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Romance with Passion
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Sneak Peek: Defend Her
Chapter 1: A Lonely Soldier
Lieutenant Colonel Edison Alexander
“Lieutenant Colonel Alexander to see Colonel Vaughan,” Ed introduced himself to Vaughan’s personal assistant. Her blush was as instant as it was disconcerting, and Ed quickly retreated to the visitor’s area to give her space. Years of experience in the field and now in executive board rooms had given him a presence that women reacted to. Not that his Australian Army uniform did much to hide his tall, muscular frame. Still, the poor young girl wasn’t his type and there was nothing to be gained by being anything other than charming and professional.
Ignoring the walls lined with portraits of Australia’s finest military heroes, including men under whom he’d been honored to serve, Ed checked over the cryptic email meeting invitation again.
Vaughan: Ed, time we had a chat about a new assignment V.
None of the formality he’d have expected from Colonel Richard Vaughan, even though they’d served together for years and even competed for the Lieutenant Colonel title that Vaughan got first. Instead, Ed went over to the United States and did a round of liaison posts as Major. Code for wining and dining with the rich and influential. Building relationships and removing roadblocks for his men in the field.
Luckily, Vaughan knew that the only way to keep him engaged once he came back to Australia as Lieutenant Colonel in his own right, was by sending him up to Townsville to the army barracks with the occasional detour overseas to check on the boys. Ed smiled to himself, he felt more at home in the mess hall than with the corporate suits. Unfortunately, the more he moved up in rank, the more fake bullshit he had to wade through.
“Alexander!” Vaughan greeted him warmly.
“Colonel Vaughan, good to see you sir,” Ed held the salute until he received a response.
“Come on in, it’s been a while.”
Ed waited until the Colonel directed him away from the rectangular meeting table, towards the two soft couches that he’d always assumed were either for show or for catching a couple of minutes sleep during crisis. The world didn’t stop when the office day ended, not when there were always bastards out there wanting to kill his men.
“Have a seat,” Vaughan offered.
“Thank you, sir.” Ed took the moment to study Vaughan. Older and paler than a year ago when they were at the officer’s dinner. Stress of the job or family?
“How’s Sydney been treating you? You’ve been back, how long now?”
“Six months sir. Sydney has been very welcoming, sir.” Ed knew that Vaughan would have reviewed his personnel file while Ed was pacing around the waiting room. “We finished the contract negotiations with the ammunitions supplier and streamlined some of the logistics. The boys on the ground should start noticing the difference within a month.”
“Good, good.” Vaughan had barely taken a seat before jumping up to shuffle random papers on his desk before setting them aside to almost rejoin Ed on the couch, instead walking to the far wall and making a show of examining the photo collection showing Colonel Vaughan with a litany of international dignitaries.
Ed could wait him out. The longer it took for Vaughan to give him the next assignment, the bigger it had to be. In truth, the only reason Ed had sought out the Sydney posting was because he had some romantic notion of reclaiming his first love. He grimaced at the memory of how stupid crazy his idea had been. The only good thing that had come out of Brynne Thurlow crushing his heart was that he no longer looked back on his first love with romantic nostalgia. For years, he’d held any woman up to the impossible memory of Brynne. Finally, he was free to find a good woman, fall in love, have some fun and maybe even the family that seemed easy for every other professional soldier. The alternative was for him to find a way to get back into the field where a soldier belonged.
“Sir?” Ed asked, as seconds turned into minutes while Vaughan now stared out of the office window. The view of the Sydney city line was spectacular, but not worth this much time. If he was being sent back into a front-line shitstorm and away from his cushy office, then bring it on—all Vaughan had to do was start talking.
“I don’t know how to ask, but I’m going to do it anyway.” Still Vaughan didn’t turn around.
“Where does the Army want me now? Germany? Afghanistan? Korea?” Ed figured he might as well make things easy.
“Let me make this very clear,” Vaughan started again, turning until Ed couldn’t miss the worry in his friend’s face. Shit. This was going to be huge. “This is not an official assignment.”
“I can do ‘off the books,’ sir.”
“This isn’t even Army related. Ed, I need your professional help but I’m not asking as Colonel but as a friend.” Vaughan would have only been ten years older than Ed, but the stress of the situation was etched across his friend’s aging face. Ed sat even straighter, he couldn’t count how many of his men owed their lives to the formidable Colonel Vaughan—whatever the ask, it would be his honor to deliver.
“Of course, sir. What do you want me to do?”
“Defend my daughter.”
Ed waited for his boss to smile, laugh, do anything to admit this was a bloody joke. Who the hell demanded the presence of a Lieutenant Colonel to perform babysitting duties for a child? The country had thousands of daycare centres, and nannies were really only a phone call away. Who on earth called a decorated Australian Army hero into their office to ask for a personal favor that exceeded any reasonable professional boundaries?
“I don’t understand, sir,” he tried to stay civil and not let his frustration and indignation show. The last thing Ed needed was for this assignment to become formal and subject to disciplinary proceedings if he didn’t deliver. What did “defend my daughter” mean, anyway?
“Like I said, this is a personal request and completely off the books.”
“You want me to look after your daughter?” Ed didn’t say the word, “babysit,” but he might as well have.
Instead of answering, Vaughan slowly walked to his door, pausing a moment before opening. “Jessica, can you cancel all my other appointments, Lieutenant Colonel Alexander and I have a number of operational matters to discuss. You might call his assistant and ask her to reschedule anything he has for the rest of the day as well.”
Ed didn’t think it worthy to tell Vaughan that his personal assistant was a male and that the rest of his day was clear. Apparently, his babysitting duties were about to start whether he agreed or not.
“Are you looking for a replacement for daddy-daughter day at the office?” He threw out the weak attempt at a joke, hoping that Vaughan would take the hint and let the whole idea drop before making a fool of himself, and Ed.
“What I’m about to tell you can’t go any further.”
“Boss, are you sure I’m the guy you want?”
“Are you still single?”
“Um,” Ed hesitated. “I don’t know what my love life has to do with this.”
“Simple question, Edison. You arrived in Sydney single; I need to know if you are still single?”
Ed could handle being called Alexander by most people in the Army, and Ed by his friends. Only his parents, brother and ex-love Brynne ever called him, Edison.
“Yes, sir. Yes I am.”
“The girl you were hoping to reconnect with?”
“She’s happily married, sir. I’m completely sin
gle.”
“Do you have children, Edison?”
There was that name again. What were his parents thinking? “No, sir.”
“Then you have no idea what it’s like to raise a daughter and have her marry the wrong man. Yes, he wore the expensive tailored suits and talked a good game, but I could tell he was going to end up hurting my baby girl and I couldn’t do a damn thing about it.”
Ed waited as Vaughan finally sat across from him, pulling out a manila folder from the briefcase on the coffee table.
“Hudson Thielman.”
“Is that the name of his company?” Ed asked before reaching for the papers. In his experience, reading the man sitting in front of him would tell him far more than a bunch of words on a page.
“Hudson Thielman met my daughter at some diplomatic function in Germany two years ago. They were introduced by mutual friends and married in less than two months. Until recently, his star was on the rise within diplomatic circles until apparently his extra-curricular activities were found to be too much.”
“Other women?” Ed asked, surely, he wasn’t being asked to take out a guy for screwing around on the boss’ daughter.
“My charming son-in-law built a fortune doing deals with money he didn’t have with people he had no business knowing let alone exposing my daughter to.”
“So, you want me to have a man-to-man chat with the guy?” Again, Ed couldn’t believe what he was being asked to do. Vaughan wasn’t the first father who raised his daughter in a protective cocoon only for her to marry the first bad boy who turned her on.
“Damn it, Edison!” Vaughan snapped, and slid the folder across the table until Ed couldn’t help but stop it from falling to the floor. “Read the bloody top sheet!”
A quick scan wasn’t enough.
Holy shit.
“You’ve got my attention,” Ed paused and re-read the cover sheet again. “Where did you get this?”
“The first note was intercepted by her assistant who had the good sense to send it straight to me.”
“A wife who controls her husband gets to live,” Ed read. “What do you think it means.”
“Ed, it’s all there!” Vaughan cried with the anguish of a father desperate to save his daughter rather than the experienced soldier who had led his men on the field.
“This next note, it just lists dates and GPS coordinates.”
“I was awake all last night matching the coordinates with addresses. They are following her or at least tracking her phone. There are places that she wouldn’t have driven, but it’s like they know her every move.” Vaughan’s face crumbled as he spoke.
“Where is she now?”
“She’s having lunch with a friend—the same woman who introduced her to Thielman. I’ve encouraged her to stay at my house where I could at least protect her, but she thinks it’s because I want to support her through the break-up.”
“How much does she know?” Even without experience in personal protection, Ed assumed that an informed client was one that would at least play their part in staying alive.
“I didn’t want to tell her—what was I going to say? That the guy I never approved of had gotten himself in over his head and whoever is after him is now threatening her?”
“Isn’t that the truth?”
“Edison, please,” Vaughan had lost all pretense of rank. “She’s my baby girl. I want to keep her safe, not scared to death.”
“So, she’s in Sydney but, where is he?”
“I assume still licking his wounds somewhere in Europe. Their last posting was in Romania but unless he’s blended into the sewers with the other scum he got caught up in, I’m sure he’s floating around looking for his next score.”
“The break-up was amicable?”
“Ed, when was the last time one of your women went home and told their father about how you broke their heart?”
At least now, Ed could laugh, “Mate, I’m still friends with most of my exes and their families. There’s a couple of fathers out there who haven’t forgiven their daughters for not making me official.”
“Anastacia is different, she’s always protected her privacy. I think the split was mutual, but she won’t talk about it and there’s no way I can bring it up without showing her the file.”
“I still can’t believe you have a file on your daughter. How long has she been back?”
“Two days, which was enough time for the latest note to come through.”
Vaughan got up and carefully picked up a plastic sleeve from underneath the shuffled papers on his desk. Ed didn’t want to look, didn’t have the time nor inclination to get involved, but this was his Colonel.
“So what?” he asked. “Two photographs copied onto a piece of paper?”
“Ed, that’s a photo of all the departures, including the one back to Sydney, and the other photo is of the arrivals in Sydney. They had someone watching her leave and someone waiting for her.”
“Mate, I don’t know what to say,” Ed was at a loss. He could put together an insurgent strike; plan the hell out of any deployment. But this? “I don’t know the first thing about security, and this is some heavy shit, if you don’t mind me saying.”
“Anastacia is going to refuse any obvious security. She has her pride and it’s probably been dented by Thielman’s actions and getting kicked out of the diplomatic service. At least if you are on her arm as a fake boyfriend, she’ll be safe, and you’ll help her save face.”
“You want me to pretend to be her boyfriend?” This was completely insane. He didn’t have any idea of who this woman was, how old or even what she looked like. No photos around Vaughan’s office gave him any clue. In any case, he was emotionally single for the first time since high school and was ready to meet a woman to share his life—not the virtual jail of becoming a one-man security detail.
“I need you—at the moment I have no idea whether she’s in danger from her ex-husband’s former associates or whether he’s making a move on her.”
“Why would he want to scare you or her?”
“That’s what I want you to find out.”
“No,” Ed said softly, hoping Vaughan wouldn’t push the point.
“She’s my daughter.”
“No.”
“Why not, you just said that you’re not seeing anyone else. Pretend to be her boyfriend, keep her safe.”
“No,” he persisted, but the longer Vaughan begged, the harder it was to keep turning him down.
“Please, at least meet her. I have no right to ask, except as a father. You’ve seen the notes—I needed to do anything including calling you in here and cashing in any favors I still have to save her life. Please, just meet her and pretend to be her boyfriend to at least smoke out the threat.”
“Colonel Vaughan,” Ed resorted to formality in a last-ditch attempt to avoid what would only end up as a train wreck of an idea. He wasn’t trained for protection duty and had absolutely no interest in pretending to care about some army-brat-diplomatic-princess who would probably treat him like a non-salary servant. “I’m not your guy.”
“Lieutenant Colonel Alexander, I’m asking as a father and your friend.”
“Vaughan, I’m sorry but I’m not your guy.”
He couldn’t get out of his boss’ office quickly enough. Ignoring young Jessica’s, “Have a lovely evening, Lieutenant Colonel,” he by-passed his own office for the love of his Subaru and let it power him across three suburbs to his inner-city apartment.
Who the fuck did Vaughan think he was, calling Ed into his office to babysit some stuck-up princess who got caught up in some shit way above her credit card limit! The more Ed thought about the request, the more he fumed.
It was inappropriate, all the “off the books” shit.
How about illegal, surely most of the research Vaughan had on his former son-in-law in the folder had to be gotten through friendly not legal sources.
No matter how Ed cut it, the whole idea of “defend my daughter” amoun
ted to babysitting.
No.
No way.
Not ever!
Still seething, Ed tried on his “penguin suit,” a tailor-made wool-blend tuxedo that he got made up in Hong Kong years ago. Only pulled out of the moth balls for special occasions, he’d much prefer to be going out in uniform. But that would defeat the whole point of a masquerade ball. Yet another event he was expected to attend, donate money and keep up the right introductions. Pretend fake interest in fake people until he’d put in enough minutes and could escape back home to his three-bedroom apartment and open a cold beer, alone.
His mood hadn’t improved by the time he arrived at the conference centre. An imposing venue decorated for the night with heavy drapes, low lighting and extravagant masks for those who either forgot one or, like Ed, thought they could get away without.
“Lieutenant Colonel Alexander!” Brynne’s friend, Juliette James greeted him with a hug. “I didn’t know whether you would actually turn up.”
“What made you think I wouldn’t?” he joked. “You look gorgeous as always; is Roland here to protect you from adoring suitors?”
“Roland is inside doing some last-minute adjustments to the auctions. My darling husband has more patience than I do with details and numbers.”
“So, are you really going to force me to wear a mask?” Even as he pulled a face, he knew pleading wouldn’t work.
“Absolutely, look how handsome you are—the women here wouldn’t stand a chance and I’d end up auctioning you off and breaking all fundraising records.”
“Homelessness might be a worthy cause, but I’ll pay you good money not to even suggest that to my bosses. I can see it now; some public relations expert will decide it’s a ‘tots sic’ way of showing the modern face of the Australian soldier.”
“Enjoy your night.” Juliette fixed his mask into place and released him to the main room.
If he thought the mask would hide him from the single women in the room, he was mistaken.
Reckless Gamble: a billionaire high stakes suspense romance (City Sinners Book 4) Page 30