I didn’t do it. <br> <br>I never betrayed my friend. <br> <br>Last year, I was kidnapped along with presidential candidate’s daughter Lindsay Bosworth, forced to help her assailants, my mother implicated in one of the biggest political scandals in American history. <br> <br>I've been cleared of any wrongdoing, but that doesn’t matter. Once you’re tried by the media, you’re guilty as sin. The truth doesn’t get the public’s attention. <br> <br>But shame? Shame sells. <br> <br>And everyone assumes you’re tainted. <br> <br>Now I have my own personal security team, courtesy of the United States government. Not the one you learned about in civics class, though. <br> <br>I’m being tracked by the deep state. The shadow government. They’ve assigned Silas Gentian to be with me twenty-four seven. He thinks he knows everything about me – all of it bad -- and he does. <br> <br>On paper. <br> <br>Like everyone else, he assumes I’m a traitor. A backstabber. A betrayer. Someone who helped a group of violent psychopaths, puppets of powerful men in Washington who made me into a tool. <br> <br>Yet I see how he looks at me. True desire can’t be faked. <br> <br>Or hidden. <br> <br>And that goes both ways. <br> <br>He assumes I’m trying to fool him. <br> <br>And he might be right. <br> <br>But not for the reasons he thinks. <br> <br>A Shameless Little Con is the first book in the Shameless trilogy by USA Today bestselling author Meli Raine. <br> <br>Read the whole series: <br> <br>Book 1: A Shameless Little CON <br>Book 2: A Shameless Little LIE <br>Book 3: A Shameless Little BET