The Socialite and the Bodyguard (10 page)

“I don’t have any protection.” His voice was thick with barely controlled desire.

“I’m not on the pill,” she admitted.

He drew a few slow breaths, regained his composure faster than she did, pulled back to look into her eyes. “And even if we had…If we went any further, you’d regret it in the morning. You’d probably fire me, and there’s no way in hell I’d leave while you were still in danger. Things could get real complicated.”

He reached for a towel and wrapped her in it before he stepped away from her completely. For an endless moment he watched her, one emotion after the other flickering through his keen gaze. Then he said, “I crossed the line tonight. It’s not going to happen again. My full focus has to be your safety. You’re not safe yet. Not from the enemy, and as hard as I’m going to try, probably not from me,” he said in a rueful tone.

She ignored that last bit for now, didn’t know what to do with it. “But the man is dead.”

She’d talked to the police. She and Nash had given statements. Thing was, the elevator crash did seem like a massive computer error, nothing more. The guy in the basement couldn’t be linked to it in any way. He had no ID, so the police were still trying to find out who he was. Not an employee, although he wore an employee’s uniform. The cops thought he might have stolen a uniform to get in free, maybe to see a show. He’d probably run from Nash only because he thought he was about to be caught by security.

“But he wasn’t in my apartment when the picture was taken.” She wasn’t sure what that meant, only that she badly wanted her staff exonerated.

“Whoever wants to hurt you could have more than one person working for him.” He went to grab his clothes.

She made sure she was dressed by the time he came back, not an easy task when her limbs were still weak with need.

Once again, he went first in the staircase, stopped at the bottom before they stepped out into the hallway on their floor.

His whiskey-gold gaze held hers. “My mother was a small-town diva, Miss Montgomery County, the beauty queen. Married my father then decided blue collar was too low for her. Couldn’t forgive him that he got her pregnant and cost her a magazine-ad photo shoot, either. She kept leaving and coming back. He started drinking. She left when I was sixteen. By then the old man was pretty mean. I stuck around until I graduated from high school, then I joined the service. My old man drank himself into the grave before I was done with basic training.”

She dropped on top of the covers, not bothering with undressing. She wore a pair of clean shorts and a tank top. But despite all the running and swimming she had done, sleep didn’t come easily.

She kept thinking of Nash.

And the more she thought, the more grateful she became that nothing had happened in that shower. As attractive as she found the man, she couldn’t have an affair with her bodyguard. He didn’t even like her. And he’d be gone in a couple of days.

If she weren’t careful, she was going to end up like her fast-and-loose celebrity image. And that wasn’t the direction she wanted to take her life. Some day, when the danger was over, she was going to have a serious image makeover. She was going to be a businesswoman to reckon with, one who was strong enough and respected enough to take over the company after Uncle Al retired.

Nash was a temporary distraction. She needed to stop thinking of him as a man and stick to business. She needed to focus on her future and her plans.

P
ART OF HIM
was glad that she didn’t get hurt, part of him was furious that the man he had paid had failed. He was a friend of a friend, someone he trusted.

The man made him uneasy. Wilder took charge. Wilder was investigating. But Wilder had been hired by her. When she was gone, Wilder would go away. He had to outsmart Wilder for only a little while longer. He would find someone else who could help him with Kayla. And then it would all be over.

N
ASH STARED
at the ceiling. Kissing her had been incredibly stupid. Yet he couldn’t regret it. He wanted her still. His body demanded that he walk into her bedroom, close the door behind him and finish what they’d started.

It had been a frustrating day all around. Someone had nearly gotten to Kayla. Fury whipped through him every time he thought about that. When he nearly had the bastard, the idiot had gone and got himself killed, so they were no closer to an answer now than at the very beginning.

And he’d even asked for Welkins’s help. He’d taken the picture of the man who’d messed with the elevators and sent it on to the boss by cell phone. Maybe there’d be a hit in one of the databases Welkins had access to.

Other than that, his only lead was the photo taken inside Kayla’s apartment. And that photo pointed to someone on staff. But he’d been unable to make any progress on that.

Tsini plodded out of Kayla’s room and walked around the living room, checking the perimeter, sniffing around the front door. She looked at Nash as if to make sure he was awake and on guard, as well.

The dog looked as goofy as all get out with her fancy haircut, but she was growing on him. As if sensing the danger to Kayla, whenever she wasn’t competing, Tsini stuck close to her.

“Nothing we can do tonight,” he told her. “Might as well go to sleep.”

He needed rest. He needed to be at one hundred percent tomorrow. The enemy had one man down. Which didn’t mean she was safe. All depended on how fast the bastard who was behind all this could find a replacement.

Tsini made another round, then, seeming satisfied with the result of her inspection, moseyed back into Kayla’s bedroom to settle at the foot of her bed.

Not that long ago, when he went to battle his teammates provided cover with rocket launchers. Now he had a poodle for backup, Nash thought, and shook his head.

He slept in fits and starts, waking bleary-eyed in the morning, not that he would let that affect him. He’d been trained to operate on little sleep.

Kayla looked as fit for the silver screen as always. Since she wouldn’t meet his eyes when she came out of her room for breakfast, he figured he’d been right and she regretted everything that had happened between them during the night.

He shouldn’t have felt disappointed. She was way out of his league. She was a celebrity heiress. He was a washed-up nobody.

She raced through her food then Elvis did full hair and makeup. Pretty early, he thought, considering that Tsini wasn’t competing for the Best in Show title until that afternoon.

“I’m going down to see the agility competitions,” she said before he had a chance to ask anything. “I don’t want to sit around up here all morning.”

“No.” The word came out too loudly, too forcefully. In front of her whole staff.

Just the thing Welkins had told him not to do if he knew what was good for him.

He wasn’t supposed to take over. He wasn’t supposed to act the boss, especially in front of the client’s employees and friends. He no longer cared.

Her lips, the same lips that he’d kissed senseless the night before, now tightened. Mike and Dave pulled themselves taller, ready to see him lose his authority, allowing them to get some back.

“It’d be safer to stay. I’m sure you would agree, considering all that’s happened.” He tried to backpedal, hating that he couldn’t simply issue orders. He didn’t much like operating in the civilian world. Dealing with military personnel was much easier.

On his team, he’d been the leader. And his men had followed rank. Here, Kayla outranked him, which, if he were honest, bugged him to hell.

“Agility is fun. I don’t want to be locked up here. I deserve a normal life,” she said. “We’ll be careful.”

He could have pushed. He was a tough son of a bitch, he could have probably browbeaten her, scared her into staying in her suite. But suddenly he found he didn’t want to do that. Because she was right. She did deserve a normal life.

He was used to living under battle conditions. But she shouldn’t have to live her life as if she were at war.

She was still in danger, he had no doubt in his mind about that. But maybe they’d get a little breather before her enemy, whoever the bastard was, regrouped.

He held her ocean-blue gaze. “Stick to me. Draw no attention. When I say we leave, we leave.”

She surprised him with a smile and a mock salute.

And the tension leaked out of the room as everyone went about their business.

In the end, Tom stayed behind to beautify Tsini for the Best in Show competition. Greg stayed with him. Poor guy had another one of his headaches. Nash left Dave in the suite with them, and Mike joined him and Kayla. Elvis, Fisk and Ivan tagged along, but soon split off, going after their own interests.

The elevator ride was uneventful. If Kayla felt nervous, she didn’t show it. He had to give it to her, she was one tough woman. She didn’t crack easily.

The morning contest didn’t turn out to be as boring as he’d expected. The working dogs were all right. They conquered the obstacle course like nobody’s business. Although, now that he’d gotten to know Tsini better, he was beginning to think that Tsini could more than hold her own against them. Apparently, fanciness and toughness weren’t mutually exclusive.

Agility was followed by Junior Showmanship. Since Kayla so obviously wanted to stay, he didn’t push too hard to get her back upstairs. They didn’t return to her suite until lunch, in fact.

After lunch, it was Tsini’s turn again.

And Nash found himself leaning forward in his seat, rooting for her, hoping for another win.

The dogs were checked from head to toe as before. They had to run around the judge in a circle. Tsini pranced between a rottweiler and a St. Bernard. He had no idea how the judges could compare breeds that were so different from each other.

Kayla was nearly vibrating in her seat next to him.

The judge was ready to make his decision. “Would the standard poodle please step out? The beagle. The rottweiler.”

The dogs ran another round, led by their handlers. And the judge nodded at last. “In that order,” she said, and the audience broke out in a cheer.

Kayla had been cool toward Nash all morning, but now she jumped up and threw herself into his arms again. She had no idea what she was doing to him. She couldn’t know that he was cross-eyed with lust if he as much as looked at her. She was pushing him closer and closer to the edge with all this touching. She gave him a brilliant smile as she drew back. Then she pushed away as fast as she had jumped him and ran toward the stage where Tom was accepting a large silver cup and a big blue ribbon on Tsini’s behalf.

Nash swore and dashed after her. “You wait for me.”

“Sure.” She ran faster.

He had half a mind to throw her across his shoulder and carry her back to her room. Except that he was beginning not to trust himself if he needed to put his hands on her. Somewhat of a problem, seeing how he was her bodyguard. He needed to get his head on straight.

Then his assignment would be over.

And Nash was no closer to catching the bastard who wanted to get to her. That thought practically killed him as he watched Kayla do the victory dance with Tsini again.

N
ASH LOOKED
breathtaking in his rented tuxedo. He’d insisted on being her escort to the closing gala and Kayla didn’t argue with him. She didn’t want to. Truth was, she wanted to feel his strong arms around her.

He was tall, his dark hair gleaming in the candlelight, his dark gold eyes focused solely on her. Always on her. She tried to remind herself that he only watched her because she was paying him to do exactly that.

But she hadn’t paid him to kiss her in that pool or do what they’d done in the shower the night before. His desire for her had been unmistakable.

What did he want? Experience showed that nobody wanted her just for herself. They wanted the lifestyle, the attention, the chance to come into the public eye. She’d been in relationships—not nearly as many as the tabloids suggested, but enough to have her heart broken over and over again. She didn’t want to go there, not with Nash.