Courting Trouble (Reality Romance Book 5) (6 page)

Chapter Eight

Elena was busy gawking, so it took a moment for his meaning to register.

It wasn’t huge, maybe two thousand square feet, and there wasn’t much in the way of land between the high, solid walls separating it from the neighboring mansions—but she hadn’t missed the fact that they were right off the Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu. On the beach side, no less.

This little patch of real estate had to be worth several million—and that was without counting the house, with its subtle touches of elegance that screamed money. The excessive kind of money. The charming little oasis of calm sat amid multi-colored cacti and other artful drought-friendly landscaping, overlooking what she was fairly certain would be a spectacular, unimpeded view of the Pacific when the sun rose the next morning. It looked like heaven. And it was his.

“Wait.” She turned to look at Adam as he parked in the driveway and cut the engine. “Someone gave you a house as a gift?”

She was fairly certain he was blushing. “You really don’t know who I am, do you?”

“When I saw this place I was thinking Tony Stark, but if people are giving you houses my best guesses are Scientology leader or gigolo. Either way, I have grossly underestimated you.”

“Where were you last October?”

“Sequestered in the
Marrying Mister Perfect
bubble with the other Suitorettes. Who gave you a house?”

He hesitated for a moment, as if he would lie, then answered, “Cassandra Newton.”

Elena’s eyebrows took a trip toward her hairline. “And why is the most famous actress in America giving you houses? Are you the secret love child she gave up for adoption when she was fifteen or something?”

He didn’t laugh. “Google me.” The words were steeped in resignation.

“What?”

“Google my name.”

“Ooo-kay.” She pulled her phone out of her purse, feeling his eyes on her. He’d said it casually, almost tossing out the request to Google him as a challenge, but there was nothing casual about the intense way he watched her. This was a Big Deal in Adam’s world. Whatever it was.

“Dylan with a Y, like Bob Dylan not Matt Dillon,” he corrected, when she would have spelled his last name like the movie star’s.

The most popular result was a link to a YouTube video.
Agent Adam Dylan Saves Newton Princess.

“That’s the one.”

She tapped the link and moments later the video filled her screen. It was jerky and unfocused at first, obviously shot from the cell phone of someone who was running. For a few seconds all she could tell was that it was night, and then the running stopped and the camera spun dizzily until a house came into view. A beach house—larger and more opulent than the one they were parked in front of—and consumed with fire.

“Whoa,” she murmured.

“Entire place went up like kindling, thanks to the drought,” Adam narrated, his tone deceptively mild. “Entitled celebu-brat idiots decided to try setting off fireworks in the basement while a party was going on upstairs.”

She looked up at him, but he pointed to the screen. “There. The side porch.”

She directed her attention to the side of the burning house right as a man sprinted out with a large bundle in his arms. The figure ran directly at the camera, until it became obvious the man was carrying a limp teenage girl in his arms. In the background, Elena heard the other party goers who had become spectators on the beach gasping about how someone had been left inside and she knew who the hero would be long before the man came close enough to identify.

“Cassie Newton,” Adam commented, as detached as if it had happened halfway around the world, rather than to him. “Sandy’s one and only baby girl.”

“No wonder she gave you a house.”

Adam came into focus, Cassie Newton stirring feebly in his arms as he gently lowered her to the ground. She gazed up at her savior with undiluted hero-worship before someone jostled the cameraman and the cell phone video abruptly stopped.

Elena lowered her own phone to her lap, looking at the man beside her with new eyes. “You really are a hero.”

“That’s what they say,” he admitted, the words coated in a startling layer of bitterness. “Only problem is I was supposed to be protecting someone else.” He turned away, opening the driver’s side door. “Come on. Let’s get inside.”

Elena scrambled after him, no longer nearly as interested in the house as she was in the man who owned it. “Hang on. Don’t I get to hear the rest of the story?”

He already had her bag out of the luggage compartment, rolling it toward the house.

“Adam! Come on. You have to tell me the rest.”

“I screwed up.” He stopped next to the front door, turning to face her. “That’s the rest of the story.” He typed a code into the number pad on the front door until she heard the locks click open. He swung open the door and reached inside to flick the lights on in the entry before waving her inside.

“What? Were you the fireworks supplier or something?” she asked as she turned sideways to slip past him.

He brought in her bag and shut the door, typing into another keypad inside to reset the security system. “I was in the Secret Service,” he said to the wall as he punched in numbers. “I’d worked my way up and finally gotten on my first protective detail. Sylas Walsh.”

“The Vice President’s kid?”

“He was just the son of the Governor of California and Vice Presidential candidate at the time, but yeah. And he wanted to go to that party.” He was still facing the wall, but she didn’t think he was seeing the security panel anymore. “When the house went up, our one priority was to get Sylas to safety. You aren’t supposed to notice that there’s a girl unconscious behind the couch and you sure as hell aren’t supposed to leave your detail to go back to make sure she got out okay.”

“Was Sylas hurt?”

“No. My partner got him out. But I walked away from the kid who was supposed to be my top priority. I was the Secret Service golden boy. They were grooming me for a presidential detail and everyone knew it—but you can’t guard the President of the United States if you can’t be relied upon to put your subject’s safety above all other concerns.”

He turned to face her then, but he still wasn’t seeing her. “My partner was only too happy to tell our bosses that their golden boy had fucked up. Knock me down a few pegs. Not like I could have hidden it. The damn video went viral. It might have anyway, but Cassandra Newton’s only child? There was no way the press was going to ignore that.”

“You saved a life.”

“I did. And the Service couldn’t publicly censure me without implying I should have let Cassie burn, but my career was over. I was told I could ride a desk for the rest of my career or I could quietly resign and look for work in the private sector.”

“So you resigned.”

“From the only job I ever wanted to have. And Sandy Newton gave me a house and Max gave me a job and the media hailed me as the greatest thing since Captain America—and it all feels like a lie because I can’t tell anyone my big moment of heroism was also the moment I screwed up my life.”

“Would you do it differently, if you could go back?”

His eyes focused on hers finally. “Of course not.”

“Then own it.” She glanced around the foyer—light, airy and filled with beachy charm. “As consolation prizes go, this house is pretty sweet.”

“If only I could afford it.”

“I thought it was a gift?”

“It was. And an offer I couldn’t refuse. But just the property taxes on a place like this are more than I can afford. And that’s before you consider maintenance and insurance and utilities…” He waved her farther into the house and she preceded him into the state-of-the-art kitchen, which looked down over a sunken living room ringed by floor-to-ceiling windows for panoramic ocean views in the daylight. Right now they revealed only the Adirondack chairs and outdoor couches scattered across the curving back deck. “Celebrities don’t always think of the logistics behind their big romantic gestures of gratitude when they’re declaring on national television that you
have
to let them show their appreciation..”

“Not the worst problem you could have.”

“No,” he agreed.

At least no one was taping notes to his door.

The memory of why she was here seeped in. She’d been doing a good job of avoiding thinking about her Whore-on-the-Door friend, but reality could only be ignored for so long.

She wandered down into the sunken living room, staring out into the darkness beyond. Focusing on the house was much more pleasant than her reality. It was a calm, contemporary beach casual oasis of wealth. Like something out of a magazine. “So this is your style, huh?” She picked up a decorative seashell sculpture.

“More like Sandy Newton’s style. Or Sandy’s decorator’s style. I haven’t changed much since I moved in.”

That explained the complete absence of anything that felt like him in the house. It felt like a vacation rental rather than a home. Somewhere he hadn’t bothered to make his own because he knew he wouldn’t be staying. “It’s nice. I used to dream about places like this. I would read about the beautiful people with their beautiful lives and dream about the day when I was going to be a famous actress.”

“Don’t believe the hype. It isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

She laughed dryly. “Sure it isn’t.”

Adam descended to the sunken living room with her. “You forget. I do private security for celebrities. I’ve seen way too much of their lives to call them beautiful. It’s hard to keep the illusion that money buys happiness when you see it firsthand.”

“Have you ever noticed that the people who say money doesn’t buy happiness always have money? It may not buy happiness, but it sure as hell buys ease and comfort—and something to eat besides Ramen and cereal.”

“I’m not saying money doesn’t make life easier,” he agreed. “I just meant that it’s easy—especially in this town—to get so focused on getting rich and famous, and staying rich and famous, that you forget that what you’re ultimately shooting for is
happiness
, not fame and fortune.”

She shrugged. “Fame and fortune are easier to measure. I’ll worry about happiness when I’m holding my first Oscar.”

He looked at her and she could see the memory of the note she’d found today shadow his face. “Are you sure it’s worth it? From what I’ve seen, the rest of it doesn’t suddenly get easier or less invasive when you’re winning Oscars.”

“It’ll be worth it.” It had to be.

She hadn’t come this far only to give up. She hadn’t torpedoed her relationship with her family and smiled through being labeled the Slutty Suitorette only to walk away. She’d never wanted anything the way she wanted to be a star. She
loved
acting, loved it with the piece of her soul that would always be hungry. If she could give up the dream, she would have. This was what she was meant to do. The second she stopped believing that was when she felt like she lost herself.

This would be her success story. She was just at the noble failure part of the tale. It would turn around. It had to.

“Let me show you the guest room.”

Chapter Nine

The guest suite was small, but as elegant and tasteful as the rest of the house. It occupied a quarter of the second floor, facing toward the street side. Adam jerked his chin toward the other door on the street side of the upstairs landing and identified it as his office, before waving vaguely toward the single door on the beach half of the house and mumbling something about the master.

He seemed slightly embarrassed to have her in his space, but after the day they’d had she didn’t have the energy to tease him about it. Instead she followed him into the guest suite and tried not to gawk.

Heavy patterned cream curtains were drawn over the windows, blocking out almost all the road noise. Every item in the room looked like it had been picked out by a decorator—with the glaring exception of the bargain-brand bookcase wedged into the corner to the left of the windows. The books were obviously not there for show—well-worn paperbacks rather than stylish leather-bound classics—and she wanted to move closer and investigate, but Adam’s obvious discomfort stopped her.

He set her bag inside the door and pointed toward the en suite bathroom. “There should be fresh towels and stuff in there. Sandy sends over a housekeeper every few weeks to make sure everything is freshened up.”

Elena set her bulky purse on the bed, turning to take in the entire room. “It’s gorgeous. Like one of the fancy hotels
Marrying Mister Perfect
put us up in. And I don’t even have to share it with five other girls who are dating the same guy. Bonus.”

“I can’t imagine…”

She shrugged. “Most people can’t.”

Her reality was a wild and surreal place, but she wouldn’t complain. Especially not since it had landed her here. In this gorgeous room, with this gorgeous man.

Suddenly it was crucially important that she understand
why
.

She turned to Adam where he hovered near the door. “Why are you helping me?”

He didn’t have the smug self-righteousness she saw in people who helped others so they could brag about their godliness. He wasn’t trying to call attention to his good deeds. If anything, he seemed uncomfortable being confronted by them.

He frowned. “I need a reason?”

“You have one. I just can’t figure out what it is. Most guys would only be helping me because they’re hoping to get laid, but here I am, all vulnerable and susceptible to seduction and you won’t come within ten feet of me. And you’re acting like if I laid down on this bed right now you would run in the other direction. You said you aren’t gay. Are you just not attracted to me? Not your type?”
Too trashy? Too slutty?
Why hadn’t he made a move?

“You know you’re a beautiful woman.”

The
but
was loud for an unspoken word.

Was it possible he didn’t want her and yet he still wanted to help her? She couldn’t make sense of it. Men wanting to use her for her body might get old, but at least she understood it. She could work with it. His nebulous motivations made her nervous.

“But?” she supplied when he didn’t seem likely to go on without help.

“You’ve been through a lot.”

“So you feel sorry for me?”

His expression screamed yes, even as he stumbled over his words, trying to find an argument that didn’t scream pity. “It isn’t—I only—I want to make things better for you. Not be another of the things making your life worse.”

“You’re that bad in bed?”

He blushed. The man really was too adorable when he blushed. “You seem like you could use a friend. I’m trying to be one.”

The man really was a saint. A freaking hero. He wanted to help her and he didn’t expect any payment. He just wanted to.

She didn’t know what to do with that. But it felt…

Amazing.

She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been with someone who wasn’t trying to use her—or who she wasn’t trying to manipulate. But with him, she could just be. Somehow he had become a friend—and she realized that was what she wanted from him as well.

“Thank you.”

He nodded to accept her thanks. “Are you hungry? I thought I’d make us something to eat. Why don’t you get settled and join me in the kitchen when you’re ready?”

He’d slipped out of the room and down the stairs before Elena could respond, leaving her in the Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous guest room, and fleeing like she was contagious. Didn’t it just figure that the one good man she met in her life was the one man who didn’t want her?

* * * * *

Adam wasn’t in the habit of running away when things got dicey—which was part of why leaving the Secret Service didn’t sit well with him—but standing in that bedroom with Elena, with her looking like a physical manifestation of temptation, he’d turned tail and run.

He moved around his kitchen on auto-pilot, trying to pretend he wasn’t supernaturally attuned to every whisper of sound trickling down from above—and trying to forget the conversation from upstairs.

She thought he wasn’t attracted to her, did she? His palms had itched with the urge to touch her the entire time he’d been standing in that room with her, hyperaware of the bed only inches away. If he’d stayed in that room two seconds longer, he would have kissed her. He’d had to escape.

He was such a hypocrite. Telling her he only wanted to be her friend, when he was just as bad as all the others. Just as desperate for her.

Though that wasn’t why he was helping her. He hadn’t lied about that. He didn’t want her as payment. He just wanted her because… damn. How could he not?

She was sexy as hell, but it wasn’t her insane body that made her the hottest thing he’d ever seen. Well. Not just her body. It was the wry glint of amusement in her eyes. That little edge of knowing cynicism. She was smarter than he’d ever imagined. And stronger. He’d seen seasoned celebrities have hysterics when a paparazzo got too close, while Elena had someone leaving notes at her apartment threatening her life and she simply reached down deep inside her into her reserves of calm and handled it.

She was incredibly contained—which was probably something no one else would ever say about wild, impulsive Elena, but then he had a feeling very few people knew her at all. He was beginning to think she was an incredible actress, capable of putting on any face she wanted the world to see, but somehow he felt like the face he had seen—the fear she’d let him see—was real.

And that reality was sexier than any façade.

Not that the façade wasn’t sexy. The way she looked at him—the overt invitation in the curve of her full lips and the wicked flash of her eyes—God, her
eyes.
Black as sin and twice as tempting. Half-veiled by her lashes most of the time. They’d fall closed with a sigh if he reached for her, her face already tipping up for a kiss. He could practically feel her back arching under his touch, pressing ever closer.

“Shit!” A sharp jab of pain brought him back to reality. The reality that he’d just cut his index finger.

Adam swore again, holding it up so he didn’t bleed all over the vegetables he’d been chopping as he flipped on the faucet and rinsed away the first rush of blood. The cut was shallow—thank God. He wouldn’t need stitches. The wound slashed across the fleshy pad of his trigger finger, but it wasn’t his dominant shooting hand so it shouldn’t impact his job. He cleaned it quickly, wrapping it tightly in a paper towel as he rummaged for band-aids.

The house had come fully furnished and stocked and in the six months he’d lived here he’d avoided moving things—preferring instead to learn where Sandy had kept them and keep her house the way she liked it—but it did make finding what he needed in a hurry more of a challenge.

He knew Sandy kept a first aid kit somewhere in the kitchen; he’d seen it a dozen times, but where?

He heard Elena moving around at the top of the stairs, the slap of her bare feet on the hanging risers, and redoubled his efforts to find a freaking band-aid. He could just see explaining the cut to her.

What happened? Oh, I just sliced open my hand fantasizing about how responsive you would be if I bent you over the bed upstairs and took advantage of you while you’re feeling vulnerable. How’s that for friendship, pal?

Giving up on the drawers, he yanked open the cupboard beneath the sink—and there it was. A shiny white box with a shiny red cross. Adam crouched, popping it open on the floor in front of the sink, and grabbed the first band-aid of the right approximate size. He fumbled with the packaging as Elena’s bare feet hit the hardwood floors of the lower level.

Sticking on the bandage, he snapped the first aid box closed and shoved it under the sink, shoving the band-aid wrapper into his pocket and straightening as if nothing had happened as Elena stepped into the kitchen.

“I forgot to ask. Any allergies? Things you don’t eat?”

“I’m omnivorous.” She took in the scene at a glance—the vegetables on the cutting board, the pans on the stove. “And you’re full of surprises, Adam Dylan. I expected bachelor cooking—frozen pizza or noodles with canned pasta sauce. You actually know what you’re doing,” she said, sounding almost accusatory.

He returned to his post at the cutting board, picking up the knife and getting back to work. “I’ve always enjoyed cooking,” he admitted. “It relaxes me.”
When I’m not fantasizing about Latina goddesses in bedrooms
. “You don’t like to cook?”

She shrugged. “I like the end result. What’s this going to be?” She leaned a hip against the counter a few feet away from him. Friendly distance. Because they were
friends
. And friends didn’t fantasize about friends naked.

Much.

“Chicken Madeira with Sautéed Vegetables. Specialty of the house. You want to help?” He lifted the knife.

She held up her hands stick-em-up style. “I’d probably chop off my finger.”

You and me both
.

“Better to leave things to the experts,” she went on. “Though if you need milk poured over cereal, I’m your girl.” She snagged a slice of carrot from the cutting board, crunching into it. “Did your parents teach you to cook?”

“They showed me the basics, but I didn’t really know what I was doing until I started working in restaurant kitchens for extra cash when I was in college.” He moved around her to check on the pans on the stove, giving her a wide berth. “I even had a moment of rebellion during my junior year when I told my parents I was going to drop out and become a chef. But that ambition lasted about a week—much to their relief.”

“They wanted you to take a bullet for the president?”

“Not a fatal one. But they probably wouldn’t have minded a nice flesh wound.” At her incredulous expression, he explained, “My father is career military and my mother is a nurse. Doing something honorable, doing your part to provide a service for your country and your fellow man is one of the core principles I grew up with.”

“We’ve all gotta eat. Feeding people isn’t helpful enough?”

“Not when I could be more.” Gauging the time before the chicken would be done, he grabbed the cutting board and slid the vegetables into the sauté pan. “My parents were so proud when I got into the Secret Service. It was my only goal for so long—they can’t understand why I left. And I haven’t been able to bring myself to admit to them that it wasn’t my choice.” He grabbed a spatula, shifting the vegetables so they cooked evenly.

“Would you go back? If you had the chance?”

“Of course.” The answer was automatic, ingrained.

“Because of your parents?”

“Because it’s who I am.” Even if it hadn’t always fit like a glove.

“So you loved it? Your dream job was everything you dreamed it would be and more?”

“Life isn’t that simple. When you work so hard to achieve something, of course the day-to-day business of the job isn’t going to live up to the dream.”

“So you didn’t love it.”

“No. Of course I did.” He frowned. “How did we get on this topic?”

She ignored the question. “Are you still hoping to get back into the Service? Is that why you haven’t told your parents you were asked to leave?”

He shrugged, poking the vegetables with the spatula. “Maybe. In part. I hate the idea of disappointing them, so I lie to them instead. And then I feel like an asshole for lying. Son of the year.”

“I’m not exactly the poster child for good daughters,” Elena said dryly.

“Your parents were upset about the show?” He grasped the chance to change the topic, though by the tone of her voice he had a feeling he already knew the answer to his question.

“You didn’t see the Meet-the-In-Laws episode, did you?”

He shook his head. “Just the one.”

“The infamous Jacuzzi.” Elena groaned at the memory—and Adam very nearly did as well, for his own reasons. “It feels like the whole world knows every tiny detail of my life, but then I have to remind myself that’s just reality television hubris. If you
had
seen the Meet-the-In-Laws date, you would know—along with the rest of America—that my father is very stern. Very traditional. And
very
religious. He made it quite clear when he was interrogating Daniel that he believed his precious baby was still a virgin and expected me to remain one after we spent the night together on the two-day dates. Suffice it to say watching the show was something of a shock to my father.”