Fiance by Friday (2 page)

After placing her handbag on the hall table, Gwen turned the lock on the door and set the house alarm. “Let me get out of this dress first. The beading has rubbed my skin raw all night.” She turned her back to Karen with a silent plea to unzip the evening gown.

Karen loosened the clasp and lowered the zipper, and then proceeded to follow Gwen up the stairs. “You can’t drop the ‘H’ word and leave the room, Gwen. That’s just mean.”

Holding the front of the dress up with one hand, and lifting the hem with the other, Gwen managed the stairs without tripping.

“The Wilson Charity Ball was filled with people. Lots of couples and plenty of those actor types running about.” She stepped into her closet and let the gown slide from her shoulders. After hanging the dress, she grabbed a nightgown from her chest and walked back into her bedroom. “You know, Samantha said I would tire of these dinners, but I’m enjoying them. I’ve met so many interesting people since I moved here.” Gwen had moved to the States nearly a year ago. At thirty-one years old, she had lived a sheltered life on her family estate outside of London. She’d traveled the world, but always with a bodyguard or her mother.

Now that her brother was the duke in the family, the estate belonged to him. Not that Gwen couldn’t live there, but his marriage to Samantha had presented the opportunity for Gwen to move forward with her life. Especially when Samantha had explained her business to Gwen.

With Samantha taking on the duties of full-time wife, mother, and duchess, she didn’t have time to run her business. Gwen stepped in to help run Alliance, even though she didn’t have a business skill to name as her own. However, living a titled life, she did understand how to brush elbows with the rich and famous,
the very clients Alliance sought. Where Gwen was lacking, Karen excelled. Karen’s clerical skills and ability to keep all the records were better than any high-paid lawyer’s secretary. Together they ran the business flawlessly.

“Getting back to the perfect husband…”

“He’s a very handsome, tall…lovely man.” Gwen sat on the edge of her bed and unclasped her garters one at a time.

“You do know that no one wears those anymore.” Karen pointed to her lingerie.

“If that were true, finding a place to buy garters and stockings would be impossible.”

“Yeah, but you need to go to those sexy bra stores in order to find them,” Karen teased.

“Men love frilly underwear.”

“Lotta good that’s doing you. Seems I’m the only one who sees it.”

Gwen laughed and continued with her news. “His name is Wolfe…Michael Wolfe. You might have heard of him.”

“The actor?” Karen asked.

“So you have heard of him.”

Karen shook her head. “There is no way Michael Wolfe’s looking for a temporary wife through an agency. He’s like the hottest thing on the big screen right now.”

“So he told me.”

“He told you? You mean you didn’t know?”

Gwen shrugged, removed her bra, and pulled her nightgown over her head. “When have you seen me go to the cinema? I’d enjoy a good book before watching a movie.”

“But Michael Wolfe. He’s a big name, Gwen.” Karen followed her into the bathroom where she ran hot water in the sink and proceeded to remove her makeup.

“I don’t know who he is. Perhaps if he played in a Bond film I’d know him.”

Karen leaned against the frame of the door, and watched Gwen through the mirror. “You’re serious. Michael Wolfe?”

“Lovely man. Very funny.”

“And sexy, and single, and rich…women fall all over him.”

And that, Gwen thought, was the problem.

Gwen turned toward the commode and flushed it to fill the room with noise. While the noise of the toilet filled the room, she leaned into Karen and whispered. “I think he likes men.”

Karen’s eyes rounded. “Seriously?”

Gwen shushed her. The Tarzana home had undergone an extensive security system installation, including twenty-four-hour audio and video monitoring. Eliza had lived in the house before she married Carter, who had insisted on the security measures for multiple reasons. Once Carter won the gubernatorial race, and they both moved to Sacramento, the security system stayed in place at the insistence of Gwen’s brother.

And Neil.

“You think he’s gay?”

Gwen hushed her again and pointed toward the hall. There weren’t any cameras in the bedrooms or bathrooms, but Gwen knew for a fact the hall was monitored. “Our clients deserve all the privacy they can get.”

Karen rolled her eyes. “Good Lord, Gwen, we parade around here half naked and you’re worried about our
clients’
privacy? You know Neil; he wouldn’t allow just anyone to listen to what goes on around here.”

Just hearing Neil’s name brought warmth to the pit of Gwen’s stomach. The man was a force of nature with the ability to stand shoulder to shoulder with sixteenth-century Highland warriors. His hard lines and broad physique might threaten others, but for Gwen, all they’d ever done was invite her in.

Too bad Neil never opened the door.

“Privacy is paramount to our clients. Best we keep some details as hidden as possible, don’t you agree?”

Karen rolled her eyes and they both descended the stairs.

“So if Michael is…
you know
, why is he talking with you? How did you approach him, anyway?”

Gwen made herself comfortable on the couch, and settled in for a long talk. “He came to me. Seems the
Alliance
name has found its way into a few celebrity circles.”

“That’s good to know. Lotta deep pockets in Hollywood.”

“Actors make the perfect clients. Especially if they want temporary.” Alliance helped the elite and rich find life matches. Many of whom wanted a temporary bride or groom and were willing to pay heavily for it. Beautiful women like Karen had no problem finding men, but some women weren’t looking for love.

For reasons Gwen had yet to discover, Karen wanted a temporary match to set her up financially for years to come. When two people came together with the understanding that their relationship would end on an assigned date, everyone was happy.

“Michael has no problem convincing the world he’s in love with every heroine he works with,” Karen said. “What makes you think he’s…?”

“He didn’t come right out and say it. Not yet anyway. He introduced himself and was completely taken aback that I didn’t know who he was.”

“He’s über famous, Gwen.”

“That may be. Anyway, he asked me how my brother’s marriage was going. Strange question. I asked him if he knew Blake to which he promptly said he did not. Michael went on to tell me that he and Blake shared a few acquaintances.”

“His subtle way of saying he knew about Alliance.”

“That’s what I assumed. I asked him if he’d like to meet some of my friends. He winked, said he’d love to, and then handed me his card.”

Karen lifted both hands facing up. “So what makes you think g—”

“Ahh, just how he presented himself. Sometimes you just know these things.” Michael had flirted with the women in the room and appreciated the men. Oh, he’d been subtle but if there was one skill Gwen had perfected in the past few months, it was reading men and their intentions.

A man searching for someone…anyone…had a certain energy about him. Eliza had schooled Gwen for months about how to approach these men to help them learn about Alliance. There had been social events in which no contacts had been met. And others where Gwen was able to recruit men, and women, into their database.

“Michael Wolfe?” Karen tapped a finger to her chin.

“If he’s looking for temporary, I think you’d be the perfect match.”

“Oh, why?”

“First, you’re both beautiful people. The cameras would eat you up. Second, Michael’s high profile would prove difficult for many women to maneuver without cracking, and you, my dear, never crack.”

“What do you mean, I never crack?”

“You have your eye on the entire picture and would never lose sight of that under pressure.” Gwen waved three fingers in the air. “Third, you have no illusions that a temporary marriage might mold into a loving relationship.”

“All of our clients say that.”

“Yet some keep. If Michael is,
you know
, then that won’t be possible.”

Karen shrugged and pushed off the couch. “I think I’ll turn in early, see if any of his flicks are on pay-per-view.”

Gwen wished Karen a good night and made her way into their kitchen. She placed a kettle on the stove and boiled water for tea. She took in the small space with its cozy cottage feel and sighed. When the day came that Alliance did find a groom for Karen, she’d move away and Gwen would be living alone.

Neil MacBain paused the audio feed, shook his head, rewound the damn thing, and listened to it again.

“You do know that no one wears those anymore.”

“If that were true, finding a place to buy garters and stockings would be impossible.”

“Yeah, but you need to go to those sexy bra stores in order to find them.”

“Men love frilly underwear.”

Neil slapped his hand on the mouse and turned off the sound before he tortured himself anymore.

Fuck! I need to get laid!

Listening to Gwen’s polished accent mentioning garters and stockings shot his brain straight to his cock.

The desire to click on the video monitor made his right eye twitch, but he refrained and forced himself away from his surveillance room.

Blake Samantha, their son Eddie, and even Samantha’s sister Jordan were in Europe with plans to stay for at least a month. Their absence meant fewer people to watch over and plenty of time to think.

He hated thinking.

Doing was such a better pastime.

Doing meant standing in the shadows of tall buildings and watching over the only Harrison stateside he could.

Not that watching Gwen was a chore. Tonight she wore a floor-length, gold beaded number that sparkled in the light given off by the flash of photographers’ cameras by the red carpet. Though she wasn’t the focus of their lenses, she was the center of his. She offered one look, and one smile, to the paparazzi before walking inside the venue. Her lithe frame moved with the sort of grace and elegance that most of the people around her tried to buy but never quite achieved.

Gwen had played center stage to many of his fantasies.

Fantasies that would never become reality.

Neil shrugged out of his black leather jacket and tossed it on the side of his sofa. He unhooked his holster that carried the Beretta M9 he never left home without and set it on top of his jacket.

The two-bedroom guesthouse that sat on Blake and Samantha’s Malibu estate had been his refuge for five years. After five years, he finally felt some degree of comfort…of belonging. Other than the housekeeper and cook, Neil had no one on site he needed to watch over during the night.

He double-checked the system in Tarzana, and confirmed that someone there had set the internal alarms that shouldn’t go off unless breached. Gwen and Karen set the alarms when they left or when they turned in for the night.

Neil flicked on the local news, more for background noise than for company. He poured himself a drink and stretched out on the couch.

This was the life he wanted…low stress, even lower profile. He could guard a duke and his family in his sleep. No, make that in his sleep with a hangover…the kind you woke up from with the room still spinning. The people he’d known in the past would say he was wasting his time.

But it was his time to waste.

He brushed away memories of those
past people
, tilted his head back, and closed his eyes. His consciousness slid into sleep, his body relaxing with it.

The high-pitched scream of a security breach shot him to his feet and he was fully awake in half a breath.

Neil ran to his security room, hit a master switch, and a dozen monitors sprang to life. He scanned them quickly and found the breach in question in Tarzana. The monitor flashed red and displayed video feeds from inside and outside the house. Neil hit speed dial with one hand and placed the Tarzana feed onto his big screen.

The hall was clear, the motion detector hadn’t tripped the outside lights…the front door was closed. But the back door wasn’t secure.

“Gwen?” Neil overheard Karen calling from inside the Tarzana house, the audio feed now relaying every word clearly. The alarm sounded inside the house, probably loud enough to wake the neighbors. He heard the phone ringing both in his ear and in the house.

He flipped the feed, searching for her…his heart skipped several beats before Gwen appeared on screen.

She ran to the control panel, opened it, and started hitting numbers. Seeing her unharmed, Neil kept scanning the feeds. “Answer the fucking phone,” he said through clenched teeth.

“I forgot…” Gwen’s voice rose above the alarm.

“Turn the noise off,” Karen said.

Both Gwen and Karen were standing at the control panel. Once the numbers were pressed in, the alarm went silent.

Gwen moved from the panel to the phone. “Hello?”

“What happened?” Neil’s hand hovered over the mouse on the master controls, the one that would alert the local police to respond.