Breaking Point (43 page)

“Are you kidding? You were amazing with Ajay.”

Ajay had died. And Max still hadn’t gotten over it.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Gina said, pulling him close. “Another person to love, another person to lose, right? Remember what I was just saying, about the lack of control thing? Here’s the deal: As parents, you do everything you can possibly do to keep your children safe, with the knowledge that there are things we can’t control. If something happens to our kid, Max, it won’t be because we failed to protect her. It’ll be because, well, life happens.”

Life happens.

“Are you completely freaked out?” she asked him.

“No,” Max said, but quickly recanted. “Yes, but it’s a good kind of freaked out.”

Gina laughed. “Good answer,” she said, and kissed him.

Life happens.

Chaos swirled around him—it always would. But Max held on tightly to this incredible woman who had brought light and laughter into his life.

“You want to go break the news to my mother that December 2007 isn’t going to do it for us in terms of a wedding date? I mean, unless we want to work the baby in as flower girl . . .”

Life had indeed happened to Max, and her name was Gina.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Since her explosion onto the publishing scene more than ten years ago, S
UZANNE
B
ROCKMANN
has written more than forty books, and is now widely recognized as one of the leading voices in romantic suspense. Her work has earned her repeated appearances on the
USA Today
and
New York Times
bestseller lists, as well as numerous awards, including Romance Writers of America’s #1 Favorite Book of the Year—three years running in 2000, 2001, and 2002—two RITA awards, and many
Romantic Times
Reviewer’s Choice Awards. Suzanne lives west of Boston with her husband and two children. Visit her website at
www.suzannebrockmann.com
.

OTHER TITLES BY SUZANNE BROCKMANN

Heartthrob

Bodyguard

The Unsung Hero

The Defiant Hero

Over the Edge

Out of Control

Into the Night

Gone Too Far

Flashpoint

Hot Target

Breaking Point
is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2005 by Suzanne Brockmann

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

B
ALLANTINE
and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Brockmann, Suzanne.

Breaking point: a novel / Suzanne Brockmann.

p. cm.

1. Government investigators—Fiction. 2. Hostage negotiations—Fiction.
3. Americans—Germany—Fiction. 4. Abduction—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3552.R61455B74 2005b

813′.54—dc22 2005047149

eISBN: 978-0-345-48474-1

v3.0