Since I Fell For You Part 1

SINCE I FELL FOR YOU.

* The New York Sullivans *

Suzanne Sullivan & Roman Huson.

Bella Andre.

Suzanne Sullivan doesn't need a bodyguard. After all, she's one of the most successful digital security specialists in the world-so she can most certainly take care of herself, despite the problems she's been running into lately. Unfortunately, her three brothers don't agree. So when Mr. Way-Too-Handsome shows up bound and determined to protect her whether she wants him there or not, sparks definitely start to fly. Because she has absolutely no intention of falling for the bodyguard she never wanted in the first place...

Roman Huson has vowed to do whatever it takes to protect Suzanne Sullivan from harm. And her brothers would kill him for so much as looking at her the wrong way. The only problem is that he's never been hired to work for anyone so beautiful, or brilliant, before. Between trying to keep up with her-and working like h.e.l.l to keep from kissing her breathless-he's up against the most difficult challenge of his life. Especially when it turns out that the pa.s.sion and connection between them is hotter than anything he's ever known...

A note from Bella.

Since I Fell For You is my fiftieth book (50!), and I was just as excited to write Suzanne and Roman's love story as I was my very first book. Even more excited, actually, because I simply cannot get enough of the Sullivan family! I want to say a big, huge THANK YOU to the millions of readers from around the world who have written me such lovely emails and sent me messages via social media to let me know that you, too, can't get enough of the Sullivans. I plan to keep telling their love stories forever!

If this is your first time reading about the Sullivans, you can easily read each book as a stand-alone-and there is a Sullivan family tree available on my website (BellaAndre.com/sullivan-family-tree) so you can see how the books connect together!

For years, I've wanted to write about a bodyguard, but it wasn't until Suzanne Sullivan came along that I knew I had the perfect heroine to match up with a super-s.e.xy, super-protective alpha hero. I had the best time watching the sparks fly between Suzanne and Roman from the first moment they set eyes on each other.

I hope you love watching them fall in love as much as I have.

Happy reading, Bella Andre.

P.S. I can't wait for you to read Alec and Harry's upcoming stories, the third and fourth New York Sullivan books. Please be sure to sign up for my newsletter (BellaAndre.com/Newsletter) so that I can let you know as soon as I have the release dates and t.i.tles for their books-and so that I can contact you as soon as the newest Sullivan book comes out.

I also wanted to let you know that two New York Sullivan spin-off books will be released soon! If you have read Now That I've Found You (New York Sullivans #1), you have met Calvin, the Mayor of Summer Lake, and Christie, who runs the Inn at Summer Lake-and you are about to see much more of them in Since I Fell For You (New York Sullivans #2).

Calvin's story will be released in Spring 2017, as he reconnects with a lost love in The Best Is Yet To Come. Christie's story will come next in Summer 2017, when she falls in love with the last man she ever thought possible in Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You.

CHAPTER ONE.

Suzanne Sullivan didn't need a bodyguard.

No one was jumping out at her from dark corners as she headed down West 22nd Street toward D'Oro, the New York City gallery hosting a show tonight for her brother Drake. She hadn't been hit with any calls from untraceable numbers or had her computer servers taken down during the past week either.

Tonight, the air was crisp, the stars were shining brightly in the sky, and she felt great. As though anything was possible-and nothing could possibly go wrong. Especially not all the horrible things her brothers were worried about.

Okay, so during the past several months she'd been bombarded with thousands of calls from untraceable numbers, and several attacks had been made on her personal and corporate computer servers. But she wasn't a top digital security software specialist for nothing. She could take care of herself and her business-no matter what her brothers seemed to think.

The fact was that when you were competing in an industry worth billions of dollars, not every compet.i.tor was totally aboveboard. Though she didn't roll that way, she understood better than nearly anyone how to defend herself from cyberattacks. When pressed by her brothers for more information a few weeks ago, she had told them the calls were likely coming from one of her many compet.i.tors. Unfortunately, since she'd been too busy working on her new software release to actually pin anything on anyone yet, her brothers now seemed convinced that she was dealing with more than just corporate high jinks.

They worried that someone was after her.

Then again, they worried every time she went out on a date too. Which was why she'd stopped telling them about her dates a long time ago.

She didn't blame them for being overprotective, not when the four of them had been looking out for one another since they were little kids. A mother who had taken her own life and a father who had subsequently checked out emotionally for the next twenty-five years had made the Sullivan siblings a unit as tight as they came. But she did wish her brothers would stop pestering her about hiring a bodyguard.

In any case, she was still on a total high from the fabulous Monday she'd had at the office. After six months of sweating over the design of her new digital security software-one so cutting-edge, yet so affordable that technology insiders around the world had said it could never be done-the new code had finally fallen into place. Tomorrow morning she would be giving her investors the good news that Sullivan Security was ready to move into its first round of beta testing for the product she had named MavG1. The five billionaires who made up the Maverick Group might be family friends, but they still demanded the best from the companies they invested in. And she wouldn't dream of giving them anything but the best.

Though she still had half a block to go, Suzanne could see throngs of people out on the sidewalk hoping to get inside the gallery. And no wonder, considering her brother Drake had created a dozen of the most stunning pieces of art Suzanne had ever seen.

He was considered one of the best painters of his generation, and his shows were always very well attended. Tonight, however, it wasn't just the quality of his paintings that had people going crazy for his work, it was also his subject. Rosalind Bouchard was not only an internationally famous reality TV star-make that ex reality TV star, now that she'd quit the show. She was also Drake's new girlfriend.

After spending time with Rosa during these past weeks, Suzanne understood precisely why her brother had fallen so hard for her, pretty much at first sight. Rosa was smart, funny, and incredibly brave. Rosa's bright light shone forth from every brushstroke on Drake's canvases. If only Suzanne could find a guy as intelligent, as loyal, and as handsome as Rosa was pretty...

Alas, the only part of Suzanne's life that wasn't coming up roses right now was her dating life. More than once she'd wished that she could tweak the guys she dated the same way she could rewrite lines of code-until all the bugs were gone. But by thirty-one, she knew better: You couldn't change people.

And you definitely couldn't make them love you unless they wanted to.

That was why her brothers were so important to her. They might think they knew how to run her life better than she did sometimes, but she never doubted for one second that Alec, Harry, and Drake loved her for who she was-a brainiac geek who got a rush from staying up all night writing computer code the way other women got a rush from buying shoes.

In any case, the endless hours she'd been spending at her computer working on the new code meant that she hadn't been out for a night on the town in a really long time. She was ready to have some fun tonight. And who knew? Maybe she'd check the final box on her perfect-day checklist by meeting Mr. Right and getting him past her brothers before they sent him running.

"Suz, you're here!" Rosa threw her arms around Suzanne mere seconds after she'd stepped inside the gallery.

Drake was right there beside her, and it wasn't until he let Suzanne out of his own hug that she was able to ask, "How's tonight going so far? Are you both doing okay?"

Suzanne knew how nervous Rosa had been about letting anyone know that Drake was painting her. Rosa had been convinced that she would taint him with the stain not only of her bad-girl reputation from the show, but also from the pictures that had been taken of her naked without her permission and leaked to the press earlier that year.

Drake pulled Rosa against him at the same moment that she tucked herself under his arm. Yet again, it struck Suzanne what a great fit they were. Having to deal with the nude-photo scandal had made Rosa draw deeply from an inner well of strength she hadn't realized had been there all along. But Drake had immediately seen how amazing she was, and he'd been steadfast in his support.

"People can't get enough of Drake and his paintings," Rosa said with pride.

Suzanne knew the last thing in the world her brother cared about was impressing a bunch of art sn.o.bs. Love was all that mattered to him now, and seeing him so happy filled her heart with joy.

"Everyone is on their best behavior," he told Suz. His expression was fiercely protective as he drew Rosa even closer. "They'd better be."

Suzanne agreed. No one had better dare say a bad word about Rosa. All of the Sullivans had her back. Especially Suzanne, who was working on software for Rosa's anti-cyberstalking foundation whenever she could find a spare moment.

Candace, Drake's sharklike agent, materialized with air kisses. "Suzanne, you're looking as gorgeous as ever. I'm sure you don't mind if I steal Drake and his muse away to meet with an investor who is considering an enormous bid on all twelve paintings."

Drake sent her a silent sorry over his shoulder as his agent steered them away. Grabbing a gla.s.s of champagne from a pa.s.sing waiter, Suzanne enjoyed the sweet bubbles dancing on her tongue as she let herself relax for the first time in what felt like forever. She had only just begun to look around the room to see if she knew anyone else when her attention was grabbed by a man walking through the door.

Wow.

Now that was a man. Dark hair and eyes. Square jaw. Tanned skin. As a relatively tall woman, she was able to gauge a man's height pretty accurately. Six foot four sounded right, and when you added in his broad shoulders in his dark, impeccably tailored suit, the whole package was seriously yummy.

Her mouth started to water as she watched him move through the crowd with the feral grace of a well-muscled lion. She ran the pad of her thumb over her lower lip to make sure she wasn't actually drooling.

"Roman, over here."

She recognized her older brother Alec's voice. He was standing with her other brother, Harrison. They knew him?

Roman. Even his name was yummy.

As the three men did a half handshake, half hug, she was tempted to dash over to introduce herself. But past experience told her it would be better to gauge the situation first from a slight distance so that she could try to figure out Roman's relationship to her brothers.

She'd never heard about him before, which to her way of thinking was a serious oversight on their part. Then again, her brothers had always been weird about her dating their friends. And by weird she meant that they'd forbidden their friends to so much as look at her as an available female from the time she'd started high school.

Unfortunately, nothing had changed in the past fifteen years. Alec, Harry, and Drake were more adamant than ever that no one was good enough for her, especially not the guys they hung with. For the most part, she couldn't argue. Not when Alec had a reputation as one of the biggest bad boys in the city-so if he called someone else a player, it meant the guy was pretty darned awful.

Suzanne wasn't at all averse to pleasure. But at thirty-one, she wasn't particularly interested in one-night stands anymore either. She wanted what Drake and Rosa had found-a love that was deep, true, and strong.

Despite Roman's good looks and the confident way he held himself, he didn't strike Suzanne as a player. He seemed too watchful, too alert to everyone and everything around him, to be a guy out on the prowl.

She knew that feeling, having spent a great deal of her life on the outside of the crowd, watching. Kindergarten had been the first time she'd realized she wasn't like the other girls. She'd been more interested in building and creating things than giggling on the playground or playing dress-up with dolls. Her outsider status had only intensified as she'd grown older. Where dreaming of boys had consumed the other girls, she'd fallen head over heels for electronics and coding. Her best friends had been the other kids in the computer club, and her first kiss had been with a fellow geek when she was a soph.o.m.ore in high school-more of an experiment on both their parts than actual romantic interest. During college, she'd finally learned how to pretend to be "normal" with some major coaching from her female cousins, but it was always a huge relief to head back to her computers. She wasn't a virgin by any means, but she'd never had a serious relationship either. She supposed the phrase married to her job wasn't too far off the mark.

Just then, Roman's eyes met hers...and every thought in her usually jam-packed brain dropped away. As lucidity slowly came back, she realized she'd never seen eyes so intense.

The best kind of intense, she thought as attraction continued to spark, even from across the room. He was looking a little too long, and a little too hard, but it wasn't disconcerting.

It was hot.

Hotter than anything she'd felt in a very long time.

Suzanne had never learned how to play coy. So she didn't even bother to keep the smile from her lips. It wasn't a come-hither smile. She hadn't ever really learned how to flirt either, regardless of how hard her cousins Mia and Lori had tried to show her the ropes. But instead of smiling back, Roman's gaze grew even more intense. Even more heated.

Suddenly, she wished she'd had time to change out of the black jeans, T-shirt, and boots that were her standard workday clothes. Especially given that all the other women in the gallery were wearing bright dresses with short hems that sparkled and shone.

As she instinctively took a couple of steps forward, she realized he was moving toward her too. Everyone else in the crowded room fell away, until it was only the two of them. And then, there he was, so close that all she had to do was reach out.

She could touch him if she dared.

"Suz."

Alec's voice jolted her. She hadn't realized that her brothers had crossed the room with Roman, hadn't been aware of anything but him.

"We want you to meet our friend Roman. Roman, this is our sister, Suzanne."

"h.e.l.lo, Suzanne."

G.o.d. His voice was as s.e.xy as the rest of him. Especially when he rumbled her name in that deep tone. She wasn't the most visual person in the world, unless she was reviewing lines of code. But she couldn't stop the images that started dancing through her mind, visions of his mouth and hands on her bare skin, and hers all over his...

She swallowed hard at the vivid mental pictures. It didn't matter that she was in her thirties. Her brothers would lock her up in a tower and throw away the key if they knew what she was thinking right now.

Still not sure she had herself-or, more specifically, her hormones-totally under control, she paused for a moment to pull herself together. When her pulse had lowered to a slow gallop, she put out her hand. "It's nice to meet you."

Roman gripped her hand for only a handful of seconds. But his electric touch on top of his s.e.xy voice and intense gaze was more sensuality than she was prepared to withstand. Especially with her brothers watching her every move.

"How do you know each other?" Her voice sounded chirpy. Too high-pitched. Fortunately, neither Alec nor Harry seemed to notice.

"Roman has done some work for me," Alec said.

"He's not bad at jousting either," Harry put in. It was nearly the highest praise her brother could give someone, given that he was a world-renowned expert on medieval history, with a museum-worthy collection of armor.

At long last, here was a guy her brothers obviously approved of. Could they have brought him over to her tonight in the hopes that she and Roman would have a connection?

"I am friends with your brothers," Roman said, his deep voice resonating through every cell of her body. "But that isn't why I'm here tonight."

She nearly swooned. The computer geek who had never even come close to falling into a man's arms was right on the verge of toppling straight toward his big, broad chest. And maybe, if her brothers were finally ready to see her happy with a great guy they were friends with, it would be okay if she did.

"Why are you here, then?" she asked, barely able to keep the breathlessness from her voice.

His dark eyes held hers. "I'm your new bodyguard."

CHAPTER TWO.

"My new bodyguard?" Suzanne gaped at Roman. "That's impossible."

He wasn't surprised by her reaction. Her wide eyes and shocked gasp made perfect sense given that her brothers had hired him to protect her without informing her of their decision...until now.

The only thing Roman was surprised by tonight was his reaction to her.

The second he'd walked into the gallery, he'd noticed her. Not just because she was a stunningly beautiful woman whom any man would take a second hungry look at in the black jeans and T-shirt that clung to her curves in the s.e.xiest way possible. But simply because every cell in his body had gone on alert just from being in the same room with her.

Careful not to give his reaction away, he hadn't let himself stare. His clients had often commented that he must have eyes on all sides of his head, because he never missed a thing. Nights like this, he was especially glad for that skill. It meant he could watch her without anyone knowing it.

Her brothers had told him that Suzanne was a brilliant software developer who was running into trouble lately and was too trusting for her own good. The research he'd done online had filled in the blanks on just how successful she was. But it was what everyone had left out that knocked Roman sideways.

He'd been with plenty of attractive women, enough that he should have been able to keep himself together tonight. Only, he couldn't remember the last time a woman had seemed so sweet and so sensual at the same time.

Not to mention as far off-limits as any woman had ever been.

First off, she was his new client, and the boundaries between bodyguard and client were sacrosanct. Second-and equally important-her brothers would kill him for so much as looking at her wrong. And he couldn't blame them.

The last thing he would want was for a little sister, if he'd had one, to end up with a guy like him.

Throughout the handful of minutes that he'd been talking with Alec and Harry in the gallery, Roman had been silently reminding himself that he was a consummate professional who was trained to shut off his emotions and do his job. Especially when it came to women. He'd never been the slightest bit tempted by one of his female clients, even the ones who had paraded naked in front of him to try to get him to bend his solid-steel rule about maintaining a professional relationship.