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
Warning: Language
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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At First Sight
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.”
At the Crossroads
Global Security Unlimited Book 2
Warning: Language
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.
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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At the Crossroads
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.”
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.
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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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.”
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.”
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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