The Socialite and the Bodyguard

Dana Marton

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Epilogue

Copyright

About the Author

DANA MARTON is the author of more than a dozen fast-paced, action-adventure romantic suspense novels and a winner of the Daphne du Maurier Award of Excellence. She loves writing books of international intrigue, filled with dangerous plots that try her tough-as-nails heroes and the special women they fall in love with. Her books have been published in seven languages in eleven countries around the world. When not writing or reading, she loves to browse antiques shops and enjoys working in her sizable flower garden where she searches for “bad” bugs with the skills of a superspy and vanquishes them with the agility of a commando soldier. Every day in her garden is a thriller. To find more information on her books, please visit www.danamarton.com. She loves to hear from her readers and can be reached via e-mail at the following address: DanaMarton@DanaMarton.com.

With sincere appreciation for Allison Lyons and Denise Zaza and the whole Intrigue team

Chapter One

Nash Wilder stood still in the darkness and listened to the sounds the bumbling intruder was making downstairs. Instinct—and everything he was—pushed him forward, into the confrontation. He pulled back instead, until he reached Ally Whitman’s bedroom door at the end of the hall in the east wing of her Pennsylvania mansion.

The antique copper handle turned easily under his hand; the door didn’t creak. He stepped in, onto the plush carpet, without making a sound.

She woke anyway, a light sleeper—no surprise after what she’d been through. She saw him and sat up in bed, her lips opening.

He lifted his index finger to caution her to silence as he mouthed, “He’s here.”

She always slept with a reading light on, and was nodding now to let him know that she’d seen and understood his words. As she clutched the cover to her chest, the sleeves of her pajama top slid back.

A nasty scar ran from her wrist to her elbow, evidence of a serious operation to piece together the bone beneath Not that she would ever share that story with anyone. She was a very private person, not a complainer, tough in her own way. Nash had read about the injury—one of many she’d suffered in the past twenty years—in her file.

His job was to make sure it was her last.

Sleep was quickly disappearing from her eyes as she clutched the blanket tighter and drew a slow breath, spoke in a whisper. “You’ll take care of him.”

Her confidence was hard-won. She wasn’t a woman to give her trust easily. Getting to this point had taken two months of them being together 24/7.

He wanted to protect her, but she needed more. His assignment here was over when her divorce was final in three days. After that there was no reason for her ex to come back. He would have what he’d gotten from her and no more. At least, that was what Ally thought. Nash wasn’t that optimistic.

He held her gaze as he shook his head. “You’ll take care of him.”

She needed to know without a doubt that she could. And her bastard of a soon-to-be-ex-husband needed to know that, too.

Her eyes went wide, and for a moment she was frozen to the spot, but then she nodded and pushed the cover back.

Good girl.

Not that Ally Whitman was a girl. She was a grown woman who’d seen the darker side of life during her twenty miserable years of marriage. She’d been a beauty in her day. He’d seen the wedding photo that had hung above the fireplace before he moved it, at her request, to the basement on his first day on the job. She’d been young and innocent, the sheltered daughter of a wealthy venture capitalist. Easy pickings.

His anger kicked into gear. He had a thing about violent bastards exploiting and brutalizing those weaker than themselves. He moved toward the door while she put on her robe. At fifty-two, Ally was still a striking woman.

As he waited, he heard rubber-soled shoes squeak on the marble tile downstairs. “In the kitchen,” he whispered when Ally came up next to him.

He walked her to the main staircase and handed her his gun. He’d made sure during the last two months that she knew how to handle it. He waited until she made her way down, then he headed to the other end of the hallway and stole down the back stairs, ignoring the sudden shot of pain that went through his bad leg. Enough moonlight filtered in through the windows that he could navigate the familiar landscape of the house without trouble.

“Hello, Jason,” he heard her say as he moved toward the kitchen from the back.

A chair rattled as someone bumped it.

“What are you sneaking around in the middle of the night for?” Anger flared in the loudly spoken response. Her ex would probably have preferred to surprise her in her sleep. Scare her a little.

“I want you to leave my house.”

So far, so good. Nash crept closer. A few months ago, she would have asked the bastard what he wanted and in her desperation to be rid of him, would have given it.

“Like hell.” The man’s tone grew belligerent. “It’s my house, too. If you think you’re going to push me out—”

“The judge decided.”

“To hell with the judge. I lived here for twenty years. You can’t kick me out like that.”

A moment passed before Ally said, “I already have.”

Nash moved into position in time to see Jason Whitman step forward with fury on his fleshy face. “You bitch, if you think—”

He was ready to intercept when Ally pulled the gun from her robe pocket.

That slowed the bastard right down. “What the hell?” A stunned pause followed, then, “Put that down, dammit. You’re not gonna shoot me. Don’t be ridiculous.” But he didn’t sound too sure of himself as he nervously adjusted the jacket of his linen suit. Dressed for a break-in like he was going to a luncheon at the country club.

The light color of the fabric made him an easy target. He wouldn’t think of something like that. Jason Whitman wasn’t used to being in the crosshairs. He was used to being the hunter.

“I want you to go. I mean it.” Ally stood firm.

Moonlight glinted off the white marble counters, off the etched glass of the top cabinets. Industrial chrome appliances gleamed, standing tall, standing witness.

The man hesitated for a moment. Nash could nearly hear the wheels turning in his head. Meeting with resistance for the first time was usually a shock to the abuser’s system, especially when he’d gotten away with the abuse for decades. He could either back down or erupt in violence.

Ally grabbed the gun with both hands, put her feet a foot or so apart in the stance Nash had taught her. And something in that show of strength set Whitman off. He flew forward.

Not as fast as Nash.

He had the guy’s arm twisted up behind his back in the next second, brought him to a halt as the man howled in pain. “Let me go, you lowlife sonuvabitch. How in hell did you get here?”

He had suspected the man might put in an appearance if he thought the coast was clear, so Nash had parked his car a couple of streets down. He wanted the confrontation to be over with. He wanted to be sure the threat to Ally was neutralized before he left the job.

“You can’t protect her forever,” Whitman growled and tried to elbow Nash in the stomach with his free arm, which Nash easily evaded.

“I’m protecting you. Take a good look at her.”

And damn, but Ally Whitman looked fine, Make My Day about stamped on her forehead—her eyes narrowed, her hands steady, her mouth grim.

“I’d be only too happy to have her take care of you. But I don’t want her to go through all the police business afterward. Not that they’d give her much trouble. Intruder in the middle of the night. Clear case of self-defense.”

And for a split second he wondered if it might not be better if things went that way. People with a bullet in the head didn’t come back. Guaranteed. But he had gotten to know Ally enough over the last two months to know that she would have a hard time living with that.

Not him.

He would have needed hardly any provocation at all to reach up and break the bastard’s neck.

Ally was stepping closer. Nash restrained the man’s other arm. She didn’t stop until the barrel was mere inches from her ex-husband’s forehead.

“You’ve had all you’re ever going to get from me, Jason. This is the last time I’m going to say this. Go away. Far away. And don’t ever come back. I’m not the same woman you remember.”

And from the fierce look on her face, it was plenty clear that she meant what she said.

Nash felt Whitman go limp. “Hey, okay. I didn’t mean anything. I just thought—you know, that we could work things out. I just—”

She lowered the gun, but not all the way. “You just get the hell out of here.” Her voice went deeper. Her chin lifted. She held the bastard’s gaze without a blink.

This was it, the moment when the woman found her own power at last, and from behind Whitman, who was so doomed if he made another move, Nash smiled. He yanked the man aside and finally let him go. Whitman—not as stupid as he looked—ran for the door.

And for the first time in the weeks since he’d been her bodyguard, Nash heard Ally Whitman laugh.

Four days later

NASH HAD skirted orders now and then during his military career, but this was going to be the first time he refused a direct order from his superior officer. He didn’t have to worry about a court-martial, neither he nor Brian Welkins were in the military anymore. But he couldn’t rightly say he wasn’t worried. Welkins had spent four years locked in a tiger cage, the prisoner of guerillas in the Malaysian jungle. He broke free and fought his way out of that jungle, saving other hostages in the process. He was the toughest guy Nash knew. Definitely not a man to cross.

Which was why he was careful when he said, “Can’t do that, sir.”

The sparse office was all wood and steel. Security film shielded the windows, keeping out the worst of the sun as well as any prying eyes. Nash considered the simple office chair but decided against sitting.

The only indication that Welkins heard him was a short pause of his hand before he resumed moving his pen across paper. “You will report to duty at eighteen-hundred hours.” He picked up the case file with his left hand and held it out for Nash without removing his attention from whatever he was working on.

He ran Welkins Security Services like a military organization, leading his team to success. WSS had started as an outfit that offered survival-type team-building retreats to major corporations, hiring commando and military men who had left active duty for one reason or another. They were all tough bastards, to the last, who soon realized that nudging yuppies through the Arizona desert or the deep forests of the Adirondacks was too mild an entertainment for them. So the company expanded into the bodyguard business, which offered live-wire action to those who missed it. Like Nash.

He stood his ground. “I’m going to pass on this assignment, sir.” He liked working in private security where he had options like that. Or not, judging from Welkins’s expression when he looked up at last.

His pen hand stilled. “Is there a problem, soldier?”

Apparently. Since they were now all civilians, the boss only called one of the team members “soldier” if he was majorly ticked off.

“I’m not the right man for this assignment.” Taking a few weeks and fixing up that half-empty rat hole he called home was starting to sound good all of a sudden.

“You think the assignment is beneath you?”

Damn right. “I’m not doing security detail for—I’m not working for a dog, sir.”

“You’ll be working for Miss Landon.”

And that was the other reason he had to say no, a bigger reason really than the dog.

“Miss Landon specifically wants someone from our team.”

“Maybe someone—”

“Everyone else is on assignment. It’s four days. Quick work. Easy money.”

He liked that last bit, but the answer was still no. “It’s punishment for messing up the Whitman case, isn’t it?”

Welkins didn’t say anything for a full minute, but Nash caught a nearly imperceptible twitch at the corner of the man’s mouth.

“You were supposed to be protecting Mrs. Whitman from her ex-husband, not holding him down while she put a gun to his head. His lawyer is frothing at the mouth. Do you know how much this could cost the company?”

He had a fair idea. And it burned his ass that the law would probably take Whitman’s side after all the years it had failed to protect his wife from him.

It had taken two decades of misery for Mrs. Whitman to gather up enough courage to file for divorce. She had money in spades. But money couldn’t buy her happiness. Thank God she’d finally realized that it could buy her some serious protection.

Whitman wouldn’t go anywhere near her again. But he’d decided to pick another fight, this time with WSS, hiding behind his fancy lawyers.

“I should have taken him out,” Nash said, looking at his feet and shaking his head, talking more to himself than Welkins.

“You should not have taken him out. You’re no longer in the mountains of Afghanistan. You are in the protection business. Do you understand that?” Welkins watched him as if he weren’t sure whether Nash really did, as if Nash might not be a good fit for the team after all.

And maybe he wasn’t. He was trained as a killing machine. Maybe he wasn’t good for anything else.

“You need to learn to pull back.” Welkins’s tone was more subdued as he said that.

A moment of silence passed between them while Nash thought over the incident. “I can’t regret anything I did on that assignment, sir. But I do regret if my actions caused any difficulties for the company and the team,” he said at last.

“Then take one for the team.” Welkins’s sharp gaze cut to him.

And Nash knew he was sunk. Loyalty was the one thing he would never go around, the trait he appreciated most in others, the one value he would never compromise on.

His lungs deflated. He hung his head and rubbed his hand over his face for a second.

Four cursed days at the Vegas Dog Show, guarding celebrity heiress and media darling Kayla Landon’s puff poodle, Tsini. If the boss wanted to unman him, it would have been easier to castrate him and be done with it.

The one ray of hope in the deal was that Kayla Landon had a host of assistants. She probably had a professional team showing off her dog for her, so he wouldn’t actually have to come face-to-face with her and the hordes of paparazzi that usually followed.

What kind of dog received death threats anyway? He couldn’t see something like that happening to a real dog like a rottweiler or a German shepherd.

“All right.” He pushed the words past his teeth with effort. “I don’t think a consultation with Miss Landon will be necessary.” Please. If there was a God.

“No, indeed. I have already consulted with her.”

For the first time since he’d walked into the office, Nash relaxed. Then Welkins smiled.

Terrible suspicion raised its ugly head.

The heavy smell of doom hung in the air.

“There’s more to this, isn’t there?”

“Because of the threats, Miss Landon will be traveling with her dog-show team to Vegas. You’ll be working with her 24/7.”

He closed his eyes for a minute. Her nickname was Popcorn Princess. Seriously. And he was going to have to take orders from her. Oh, hell. Was it too late to go back to the military and sign up for active duty in some combat zone instead?

“Let me spell this out. Don’t try to fix the client’s life. Don’t make this personal. Go in, get the job done, get out and collect the payment.” Welkins looked at Nash with something akin to regret. “You can’t afford to tick off anyone else.”

Meaning if he didn’t please Miss Landon, he would probably not have a job when he came back.

And the demand for washed-up commando soldiers wasn’t exactly great in the current job market. Especially for those with a near-blank résumé, since one hundred percent of his missions for the government had been top secret.

He was no longer fit for that job, or most others. But he had to keep working. Because if he stood still long enough without anything to do and occupy his mind, the darkness tended to catch up with him.

He thanked Welkins and walked out, knowing one thing for sure. Empty-headed socialites and puffy-haired poodles notwithstanding, no matter what happened, he couldn’t mess up this assignment. If he lost Welkins and WSS, he’d have nothing left.

“SO CLOSE to perfect it’s scary. I’m definitely a genius.” Elvis, her makeup artist, focused critically on her left eyebrow and did a last-minute touch-up with the spoolie. “Ay mios dio. You’re so fabulous, no one will pay any attention to the food.”

Her penthouse condo, in the most exclusive part of Philadelphia, was buzzing with activity. Kayla Landon worked on blocking out all the distractions. And kept failing.

“Let’s hope I don’t mess up any ingredients.” Not that she thought she would. She was feeling decidedly optimistic today, or rather had been. She normally used makeup time to relax, but now found herself watching the new bodyguard from the corners of her eyes instead.

Her uncle had insisted on him. She half regretted already that she’d caved. She didn’t want to have to deal with him, with the adjustment of a new man on her team.

He was gorgeous, in a scary sort of way. Six feet two inches of sinew and hard muscle, and a don’t-mess-with-me look in his amazing gold eyes. That and a strong dislike for her.

She wasn’t surprised.

Most men she met either hated her or wanted to screw her on sight. For the moment, she didn’t know whether to feel relieved or disappointed that Nash Wilder seemed unequivocally in the first camp.

He was taking stock of her, her home and her people.

She made him wait, mostly because she could tell that it annoyed him, and also because she needed a few moments to gather herself before she faced all that raw, masculine power.

“Hey.” Her younger brother, Greg, ambled by. He gave her a sweet smile and dropped a kiss on her hair, careful not to mess up her makeup.

In a couple of hours, The Cooking Channel would be recording a show in her kitchen as part of their Celebrity Cooks at Home series. They were setting up already, making a royal mess. People she’d never seen before traipsed all over everything.

She wasn’t thrilled about opening her home to the public once again, but the show was doing a special for a charity that stood close to her heart, one that funded Asperger’s research. Greg had that mild form of autism, among a host of other issues.

He was looking at all the people, his arms crossed. He hated crowds. Not that he would act out as he used to. Now that he was a grown man, he’d learned to control his impulses. For the most part. He’d definitely gotten worse since they’d lost their parents and their older brother. Maybe tonight, after everyone was gone, she’d try to talk to him about that again.

But for now, all she did was slip the white envelope off her dressing table and hand it to him. He stuffed it into his back pocket. She wanted to ask what he wanted the money for this time, but didn’t want to humiliate him the way their father had done so often in the past. Money was a touchy issue for Greg.

Someone dropped a cookie sheet in the kitchen. The metal clanging on tiles drew her attention for a moment.

“Wish they’d let me cook what I wanted. Frilly finger food is not really my thing.” She stifled her discontent. “I suppose that’s what everyone expects from me. Easy and fancy.”

“You do what you want to do.” Greg was as supportive and protective of her as she was of him.

“I have to trust them to know what’s best for the show. We want to raise serious money.”

“Don’t trust anyone but yourself.”

He sounded so much like their father as he said that. Don’t trust anyone but yourself had been one of Will Landon’s favorite sayings.

Kayla was beginning to make it hers these days. She wondered what brought it to Greg’s mind. She’d been careful to keep all her worries and doubts from him. Still, Greg must have picked up on the increasing tension in the air.

She forced a smile. “Don’t worry about any of this. They’ll be done in a couple of hours and then they’ll be out of here.”

Greg gave a solemn nod. “I’ll be back later.”

She closed her eyes for a second as the sable brush dusted her face. Her brother was gone by the time she opened them.

“God has never made a prettier face.” Elvis smiled from ear to ear. “She must be so proud of you, querida.” He stepped behind her, a hand on his slim hip, glowing with pride as he looked her over in the mirror.

She looked for the pimple that had blossomed in the middle of her chin overnight. Vanished. She blew a kiss to Elvis. “You’re the best. Thanks.”

He whisked away the white cloth that had been protecting her clothes. “You’re welcome. Who’s the hottie over there? Yo quiero some of that.” His gaze darted that way in the mirror.

“He’ll be watching out for Tsini for the next couple of days.”

“Ay dios mio. Makes me want to write myself death threats.” Elvis fanned himself with his hand and gave her a sly look.

They grinned at each other in the mirror before he turned her swivel chair. “Go knock ‘em dead.”

“It’s a culinary show. I think they expect me to cook for them.”

She glanced at her agent and manager chatting at the other end of the den, probably discussing the dog show. A couple of vendors who’d found out that she would be there had already made contact about the possibility of celebrity product endorsement. Her agent was for it, her manager against. She was undecided. She had plenty on her schedule already, but there were a couple of free animal clinics she knew to which she could donate the income from the ads.

She pushed all that from her mind for now and slid off the chair, full of nervous energy despite the fabulous yoga session she’d had that morning. She headed for the living room, waving her security back when they moved to follow. Mike and Dave were great guys, but they were a little miffed over the new security guard, and she wanted to have her first meeting with him without their interference.

“Mr. Wilder? I’m Kayla.” She offered him her hand, even as she thought, Wilder than what? And knew from the looks of him that the answer had to be, Wilder than just about any other thing she’d ever met up with.

He held her fingers gently in his large hand. Didn’t feel the need to impress her with his strength. So far so good. There was hope yet.

“Please, call me Nash,” he said.

She hadn’t been prepared for his voice. Sexy as sin. His tone was deep-timbered, and tickled something behind her breast bone as it vibrated through her.

She put up her invisible professional force field, which protected her from an attraction toward hot men. Attraction could lead to letting her guard down. And letting her guard down always led to disaster. She was done with that. She’d learned her lesson a couple of times over.

“We can talk in here.” She motioned toward her sprawling living room overlooking Memorial Park, which was outfitted with a state-of-the-art sound system. Soft music floated in the background, the latest album of one of her friends.

“We’ll need everyone on set in fifteen minutes,” the producer called out in warning from the kitchen.

Plenty of time for a brief tête-à-tête. She settled into a space-age style red-leather pod and crossed her legs.

Nash eyed the pod across from hers then picked the ultra-modern couch instead, sat as if expecting it to break under him. He didn’t even try to disguise the derision in his eyes as he looked around. Probably didn’t expect her to notice.

People who equated her with the airhead-heiress media image used to drive her to frustration. These days, since she only stayed alive because her enemies continued to underestimate her, she didn’t mind any longer, had come to count on it, in fact.

But still, Nash Wilder sitting there and judging her before they’d ever exchanged two words got under her skin.

“So you’re the great pet detective?” She couldn’t help herself.

He focused back on her, fixed her with a glare that was probably supposed to put her in her place.

His short hair was near-black, his eyes dark gold whiskey. The two-inch scar along his jawline gave him a fierce look. The sleeves of his black T-shirt stretched across impressive biceps. He had Semper Fi tattooed on one and some sort of a shield on the other.

“I’m a bodyguard, Miss Landon,” he was saying. “I’m not a pet detective.”

And I’m not an airhead blonde, she wanted to tell him, but didn’t. Nobody ever believed her anyway.

“There are a few things I’m going to need from you.” He moved on. “A copy of your employee files, with pictures. A list of close associates. Your schedule for the past month. Your hour-by-hour schedule for the next four days of the show. The threats. The originals if the police didn’t take them.”

“I didn’t call the police.”

The police had done nothing when she’d gone to them for help about her parents’ and her brother’s deaths. Accidents. She hated that word with a hot red passion, but that was all they would tell her. They sure weren’t going to bother themselves about her pet.

“You can have a list of my employees with their pictures, but not their employee files. That would be a breach of confidentiality.”

He glared, obviously not liking that she pushed back. Tough for him. She expected a better plan for Tsini’s protection than him harassing her employees.

Other than Greg and her uncle, she had barely any family left. Her staff was her family. They looked out for her, took care of her, defended her from the paparazzi and kept her secrets. She trusted them implicitly and she wasn’t going to hand them over for any sort of interrogation by Mr. Hot and Overzealous here.

Wilder kept going with the narrow-eyed look. If he thought he could browbeat her into doing whatever he wanted, he was setting himself up for steep disappointment.

“You do that so well, Mr. Wilder. Do they teach mean looks in pet-detective school?” she began, then decided to stop there. She shouldn’t antagonize him. But she knew that he’d judged her and judged her unfairly from the moment he’d set eyes on her, probably from the moment he’d taken on the job, or before. She resented it and felt some perverse need to put him in his place. Stupid. She needed to let go of that. Whatever he thought of her, he’d come to help.

Still, every inch of him exuded how much he didn’t want to be here. The restraint that kept him in his seat was admirable. “Miss Landon—”

“Kayla.”

“All I want is to figure out where the threats came from. It would make my job easier.”

He was hired to keep an eye on Tsini for the next four days. Was he going above and beyond to impress her, or did he really care?

He didn’t look as if her good opinion mattered one whit to him, for sure. But how could he care? He didn’t know her and hadn’t even met Tsini yet.

“I like doing my job as well as I can,” he said.

That was it, then. A dedicated man. Her father would have liked him.

Tsini chose that moment to wander out of her bedroom and mosey in. She went straight to the stranger in the room and gave him a few cursory sniffs.

“And this would be my job?” He looked the standard poodle over.

“We prefer to call her Tsini.” Kayla petted her when Tsini finally made her way to the pod chair. Her gleaming white hair was done in show clip, ready for the competition. They were leaving for Vegas in the morning. “Aren’t you pretty today?”

Nash leaned back on the couch, watching the two of them. “So how much would one of these fancy things run a person?”

Not much at all. She’d rescued the abused poodle from a shelter. Some despicable breeder had been shut down just days before and about two dozen purebred poodles had ended up crammed into the already overcrowded cages. Kayla had gone there for a guard dog—right after her older brother’s death. But then she’d seen Tsini with her badly broken leg, the cutest puppy that ever lived, and when she’d been told that the surgery to reset it would cost too much so she’d have to be put down, Kayla had snapped her up quicker than the ASPCA guy could ask for her autograph.

She’d paid for the surgeries, rehabilitation and regular grooming, wanting to erase the frightened, sick mess Tsini had been. And she had succeeded at least in this one thing in her life.

Tsini had turned out to be a real girl. She liked to look pretty and liked to show it off. And it was a pleasure to take her to shows and let her. After Kayla tracked down and obtained the dog’s papers.

None of that would interest Nash who’d strutted into her home with his thinly veiled prejudices, determined to believe her a spoiled brat. “Tsini is priceless,” she said.

She reached for the star-shaped wireless phone on the see-through acrylic coffee table and rang her office as Tsini settled in at her feet. Her secretary picked up on the second ring.

“Could you please send over my schedule for the last month and the next four days? The official schedule of the dog show, too? Thanks.”

She hung up then walked over to the built-in cabinetry that was camouflaged in the wall paneling. She pressed a panel and a deep drawer slid out. She pulled out the plastic bag inside and carried it back to Nash, tossed it on his lap.

Tsini had followed her there and back, taking her time to resettle again. She was a sweet, good-natured dog. Unconditional love. Complete acceptance.

Nash opened the bag with care then pulled out the contents. “What’s this?”

She leaned down for Tsini, lifted her up and hugged her close as even the last bit of her good mood for the day disappeared. “The last message I got. Day before yesterday.”

It still gave her shivers.

Chapter Two

Nash looked the thing over. “Did a note come with it?”

“No.”

“So basically this is your death threat?” He did his best not to laugh. Someone sends her an electric-blue fur coat and she runs crying for help. Women.

The job was looking easier by the minute. He didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed. Some challenge would have at least kept him from being bored to death.

Maybe she could put the damned coat on, not that there was much of it, just a strip of back and the sleeves. He thought, but wasn’t sure, that they called this sort of thing a bolero jacket. Partially completed clothing seemed to be her thing. There had to be parts missing from the dress she wore. The white silk clung to curves that were made to tempt a man. Tempt him and drive him mad.

She had a perfect figure, which the paparazzi loved, big blue eyes and silky blond hair that tumbled down all the way to her pert little behind.

Temptation in a designer dress, if outside appearances were all a man cared about. But he’d been burned one time too many to be taken in by any of that.

He’d been burned and Bobby was dead. He pushed that thought away, still not ready to deal with it. He’d done many stupid things in his life, but for this one, for “Pounder”—Bobby Smith had been a wizard with heavy artillery—Nash would never forgive himself.

He watched dispassionately as Kayla Landon’s luscious, hot-pink, glazed lips tightened.

“That coat is made of dog fur.” She emphasized the last two words. “Same breed as Tsini, dyed blue. The decoration around the neckline is exactly the same as the collar Tsini has.”

Okay, he could see that now. He dropped the thing back into the bag. He had friends who could go over it for any clues, although he didn’t hold out much hope for anything usable. Likely everyone and their PR manager had already had their hands on it. Kayla Landon worked with a large staff.

“How would you feel—” her blue eyes flashed “—if someone sent you a coat made of human skin with tattoos exactly like yours?”

Point taken. He glanced at Tsini at Kayla’s feet, then back at the blue coat, then at Kayla again.

And got seriously ticked when he saw the lines of concern around her eyes, and the fear behind them. And he knew in that instant what he’d stepped in the middle of here.

This wasn’t about the dog.

The threats were about her. Someone wanted to scare her. And if the bastard was anything like some Nash had had to deal with in the past, harming her would be the next step. Only, her incompetent bodyguards had been too busy brushing lint off their designer suits to realize that. He’d seen them and wasn’t impressed. They’d let him into the penthouse on his word. Nobody had checked that he was who he’d claimed to be. Amateurs, the both of them.

Not my problem, his brand-new resolution smacked him upside the head the next moment. He’d been hired to protect the dog. He wasn’t here to solve all of Kayla Landon’s problems.

That held him back for about thirty seconds. Then his mind crept back to the issue again.

Someone was out there with Kayla in his sights. Nash watched her closely, as analytically as he had ever considered any mission.

There was a vulnerability about her that didn’t come through on the television screen or show in her frequent pictures in the tabloids. Predictably, he found himself responding.

Don’t go there.

He was a sucker for women in jeopardy—his one weakness. Hadn’t he just gotten into trouble over that? Exactly how he’d ended up with the damned “pet-detective” assignment in the first place.

If he sank any lower, he’d be doing cat shows next.

He’d shoot himself first, he decided.

He couldn’t afford to get involved in Kayla Landon’s life chin-deep. Welkins would have his head on a platter. But he could do two things for her, at the very least: the first was to convince her that she was in a lot more danger than her dog, the second was to put the fear of God into her bodyguards so they would step up their vigilance. While protecting the poodle and navigating the Vegas Dog Show. All this in the next four days, which was the duration of his assignment.

And during that time, Kayla would be in an environment that was impossible to control, even discounting the media circus that was bound to follow her around. Best thing would be to convince her not to go to the show, but he had nothing save his instincts to take to her, and she had no reason to trust him.

Hell, it would probably take four days just to convince her that she was in any kind of danger. Mediadarling socialite. She probably thought the whole world loved her.

He watched as she bent to kiss the dog’s head, caught the curve of a breast, dropped his gaze only to land on her mile-long legs.

A target who didn’t know she was in danger. A woman who was definitely tempting him on a raw, primal level, but who came with a “strictly forbidden” sticker.

“I’m a little worried that a new person will throw off the team,” she said.

Great. She didn’t even want him there.

“I wish there were another solution.”

He wished for the simplicity of armed combat. He didn’t think it’d be prudent to tell her that.

SHE HATED that she would feel rattled under his scrutiny. As a businesswoman, Kayla had fought her way through a top-notch MBA, then into a corner office at Landon Enterprises at last. As a public persona, since people seemed fascinated with her, she’d been dragged through the tabloids over and over again. She had her protective shields firmly in place on every level. She didn’t like the fact that Nash Wilder was able to get to her with a glance.

“Don’t worry about anything. I’m going to take care of this,” he said.

“Excellent,” Kayla told him, all snooty like he would expect. Sometimes that was easiest. “That’s what I’m paying you for.” She flashed a saccharine smile.

And watched his Adam’s apple bob up, then down.

She was getting to him, too. And how childish was it to gain pleasure from that? She needed to get away from him, away from his penetrating gaze. She wished they would call her to the kitchen.

“I’d prefer if we took the Landon jet to Vegas,” he said, focusing back on the work at hand. Apparently, he’d read the detailed file her secretary had sent over to Welkins’s office.

“The team is flying commercial. First class. I already have the tickets.” The corporate jet would be too easily set up for another accident if her parents’ and brother’s murderer decided to use the opportunity to take her out.

Whoever the bastard was, she didn’t think he would blow up a passenger jet and kill hundreds of people just to get to her.

Greg’s voice filtered in from the den. She glanced that way. Back already? She wished Nash would finish their question-and-answer session so she could talk to her brother. But Greg seemed to be leaving again with a quick wave to her. He’d probably come back for something he’d forgotten. He was often absentminded.

“The corporate jet would give me a smaller environment to control. It’d make my job easier,” Nash was saying.

Obviously, he expected her to rearrange her life to his specifications. She knew bodyguards like that. Her aunt had fallen prey to a similar man when Kayla had been a teenager. The guy had come in, made Aunt Carmella completely paranoid, got her to where she wouldn’t trust anyone but him. She ended up leaving Uncle Al and marrying that man. He left her after a year, taking half of the family fortune with him.

“Your job is to protect Tsini. My job is to live my life, not to make yours easy,” she spelled it out for Nash.

He considered her with a lazy look that she was pretty sure hid fury. “As you pointed out before, you’re paying me to protect you—” He cleared his throat. “Your dog. Are you going to fight me on everything I recommend?”

He didn’t seem like a guy who was used to taking no for an answer. He probably scared the breath out of the average person. He would have scared the breath out of her, too, if her life hadn’t been in constant jeopardy in the past year.

She flashed her best debutante-millionaire-heiress smile. “Of course not, just when we don’t agree.” Then she thought, shouldn’t have said that.

He looked in control, but she wasn’t sure whether it was the kind of control that would easily snap. For all she knew, he was getting ready to strangle her for standing up to him. Her father had been like that. Bore no opposition from anyone. How quickly she’d forgotten.

But Nash threw his head back and laughed.

The sound was warm and genuine, reached right across the distance between them. The harsh lines of his face crinkled into a look of mirth. Not staring with her jaw hanging open took effort. The man was beyond belief good-looking.

“You’re not like I expected,” he said, his demeanor turning friendlier.

“And you think you know all about me now after what, five minutes?” She didn’t want to admit that he was quickly disarming her.

“I know that spunk and a sense of humor rarely accompany an empty head.”

Score one for Nash. He was more observant than ninety-nine percent of the people she usually met.

“Imagine that.” She couldn’t help the sarcasm, but for the first time in a long time, she wanted to.

He didn’t seem to take offense. “I want you on your own plane because I can control a ten-person team easier than I can a commercial flight with hundreds on it.” He considered her for a long moment, the look on his face turning serious. Then he seemed to have reached a decision at last and leaned forward, his voice dropping as he said, “I think you’re in danger.”

The slew of emotions that washed through her was bewildering. She’d been saying that for how long now? And nobody had ever believed her.

He was a complete stranger. She didn’t trust him yet, might never trust him. He was the last person she wanted knowing about her personal problems. He could easily take them to the press. Confidentiality clauses tended to be forgotten when tabloids offered tens of thousands of dollars for any gossip about her.

She wanted to act as though she didn’t know what he was talking about.

Failing that, she wanted to act like “yeah, I’m in danger, but I’m cool with that.”

Failing that—She would have wanted to do anything but what she did do.

She burst into tears.

In front of a total outsider.

Who was probably beginning to think she was certifiable.

She didn’t dare look up at him. God, she was a mess.

“Five-minute warning,” Fisk, her agent, called out behind her.

She didn’t turn, only lifted a hand to indicate that she heard him.

“All right, guys, let’s get this party started. She’s coming in a sec,” he said to the producer in the kitchen as he walked back.

Nash was by her side the second Fisk left the den.

“We’re going to talk someplace private,” he said, then took her hand and gently pulled her up from the pod chair.

The line of potted palms between the living room and the den kept them out of sight of the staff as he led her to her bedroom, his hand at the small of her back as if he were her escort at some posh party, walking her down the red carpet.

He steered her to her reading chaise, plucked the box of tissues off the bookshelf and dropped it in her lap, then went back and, after letting Tsini in, closed the door.

She blew her nose then drew Tsini onto her lap.

He stood between her and the door, scanning her bedroom. He made no disparaging remarks, although the place currently looked like a movie set. Her uncle’s interior decorator had had it redone a week ago, in time for a magazine shoot. The cooking show was making a major promo push, highlighting their special angle that the celebs would be filmed in their homes, some for the first time. Her bookshelves and chaise had had to be taken out for the pictures. They’d finally gotten dragged back that morning, after she’d repeatedly asked.

“I think there are things you need to tell me.” Nash stood tall and strong, as if standing between her and the world.

At the moment, the thought was incredibly comforting, even if it was only a fantasy.

“We don’t have much time before they call you, so go ahead.” His voice was steady, his gaze attentive, his demeanor calm. His stance radiated self-confidence.

The power structure had shifted between them. When he’d shown up, she was the boss and he was a hired man. Now he was—

She couldn’t find the right word, but the man was clearly in his element.

“Do you know who’s after you?” he asked.

“Tsini—”

“You,” he corrected with a stubborn look.

She shook her head.

“Other than the death threats involving the dog—” He looked at Tsini. “And I want all of them, with the exact circumstances of how and when they were received. What else happened?”

Here came the part where she told him, and he would think her crazy, just as the police had.

“I felt at times that I was being followed.” She waited for him to roll his eyes.

He listened without giving his opinion away. “What else?”

She drew a deep breath. “A couple of times, I thought someone might have been in the apartment when we were all out. Things were out of place. I don’t think it was Angie, the woman who cleans.”

“You asked?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll talk to her. I want to talk to your whole staff.”

Just what she didn’t need. “Mike and Dave are going to hate that.”

Her bodyguards were protective of her and their jobs. They’d been with her for close to three years.

“What extra security measures have they put in place since you told them all this?” Nash’s gaze was direct, his tone honed steel.

Point taken. Mike and Dave agreed with the police that the stress of the paparazzi was getting to her. They all thought she was getting paranoid as a result of living under constant stress.

Still, Mike and Dave were not going to let Nash walk all over their work and start to interfere. Yes, she was probably in danger. But she had a strategy and she was working it. And, so far, nothing had happened.

Except that now she was getting those death threats for Tsini. Which really was unacceptable.

“Maybe you could snoop around under the radar. Without them noticing that you’re checking into things.” She didn’t need a power struggle among her staff.

He lifted a dark eyebrow. Here came the part where he would demand full command, she thought. Alpha male was written all over the man.

For a long second, he just watched her. Then he surprised her by saying, “All right. I can do that.”

DAMN, he was in so much trouble here. He hadn’t been inside Kayla Landon’s penthouse for a full hour yet and he was already getting sucked in, getting involved on what felt suspiciously like a personal level. Nash scratched the underside of his chin.

At least he had taken her suggestion. That was something. He was protecting the client without completely taking over her life. Welkins would be proud of him.

“I don’t want any of my staff interrogated or inconvenienced,” Kayla was saying.

On the other hand, she did need to face reality.

“Do you want to stay alive?” Sometimes a man had to put things bluntly.

She paled. And something else. It was as if she wasn’t all that surprised by the severity of her situation. He noted the way she sat—stiff, on guard even in her own bedroom—and wondered what else was going on that he didn’t know about, what else had happened that she wasn’t telling him.

“You really think my life is in immediate danger?” She seemed to be holding her breath as she waited for the answer. She was so beautiful, those big blue eyes hanging on him.

For a moment, his mind went blank. Not good.

He focused back on her question. “Someone wants to scare you. His desire to harm you in other ways is not that huge a leap. The fur coat is disturbing. This guy could be a psycho.” He drew a deep breath and brought up the issue that had been on his mind for the last ten minutes. “Tell me about the deaths of your parents and your brother.”

She blinked, hesitating a moment before she started. “Two years ago, my parents died in a car accident. My father had just gotten a new Porsche. The police said he was driving way too fast. Probably testing its power and all that.” Her full lips trembled.

Some lips.

He wasn’t going to notice them. He lifted his gaze to her eyes. “What else?”

“Last year my brother died in a skiing accident. Smashed into a tree and broke his neck. His blood alcohol levels were pretty high. He was on a slope that had been shut down due to dangerous conditions.” She pressed those tempting lips into a thin line. “He was always a daredevil.”

He took in the information, turned it over in his brain. It wasn’t all new to him. He’d heard the stories at the time, although he’d paid little attention. Then the facts had come back again when he’d run a quick background check on her. Police reports were cut and dry. Nothing there had piqued his instincts.

Was it unusual to have two lethal accidents in a family within two years? Maybe. But the Landon family wasn’t exactly average. Most people didn’t drive superpowered Porsches. Most people didn’t have the kind of pull to have a closed slope open for their private night-skiing pleasure. You could do a hell of a lot more with money than without, and some of those things were dangerous.

Back when he’d thought this was nothing bigger than some idiot fan trying to get Kayla’s attention by sending her dog death threats, he hadn’t seen any connection to the family deaths. But she clearly thought there was a connection and she was rattled. And after he’d seen that blue fur coat, he did get that cold feeling in the pit of his stomach. His instincts said there was something more here than what showed on the surface.

“My father wasn’t a reckless driver. Lance was never a heavy drinker,” she added in a soft voice.

And she would know them best. The uneasy feeling in his gut grew. What she’d just told him changed everything. “If someone’s after your family,” he told her, “then both you and your brother are in danger.”

She surprised him by slumping back in the chaise and saying, “I know that.”

“HOW WAS your day?” Kayla asked Greg over dinner.

Her brother ignored her for a moment, doing Sudoku on the side, next to his plate.

She didn’t tell him to put it away. He wouldn’t. He had a thing about that. Always had to finish what he started.

Her back ached from being on her feet all day. Sitting up straight and looking upbeat took effort. And she still had other commitments, a business meeting over drinks at a popular restaurant nearby, although she’d cut way back on going out since the threatening notes began to arrive for Tsini. She didn’t want to leave the dog alone in the apartment in the evenings.

“Boring, like work always is.” Greg finished the puzzle at last and closed the book, then meticulously arranged and rearranged his utensils and his napkin until they were lined up with military precision.

“Do you want me to talk to Uncle Al about that?”

Lance, their older brother, had been a director at the company. Their father had made Kayla financial consultant when she’d received her MBA. He’d put Greg in Human Resources, where he’d said his younger son would do the least damage. Greg was entering old employee files into the computer system, an insult to the twenty-five-year-old with a degree in Organizational Management.

Uncle Al had immediately moved Kayla up in the ranks after their parents’ death, to the appropriate level for her education and experience, but had left Greg in HR. Which Greg hated.

“I’m fine.” He tugged on his Eagles jersey, a gift she’d recently gotten him, signed by the whole team. “I don’t want any more family arguments about this.”

Neither did she. God knew, they’d had plenty of that in the past. She hadn’t always seen eye-to-eye with her father. But she missed him now that he was gone, and she wished she could take some of those fights back. She’d grown up a lot in the past two years. Maybe they could have discussions now on a different level. Maybe she could make him see reason. Maybe she could engineer some sort of true relationship between him and Greg.

But her father was gone, and she couldn’t take back anything they’d said to each other. It was too late to make anything better. She would have felt guilty even if she didn’t think that she might have played a role in their parents’ and brother’s death, something she hadn’t told Nash.

The man had thrown her for a loop on more than one level. He was fast. Lightning. In every way. Caught on immediately. And he was hot beyond words, although that part she was going to ignore if it killed her.

“I’m flying out for the dog show tomorrow,” she reminded her brother, wanting to switch to a topic that would distract both of them. “I’m so nervous for Tsini. Would you come with us?”

She needed to convince him to tag along. Nash had insisted on that. He didn’t want the two of them to separate. He wanted to be able to keep an eye on both of them.

Right now he was down in the parking garage under the building, surveying it for possible security breaches or whatever.

That he believed her and was coming up with a plan to protect them was a relief, even if they didn’t agree on anything else. He thought her current security was worthless. She was proud of herself for standing up to him and not letting him ride roughshod over Mike and Dave.

“You’ll have fun. If it gets to be too much, you can always hang out in the suite. I reserved the best one they had.”

“I hate crowds. I’d rather have a couple of quiet evenings here instead.” Greg gave her a sheepish smile.

She would have done anything to see him smile more often. She would have done anything to protect her brother.

For a moment she hesitated on the verge of telling him everything. But as competent and highly functioning as Greg was, he did get stressed easily and when he was stressed, his disability became more pronounced. For that reason, she’d never discussed her suspicions about the “accidents” with him. And though he knew that some sick person out there had threatened Tsini, she hadn’t given him any details beyond that.

Something else she’d meant to talk to him about popped into her mind. “I’m thinking about a little get-together for your birthday when we come back. Just family and friends.” It’d give her a chance to meet some of the new people he hung out with these days.

His eyes lit up. “Okay.”

“You can give me a list of who you want to invite.” She hated that she had to keep track of his friends, but past experience had shown that sometimes people took advantage of him and befriended him for monetary gain. All they saw in him was the Landon name.

Even at the company. Their father had had to fire a security guard shortly after Greg had gone to work there. Yancy had quickly become Greg’s friend and had taken him to parties after work. To parties and other places. Greg had lost a ton of money betting on illegal street races, which were Yancy’s secret passion. Thank God that creep was no longer in the picture.

But Greg had new friends Kayla knew little about, friends who worried her, considering how much money Greg was borrowing from her lately. She needed to figure out what was going on there, and needed to do it diplomatically, without making Greg feel that she thought he was a child who needed watching over.

“Tsini could use the extra support at the show this year,” she told him, returning to that bit again.

Truth was, even before she’d talked to Nash, she hadn’t felt comfortable leaving Greg alone, had already talked to the housekeeper about spending more time at the apartment for the next four days. And back then, all she’d had were her own fears and suspicions, since everyone she’d ever told was telling her that she was wrong. And since she wanted to believe that, she’d half talked herself into thinking that they were right and all the stress of the last two years had made her paranoid.

But Nash agreed with her.

And, more than any of the cops she’d brought the issues up to, he looked as though he knew what he was doing.

So most likely there really was someone out there after her family.

Which meant she couldn’t leave Greg behind.

He pushed the peas aside on his plate, away from the potatoes. “I’ll like staying here.”

Of course he would, she thought, ashamed for a moment. He’d never had much autonomy. He’d gone to a small local private college, at their parents’ insistence, and had commuted from home every day. Their mother had been overprotective of him. Their father had never had any confidence in his abilities. From the moment he’d been diagnosed, he’d become damaged goods in Will Landon’s eyes. If his son could be of no use in his father’s quest to build his empire, Greg was good for nothing. Worse than that, he was ballast.

And as much as she loved him, Kayla hadn’t been much better, had not encouraged him to become more independent after their parents’ death. He’d been so distraught. She’d insisted on him moving in with her, pleaded with him, telling him she needed him. Then, after his brother’s death Greg had become depressed. She should have helped him build his own life, but she was worried about him, so she kept him tethered to hers instead.

And to keep him safe now, she had to continue doing that.

She patted his hand on the table. He had long, slim fingers like their mother’s, the blond coloring that Kayla had inherited, as well. He had a slight body, had never been into sports or anything physical. He looked younger than his age, but he was smarter than most people expected. He’d gone through college with the help of a private tutor their father had hired, and had received a degree he’d worked hard for and earned.

He did deserve a normal life. A better life than she was making for him, she thought, and decided to help him become more independent once she was sure they were past all danger. But she needed to keep him close until then.

“I’m nervous. It’s a big show for us. I don’t know what I’ll do without you. I need you there. You don’t have to go to any of the big events if you don’t want to. Just come along. Please.”

And to her relief, Greg nodded.

Chapter Three

He was okay with his assignment changing when it had barely begun. That happened all the time. He didn’t mind being responsible for Kayla Landon, her brother and her poodle all of a sudden—especially since she was turning out to be different than what he’d expected. That someone wanted the client in his protection dead and Nash had few clues, no leads beyond the dog’s death threats, was par for the course. He liked a good challenge.

But that Kayla wouldn’t openly acknowledge him as her bodyguard bugged the hell out of him. He couldn’t take charge in any capacity. Even Dave and Mike outranked him.

“You’ve been in the dog business long?” Mike asked as he made his way toward him, down the aisle between rows of seats, Dave not far behind as the plane flew above a solid layer of clouds toward Las Vegas.

The two men looked enough alike to be related, maybe cousins. They had the bodies of linebackers, plus the whole Secret Service haircut and body language. But Nash had seen plenty of badasses to know that deep down these two weren’t real tough guys. The best that could be said about them was that they would look good playing tough guys on TV.

Which meant he was pretty much alone on the job. He felt like someone entering a high-speed chase while being forced to drive from the backseat.

“You two ever been in the service?” He folded his arms, putting his tattoos in plain sight, letting the two men draw their own conclusions, showing an admirable amount of self-restraint.

Resist the urge to take over everything, had been the last thing Welkins had told him, and, keep the client happy.

He was doing good so far. They were going to Vegas, not that he didn’t absolutely hate the whole dog-show business. At least he’d prevailed in having the entire first-class section reserved for Kayla and her staff.

A flight attendant came by with drinks, drawing Mike and Dave’s attention temporarily.

They were on a commercial airline with 231 possible villains—to give himself a break, Nash wasn’t counting the crew, just the regular passengers. It was enough to give a man a headache. But Kayla had put her foot down and insisted that on the Landon jet she would have been an even easier target. And at the end he’d agreed. Sometimes there was safety in numbers.

“I’ll beat the pants off you in blackjack,” Elvis, the makeup artist, said, joking around with Fisk, Kayla’s agent, and Ivan, her manager, up front.

The two had tagged along because at the last minute she had decided that she would agree to some advertising deals. Since the full amount of income from the ads would go to dog-related charities, her agent and manager were coming to lay the groundwork and take advantage of the media coverage that would already be present.

“Just as long as you know that everything under my pants belongs to my wife,” Ivan, a stocky black man, countered with a good-natured laugh.

Greg, Kayla’s brother, had been playing some video game obsessively since they’d boarded. He sat in the first row, keeping out of the conversation.

Tsini was gently snoring in the middle of the aisle, not impressed by any of the grand plans for Sin City that were being hatched by the humans. Tom, Tsini’s professional handler, was watching an action movie, pretty much ignoring everybody.

Nash was currently running background checks on each of them, plus on the staff who had stayed in Philly: Kayla’s secretary, her stylist, everyone she met with regularly, even her uncle. He should have the results by the time the day was out. Her immediate environment seemed like a good place to start looking. Then, as he uncovered more clues, he could widen the circle.

“Semi-pro football,” Dave put in, resuming their conversation once the flight attendant passed. “Same as war. Man-to-man combat.”

Nash thought of some of the fights he’d bled through where he’d cut people’s throats without a second thought and put more bullets through more hearts than he’d cared to count. “I’m sure.”

Kayla slept in her window seat next to him in the back. Since he was the newest member of the team, he’d wanted to spend some time with her going over concerns and questions, which they had done for the first hour or so after the plane had taken off. Then she’d passed out from exhaustion.

He would have thought she’d overdone the partying the night before, but her manager had mentioned a late meeting with some business partners.

Her laptop stood open on the beverage tray in front of her. From the corner of his eye, Nash caught a small window opening on the screen. You have a new message.

“Civilian life is different than the military.” Mike puffed his chest out. “Just watch what we do and you’ll be all right.”

“Thanks.”

“And don’t push her.” Dave nodded toward Kayla. “She doesn’t like that. She has plenty of other stuff to deal with. She needs her staff to be in her corner.”

“She needs her staff to protect her,” Nash put in.

She looked too young and more innocent than perhaps she’d ever been. If the tabloids could be believed, she’d had enough lovers to fill a football stadium. But right now she looked like a little girl who’d gotten into her mother’s makeup and her older sister’s closet. If that older sister were a pole dancer.

“She ever get threatening messages?” he asked the men.

“Just the dog. All she gets is fan mail,” Mike said.

Dave rolled his eyes. “Tons of it.”

“Who processes that?”

Mike gave him a narrow-eyed look that transmitted a clear back off message, but did answer his question. “Her secretary.”

Next to Nash, Kayla shifted in her sleep.

He turned his head to get her out of his peripheral vision.

He didn’t need another flash of those long legs, or creamy thighs. Hell, creamy everything. Enough of her breasts were uncovered for him to bury his face between them. He tamped down the heat that was beginning to tingle to life in the bottom half of his body.

Her stylist should be strangled. Or given a bonus. His opinion on that flip-flopped about once a second.

She was hot. Scorching. There was no denying that. But there was more to her than showed on the surface.

He had a feeling that what he’d thought she was, what he’d seen of her on TV, was going to turn out to be her organization, a persona made up by a full staff. Her organization—the people around her, her schedule, her image—was like a machine. Since they’d met yesterday afternoon, he’d caught glimpses of the woman inside that machine, and was beginning to wonder if she wasn’t trapped in there.

Don’t get sucked in.

He took a drink of mineral water as Mike and Dave returned to their favorite subject and went on about the bloody combat that football really was, and how they were all warriors. Part of him itched to set them straight—if only to distract himself from Kayla—but another part of him knew it wasn’t worth it.

Stick to the job, Welkins had said.

Trouble was, she was the job. And he would have liked only too much to stick real close to her.

If he had any brains, he would leave her to Dave and Mike, walk on back to coach and ask the first pretty woman he saw if she wanted to join the mile-high club with him. He had to get this restlessness out from under his skin.

Except, with Kayla Landon next to him, he didn’t feel like walking away.

“I’m thinking the threats to the dog might have something to do with her. Could be someone wants us distracted while he goes after Kayla,” he told the two men, interrupting a playoff story.

There was a brief pause as they gave him some hard looks.

“We protect her. You stay out of the way and keep your eyes on Tsini,” Mike’s eyes flashed as he issued his warning at last, the true reason for their coming over.

The two had been eyeing him since he’d shown up at the apartment last night. They obviously didn’t like the idea of anyone sticking his nose in their business.

Nash ground his teeth, but somehow managed a nod, silently cursing his latest assignment all the way to Hades. Ivan prevented further friction by calling the two bodyguards to the front to settle some dispute between him and Fisk. Then Nash was finally able to turn his attention to the e-mail.

He’d seen her type in her password earlier and had no trouble getting in now. She had only one unread message.

The sender field was blank. The subject field said: Did you like my gift?

He could have waited until she woke and asked her to open the message and let him look at it. Instead, he reached over and clicked.

No text, only an attachment. He had to wait until the program ran a virus scan before he could open the picture file.

The image was grainy, but good enough to make out what was important. The picture showed Kayla’s living room with her sitting in her pod chair and Nash on the couch, holding up the blue fur coat.

Could have been taken with a cell phone. By someone who’d been in Kayla’s apartment yesterday when he’d arrived. Which meant all the people who traveled with them in first class right this minute. The cooking-show crew had stayed in the kitchen the whole time. Her staff had been coming and going from the den. And this picture had been taken from there.

By one of her people. One of her friends.

Oh, hell. She was really going to hate him for telling her that, he thought as his blood heated. If there was one thing he couldn’t forgive, it was betrayal. In his eyes, maybe because at the core he would always remain a marine, betrayal of a teammate was the ultimate sin. He couldn’t stand the thought that a member of her own staff would betray her.

And he couldn’t even talk to her about this right away. He needed a chance to observe her interacting with the staff first. Once she realized that whoever was harassing her was one of them, she would relate to them differently. He wanted to get a fair assessment of her relationship with each and every person before suspicion hit her and she pulled back.

He looked at the people in first class. Nobody was watching him. The message had been sent in the last couple of minutes. But anyone could have sent a saved message with a surreptitious click on their cell phone, just reaching for a second into their pockets. Or they could have timed delivery set up from a remote computer.

That was a trail Dave and Mike might not have been able to trace back, but Nash had his sources. He forwarded the note to his own e-mail account, then deleted the original.

He didn’t have the previous threatening notes with him. They were already at a lab, along with the fur coat, to be dusted for fingerprints. They weren’t much to start with—pictures of poodles printed off the Internet, DIE in big block letters printed underneath. But now he had one more clue.

It should have made him happy. Except that one thing about this whole setup bugged him. Why would the bastard send a picture like that? Sure, the photo would make Kayla nervous, would make her feel she wasn’t safe even in her own home. But it also narrowed the field of suspects considerably. And that was decidedly not to the sender’s advantage.

HE DIDN’T WANT to kill her. He looked out the plane’s window and saw her face even in the clouds. He loved her. He’d hoped that harassing that dumb dog of hers would distract her from the “accidents.”

But she wasn’t distracted, she was thinking, thinking, thinking. He could see it in her eyes every time he looked at her. And she was smart. He couldn’t let her figure it all out. She would never forgive him.

He’d set up a last warning for her this morning, but as she was talking with the new guy, Nash, in the back while the pilot announced that soon they would be landing, he saw that fire in her eyes. And he knew what they were talking about. She was never going to quit.

He reached for his cell phone and sent a text message. He couldn’t say he didn’t regret it, but it really was time for plan B.

NASH LOOKED around the show area on the first floor of the hotel, checking out the various stations, the seating section for the audience and the ring. Special lighting, microphones, the judges’ table—the setup was fancy enough for a Miss America pageant. Except this show was for dogs.

A waste of pageantry as far as he was concerned. Who would want to look at furry canines when they could be looking at hot women in bikinis?

He finished recon and walked back toward the handful of smaller meeting rooms that were set up as storage areas for the dog show. Tom, the handler, had put some hair product for Tsini in his carry-on by accident, and since it was over the allowed ounces, airport security had confiscated the bottle. Tsini needed the special coat-shine spray or whatever for tomorrow so everyone was scrambling around. Tom and Dave were scouring the city’s specialty pet shops while Mike and Kayla went to the storage rooms that contained extra supplies for cases just like this.

Nash headed to the back to find them and met Mike halfway there.

“Got it?”

Mike shook his head. “Kayla sent me off to find one of the organizers. Maybe they could tell us if there’s any and where exactly it’s at. Everything’s a mess back there.”

“I’ll help her.” He quickened his pace. Mike shouldn’t have left her alone, not even for a few minutes.

Kayla had specifically forbidden him to put the fear of God in her staff. She didn’t want everyone nervous, didn’t want Greg nervous, didn’t want anyone on her staff offended. They were supposed to protect her, but from where he was standing it looked as though so far she was doing all the protecting.

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