The Socialite and the SEAL Read online

  The Socialite and the SEAL

  Alpha Squad #1

  Jenna Bennett

  Contents

  Introduction

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Epilogue

  Afterword

  About the Author

  Opposites attract...

  * * *

  A year ago, Navy SEAL John Walton saved heiress Tansy Leighton from a hijacked yacht in the Mediterranean, and from the terrorist sympathizers demanding millions for her safe return.

  * * *

  As the anniversary of the hijacking approaches, Tansy’s father, financier Walter Leighton, receives a note threatening his daughter’s life. And in spite of the best private security Daddy’s money can buy, the only man Tansy trusts to guard her back, is John Walton.

  * * *

  But as bullets start to fly around the Leightons’ Main Line estate, can the coalminer’s son and the billionaire’s daughter survive long enough to give their relationship a shot? Or will their differences doom their budding romance before it has a chance to get off the ground?

  Prologue

  There was no moon, just stars speckling the sky. The hull of the Saudi Arabian yacht was a pale smear up ahead. The hijackers had dropped anchor a mile offshore, surrounded by water, probably thinking it would keep them safe. That they’d be able to see anyone coming.

  Idiots.

  The little rubber raft with the three Navy SEALs moved silently across the black water. When Max lifted his hand, JB and Rusty pulled the paddles inside the small dinghy and prepared to make it the rest of the way by hand.

  Quieter that way.

  They could have taken the guard out from right where they were.

  Hell, they could have taken him out almost anytime since they hit the water. He was standing on the deck of the yacht smoking a cigarette, the red glow of the ashes like the dot in the middle of the crosshairs of a sniper rifle. JB had closed one eye and pretended to aim and squeeze the trigger. The bastard would be over the railing and in the water in less than a second.

  But while they could make the shot practically soundless, there was no way to stop the sound of the splash.

  So the directive was to take him out silently once they were onboard.

  That was Max’s job. JB’s was to get downstairs and find the girl, while Rusty was responsible for her boyfriend, the rich asshole who’d thought it was a good idea to bring the family yacht and his young, blond, American girlfriend on a cruise of the Mediterranean in the middle of terrorist season.

  JB hadn’t been surprised when he heard about the hijacking. What had surprised him, was the information that the rich asshole had negotiated the release of the yacht’s crew. The hijackers had put them in a lifeboat instead of just killing them, and they had made it to shore near Tripoli, and from there, had notified the authorities of the hijackers’ demands.

  Ten million US wired to a bank account in Dubai.

  That was when Alpha Squad of SEAL Team Sixteen had deployed from Little Creek, Virginia.

  The crew had said there were three hijackers onboard, plus Kareem Khan el Balushi—the rich asshole—and Tansy Leighton, the young, blond, gorgeous, American heiress. The jury was out on whether Kareem or Tansy was worth more money. Kareem’s daddy was a Saudi oil sheik, while Tansy’s great-great-however many greats-grandfather had owned a sizeable chunk of the North American railroad. And while railroad baron Leighton had been dead for a hundred years, the current Leighton—Tansy’s father—was worth a pretty penny in his own right. And was ready and willing to pay whatever it took, to get his daughter back in one piece.

  He could afford it, so as Max said, maybe they should just let him.

  But there were no guarantees that Tansy would make it out in one piece even if Walter Leighton paid the hijackers, and the money would disappear directly into the coffers of Al-Qaeda or ISIS or whoever the big dogs were, at the back of this little caper. And the United States Navy was loath to see that happen.

  So the plan was for JB, Max, and Rusty to get onboard the yacht. Max would take out the guard upstairs. JB and Rusty would go below, and take out the guards there. The hope was that Tansy and Kareem were still alive and could be rescued, but either way, Walter Leighton’s all-American money wouldn’t be going to finance terrorist organizations in the Middle East.

  They drifted close to the yacht, and tied the rubber dinghy in place. It’d really suck to get back out here and find it had drifted off and they had to swim the mile back to shore, carrying the hostages on their backs. Not that they hadn’t done worse, but that didn’t mean either of them particularly wanted to do it again. JB checked the knot twice before deciding it was good.

  Someone had very considerately left the ladder hanging over the side, so getting onboard was easy. In fact, it was so easy that JB halfway suspected a trap. But no, Max surged silently to the top, and nothing happened. He melted into the shadows, and JB started climbing.

  Rusty followed, and then they were all standing on the deck. The guard was oblivious. They could still see the glow of his cigarette in the bow of the yacht.

  Max gave the hand signal to go. JB and Rusty slipped away into the darkness, leaving Max on deck to deal with the guard. JB didn’t envy the bastard.

  The guard, that was. Mad Max would probably enjoy it.

  The door opened silently, and they crept down the short stairs to the cabin level. If it’d been one of them in charge of this op—on the hijackers’ end—there’d have been a guard stationed there too. But the area at the foot of the stairs was empty. Until they got out here, he’d wondered whether they were dealing with amateurs or pros. Between the smoking guard on deck and the lack of any kind of security down here, he wasn’t wondering anymore.

  Not that an amateur with a gun couldn’t be a worse danger than someone who knew what he was doing. But the status of this op just downgraded from slightly dangerous to pretty much a walk in the park.

  The SEALs stepped down into the dining area, with a bar along one wall and a couple of tables and chairs, as well as sofas and TVs along the perimeter. All empty. At the far end of the room was a short hallway where the hostages were supposed to be—or at least where they’d been when the staff was set adrift. Kareem and Tansy had been quartered in the owner’s cabin, with three empty staterooms across the hall.

  The two SEALs moved soundlessly across the floor and paused at the entrance to the hallway.

  Three doors on starboard side, owner’s cabin on port side.

  The light was on in the owner’s cabin, visible at the bottom of the door. From behind it, they could hear the sound of voices and laughter, and the clinking of glasses.

  Rusty arched a brow.

  JB nodded.

  They had two options. Open the door and take out the hijackers, who were clearly together and awake, probably playing cards to pass the time.

  Or quietly try to find the hostages and get them on their way with no one being the wiser. If they were quiet enough, the hijackers may not even realize the SEALs had been here and gone again.

  Not until they realized their leverage was gone, anyway. Along with any chance of getting their ten mil.

  JB signaled Rusty to stay where he was, beside the door to the owner’s cabin, while he moved to twist the knob on the nearest stateroom door.

  It opened, silently.
r />   He slipped inside. It took less than ten seconds to ascertain that the room was empty. Since he’d already assumed that, from the unlocked door, it didn’t come as a surprise.

  Outside in the hallway, Rusty still stood beside the closed door, testing the tip of his diving knife against his thumb. The hijackers were still laughing and celebrating behind the closed door.

  JB moved to the next door. It opened, and the stateroom beyond turned out to be empty. Again, as expected.

  He hesitated in front of the third door. Tansy or Kareem? Or both?

  Alive or dead?

  Only one way to find out. He tried the knob. It turned, but the door didn’t budge.

  The key was in the lock, though, so that particular problem was easy to fix.

  He unlocked the door, and pushed it open. And slipped through into the darkness of the room.

  And had a tenth of a second to throw himself to the side as a heavy object whistled past his ear.

  It hit his shoulder with enough force to fell a moose. JB closed his teeth on a curse even as he swung around and slammed the offender up against the wall, his numb left hand reaching for the blunt object that had come close to braining him, the other forearm pressed against her throat.

  Her throat.

  The realizations that she was female, that she seemed to be naked, and that she was worth millions, hit him simultaneously. And it all had to wait, because between the sound of her back hitting the wall and the heavy object in her hand hitting the floor, this op had just upgraded from a walk in the park to slightly more dangerous.

  The laughter and talk from across the hall ceased.

  “Don’t. Move.”

  He hissed the words into her face through gritted teeth, and emphasized the command with an extra push of his forearm into her throat. She nodded, her eyes wide. Her heart was beating so hard he could feel her pulse trip against his arm. He’d probably scared her to death.

  Good. Maybe next time someone came to save her, she wouldn’t try to brain them with... whatever the thing was, down there on the floor.

  “Any time now,” Rusty said from out in the hallway. JB could hear the edge in his voice. He could also hear movement from inside the salon. Chairs moving and steps coming toward the hallway.

  “Coming.” He left Ms. Leighton holding up the wall in her stateroom. “Stay.”

  He thought she may have muttered something, but she might just have been thinking loudly. And he had more important things to worry about than find out.

  It was over almost before it started. Rusty took out hijacker 1 as he came through the door. JB took out number 2 a second later, when the guy didn’t have the sense to fall back when his buddy bought it. Then they both turned into the owner’s cabin, guns blazing, and took out hijacker 3 before he could get up from the card table.

  Except—oops—JB saw it just as the bullet left the gun, but too late to call it back... that wasn’t a third hijacker sitting there. That was Kareem Khan el Balushi, with a highball glass in front of him, half full of some amber liquid.

  “Shit!”

  The cards flew, and so did Kareem, backwards off the chair onto the floor. He lay there, eyes staring straight up at the ceiling, as blood soaked the carpet below his body.

  For a second neither of them spoke. Then—

  “Guess the intel was wrong,” Rusty said. “Not three hijackers, but four.”

  “Can you hijack your own boat?”

  Rusty shrugged. “You want me to do something about that?” He glanced at JB’s shoulder, which was screaming like a soul in torment.

  JB pushed it aside and locked it down, they way they’d all learned to do when it counted. “When we get back to shore. Let’s get off the boat first.”

  Rusty nodded. “I’ll let Max know we’re all clear. You grab the girl.”

  He headed out. JB holstered his pistol and went back to the stateroom where Ms. Leighton was.

  She was still standing where he’d put her, her back against the wall. And now that he could see her more clearly in the light from the owner’s cabin, he could see that she wasn’t naked after all. She was wearing a bikini. A couple of strings and tiny triangles of fabric.

  Too bad.

  When he appeared in the doorway, she cut her eyes to him—and only her eyes—but she didn’t speak.

  “Sorry, ma’am. I’m Petty Officer First Class John Walton, US Navy SEALs, Team Sixteen, Alpha Squad. We’ve come to take you home.”

  She shuddered. He tried—hard—not to notice what the move did to her almost naked body, but it wasn’t easy.

  “Do you... um... have something you can put on? It’s the middle of the night. It’s too cold for what you’re wearing.” Not to mention what the authoritarian Muslim country where they’d put her down would do to a woman dressed so immodestly.

  She arched a brow. “Do you think, Petty Officer Walton, that I’d be sitting around here like this if there was something I could put on?”

  He had no answer for that, and she added, “My luggage is over there.” In the owner’s quarters on the other side of the hall, indicated by a slender finger with a pink-painted nail.

  “Let’s go.” His first thought had been to spare her, but she might as well see what her so-called boyfriend had been doing while she’d been locked in here. “Don’t step on the bodies.”

  She gave him a look, but didn’t comment. And when they got into the hallway and she actually saw the bodies, her bare feet faltered for a second, before she squared her shoulders and went on, moving carefully around the dead and the blood.

  She didn’t notice Kareem until she was halfway across the salon, and then she did stop, with a distressed sound. He watched, still from behind, as she took in the scene. The table, the three glasses, the two hands of cards carefully laid down, and the third scattered across the floor as they’d fallen from Kareem’s hand. An eight of spades was caught in the blood on his chest.

  When she turned back to look at him, JB saw the realization in her face. There was nothing to say, though, so he didn’t try. After a second, she moved past the carnage and into the bedroom.

  He didn’t follow. There was nowhere else for her to go, and anyway, she probably needed a minute to get herself together.

  It took less than that. When she came out, she was wearing a pair of white, cropped pants, a pink silk blouse, and was carrying a pair of sandals and a big bag. “Sorry,” she told him. “I don’t have any shoes without heels.”

  He nodded.

  “And my passport is here.” She lifted the bag. “My wallet. My phone. You know what a pain it is to report all your credit cards lost.”

  She was clearly trying to keep her chin up, so he played along. “It’s no problem.” Without Kareem, the rubber raft would be one person short anyway. Plenty of room for some luggage. “Grab whatever you need. Somebody’ll pack up what’s left and bring it to the hospital.”

  She stopped. “Hospital?”

  “You’ll have to get checked out. And people will want to talk to you.”

  She started walking again, carefully not looking at her former boyfriend, dead on the floor. “I’m fine. And I don’t really want to talk to anyone.”

  JB could relate. The Navy had a counselor on staff that the men could talk to after missions, but most of them only went when they were forced to.

  He followed her out the door and down the hallway. “It’s not for head shrinking. They just want to know about anything the hijackers said. Who they were affiliated with, that kind of thing.”

  She gave him a look over her shoulder as he trailed her across the salon to the stairs. “They didn’t talk to me. Just locked me in the stateroom and left me there.”

  After a second she added, “I guess it could have been worse.”

  A whole lot worse. JB didn’t say so, but he figured she already knew.

  Max and Rusty were waiting in the boat. He pointed them out to Ms. Leighton. “Think you can make it down the ladder?”


  “What’ll you do if I can’t? Carry me?”

  She didn’t look like she weighed a lot. Although with the way his shoulder throbbed, he’d just as soon not have to. “I’ll take the bag and shoes. You see what you can do on your own.”

  She handed over the pink bag and sandals, and made it down the ladder without help. JB slid down after her, and they were away. Without discussing it, Max and Rusty took the paddles and began moving the dinghy toward shore. JB sat in the back with Tansy. He figured she had questions, and leaving her to sit on her own probably wasn’t a good idea. Not that she wasn’t remarkably composed about this whole thing.

  At first she didn’t say much. Just breathed. It probably felt good to be outside, in the fresh air. They hadn’t kept her locked in the stateroom very long—a couple of days—but even just a few days locked up could be hard on someone who wasn’t used to it.

  “I grew up in a coal mining town,” he told her. “My dad was a miner. So was my grandfather. They spent their lives underground, pretty much. Hardly ever saw the sun.”

  She gave him a look. “Is that why you became a soldier?”

  “Sailor.” And yeah, that was why he’d joined up. One of the reasons. Anything was better than life in another West Virginia coal mine. “When I first enlisted, I did two tours on a sub.”

  “A submarine?”

  He nodded. “Talk about claustrophobic. When I came off the second six months, I swore I was never going back. That’s when I applied for the SEALs.”

  “And now you get to rescue damsels in distress.” She managed a smile.

  “I mostly get to crawl through the dirt shooting at bad guys, but yeah. Sometimes there’s a silver lining.”