The Apex Operator's Secret Vow

Dane Kensington refused the marriage his family had arranged and they cut him off entirely. Once an Apex operator with the code name Nightingale, he was broke by the time his girlfriend, who had stayed for the money, left too. His new orders are to guard Valerie Montgomery, chief executive of the Montgomery Group, without telling her who he is. Valerie holds the research behind Stardust, a global security project, and a syndicate wants that data enough to kill for it. Dane takes the job and recognises her: she is the woman he met at a bar the night before, though she does not know he is the man assigned to her. He works as a bodyguard, plain staff, while assassination attempts come from outside and Montgomery's vice president feeds information out from inside. Valerie is sharp and does not believe his story about himself. When the truth about his family and his real assignment gets out, everything he built with her is reread in the worst possible light, and the syndicate is still moving.