Caballo Security Box Set

by Camilla Blake

  “I think so.” I reached up and ran my fingers through my hair. “I think, at the age of twenty-two, I just reached the pinnacle of my career. The pinnacle of everything—my dreams, my desires, my hopes and wishes. I don’t even know where I go from here.” I laughed, a sound that must have been somewhat sinister to him. “I don’t know what to do with myself. I should be celebrating, but…” I stopped, realizing for the first time that I didn’t have anyone to celebrate with. How pathetic was that?

  Brock pushed away from the wall and went to the fully stocked bar, taking out a bottle of champagne that still had a bow around it, a gift from some minor designer who was hoping to use a few of my pieces in her show. He popped the top, catching the cork deftly in his hand.

  “To achievements, and the work of finding new dreams to achieve,” he said, handing me a glass of the bubbly liquid.

  I smiled, touched by his insightfulness. “Here’s to a bright future.”

  We touched glasses and sipped. He brushed his hair back and, for a second, our eyes met. I wanted to touch him, to peel that mask from his face and see what hid underneath. I wanted to touch him and know it was okay, that he wanted my touch. I wanted a connection with someone who could see me, see all my baggage, all my scars, and still wanted to look.

  Maybe it was stupid thinking this bodyguard might be capable of developing feelings for me, especially when I’d spent years pushing people away, years building walls that no one had ever tried all that hard to break down. But there was something about him, something about the damage to his face, to his body, that spoke to me. He had scars. I had scars. The only difference between us was that his scars were visible.

  Would he understand my scars? Would he understand why I found it so hard to hide them? Would he, who worked so hard to hide his own damage, understand mine?

  It was a question I was afraid to ask.

  Chapter 8

  Brock

  Angela cowered in a corner of the room, trying to avoid catching Luna’s eye. Luna, on the other hand, was humming as she polished the jewels in the case she kept locked in the safe, using a jeweler’s loupe to look for imperfections.

  “The party went well?” Angela finally asked.

  I poured a cup of coffee from the urn on the room-service cart and stepped over to the balcony doors, staring out over the city. The party had gone quite well, as far as I was concerned. Those Prada people knew how to throw a shindig. Akker and I were forced to go to plenty of high-society parties when we were teens—standing in for our parents, cleaned up and strongly encouraged by our nanny, Constance—so I knew how these parties tended to go. This one last night was almost fun in comparison.

  Luna had actually laughed. It was a musical sound that I had no comparison for.

  She’d insisted that I attend as though I were her escort. “It’ll be safer that way,” she’d said. And then she’d pulled me through the crowds with her hand tucked into mine, making me feel like a man in a way I hadn’t felt in a long time. There’s something about walking hand in hand with a beautiful woman, everyone thinking she’s your lover, that inflates a man’s ego. And my ego was hugely inflated last night.

  Walking with her, listening to all the fashion talk, meeting models and designers from all over the world… it was a man’s wet dream. I’d thought it would be boring, but it wasn’t. It was exciting and cutthroat and more fun than I’d had in a long time.

  When she’d pulled me out onto the dance floor and moved into my arms… that was the highlight of the evening. Holding her close, the feel of her soft, feminine body next to mine… it was something I wouldn’t forget in a hurry.

  “What’s on the schedule this afternoon?” Luna asked, ignoring Angela’s question.

  “You have lunch with Mr. Fabre in thirty minutes, at one. After that, you’re clear until the Gucci party tonight.”

  “Another party?”

  “It’s the last until the blowout on Saturday night.”

  Luna nodded, carefully placing her jewels back into the case. “Have security come up to get the case. Elizabeth’s friend, Felipe, is using them in his show at 3:00 p.m.” She snapped the lid closed. “Add that show to my schedule.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I’d like you to make reservations at that restaurant Clive told me about across town. We’ll go tomorrow night.”

  “For how many?”

  Luna didn’t answer right away. “Four,” she finally said. “For now.”

  Angela made note in her phone, then pushed away from the wall. “I’ll get on this now.”

  “No—right now you need to get security up here.” Luna gestured toward the hotel phone sitting on a low table across the room. “Call them now.”

  Angela glanced at me, almost as if she wanted to ask why I wasn’t the one doing this, or why I wasn’t escorting the jewels. She knew why I was here, knew what my job description was. But she didn’t ask.

  My phone vibrated against my thigh. I stepped out onto the balcony and pulled it from my suit pocket, smiling when I saw Josie’s number flashing on the screen.

  “Hello, darlin’,” I said as low and as quietly as I thought I could. “What’s going on?”

  “Eva finally went back to Los Angeles. Thank God! I thought I was about to suffocate.”

  “Why? I thought you liked her.”

  “I do, but she seems to think that I need a woman’s influence to make up for the fact that my mom died. But I don’t. Why does everyone want to replace my mother?”

  “I don’t think that’s what she wants.”

  “She acts like it. Did no one bother to tell her that my parents weren’t married when I was old enough to remember them together? I don’t need her to make us a happy little family. My dad and I have always been fine just the two of us.”

  “Maybe she just wants you to like her because she likes him so much.”

  “Yeah, well, why do I have to be part of the equation? Dad’s dated before and none of them really cared about me.”

  “Because none of those were serious.” I moved closer to the railing and stared out over Paris, feeling almost surreal to be in this magical place but talking mundane domestic stuff with my niece. “Give them both a break, kid. This is all new to them, too.”

  “When are you coming back, Uncle Brock? This would be so much easier if you were around.”

  “You think so?”

  “At least I could hang out with you when they’re doing that lovey-dovey thing they do.”

  “What about Noah?”

  She groaned. “Noah’s lost over my mom. He doesn’t even know when I’m there half the time.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Come home, Uncle Brock. Save me.”

  I couldn’t help the little smile that burned across my lips. Look at me! Suddenly needed and appreciated by two very different women. My life was definitely taking an upswing.

  “I’ll be home at the end of the week, sweetheart,” I said, reaching up to tuck a piece of hair behind my ear. “We’ll talk more about all this then, okay?”

  “Promise?”

  “Of course.”

  “Good. Stay safe. I don’t know if I could take it if something happened to another person in my family. Enough is enough for right now!”

  “Yeah… Love you, too.”

  She laughed. “I love you, Uncle Brock, always and forever.”

  I disconnected the call, still feeling that sense of the surreal. I wondered what Josie would think if she could see what I was seeing in that moment. Her father and I had both traveled all over the world, but none of it had been for pleasure, and we rarely had the opportunity to share it with each other, let alone our loved ones. I’d have to make a point of coming back here… with Josie.

  A goal. I hadn’t set many of those recently.

  ***

  “I’d appreciate if you’d just stay out here.”

  That was the fourth or fifth time Luna had made such a statement. Stay away. Don’t touch m
e. Don’t come anywhere near me. What had I done?

  She climbed out of the car and entered the restaurant while I stood there like a fool and watched. It was my job to accompany her everywhere she went, but there was no rule that said I had to attend her meetings with her. Instead, I stood in lots of lobbies, against lots of walls, watching her from a distance.

  This wasn’t how things had gone yesterday. Yesterday we were holding hands, laughing together. We’d danced. But today…

  I crossed my arms over my chest and leaned against a dark wooden arch that separated the restaurant’s lobby from the main dining room. A tall but painfully thin man stood to greet Luna, taking both her hands between his own. As I watched, he leaned in for a kiss and said something that made her dip her head slightly, a nervous finger brushing a carefully coifed curl from the side of her face just to carefully return it to its previous position a second later.

  She was agitated. This was the guy that had put such a big smile on her face the other day. She wasn’t smiling today. I wondered what had changed.

  It’s a little frustrating standing in the middle of a restaurant not eating, not talking, not enjoying the amenities the place has to offer. It wasn’t just my own discomfort, either. Guests were trying to get past me, servers knocking into me as they passed. The host kept glaring at me, mumbling in French under his breath. I wondered what he would think if I answered his curses with a few of my own. Guy thought I was just a dumb American. What he didn’t know is that I spoke five languages fluently, including French.

  I watched Luna pick at the soupe au pistou she’d ordered, not really eating it as much as just stirring it around. Her companion was speaking quite animatedly, not eating himself in favor of filling Luna in with whatever information he thought was important. She looked almost miserable, like she wasn’t sure she liked what she was being told.

  I wasn’t sure what was happening, but I was pretty sure she was safe at the moment.

  I backed away, leaning against a wall that was more out of the way but from which I couldn’t observe Luna. Perhaps it was better anyway. She seemed a little pissed at me today, for some reason. I wasn’t sure why. I thought we’d had a connection last night, but maybe I’d misread the situation. I did that more often than I cared to admit.

  I pulled out my phone and was scrolling through social media when I heard Luna’s name on the host’s lips.

  “Est que c’est pour Luna Walsh?” I asked in perfect French as he handed a moderately sized box to a waiter.

  The host looked down his nose at me, but then thought better of his attitude. “Oui. Vous allez vous en occuper?”

  “Oui.”

  I took the box, noticing almost immediately that the bottom was soft, like water had soaked into the cardboard. Ox had told me about the pig’s head Luna had found in her refrigerator before this trip, so my first thought was blood. Or something just as nefarious.

  I tugged my phone out of my pocket and sent a message to the driver, asking him to pull around to the front of the building. He was waiting when I stepped out onto the sidewalk, standing with the back door held open.

  “Give me a moment.”

  I went to the back of the car and set the box down, glancing at my hands to see if there was blood leaking from the box. There wasn’t, but there was some sort of liquid, something sticky. I removed my pocket knife and flipped it open. I didn’t think there was anything explosive inside—it wasn’t particularly heavy and there were no petroleum-type smells—but one could never be too careful. I sliced down one corner of the box, tugging at the soft cardboard to peek inside, looking for wires or anything else that might indicate trouble. I didn’t see anything.

  I tugged out my phone again and turned on the flashlight app, turning it so that I could see into the slit I’d made in the side of the box. I could see a shape deep inside, but no wires, nothing else that suggested a bomb. Yet I still moved cautiously. I used my knife to slice along the corners of the box, carefully cutting the cardboard away. The soggy stuff cut fairly easily, dripping away like melted cheese.

  Inside was a frozen fish head wearing a pair of earrings pierced into the sides of the head where its gills lived. Draped over what would have been the fish’s neck if it were a humanoid was a gold necklace with diamond chips pressed into a rounded pendant. The bottom of the box was welded to the fish head with a block of ice that was quickly melting.

  “What the hell?” the chauffeur asked.

  I used my phone to take several photographs of the fish head, moving around the box in order to get it from every possible angle.

  “Pop the trunk.”

  “You’re not putting that thing in my car!”

  I hesitated, then retraced my steps, ducking into the restaurant again. When I reemerged, I had a clean box to slide the whole mess inside of. “Better?” I asked the driver.

  He just shrugged, popping the trunk as requested. I set it carefully inside, then texted him an address. “Have this shipped overnight to the address I just sent you. And keep all this to yourself.” I slipped a couple of bills into the palm of his hand just as Luna came out the door of the restaurant, her companion by her side.

  “This is my car,” she said as she approached us.

  “Two drivers. That’s an interesting way to do things.”

  “No, this is my companion, Brock Mills.”

  “I just came up to join her,” I said, stepping forward to shake the man’s hand. “I guess I just can’t stand to be apart from her for too long.”

  “That’s interesting. I heard a rumor you were her bodyguard.” The man smiled at the look Luna shot him. “There’s no shame in it. I heard there are some nuts going around throwing dead animals and blood at some of the models and designers. Never hurts to have a layer of security around you.”

  “Perhaps not.” Luna’s eyes scraped over me. “I heard they attacked James Holloway this morning.”

  “Got him as he was leaving his hotel. Poor man had to miss the first fifteen minutes of his own show.”

  “We should go, ma’am,” I said, offering my arm to Luna. She glanced at me, an impenetrable curtain over her eyes. She forced a smile for her companion’s sake and said, “We’ll talk again tomorrow night.”

  “Definitely.” He moved close and kissed both her cheeks. “Until then.”

  I helped Luna into the car, then followed. She immediately slid over to get as far from me as she could. She stared out the window, refusing to even acknowledge that I was there.

  “We need to get back to the hotel so that I can get ready for Felipe’s show then the party.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She didn’t look at me, didn’t say a word. She was clearly annoyed with something I’d done. She’d told me once already not to call her ma’am, but it didn’t seem to bother her today. I guess that sort of thing was just reserved for people she liked.

  Clearly I wasn’t on that list anymore.

  Chapter 9

  Luna

  We were a stunning pair; I knew it without having to see it. I could tell by the way people looked at us, the way they stopped their conversations as we walked by. Brock, with his long hair pulled back into a neat tail at the base of his neck, and me in my white silk dress by Sies Marjan, my hair pulled back from my face in a lovely French twist. My own earrings graced my ears, the gold-and-silver pieces a perfect complement to the necklace around my neck.

  I couldn’t have asked for a more perfect companion on this night. Everyone knew that Michael was coming around, talking to me about the future of his business. The rumors had already begun, the jealousy running rampant along with the excitement of those few who were happy for me. But Michael had made it clear he wasn’t making a decision until later in the week, and I still wasn’t sure I was ready to give up the little empire I’d built in favor of riding on his coattails for the rest of my life.

  It was a hard choice that I wished I could discuss with someone I trusted, but there were so few people
in this world I trusted these days.

  I’d thought I could trust Brock. It was sure easy to talk to him since he so rarely talked back. But walking out onto the balcony to hear him call someone sweetheart after I’d convinced myself I was falling for him… that was just another example of why I couldn’t trust a damn soul! No one was ever completely honest with you, were they?

  I held on to his arm, trying really hard not to trip in the thousand-dollar heels on my feet, but I wasn’t letting the flex of his muscle worm its way into my heart anymore, nor was I letting the lovely sandalwood hints in his cologne make my knees turn to rubber.

  I was trying not to, anyway.

  “Luna!” Elizabeth approached, a beautiful brunette on her arm. “I’m so happy to hear all these lovely rumors about you! No one deserves it as much as you do.”

  “Thank you, Elizabeth.”

  “This is Adelaide, my dear friend. Adelaide, this is Luna Walsh, the one who created those lovely pieces my models wore in the show.”

  “Those were you?” The brunette stepped closer, looking at the necklace around my neck. “And this is one of yours? It’s beautiful. It would have gone perfectly with that green wrap, don’t you think, Lizzie?”

  “Perfect,” Elizabeth agreed, but she wasn’t looking at the necklace. She was studying Brock. “Hello, there. I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.”

  “This is Brock Mills. The friend from Texas I told you about.”

  “Well, friend from Texas, it’s a joy to meet you.” Elizabeth held out her fingers to him and giggled when he lifted them to his lips. “What a gentleman!”

  “Careful, girls—he’s taken.”

  I hadn’t meant the words to come out quite so bitterly, but I guess I couldn’t help myself. Elizabeth looked sharply at me before turning back to Brock. “Are you married?” she asked.

  “No, ma’am.”

  “What a beautiful man!” She checked him out quite openly, her eyes moving slowly over every inch of his body, hesitating here and there as she found things she liked in his biceps and his quads, in his perfectly tailored slacks. A part of me wanted to step in front of him, protect him from her perusal. “Girlfriend?”