Just Another Pretty Face (HT 459) (3 page)

Nikki's smile faltered and she nodded, suddenly feeling as if she were back at boot camp about to be chewed out by a superior officer for something she hadn't even realized she'd done. "I was just making a few quick repairs," she said, gesturing toward the mirror.

"Indeed," the woman replied briskly, sounding like a cross between Mary Poppins and a drill sergeant.

Nikki wondered if it was her or the Harley.
Probably both,
she thought sourly, knowing what most people expected from a woman who rode a "hog."

"I'm Marjorie Gilmore. Mr. Kingston's housekeeper. I heard your motorcycle when you came up the drive," she said, giving Nikki the distinct impression that the noise had been unnecessarily excessive. "Won't you come in, please?" She stepped back from the doorway. "We've been expecting you."

And you're late.

Marjorie Gilmore didn't say the words but Nikki definitely heard them. She glanced at her watch, checking to see if the unspoken accusation was true. She was gratified to see that it wasn't; like anyone who'd grown up in a military household, she had a keen appreciation of the value of time and abhorred wasting it. Hers or anyone else's.

"Miss Martinelli?" the housekeeper prompted, making Nikki realize she was dawdling.

Not wanting to keep the woman waiting while she strapped her helmet to the Harley, Nikki tucked it under her arm and mounted the wide, smooth stone steps. "Ma'am," she said, suppressing the urge to salute as she moved past the woman and into the house.

The door shut behind her with a sharp click. "This way," Marjorie Gilmore said, and turned to lead the way across the polished black-and-white marble of the huge foyer and down a long carpeted hallway that led off into the depths of the house.

Nice,
Nikki thought, her gaze darting from side to side as she followed the housekeeper. She gathered quick impressions of light and color and quiet good taste without any of the ostentatiousness the magnificence on the outside had led her to expect. And then the housekeeper stopped and stepped aside, ushering Nikki through the doorway ahead of her.

"Miss Martinelli has arrived," she said, and melted back into the hall. The word
finally
hovered, unspoken, in the air behind her.

"Thank you, ma'am," Nikki said to her back, determined to out-polite the woman if nothing else. And then she turned smartly, in her best parade-ground style, to face the people gathered on the other side of the room.

Her first, unedited thought was that they were the most beautiful group of people she'd ever seen—which was saying a lot in an environment where beauty was a prerequisite for success and even coffee-shop waitresses were expected to be gorgeous. Viewed singularly, any one of them was enough to merit a long second look of awe and admiration. Viewed as a group they were almost—Nikki struggled to find the right word.
Overwhelming,
was the only one she could come up with.

An all-too-familiar sense of inadequacy came stealing over her as she stood there staring at them. It had been a long time since she'd felt like the geeky new kid on the base, all arms and legs and tongue-tied adolescent awkwardness at being confronted by the members of the in-group. It was a feeling she remembered all too well. And the big, blond Adonis lounging on the chintz sofa with such elegant, self-confident ease—the living embodiment of every high school quarterback who'd never noticed her—didn't help her flagging self-confidence one tiny bit.

He was long and lean, half-reclining on the plump seat of the oversized sofa like some spoiled Eastern potentate at leisure in his harem. His clothes were dark and dramatic, intensifying the aura of indolent ease and providing a perfect foil for his golden good looks. Slim black jeans sheathed his long legs and narrow hips. A loose silky black shirt adorned his upper body. The finely textured sericeous fabric caressed his muscled torso like fond feminine hands; the dropped-shoulder styling of the yoke emphasized his impressively broad shoulders; the open collar showed a tasteful, tantalizing gHmpse of curling chest hair; the rolled back cuffs revealed the strength of his forearms and the pure masculine beauty of his long-fingered hands.

His blond hair was thick and softly curling, touching the collar of his black shirt, framing a face that would have made Michelangelo weep with despair at the impossibility of ever doing it justice in mere marble. His brow was noble; his nose was strong and aristocratic; his jaw and chin were sheer chiseled perfection; his finely molded lips were the stuff of a million female fantasies. But it was his eyes—those world-famous, mesmerizing, penetrating eyes—that really caught and held Nikki's fascinated attention. They were the brightest, bluest, most deliriously
wicked
eyes she'd ever seen.

And they were staring straight into hers.

Nikki swallowed, trying to bring some moisture to her suddenly dry mouth. What had happened, she wondered with fast growing alarm, to all her hard-won self-confidence? To the brash, bold, in-your-face cockiness with which she'd learned to stare down the world? What had happened to the woman who had vowed—
vowed!—
to never, ever let herself be swayed by the mere sight of a pretty face again?

* * *

G
OOD
G
OD,
Pierce thought and slowly straightened to a full upright position on the sofa. An Amazon goddess had just entered his garden room wearing hand-tooled cowboy boots and skintight, black leather pants that hugged every inch of the longest, leanest, shapeliest legs he'd ever been privileged to see. She had a black motorcycle helmet tucked under her right arm, reminding him of a knight about to arm for battle, and her booted feet were planted slightly apart on the ter-razzo tiles. Her back was ramrod straight, her head up, her chest out, like a soldier ready and waiting for orders.

Pierce immediately thought of several very intimate orders he'd like to give her as his gaze traveled upward over the fantasy-inspiring length of her legs.

The rest of her was as slim and gorgeous as her fabulous legs, narrow where a woman should be narrow, curved—as far as he could tell under the loose red jacket—where a woman should curve. Her hair was black and shiny, cut in one of those supershort styles that should have made her look boyish but most emphatically didn't. The tousled, feathery layers framed a face of fierce and vivid beauty. Her eyes were the pale green of fine peridots, bold and uncompromising beneath the straight slash of her unadorned brows as she returned his stare; her cheekbones were high and exquisitely chiseled; her nose was narrow; her mouth was wide and generous, as inviting as carnal sin, beneath a light coating of clear lip gloss.

Pierce grinned slowly, in frank admiration and masculine appreciation, and was rewarded by the slow bloom of color in her cheeks.
Maybe having a bodyguard won't be so bad, after all,
he thought, wondering if he could get her to turn around so he could see how those black leather pants looked from the back.

And then someone kicked him in the ankle—his brother, he realized, scowling—and he tore his gaze away from the goddess's face to find that everyone else had already come to their feet. Claire was, in fact, already halfway across the room.

"Ms. Martinelli," she said, her hand extended in greeting. "It's a pleasure to finally meet you."

Nikki juggled her motorcycle helmet from one arm to the other to shake hands, inadvertently exposing the butt of the gun under her left arm. She covered it back up with a quick yank on the front of her jacket and stuck out her hand. "Thank you. It's a pleasure to, ah... meet..." Her eyes darted from Claire's face to Pierce's and back again, like a child sneaking peeks at the beribboned birthday gift she wasn't allowed to open until all the proper amenities had been observed.

Snap out of it!
she ordered herself, when she realized what she was doing. Pierce Kingston wasn't the only—or even the most—good-looking man in Hollywood. And, even if he was, well... she'd sworn off men like him over four years ago, after the fiasco of her engagement to another man who was better looking than a man had any right to be. Nikki straightened her already straight shoulders, deliberately blocking Pierce Kingston's gorgeous face from her mind by focusing on his sister's.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, too, Ms. Kingston," she said briskly, forcing herself to deal with the matter at hand.

"Call me Claire, please," Claire said kindly, fully aware of the effect her brother had on the opposite sex—even when he
wasn't
deliberately sending out signals like a heat-seeking missile. "And I'll call you Nikki, shall I?" she said, drawing her guest across the room with her as she spoke. "Is that short for anything?"

"No, it's just Nikki," Nikki said. "It was supposed to be Nicholas but I surprised my dad."

"Hoping for a son after a string of daughters?" Tara asked pleasantly.

Nikki shook her head. "Hoping for another boy to complete the family basketball team," she said without a trace of the rancor her status in the family had caused during most of her teenage years. "I saw you last year in
The Promise,
Miss Channing," she blurted out like a star-struck teenager. "You were wonderful."

How about me?
Pierce wondered sourly, piqued that she seemed to be deliberately ignoring him.
Wasn't I
wonderful, too?
He had, after all, gotten an Oscar nomination for his role in the movie.

"Thank you," Tara said graciously. "But it's just plain Tara, please."

"You couldn't be plain if you tried, sweetheart," Gage said to his wife as he reached around her to offer his hand to Nikki. "I'm just plain Gage, though," he said, introducing himself.

"Not so plain," Nikki said as she shook his hand. "You won an Oscar for the cinematography on
The Promise.
Your third, I think."

"Yes." Gage smiled, pleased and impressed. Most people not in the business didn't even know what a cinematographer was. "How did you know that?"

"Bill briefed me," Nikki admitted.

"And this," Claire said, gesturing toward Pierce, "is Pierce. He's-"

"The body you're going to be guarding," Pierce interrupted smoothly, coming to his feet as he spoke. He reached out and took Nikki's hand in his, holding it in a grip that was somehow more intimate than that used for merely shaking hands. "I'm looking forward to having you shadow my every move," he said, smiling into eyes that were almost on a level with his.
Good God,
he thought, intrigued,
she must be nearly six feet tall.
He glanced down for just a second, running his gaze once again over the length of her leather-clad legs. They went on for miles, endless, inspiring and perfectly, outrageously gorgeous. A little thrill of excitement raced through him as half-a-dozen lascivious pictures formed in his highly inventive mind. Long, smooth thighs clasping his hips. Rounded kneecaps, bent and dimpled, draped over his shoulders. Trim ankles locked together in the small of his back. He looked up then, after that split second of speculation, his unspoken thoughts as clear to her as if he'd described each heated fantasy in intimate detail.

Nikki stared back at him, mesmerized, unable to look away, her expression half shocked, half intrigued and wholly, helplessly fascinated.

He smiled like a pirate bent on plundering her treasures, the rakish look in his eyes promising untold treasures in return.

Nikki gasped softly, indignantly, and tore her gaze away at last, trying, belatedly, to take her hand out of his.

Pierce smiled, refusing to release her, and drew her hand to within a scant millimeter of his lips. "I predict a long and blissful—" he waited until she'd lifted her lashes and locked her gaze with his again "—association," he said blandly, although the look in his eyes was anything but.

They stared at each other for another heartbeat's worth of time that seemed aeons long. Heat met heat. Challenge met challenge. A silent proclamation of amorous intent was declared by a pair of laser blue eyes. And furiously denied in the gleam of clear green ones. And then Pierce smiled again, slowly, in anticipation and delight and deliberate provocation, and touched his lips to the back of her hand.

"Oh, for heaven's sake, Pierce," said his sister. Exasperation warred with reluctant admiration in her voice. "Quit showing off and behave yourself. We have business to discuss."

* * *

"
G
IRLFRIEND?"
Nikki said a few moments later, trying not to look as alarmed as she felt at the prospect the Kingstons had just laid before her. "Bill Bender didn't say anything about pretending to be anybody's girlfriend. Especially not anybody's live-in girlfriend," she added, appalled at the very idea. She glanced around at the four of them, one by one, her expression rife with the suspicion that she was somehow being railroaded.

Tara Channing-Kingston gazed back at her out of slanted aquamarine eyes, looking sincere and concerned and not the least bit conniving. Gage Kingston's expression was decidedly amused. Claire was poised and expectant, the epitome of executive calm and confidence. And Pierce, once again lounging on the sofa across from her, looked like a hungry cat who had every expectation of being given the keys to an aviary. Nikki bit her lower lip, refusing to acknowledge the erratic jump of her pulse as she met his eyes, and shifted her gaze back to Claire's face.

"Bill said you were looking for a bodyguard who could be discreet," she said, careful not to look at Pierce again. "Someone who could blend into the background and not be noticed."

"Maybe with a bag over your head," Pierce muttered.

Gage snickered.

"And wearing a floor length gunnysack," Pierce added.

Tara frowned and shushed them both.

Claire shot a warning glance at Pierce, silently telling him to keep out of this and let her handle it. "What Bill meant was," she said, smiling her producer smile at Nikki, "that we need someone who can blend in
here."
She lifted a graceful hand in a gesture that encompassed more than just the lovely room in which they all sat. "In Beverly Hills and at Hollywood parties and... things like that. I'm sure you understand," she said confidingly. "What we want is someone whose appearance doesn't scream 'bodyguard.' Especially to anyone connected with the press."