Which meant… There was only one thing she could do, but doing it… Yeah, doing it wasn’t her first choice. Because it meant walking away from something that might have been special if she’d given it half a chance.
Throwing back the covers, she tossed her legs over the side of the bed and reached for her sweater from the floor. She wasn’t getting any more sleep, so she might as well locate her phone and book a flight out of Denver for the afternoon before she changed her mind. Assuming, that was, that she could get to Denver. Frowning, she tugged on her sweater and told herself to worry about that later.
Glass shattered somewhere in the villa. Grace whipped toward the sound and froze. The room was dark, making it hard to see, and the door was closed, but she spotted Brian’s gun lying on the top of the dresser where he’d left it last night before dropping her on the bed.
No sound met her ears. She couldn’t even hear the heater anymore. Grace strained to listen, wondering if he’d broken a glass. Waiting for his quiet curse as he cleaned up the mess.
Silence spread like a vast cavern through the room. Grace’s heart rate inched up. If Brian was purposely trying to freak her out, he was going to hear about it. Slowly, she took a step toward the door and reached for the handle.
“Grace?”
She jerked her hand back and froze. Conflicting thoughts shot around in her head. She knew that voice. Knew it well because it belonged to the only other person besides Brian she trusted implicitly. And there was no logical reason for it to be here now.
“Grace?” the voice called again. “Time to come out here and join the fun. McDreamy’s gone. It’s just you and me. And you’ve got something I want.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Grace’s heart felt like it had taken up permanent residence in her throat. Hand shaking, she opened the door and stepped into the living room, where Holly stood on the other side of the couch, one arm down by her side, holding something Grace couldn’t see.
Grace’s pulse skyrocketed. She glanced all around. There was no sign of Brian.
“H-Holly,” she managed. “What are you doing here?”
“Taking what’s mine, Grace.” There was a bite to Holly’s words, and her dark brown eyes held no hint of mischief as they so often did. No spark of friendship either. “Where’s your notebook?”
“My notebook?” Grace asked, having trouble catching up. “Why would you want—”
Her voice cut off abruptly when links clicked into place in her mind. The harassing e-mails back home, the threatening phone calls even after she’d changed and unlisted her number, the notes left on her front porch and inside her house on the counter in her kitchen.
Holly had access to her house. Holly knew every time Grace had changed her number or e-mail address to protect herself from some insane stalker. Holly had talked her into coming up here to Vail. She’d also encouraged her to find a guy to have a “wild fling” with to take her mind off everything.
To distract her? It seemed like that now, but Grace didn’t want to believe it. And she still needed to know why.
“You came all the way up here for my notebook? Why?”
“Why?” Holly scoffed. “Because I deserve it. You never should have gotten that contract. I’m the lyrics. You’re just the music. Anyone can write music, but lyrics takes talent. Talent you never had. You only got on that reality show because your mother’s a Vegas show slut and your father was a womanizing billionaire. That may make for good reality TV, but you couldn’t even make it past the third round. I knew you were going to fail there, just like you always fail at everything. The only reason you got that contract with Royalty was because you fucked Tate Kendrick. Just like you fucked McDreamy. That was a bad move on your part, Grace. A very bad move. I told you to get rid of him.”
Panic pushed its way up Grace’s chest, and she looked around the empty room again, searching for Brian. Needing to find him. “Holly.” Her gaze snapped back to her friend, and a new sense of panic filled her when she saw the venom in Holly’s eyes. A bitter hatred Grace had never noticed until right now. “Where is Brian?”
“Gone.”
Gone. The word echoed in Grace’s head, and dread filled her stomach.
“It actually works out better than I planned,” Holly went on, a smug smile across her face. “Instead of an anonymous stalker the police will never find, they’ll link your disappearance to some guy who followed you to Vail and picked you up in a bar. And since he’s already dead, he won’t be able to tell them otherwise. Then the contract will be mine.”
Dead? No!
Fear and rage and disbelief swirled inside Grace like a firestorm. “No one will believe this. And Royalty will never give you my contract.”
“Oh yes, they will,” Holly snapped. “Because we have a business partnership. In writing. You remember those forms you signed years ago, Grace? The ones my lawyer drew up that give each of us permission to finish out the other’s work should something happen to one of us? This counts.” She pulled her arm from behind her back and pointed a gun straight at Grace’s forehead. “Now, where’s the fucking notebook?”
* * *
Brian’s head hurt like a motherfucker. At the moment though, all he saw and felt was a blinding red as he looked through the kitchen window toward the living room of the villa.
Grace stood steps from the open bedroom door with her hands up. The same psycho woman who’d nailed him with a shovel was pointing Brian’s weapon straight at Grace’s head.
Oh no, you crazy bitch. You are not fucking taking her from me.
He moved around the side of the building, found the master bath, and hoped like hell the storm muffled the sound for breaking glass when he shoved his elbow through the small window.
An alarm would go off in the security center, but it didn’t sound in the villa, and for that he was thankful. He was also thankful that black widow hadn’t checked to make sure he was still alive before she’d swiped his keys and let herself in.
He wiggled his way through the small window, then crept soundlessly into the master bedroom. His heart lurched into his throat when he heard Grace’s panicked voice pleading with the woman holding the gun.
“Holly. Think about this. My brother knows I’m here. And Brian isn’t just some guy who picked me up in a bar. He’s one of Jake’s operatives. No one will ever believe Brian is my stalker.”
Silence echoed from the other room. Brian inched along the shadows, moving closer to the open door. Son of a bitch. The gun he’d left on the dresser was missing.
“It’s no matter,” Holly said. “It’ll look like your stalker took him out. I can still make this work. Now give me the notebook so we can be done with this. Because if you make me look for it, Grace, I’m going to make you suffer.”
“Holly—”
“I’m the talent,” Holly yelled, her voice rising. “You’re just the fucking name. Why do you think I agreed to work with you? Not because I liked you. Not because I thought you were going to lift me up. Because of your name. And you betrayed me with it. Now give me the damn notebook!”
Brian’s pulse was a roar in his ears as reached the edge of the open door. Grace’s back was to him. Options raced through his mind. He judged the distance, the probability of grabbing her and dragging her through the door before Holly’s gun went off. Knew he wouldn’t make it. Then he spotted his Beretta, tucked into the back waistband of her jeans.
She’d grabbed it before she’d gone out there. His smart, sexy, amazing woman.
“The notebook!” Holly screamed.
They were out of time. He knew panic when he heard it. Panic and desperation.
Brian lunged through the door. “Grace!” His hand wrapped around the gun at her back, pulling it free. His other arm shoved her behind him. “Get down!”
Grace screamed. Her body hit the ground. A shot echoed through the room. He fired and threw himself over Grace.
A crash echoed, breaking glass and wood, followed by a thud. Then e
verything went still.
“Oh my God. Oh my God,” Grace repeated, her voice shaking, her body trembling beneath him.
Brian pushed himself up and looked toward Holly. Her eyes were wide and lifeless, her hair a wild red mess around her face, her body lying in the broken remnants of the coffee table. The gun was feet from her on the floor. A bullet wound gaped dead center in her chest.
He looked back behind them. Her shot had hit the plaster to the right of the bedroom. Inches from their heads.
“Oh my God,” Grace rasped, trying to push up.
He captured her, turning her away from the carnage. “Don’t look.” Pulling her tight against him, he held her close while she shook and worked to steady his own raging pulse. “It’s over now.”
Grace dug her fingers digging into his back. “I didn’t know it was her. I didn’t know. I didn’t think. I…” She swallowed hard and froze against him. “Is she…dead?”
His eyes slid closed, and he pulled her in tighter, needing her warmth right now Needing her. Hating the answer. “I…didn’t mean to hit her there. But when I saw her pointing that gun to your head, I just reacted. I’m not ready to lose you.”
She sank into him, burying her face in his chest. And he went on holding her tight until her shaking eased. Outside, sirens echoed, but they were moving slowly because of the storm. They never would have gotten here in time. He’d done the right thing. But knowing he’d killed her friend… He wasn’t sure if she could ever forgive him for that, no matter how crazed the woman had been.
“I was wrong,” she whispered. “I guess I needed someone to watch over me after all.”
She was lightening the mood, surprising him all over again when she could do the exact opposite and push him away. Relief filled his chest. He slid his fingers up into her hair and held her against his heart, hoping she could feel what she meant to him with every soul-shattering beat. “You do. You have a knack for finding trouble. Something tells me you always will.”
And he wanted to be the one to go on watching over her. If she’d let him.
CHAPTER NINE
Brian stood in the middle of Jake Ryder’s office at Aegis headquarters in the rolling horse country of Kentucky and stared out at the view. Pristine white fences that stretched for miles. Horses loping across the fields. Trees waiting for spring, standing tall against the blue sky.
He should be nervous, but he wasn’t. At least not about this meeting. It was what came after, when he got to Nashville, that worried him. And what Grace was going to say when she saw him.
She’d been home for three days, and he’d talked to her a couple of times on the phone, but she’d sounded distant. Reserved. Not a thing like the woman who’d rocked his world in Vail. He was trying not to read too much into that. She’d had to deal with the police, and the fall-out with press, and the people at Royalty Records who were unwittingly drawn into this mess by her friend’s plot to steal her music and claim Grace’s contract as her own. But a tiny part of him was worried that what he’d done in that villa—killing her friend—had shattered their fragile relationship before it had even gotten a chance to bloom.
The door pulled open, and Jake Ryder stepped into the room with a scowl, wearing dark slacks, a white dress shirt rolled up to reveal the SEAL insignia tattooed on the inside of his right forearm, and a red-checked tie. “Walker.”
“Ryder.”
Jake had gone from kick-ass SEAL to successful businessman in record time, but considering his father had been a mega-conglomerate all on his own, that shouldn’t surprise Brian. The man had obviously inherited his father’s business sense, even if he’d never admit it.
Marley Addison, Jake’s right hand and the woman who ran all of Aegis’s ops, stepped in the room after him and closed the door. Unlike their boss, though, the blonde smiled when she saw him, and her eyes glittered behind the wire-rimmed glasses she always wore. “Brian. It’s good to see you. How’s the head?”
Brian tugged his hand from the front pocket of his jeans and ran his fingers over the bandage across the left side of his forehead where he’d been hit with that shovel. “Healing.”
Her smile widened. “Glad to hear it.”
Jake dropped a file folder on his massive mahogany desk and moved around to sit in his chair. “I just heard from the Nashville PD. They found e-mails on Holly’s computer that confirm she was the one harassing Grace. They also located a handful of throwaway cell phones in her apartment, with Grace’s number programed into each one. And the music Grace had written prior to heading to Vail. She knew where Grace had hidden her notebooks in her house and obviously went to get them after Grace left. You did good, Walker.” He opened his desk drawer and drew out a thick envelope, which he slid across the desk toward Brian. “Thank you.”
“Thank you,” Brian repeated with wary eyes as he looked down at the envelope he suspected was his paycheck. But it was thicker than it should have been, which meant it wasn’t a check like normal. It was cash. Way more than he was due.
He shot a look toward Marley, leaning against a table on the far side of the room, watching the exchange, and caught the disapproval in her eyes. Then he glanced back at his boss and saw the anger in his.
Ryder knew. About him and Grace. And he wasn’t having any of it. But instead of pissing Brian off, that revelation sent a sweet sort of relief through Brian’s chest. “I’m not interested in your severance package.”
Jake leaned back in his chair, all calm and smooth control, but Brian sensed the simmering fury lurking underneath. “It’s not a severance package. It’s payment for your most recent assignment. And an advance on your next. In euros. We’ve got a new client in Italy who needs permanent, long-term, on-site security. Pack your bags. You’ll be there for the next year.”
Brian could barely believe what he was hearing. Instead of firing him, Ryder was forcing Brian out of Grace’s life for good. “I’m not going to Italy for a fucking year.”
“You’re sure as hell not staying here.”
“You can’t stop me from seeing her.”
Ryder’s palms landed against his desk, and he pushed to his feet, that legendary control of his long gone. “Don’t be a dumbass, Walker. Grace doesn’t want you. She’s the one who talked me into giving you this assignment. Her life has no room in it for you, and it never will.”
Stunned disbelief shot around in Brian’s chest. No, that couldn’t be true. If Grace didn’t want him, she would have told him. The woman didn’t hold anything back. And when he’d chatted with her last night on the phone and told her he couldn’t wait to see her in Nashville, she hadn’t given him any reason to think he shouldn’t come.
She also hadn’t told him she was looking forward to seeing him either. A sliver of doubt crept in.
“She’s got a new start and the prospect for an amazing career,” Ryder went on. “We both know you’re not the happily ever after kind. There is no such thing for guys like us. Get out of her life before you fuck it up for good, like you did your own.”
Brian’s gaze slid to Marley. Lips pursed, she crossed her arms over her chest and glared at Ryder.
The song Grace had written for him and her excitement in sharing it ricocheted through Brian’s heart and mind. She might not still want him. They might not have a chance in hell to make this work after everything that had happened. But he wasn’t letting her slip through his fingers without trying. He’d done that with his wife. He’d let time and distance form a barrier between them, and then he’d let her go without a fight. He wasn’t willing to do that with Grace. She was too important. And he’d regret it for the rest of his life if he did.
His gaze resettled on his boss, and he clenched his jaw, already plotting how he’d get to Grace before her brother. “Keep your money and your job. I quit.”
* * *
“You think I’m wrong.” As the sound of the slamming door dissipated, Jake Ryder glanced across the room toward his assistant, fighting the urge to go after Walker
and beat some sense into him.
“I think you’re letting the fact that Grace is your sister affect your decision-making process,” Marley answered.
Jake pushed up from the desk and glared at her. “He didn’t just break the rules, Marley, he damn near snapped them off. He knows he’s not supposed to get personally involved with a client.”
“Oh, bullshit, Jake.” She moved away from the table and pinned him with a hard glare. “First of all, she wasn’t his client. You were. And secondly, you’ve had guys break that rule before, and you never came down on them like you just did with Brian.”
“Blackwell was different. Avery Scott was his ex-wife. They had a history. I wasn’t going to step in the middle of that, whether she hired us or not.”
“Tierney and Kauffman were not a couple before he was assigned to protect her, and you didn’t have any problem with them being together. You were even the best man at their wedding.”
“That was different.”
“Why? Because Lauren Kauffman wasn’t your sister?”
“Because Finn Tierney is not Brian Walker,” he snapped.
When Marley tipped her head and shot him that look again, the one that always made him squirm but he’d never cop to, he drew a breath and tried to rein in his temper. “Look, I know the guy. He may be all charm and good looks, but guys like him do not lead normal lives. That’s why I hired him.”
“And this has nothing to do with the fact you were a SEAL and he was Delta Force, and that you don’t play well with others.”
Now it was his turn to pin her with a look. “That’s got nothing to do with this, and you know it.”
She stepped closer to his desk. “He’s crazy about her, Jake. Why can’t you give them a chance? Why do you feel the need to step in and keep them apart?”
He moved to the window and looked out at the view, hating every inch of it. Hating it because it reminded him of his good-for-nothing father. “Grace has been through too much. She doesn’t need someone with Walker’s baggage dragging her down.”
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