed, a spark was lit. Now, in the hustle of bustling Chicago, Cress is a successful novelist receiving mysterious threats, and Max is a former spy working for a global security company. When Max sees Cress in a TV interview, it ignites his curiosity. They soon find themselves tangled in an intense game of cat and mouse. As Max swoops in to protect Cress from anonymous threats, they must decide if they are willing to risk their hearts and take a chance on love. As threats escalate and Max's big Scottish family arrives in Chicago for Christmas, Cress and Max must learn to trust each other and overcome their fears to have a Happy New Year. If you enjoy the development of romantic love combined with a suspenseful thriller, you'll love At First Sight.

EXCERPT

We’re in a large space on the roof of a high-rise east of The Drake Hotel, right off Lake Shore Drive. Clay lives in one of the two penthouse spaces. He converted this part of the roof into a gym, outfitted with four treadmills, a couple of bikes, and weightlifting equipment. Three of the walls are glass, and one is masonry. The other part of the roof is dedicated to a garden area.

I look over at the huge screen that dominates the rear wall. Coincidences happen all the time, especially when you live in a big city, and when you go to a destination restaurant.

Two women sit on couches that face each other in a TV studio. A logo in the corner announces Morning at 7. One is a young blonde who tries not to look bored. The other, who looks like she’s in her late thirties, pushes forward on the slanted sofa as she struggles to keep her feet on the floor. It is the woman from the restaurant. Her shoulder-length curls are tamed and pulled back from her face. A film of makeup makes her skin look like porcelain, although I can see a flush rise up her neck as she fidgets during the voice-over. Her eyes, magnified by large round wire-rimmed glass, flash green, then amber. Her eyes… I focus in. What I see stops me in my tracks.

“Bloody hell.” I hit stop and the machine, set at six miles an hour, bounces me forward. My knee hits the control stand as it judders to a stop. Crap, that hurt. I massage my knee and grab the rough towel hanging from the rail, pull off my glasses, and mop the sweat that pours into my eyes. I rub the towel over my head to keep more from dripping off my soaked hair.

Once I can see again, I turn back to the screen. Those eyes pull me like magnets. A voice in my head shouts. This can’t be happening. It’s her. It can’t be, but it is. After twenty bloody years. Why didn’t I see that the other night? She doesn’t look that different after all this time.

My colleagues stare as if I’m some mythical creature they’ve heard about but never seen. From their reaction, these words must not be just in my head.

I’m gob-smacked. If I’m right, she was the girl in my dreams, at least until the nightmares drove her out.

Clay walks over and hits my shoulder. “You’re white as a sheet.”

Twisting to face him, I release my death grip. “I’m fine.”

As I turn back toward to screen, the sudden rotations make lights flash in my eyes. I grab for the rail to steady myself.

Clay moves between me and the screen. He gestures to the snack bar at other end of the room. “Let’s sit down for a minute.”

As I follow him over, JL trails after. “Que se passé-t’il?”

He’s French-Canadian and likes to throw in French phrases just to aggravate Clay, whose second language is code.

“Je ne suis pas sûr.” The flash of her hazel eyes seems imprinted on my retinas.

Clay fills a cup with coffee and turns with a scowl. “Knock it off.”

I grab a cup of tea, add milk and a little sugar, turn a vinyl chair to face the screen, and collapse into it. “That woman may be someone I was attracted to at university.”

“The blonde? She’s certainly looks good if she’s your age. I’d put her at twenty-five, not forty.” JL winks at me.

“Are you mad? She would have been a baby.”

“Une blague.”

Clay glares again.

“A joke.” He clarifies for Clay with a nonchalant lift of his shoulders. “But the other one looks good, too.”

“She didn’t register the other night? Why didn’t you recognize her then?” Clay throws me a puzzled glance.

“I never really saw her. She was just part of that celebratory group.”

We’re all silent as the host mentions that her guest attended Oxford in the 1990s. Of course she did. I’m sure she’s the girl with the bike, the one who sent me sprawling—and knocked me for a loop. It was 1993 and I was in my last year at Oxford. She looks older now, a sprinkle of gray in her hair, some fine lines around her eyes. As the interview unfolds, I am more and more certain.

“She knocked me down.”

“Never pegged you for the love-at-first-sight type.” Clay chuckles.

I can’t help the hoot that erupts at the confusion on their faces. “My cousin, Guy, and I were on our way to the Randolph Hotel to meet our grandmother for tea when this girl ran her bike into me.” I pause. I can’t explain her effect on me.

They look at me as if tablets will come off the mountain.

“She knocked me down.” My lips quirk. “With the bike.”

Clay and JL smirk.

“I tried to introduce myself, but she was embarrassed and rushed off as soon as she could. She was a stunner. Her eyes…” I draw in a ragged breath. “Magnetic.”

“Did you chase her down and ask her out?” JL’s eyes sparkle with curiosity.

“We were late, and Guy dragged me off, complaining about careless, rude Americans. She wouldn’t tell me her name.”

This book is a second-chance romance with mature couples; smart, resilient heroines; devastatingly adorable heroes; a contemporary urban vibe with a slow-burn fade to black.

Nominated in the suspense/thriller category for the 2022 InD’tale RONE Awards.

 

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Book Links:
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B097CJDZ9Q

Audible: https://www.audible.com/pd/At-First-Sight-Audiobook/B0B89WNJ4F

Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/books/at-first-sight-by-sharon-michalove

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/45732403-at-first-sight

 

At the Crossroads

Global Security Unlimited Book 2

Max Grant is a former MI6 operative with a new life in Chicago, a promising relationship with author Cress Taylor, and a past that's about to catch up with him. Ten years ago, Max was caught in an ambush in an Istanbul alley, where most of his team died, and his testimony put a terrorist mastermind in prison. Now, the terrorist has escaped, and he's coming after Max. As Max is inexorably drawn toward confrontation, he must race to stop the mastermind before he eliminates them both. If you like travel and pulse-pounding suspense, combine with a continuing romance, you'll love At the Crossroads.

EXCERPT

Kyril, our mail room courier comes in and dumps a dirty white hotel envelope with the name of a hotel in Konya, Turkey, on my desk. No sender’s name, covered with foreign stamps, all taped up,  handwritten address with just my last name, and Rookery Building Chicago with no street address. The postmark, Istanbul, is already a month old. My heart sinks as I think about the last time I was in Istanbul. Ten years ago. Right away I can tell it’s trouble.

“Wash your fucking hands, Kyril! And tell Elena to call 911.” His frightened eyes regard me like a stoat caught in headlamps. “Go, Kyril. Hands, then the call. Now.”

He slowly backs away from my desk toward the doorway. When he reaches the opening, he gives me a panicked glance, then turns and runs.

I pull my leather driving gloves out of my overcoat pocket, slide the envelope onto a piece of printer paper, and walk down to our small conference room, placing it carefully on the table.

Almost immediately a brisk Anglo-Turkish voice calls out from the doorway. “Hey, Max. Got a minute?”

Metin Hazan leans against the doorframe, a manila folder in one hand. I wave her in. At six-foot-two, she’s tall enough to look me in the eye. Even at fifty-four, her athletic physique is stunning since she runs every day. I know a little about Turkish culture, and after years of burning curiosity, I asked her a few years ago why her parents gave her a masculine name.

“They wanted a son.” Her voice was flat, and remnants of resentment marred her face. “Unfulfilled desire. They had three daughters and gave us all male names.”

Now I summon a smile. “What brings the Senior Operations VP to our little corner, Metin? You hardly ever slum around over here.”

She focuses on the envelope but is careful not to touch it. “What do we have here?”

“Good question. Suspicious envelope. I was just planning to lock this room until the police get here.”

We leave the envelope and walk back to my office to wait.

Once we sit down, her smile shifts to a frown. “I know you and Cress are leaving for Europe soon.”

“We have that meeting with the bankers in London about adopting our software. They insisted they wanted to meet in person. Then Cress and I have a week in Scotland for my dad’s birthday, Cress’ awards dinner in Paris, and her historical fiction conference in Venice.” I smile thinly.

Metin leans back in the oversized armchair and repositions the folder. One arm drapes down, long fingers tapping against the leather. “Busy, busy.”

She pauses and throws me a tiny smile, but the way her fingers weave together, so tight her knuckles are white, undermines her try at nonchalance. “The NSA picked up some chatter. Maybe it’s connected to this mysterious delivery.” She taps the folder and nudges it closer to me.

“Hacking alerts?” Hacking threats are so common that I can’t imagine why they’d bother to pass anything on unless it’s a major security alert. CyberSec has two security analysts who work on nothing but threats. We’re bombarded with at least a thousand hacking attempts a day.

“No.” She shakes her head slightly. “Nothing to do with GSU directly.”

I slip my fingers onto the smooth paper cover and pull it closer and flip it open. Inside are some papers clipped together. I glance over the flimsy onionskin paper. The first is a half sheet with text messages.

SKYWATCHER: the breeze is blowing

DEMETER: the holy grail?

SKYWATCHER: …

DEMETER: This is bad

DEMETER: and…

SKYWATCHER: Smiley

DEMETER: Okay

I wince inwardly at the Smiley reference, but don’t bite. I’m still not sure how I ended up with the nickname but John Le Carré is everywhere in the spy world. Even though I know the answer, I still ask the question. “Who are these from?”

“Texts between me and the NSA.”

I nod at the confirmation, then move on. The other sheet, marked Top Secret, has today’s date, an update from a communique released a month ago. I scan it quickly, noting the important names—mine and Nasim Faez.

My scalp prickles. Faez has been in prison for the last ten years. My testimony helped put him there after the bombing of an alley in Istanbul that killed most of Turkish security team I was working with. I skim the rest of the document.

I put the papers back and toss the folder on top of the bumf already there, trying to control my shaking fingers. “Shit. I can’t believe this…” I can hardly get the words out. “The man was in a high-security prison. How the fuck did he escape?”

Metin’s lips twist into a frown. “They moved him to a medium-security prison last year. No one seems to know why. Payoffs? Perhaps as part of a plan to let him escape.”

“Why are we only hearing now, a month after the fact?”

She shifts uncomfortably, crossing and uncrossing her legs. “Sorting out the identification of the bodies has been tricky, but now the Turkish police believe Faez was not in the fuel refinery when it exploded. After the fiasco of allowing him to be moved to a lower-security prison, the Turks are giving out very little information.”

Sharon Michalove is the author of At First Sight, the story of how Max and Cress reconnected twenty years after their first encounter at Oxford University. A standalone continuation of Max and Cress’ story, At the Crossroads is the second romantic suspense novel in the Global Security Unlimited series.

 

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Book Links:
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09GHKTP8Z

Audible: https://www.audible.com/pd/At-the-Crossroads-Audiobook/B0BPN1RLW7

Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/books/at-the-crossroads-global-security-unlimited-2-by-sharon-michalove

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61186465-at-the-crossroads

 

At the Ready

Global Security Unlimited Book 3

Recipient of the Pencraft Award for Best Romantic Suspense and Shortlisted for the Chanticleer Mystery & Mayhem Award.

What happens when a hunky French-Canadian security executive falls for a feisty Chicago lawyer being stalked by her ex? From Chicago to Paris and Vancouver, with an climax at Chicago’s O’Hare airport, watch the tangled threads unravel.

Micki Press and JL Martin both have complicated lives, but when they come together, the sparks are undeniable. Micki is trying to make it to the top of one of the most conservative corporate law firms in Chicago. JL is the CEO of WatchDog Inc., a successful security company, and is struggling with his own family complications. When Micki's former lover stalks her, JL steps in to protect her, and the two soon realize their feelings go beyond friendship. But with their complicated pasts and the struggles of the corporate world, are they ready to take the next step, or will the twists and turns have them singing the Chicago blues? If you enjoy a story of complicated love and corporate ambition, with fast-paced action and a dash of karaoke, you'll fall for At the Ready.

EXCERPT

 

The partners’ conference room is overheated, and I feel moisture collecting by the time I take my seat, halfway down the left-hand side of the mahogany table. Rebecca sits at the head. This part of the meeting is pre-client strategizing.

The table seats twelve, but there will only be eight of us, plus the client. The three unused chairs sit against a wall, a minor blockade in the narrow rectangular space. I’ve been in this room three times—when I was interviewed, when I was formally introduced to the partners and staff on my first day, and when I was promoted three years ago from associate to senior associate. Now I’m placing my foot back on the ladder, hoping to move up to non-equity partner, where I don’t have to buy into ownership until I can afford to move up another notch. This promotion would show the equity partners have confidence in my abilities and give me options for more lucrative cases. If Hayden gets the spot, he’ll be an equity partner for sure.

While I’ve been woolgathering, the rest of the team have taken their places around the table—Laney, our researcher, Blaine, the file clerk, Mario and Francesca, the junior associates, legal secretary, Tulia, and puffing in at the last minute, Hayden. He’s wearing a suit I’ve never seen before. It looks custom tailored. Dark gray with a subtle eggplant-colored stripe, matching vest and slacks, with an eggplant-colored shirt. Black, high-gloss patent leather shoes. The outfit’s so sharp he could cut himself. Ten points to him for style. I sigh and add them to the spreadsheet.

“Where’s the donuts and coffee?” He glares at Mario and Francesca. “That’s one duty of junior associates.”

They trade mystified glances. Rebecca raps on the table with her knuckles. “If you want coffee and donuts, Hayden, call Do Rite or Stan’s for delivery. The associates are not required to feed your face.” The asperity in her voice sounds like the harbinger of doom.

I look out a window, barely able to see my reflection in the glass. Not for the first time, I wonder whether I belong at a firm where someone like Hayden can flourish.

“What kind of donut do you want, Micki?” Hayden’s irritating rasp makes me snap to attention.

My response isn’t fast enough. With a snap of his fingers that bumps my nose, he repeats, “Micki, donut, wake up.

“Chocolate old-fashioned.”

“Can’t hear you,” he roars.

“This is not a pep rally, Hayden. Sit down and shut up. There will be no food. When the congressman arrives, please offer him coffee, Tulia.”

“Sure, Rebecca.” Her breezy attitude is diametrically opposed to the edginess Hayden and I exhibit.

Hayden glowers. My stomach rumbles while I worry my bottom lip.

“Micki, Hayden, do you have anything to request from Congressman Greenberg?”

“I’m finding some anomalies in his email correspondence.”

“Like what?” Hayden crosses his arms.

“He told us he has two email addresses. One for his office and a personal one. But I’ve found four.”

“So?”

“So, he lied. He must be hiding something.”

“What am I hiding?” The voice is mid-range and irascible. Congressman Greenberg is in the room.

A cool voice cuts him off. “Good morning, Simon.”

“Hello, Rebecca. Seems I arrived too early…or too late.

“Perfect timing as always, Simon,” she drawls. “Hayden, would you start, please?”

He straightens up, even though he hadn’t been slouching, his voice almost apologetic. “We’ve had preliminary discussions about interviews with family, friends, and colleagues. Now I need to start setting up the appointments, but you haven’t provided the list yet, Congressman. I’d like to begin with your former firm and the members of your campaign staff.”

“Liaise with my secretary.” Greenberg’s dismissive tone is meant to show that, as the client, he has the upper hand, at least over us menials.

Rebecca ignores the power grab. “Micki, do you have any issues?”

“Congressman.”

He eyes me.

“Right now, I’m tasked with checking all of your email correspondence.”

“I know, and I don’t approve. My privacy is being invaded.”

“True. But you’re facing both civil and criminal investigations, which means, in essence, you have no privacy.” Rebecca, palms flat on the table, snaps, “You should know that Simon.”

He glares.

“Unless you want to plead guilty, suck it up.”

He looks like a sulky teenager, mouth clamped shut.

I know he’s hiding something. Financial shenanigans? An affair?

Rebecca throws me a look and I continue.

“There are at least four email accounts going through your desktop computer. You told us you only have two.”

“The others belong to my wife and daughter. No big deal.”

Then why lie about it?

 

Sharon Michalove is the author of At First Sight, and At the Crossroads, the first two novels in the Global Security Unlimited series.

Tropes
Older couple
Friends to lovers
Stalker/Woman in Peril

 

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Book Links:
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BXFW6JZ9

Audible: https://www.audible.com/pd/At-the-Ready-Audiobook/B0CPMPPJN3

Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/books/at-the-ready-global-security-unlimited-3-by-sharon-michalove

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/161200298-at-the-ready

 

Series Short Trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/8QI9ynKG0GI?feature=share

About the Author

Sharon Michalove writes romantic suspense and traditional mystery as well as being a published historian. She was married to a composer and frequently uses her knowledge of music, history, and food to enrich her novels. Moving back to Chicago in 2017,  she started writing fiction seriously in 2018, publishing her first book in 2021. She is member of Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, and Chicago-North Romance Writers and currently is president of the Sisters in Crime Chicagoland Chapter. Her Global Security Unlimited series was a finalist for the 2024 Chanticleer International Book Award for Genre Series.

 

 

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Author Links

Website: https://www.coffeeandeclairs.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sharonmichalove/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sdmichaloveauthor

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Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Sharon-Michalove/author/B097F8MY36

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/2128144.Sharon_D_Michalove

 

Giveaway

$30 Amazon

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