Close to Perfect (29 page)

Josh stared at her, then quickly looked out the front window as the boat approached the dock. “A new job as what?”

Was he serious? “A bodyguard. What else?”

“Uh-uh. No way,” he said, looking at her. “I don't want you doing that anymore, Tess. It's too damned dangerous. You're too damned reckless.”

“Are you kidding?” Her voice was incredulous. “You think you can tell me where I can work and what I can do?”

“Of course not.” He seemed to finally realize what he had said and continued to backpedal. “That's not what I meant. I would never tell you what to do. I'm simply asking you not to be a bodyguard anymore. Please.”

Tess's eyes filled with tears. Please? Why did he have to say that? Why did he have to look so damned hurt and worried? Why couldn't he have at least said that he loved her? “I like being a bodyguard, Josh. My father needs me to be—”

“No, he doesn't. He doesn't like this any more than me. He wanted you to be a dancer.”

“And I wanted you to respect my work. Looks like nobody's going to get what they want.”

“Aw, Tess.” He turned back to the instruments and finished docking the boat as he talked. “I do respect your work. I'm amazed by what you can do and what you have done as a cop. All I'm saying is, you don't have to risk your safety anymore, not if you're with me.”

“In your bedroom.”

He looked at her. “I didn't say that.”

“You didn't have to. I can connect the dots, Josh. And even if I were to agree to such a thing, what makes you think I could continue to live with you while I'm taking new jobs? Maybe I'd have to live with my new clients, like that football guy or another guy who—”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. You'd actually take a job like that?”

“I took yours.”

He finally frowned and sounded pissed. “You weren't involved with anyone when you took on this job. I know. I asked.”

“Sleeping together one night is not being involved.”

He couldn't have looked more stunned.

“Good-bye, Josh.”

Good-bye?
What the hell had just happened here? “What are you doing—Tess, don't touch—”

She already had, activating the gangway so she could leave.

“Wait!” he shouted.

Tess was already out the door, her shoes in one hand, her purse and his car keys in the other.

“Hell.” Josh so quickly moved out of his chair, he rammed his knee into the panel. When he got to the door, he pulled it into his foot. By the time he limped to the deck, she was already leaving the gangway. “Tess!”

She hurried down the dock.

He shouted, “Dammit, Tess, I love you!”

That stopped her.

Thank God.
At last, he'd said something right
.
“Tess, please!” Josh shouted as he limped down the gangway and onto the dock where he finally stopped. “I love you!”

She turned and looked at him. Her mouth was trembling as if she was about to cry.

Josh hadn't a clue what was going on here. Was she about to cry because she was happy he loved her or because she didn't feel the same way about him? Didn't matter. He couldn't let her go. “Tess, please, come on back,” he said, gesturing with his arm. “We can talk. We'll go to my place.”

Her expression changed. Just like that the tears were quickly replaced by anger. “Your place?”

What the fuck had he said this time? “Yeah.”

“Why not your yacht or your island or your car or your—”

“Tess, I love you!” he repeated. “Don't you want that?”

“You love me?”

“Yes!”

There was sudden applause from the side.

Josh followed that noise to two young guys who were seated on the dock with their feet dangling over the edge and a six-pack between them.

“Get lost,” Tess ordered, “this is a private conversation.”

“Dock's public,” the heavier guy said, then guzzled his beer.

“You heard her,” Josh growled. “Get lost. If you don't,” he said, interrupting the thinner guy, “she'll arrest you. She's a cop.”

“Ex-cop,” Tess corrected, frowning at Josh. “I'm a bodyguard now.”

The heavy guy belched. “You're a bodyguard? Damn.”

“God bless America,” the other guy said, and saluted her with his beer.

Tess turned and continued down the dock.

Josh limped after her. “Tess, don't go, please! I love you!”

“You say that now!” she shouted as she turned to face him. “You say that in the heat of this moment, but only to keep me from leaving!”

Huh? He stopped. “What are you talking about?”

“What love means to you, Josh. You really should think about that. Love isn't telling someone what to do or putting them into one part of your life as if they're something you purchased like your boat or your island or your car or your estate. Something that can be tossed aside when you get bored with it.”

“Now you're doubting my sincerity?”

“I wonder about your level of commitment when you're used to getting your way.”

Used to getting his way? Was she kidding? “You think because of what I have I always get my way?”

“I think you've become used to the concept. Money gives you a right to expect a lot.”

“Apparently not from you.”

She cried, “I don't care about your money, Josh! I've never cared about it! I will never care about it! It can't give me what I need from a man! The kind of love I want and deserve!”

“Haven't I been telling you—no, don't go!” he shouted as she ran to his car. “Tess! Wait!”

She did not. She got inside his car and drove away, leaving him at the dock.

F
orty minutes later Josh was in the passenger seat of Alan's car with his cell to his ear listening to the phone in his Mercedes just ring and ring.

Any other woman would have answered by now to hear what he had to say and to possibly apologize for ditching him; or to at least hang up. Not Tess. Josh had been calling since she left and not once had she picked up.

She was either the most stubborn woman he'd ever known or she thought all the calls were from someone trying to reach him on business.

Sure. Still, that gave him some hope. Josh tried his house again. “Come on,” he complained after the twentieth ring. “You're probably there by now. You drive like a maniac. You have to at least suspect that all calls aren't business-related. Pick up.” She did not. Josh called her cell again, but it was still turned off.

“Who're you trying to reach?” Alan finally asked.

“Can't you drive any faster?” Josh asked.

“Not on a two-lane road with cars in front of me.”

“Just pass them.”

“There's oncoming traffic, Josh.”

That was the least of his worries. His cell just went dead. Shit. “Give me your cell,” he said to Alan.

“I didn't bring it.”

“Why not?”

“Well, excuse me,” the attorney finally said, “but I wasn't expecting you to wake me from a sound sleep to pick you up at a marina when you should be at home, and you apparently got to this marina without a car, and apparently no cabs were available to pick you up, and apparently even Tess wasn't available to pick you—”

“She's got my car.”

“So why didn't you call her to pick you—”

“Because she left me at the marina when she took my car, isn't that obvious?”

Alan flicked his gaze at Josh's wrinkled shirt and trousers. “What's wrong with your foot?”

He stopped rubbing his bruised toe. “Nothing.”

Alan's brows lifted as his gaze noted that Josh was wearing only one shoe.

“You can pass now.” Josh pointed.

Alan looked, but didn't pass. “You know, you could just call the security company to have them check to see if Tess got to your place yet.”

“I'm not calling her father, Alan.”

“Does he answer his own phones at this hour?”

“As soon as his help hears Tess's name, you can bet they'll call him. And I don't want him sending Bonnie and Clyde out to my place to shoot me.”

“What did you do?”

“What did
I
do? I told her I love her, that's what I did.”

“No kidding? And she left you stranded at the marina? I thought she liked you.”

She had while she was cuffing him to the yacht and when he had mounted her repeatedly on the beach. “Everything was going great until I said that we should live together.”

“You're already living to—”

“You know what I mean.” Josh sighed. “After that, I don't know what the hell happened. I finally told her I love her, but did she listen?”

Alan didn't comment. When Josh looked, the attorney's brows were arched. “What?”

“You told her you loved her after you asked her to live with you?”

“It's not like I planned it that way. She was tired and I told her I'd put her to bed when we got back to the estate, and it seemed like the perfect time to mention moving her stuff into my room.”

Those brows didn't lower.

“What?” Josh asked.

Alan finally passed a slow-moving vehicle. “You didn't even ask her to move into your room, you just assumed she—”

“I thought she wanted that, Alan. It didn't occur to me to formally propose the matter to her.”

“Uh-huh.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

The attorney looked uncomfortable. “I don't know too many women who'd be thrilled about shacking up with a guy who's got a whole slew of other women after him without any hint of what might happen in their own future.”

“I should have spelled out our future? Alan, she wouldn't let me get past the part about moving her stuff to my room. After that she told me she's through as my bodyguard, because she's already got another job. I asked her not to do that. I tried my level best to explain that it's too dangerous of an occupation, and that if she and I were together, as a couple, she wouldn't need to do it anymore.”

Those brows were shooting up again.

“Alan, her dad doesn't want her to be a bodyguard, either. I'm not the only one.”

“She's a grown woman, Josh. She can do whatever she wants.”

“Okay, let me ask you something. If you were in my shoes and Tess insisted on being a bodyguard and putting herself at risk, what would you do?”

Alan didn't even hesitate. “Become a bodyguard so I could go on jobs with her to protect her, and so she couldn't hurt me when she got pissed about that.”

“See!” Josh said, pointing his finger at the man. “She'd drive you crazy with worry, too!”

“Isn't that a big part of love?”

“Have you ever loved a woman who carried concealed weapons in the back of her boxers and handcuffs in her garter?”

Alan looked from the traffic to Josh. “She carries handcuffs in a garter?” He grinned. “That sounds so cool.”

He had no idea. “She could get hurt; that's all I was trying to tell her. But did she thank me for my concern? Did she even try to see my point of view? Oh, no. She as much as accused me of trying to run her life and everyone else's because I have a little dough.”

“A little?”

“The point is she kept shouting at me that she didn't want my money, she would never want my money, and that the only reason I get my way all the time, which is a huge joke by the way, is because of what I have. Like money has changed me or something.”

“Well, of course it has.”

Josh looked at him. “What?”

He passed another slow-moving vehicle. “Nothing.”

“Alan.”

“I don't want to be critical.”

“You should have thought of that before you told me I did everything wrong tonight.”

“Not everything. Okay, okay,” he said when Josh swore. “You didn't call a cab tonight, did you? You just expected that when you called me I'd pick you up.”

“You could have said no.”

“I did. Three times. But you kept interrupting saying that you needed to get back, and that your toe hurt, and that you had taken dancing lessons and still it all went to hell.” He shrugged. “At that point I finally gave in. I figured this trip was worth it to hear about those lessons.”

Josh muttered, “I was upset. I don't usually act like that.”

“Well, not at this hour.”

“Meaning?”

Alan sighed. “I'm more than willing to do whatever it takes to protect you and your business from any legal action even after business hours. But you demand a lot, Josh, and you keep forgetting that I do have a life of my own. Not as good as yours, I'll admit, but it is a life.”

Josh frowned, ready to argue that he was a reasonable person and that money hadn't changed him, but did not. For the first time since Alan had picked him up, Josh noticed that the man was freshly shaved and wearing an immaculate Polo shirt and chinos.

He could only wonder what Alan wore to bed, or if he had left a woman in his bed to make this trip tonight, or if he was even dating anyone.

They had worked together for years; Josh even considered Alan a friend and yet he had never thought to ask about things that were important to him. Maybe Tess had been right.

“Did I thank you for picking me up?”

Alan waved his hand as if it was no big deal.

“Do you have a girlfriend?” Josh asked.

Alan looked at him, then back at the traffic. “What?”

“Never mind.” Josh pulled out his cell and tried calling Tess again, until he remembered his cell was dead.

“Want me to stop at a pay phone?” Alan asked.

“No, just keep driving. Maybe she's still at the house.”

“If she hasn't burned it down.”

“She wasn't that pissed.”

“What did she say before she left?”

“That I better think about what love means to me.”

“That's not so bad.”

Tell that to his pounding heart. A short time later, when Alan finally dropped Josh off, his car was in the drive and Tess's stuff was completely gone.

It was as if their time together had never happened. Not even her powdery fragrance remained.

She had taken it all; she had walked out of his life without as much as a backward glance.

If she had been any other woman Josh would have just said to hell with it.

But she was his woman, whether she realized that or not, and by God she wasn't going to get away with this.

 

 

“Hon, do you think it's safe to leave?”

Tess couldn't have cared less if it was, but forced herself to sound interested. “Everything looks fine so far.” She continued scanning the thin crowd in the bookstore. Her newest client was a fifty-something romance author who wanted protection, during her book signings, from a conservative group that didn't like all those steamy sex scenes in her stories.

When Tess had read those scenes and the romantic interludes that followed, she couldn't stop crying. Of course, that was nearly two weeks ago. She was okay now, just as long as she concentrated on her work, which included listening to all those snotty messages that had been left by that group on the author's answering machine and reading the equally snotty e-mails.

As supposedly bad as that was, it was the rotten reviews posted on all the Internet sites that was the straw that broke the author's back.

“They're after me,” the woman had said. “Who knows what they'll try next?”

Tess figured nothing would be tried, but having a bodyguard accompanying her made the author look important and was getting press. Not in
Keys Confidential,
of course, since that was reserved for bad boys like Josh.

Tess had thought of him far too much these past days, and kept second-guessing what she had said that last night.

Maybe Josh wasn't being a rich, bossy jerk for expecting her to move in with him. Maybe he was just being a man. The other guys Tess knew weren't exactly known for their sensitivity.

Of course, she hadn't loved them. They couldn't hurt her.

Josh could and had.

From the moment they had met, the man made her behave in ways Tess never dreamed possible. She had kissed him when he was still a stranger, she had moved in with him when he was supposed to be nothing more than her employer, she had taken over a press conference to tell the world she was his girlfriend, she had worn handcuffs in a garter, and she missed all of that so much she wanted to die.

“Hon?”

Tess brushed tears from her eyes and looked at her client. The woman seemed worried, though it was hard to tell since all that Botox in her face wasn't allowing her to frown. “Yeah?”

“Did you see something that concerned you?”

Only her future without Josh. “No.” Tess scanned the bookstore one last time. Everyone had behaved themselves during the signing, except for a few teenage boys who kept giggling as they read those steamy sex scenes. “Everything's all right.”

“Then you're ready to escort me to my car?”

“I'll go first,” Tess said. “Keep fairly close to me, all right?”

“I understand,” the woman said.

When Tess got out to the mall and saw that no one even looked in the author's direction, she turned to tell her client the coast was clear.

The woman was still in the bookstore. When Tess went back inside, that nitwit was raising her arm in a lavish farewell. “I'm leaving now!” she said in a raised voice as she swung her arm. “I'll see all of you at my next signing!”

The store clerks stared at her from behind the counter.

“I think that went well,” the woman said as she joined Tess. “I appreciate you keeping me safe.”

Right. This time Tess told the woman to walk ahead of her, rather than behind.

“Is that wise?” the woman asked.

If they ever wanted to get out of here it was. “You'll be fine,” Tess assured, not letting the woman out of her sight.

By the time they had reached the parking lot, Tess noticed that in addition to a face full of Botox, this lady had had her butt and thighs seriously overhauled.

Maybe her dad would find this woman interesting. Maybe then he wouldn't date Peg anymore since that only reminded Tess of how much she missed Josh.

“Here we are,” the client said as she reached her jet black Jag.

“I'll follow you home,” Tess said.

The woman glanced around the lot to see that there were no fans or press in the vicinity. She sighed. “I'm sure I'll be just fine all by myself.” She patted Tess's shoulder. “And I'm sure you have big plans for tonight.”

Only if that included making food for her father and the rest of the guys at their weekly poker game that had turned into a wake. At last week's game everyone was real quiet, watching her like she was going to break down and sob. When Tess hadn't, they couldn't compliment her food enough, as if that was going to make her feel any better about Josh.