Her Billionaire Bodyguard Bridegroom (2 page)

He extended a tanned hand. “Since we’ve established you have my permission to enjoy my lake, I think introductions are in order. I’m Luke Reynolds. And you are . . . ?”

Surely it would be polite to answer him, but she hesitated all the same. She was in the middle of a secluded forest. The man certainly didn’t look like an ax murderer, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t one. And as for her name . . . well, it had recently been splashed across every newspaper from Maine to Hawaii. As soon as she uttered it, there was little doubt he’d realize his trespasser was none other than “the Reluctant Heiress.”

Brianna cringed every time the media bandied around the moniker they’d coined for her when the truth surrounding her paternity had leaked. She’d taken this vacation to escape notoriety for a while, and she wasn’t ready to give up the blissful anonymity she’d found here.

Fortunately she bore little resemblance, now, to the picture the papers had dredged up to accompany the story. Keeping one arm wrapped firmly against her chest, she tentatively reached out to shake the stranger’s hand.

“Heather. Heather Wright.” Amazingly, the fictitious name rolled smoothly off her tongue—despite her stuttering insides.

His eyes narrowed for a moment as he regarded her, and she was afraid he could see right through her lie. But then his warm fingers wrapped around hers.

“Welcome to my lake, Heather. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

She didn’t know what the protocol was for handling encounters like this, but she was pretty sure it didn’t entail casual chitchat. She needed to relay a final apology, and then extricate herself from this humiliating situation. Hopefully she could salvage at least a shred of dignity.

“I truly am sorry,” she repeated. “I’ve never done anything like this before.”

“Trespassing?” he queried. “No worries. You have my permission to enjoy the lake anytime.”

“No, not trespassing. Well, yes, that too, but . . .”

“But?” he prompted, quirking an eyebrow.

“You know . . .” she trailed off, inclining her head toward the pile of clothing at the edge of the lake.

He shot her a pseudo-confused look. “Littering?”

Damn him. He was enjoying this. He was going to make her say it. “If you must know,” she sighed, “I’ve never skinny-dipped before.”

“Ah. Well, you should definitely try it. Everyone should experience skinny- dipping at least once in their life.”

She stared at him in disbelief. Was he serious? The heat had obviously gotten to him. “What do you think I’m doing in your lake now?”

“I hate to break it to you, but it’s not skinny-dipping. That would involve the complete absence of clothing. And while that thong you’re wearing certainly deserves a spot in the Sexy Hall of Fame, it still qualifies as lingerie. There’s an easy fix, though. There’s just one piece of fabric standing between you and the real deal. That is, if you’re brave enough . . .”

The expression on his face made it clear he didn’t think she was. He even had the audacity to wink at her, sending her hackles climbing higher.

“Are you suggesting I strip for you?” She hated the way her voice rose a notch. She wasn’t into histrionics, but considering this total stranger had dared her to remove the one garment standing between her and total birthday-suited-ness, her reaction wasn’t totally out of line.

He shook his head. “Of course not. I completely understand why you wouldn’t want an audience. Besides, you like to play it safe. I can see it in your eyes.”

As much as she wanted to prove him wrong, she was
so
not going there. She would not be party to his reverse-psychology mind tricks.

What happened to breaking free from restrictions?
her naughty, inner wild child taunted.

“I’ll strip if you do,” she heard herself challenge.

Whoa!
her sensible side insisted, abruptly stabbing her mental “Pause” button.
Don’t even think about it!

She opened her mouth to speak, desperate to recall her impromptu dare. But it was already too late to rewind.

Luke hadn’t wasted any time taking her up on the dare. The retraction she’d been about to utter log-jammed in her throat at the sight of him treading water before her, all magnificent, bare male.

“If this were a game of chess, I believe this is the part where I’d be saying ‘check’,” he murmured silkily, twirling his swimsuit on two fingers.

He didn’t even try to hide his amusement at the inner battle she was obviously waging, and that infuriated her. Well, two could play at this game.

Wriggling out of her thong, she sent it flying up onto the lake bank to join her top and shorts. “Checkmate,” she breathed.

It was a freeze-frame moment. The implosion of hunger that rocked his handsome features at her cheekiness made the bold move impossible to regret. There was something about this man that made her want to take risks and see where they led.

It was crazy to be so drawn to someone she knew nothing about, aside from the fact that he had the ability to make her pulse zoom from zero to three hundred in two seconds flat. Whoever he was, he wasn’t a stranger to wealth or power. He’d told her he owned this property, and he carried himself with the same assuredness she’d seen in men of means. He wore that special brand of self-confidence that accompanied the privileged life like a mantle. And that placed him squarely in the off-limits column.

She had to go! The thought ricocheted through her head, prompting her to spin around and head for the bank. Once she reached it, she only managed to take a couple of steps before her foot slid out from under her on the slippery lake bottom, sending her stumbling headfirst back into the water.

He moved to catch her in a heartbeat, preventing an ungraceful splash. A frisson of awareness zip-lined down her spine as he enfolded her in his arms. Suddenly, everything was fuzzy. She was forgetting to do something important—she just couldn’t remember what. Fortunately her oxygen-starved synapses took it upon themselves to jolt her memory, screaming an order to breathe.

Luke drew her closer to steady her. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” she assured him, desperate to extract herself from the temptation zone. She needed to get a grip. So the man was absolutely scrumptious. That didn’t mean she should latch on to him like a chocoholic devouring a box of truffles after a cacao drought. “You can let me go now.”

His searing gaze devoured her, betraying he was as conscious of the sexual tension zinging between them as she was.

“Oh, but I’m not ready to give you up so soon. It’s not every day I get to experience a close encounter with a beautiful mermaid.”

The newly replenished air in her lungs
whooshed
out again. The urge to close the scant distance between them had her heart rate revving even faster, but she knew she needed to distance herself from this man and his heady male magnetism ASAP.

Her brain was transmitting the “must leave now” signal loud and clear. Too bad her body wasn’t in agreement. Her fingers itched to trace the sexy stubble shadowing his strong jaw. She wanted to memorize every perfect contour of his beautiful lips—and worse, she wanted to sample them.

She should override her body’s objections and do the sensible thing. She shouldn’t allow her arms to abandon their censorship posts over her breasts to encircle his broad shoulders. She shouldn’t let him draw her against his lean hardness and brand her with the heat from his body. And she most certainly shouldn’t press herself against the firm, muscular contours of his rugged chest like she wanted to melt into him.

Somehow, she wound up doing all those things. And it still wasn’t enough.

His soft growl told her it wasn’t sufficient for him, either. He reached out to touch her lips, brazenly outlining their fullness. Then his head dipped toward hers, and she forgot to breathe again.

He’s going to kiss me.

Her passion-drugged mind barely had time to process the thought before his lips were dancing where his fingers had caressed, paying homage to her mouth. She sighed, a soft murmur of surrender, and he deepened the kiss.

In the space of a few scant heartbeats the kiss morphed from exploration to conflagration, and she was lost. Sweet became hot and carnal, and her pulse thudded in her ears as their tongues tangled in an erotic duel so intense it left them both gasping for breath.

The angry chattering of a red squirrel laying claim to his territory penetrated her passion-induced haze, catapulting her back to reality. The intensity of their attraction vibrated in the air between them. He was making her feel special. Valuable. Desirable.

But she wasn’t any of those things. If he knew the truth about her, he wouldn’t be looking at her the way he was now.

Breaking free from his embrace, Brianna scrambled out of the water. Willing her trembling hands to cooperate, she struggled to pull her cycling clothes on over her still-damp body. As soon as she was dressed, she ran to her bike.

“Wait!” he called after her.

Pedaling away on shaky legs, she ignored his summons. She didn’t dare look back. If she did, she knew she’d change her mind.

Two months later.

Luke Reynolds sat across the table from his beautiful dinner companion, waiting for the other shoe to drop. The moment Liz had asked him to meet her for dinner at Chez Pierre, he knew something was up. Briefings were part of the agency’s standard operating procedure, but the venue his boss had chosen for this meeting—a popular five-star eatery near their office—wasn’t.

In the four years since he’d joined Sentinels as a covert bodyguard, Liz had never conducted a case overview with him outside of headquarters. Yet here they were. And to add to his unrest, she was paying an inordinate amount of attention to a menu he was certain she could already recite by heart.

He pinned her with his best “out with it” look. “Since you offered to treat me to dinner, I know whatever incited you to call this meeting can’t be good. You might as well tell me the bad news up front. If you spoil my appetite, it will be cheaper for you.”

She looked up from her menu with a sigh. “Do you remember the Philip Dimitriou disaster from a couple of years ago?”

At the mention of the name, Luke’s teasing smile faded. He remembered. How could he possibly forget, when his sister had been caught in the middle of the mess? Sentinels had discovered terrorists planned to assassinate a high-ranking official in the Moroccan government while the man was a guest at a prominent Greek businessman’s private estate. Since they couldn’t protect him covertly from within the estate’s compound, and since the host’s own security detail didn’t have the resources to handle an unanticipated and professionally orchestrated attack, Liz had opted to employ Lauren’s photojournalist cover to derail the threat preemptively.

After photographing the Greek host in the company of Lawrence Mendacci, a man rumored to have ties to the Mafia, Lauren wrote a speculation piece suggesting the host’s activities might not be entirely above board. The hope was that alluding to the mogul’s possibly improper dealings would spur the Moroccan official to cancel his visit. The plan had worked.

“Lauren inadvertently caught Dimitriou in her lens when she photographed him lunching with the businessman who was her target, along with Lawrence Mendacci, on the Moroccan mission,” Luke recalled. “While her article stopped the visit and planned hit, we didn’t have enough proof to pursue the Mendacci-Dimitriou angle, so we dropped it.”

“Except we both know there was more to Dimitriou’s story,” Liz replied. “I’m not convinced he was innocent, as he claimed. I think he was hiding something back then, and that something has come back to bite him. He’s in trouble. Trouble serious enough to compel him to enlist our services.”

Luke choked on the sip of water he’d taken. “Mega-tycoon Philip Dimitriou is our new client? But he has his own security team. Why hire us?”

“It’s not his own safety he’s concerned about. There have been threats made against his son.” Liz paused, fiddling with the stem of her glass before continuing. “His newly discovered daughter could be a target as well.”

“That’s not surprising, in light of all the drama the press made over Dimitriou’s former mistress keeping his daughter a secret from him for twenty-three years. They dubbed Dimitriou’s love child the ‘Reluctant Heiress’ because of her refusal to acknowledge him as her father, right?”

“Yes. But some additional information has come to light since the story broke, and it’s softened Brianna’s adamant stance against having anything to do with her father. Philip says they’ve spoken on the phone recently. He doesn’t want to jeopardize that newly opened line of communication by telling her about the threat, though. He’s afraid that if he doesn’t keep her in the dark she’ll distance herself even further from him.”

“It might be better if she did,” Luke grumbled.

“I understand why Dimitriou doesn’t hold a spot on your top-ten fellow billionaires list after the hell he and his son put your sister through. Regardless of our personal opinion of the man, we need to set our prejudices aside and treat him with the same level of care we do all our clients.” Pulling a case file from her portfolio, Liz set it on the table. “The other reason Philip has opted for our services is because Rafe Dimitriou refuses to accept protection from his father’s personal security team. Rafe is vehemently opposed to any type of security at all, actually.”

“That won’t be a problem. He’ll never know I’m there.”

“That’s what I need to talk to you about. I’ve already assigned your sister to safeguard Rafe.”

“What were you thinking?” Luke fumed. “You know very well that ‘acquainted’ in this case equates to ‘had her heart stomped to smithereens by him’.”

“I don’t owe you an explanation for how I manage my team. Lauren’s prior relationship with Rafe makes her the most logical choice for the mission. However, just so we’re clear on this, know that it was your sister’s idea, not mine. Rafe approached her with a business proposition, which places her in the perfect position to watch over him without his being any the wiser. What I need you to do is protect Dimitriou’s daughter.”