Poker Face

by Cindy Dees

  “Let’s see.” Stone flopped onto the sofa beside him, lifted the remote out of his paralyzed fingers, and turned to one of the all-news channels.

  They watched in silence for long enough to be certain they’d dodged that bullet. For now, at least. Oh Lord. This was a disaster.

  “The footage isn’t that high quality, Christian. And I really do look like Jack.”

  “Problem is Jack would never, ever defend himself in the first place or turn around and show compassion for his attacker in the second place.”

  “Who else but his immediate staff knows that, though?”

  “His wife. Maybe a few hunting buddies. Fortunately, he’s got too big of an ego to maintain sincere friendships.”

  “Well, he defends himself from attacks and shows compassion to his attackers now. Let the media make of it what they will.”

  “Do you have any idea how dangerous it is to let the media form its own opinions?” Christian mumbled, thinking a mile a minute.

  It went without saying that they would have to turn down the interview requests. No way could Stone pass as Jack in a close-up television setting. But they would have to spin the refusals in such a way that the press didn’t take offense and go for Jack/Stone’s jugular. As long as this thing stayed local, it shouldn’t be that hard to contain.

  As if on cue, the phone rang. Christian picked it up warily. It was a major television affiliate this time. Crap. The story was going national. He got off the phone with a noncommittal comment about the senator being shaken by the incident, heavily booked, and promised to get back to the production assistant in the morning with a statement from Jack.

  He’d no sooner set the receiver down than the phone rang again. He glared across the room at Stone. “What the hell am I supposed to do about this?”

  “Draft a press release saying that the senator does not wish to benefit politically from a young man’s mental health issues. I’m declining all interview requests regarding the incident at the Chamber of Commerce event out of respect for the privacy of the family of the victim.”

  “But you’re the victim.”

  “Say it the way I did. The public won’t miss the message. And thank the Miami police for their professionalism and restraint. Might as well give those guys some good press for a change. Poor bastards don’t get much love, and they’ve got a rough job.”

  It wasn’t a bad way to spin it. Christian nodded slowly. “That could work.” He added, “You’ve got a charity fundraiser tomorrow night. The press is going to climb all over you. I’ll call the event organizers in the morning and warn them to have extra security in place. Tucker can figure out how to sneak you in the back entrance. We’ll have to keep your exposure minimal and dodge the press to the best of our ability.”

  “I have faith in you. It’ll work out.”

  Christian was too wired to sit any longer and moved over to the desk. “Let me print out your remarks for tomorrow so you can practice them. I’ll make sure the press knows you’re not taking questions tomorrow, and you’re not talking about today’s incident—”

  A hand touched his shoulder, and he spun, startled.

  Stone murmured, “Go take a shower. Relax. You’ve got tomorrow covered, and I know what to do. Today was a big day. Recover from it tonight, and worry about tomorrow in the morning.”

  His brain heard the sense in Stone’s advice; however, his panic was such that he doubted any relaxation was possible.

  Stone herded him into the bathroom and shut the door firmly behind him. And it was nice being herded into a few minutes’ worth of self-care.

  He was the one who took care of everyone else, not the other way around. But this was nice. He stripped and stood under a hot shower for a long time, his brain flatly refusing to function. For once, he allowed himself to just zone out. Eventually, when he was a ton more relaxed, he got out, wrapped a towel around his hips, and padded into the living room.

  Stone looked up from a copy of tomorrow’s speech and smirked. “Terry cloth is a good look on you.”

  He vogued until the towel began to slip and he snatched at it to hold it up.

  “Tease,” Stone complained. “Go to bed before I can’t restrain myself any longer.”

  He frowned, his playful mood abruptly evaporating. He hadn’t been kidding when he said sex couldn’t happen again between them. He was only so strong, and he couldn’t risk an addiction to Stone that derailed his entire life.

  Still. Stone unable to keep his hands to himself? He rather liked the sound of that. After all, he knew the feeling. He almost reversed his personal edict to himself that there would be no more hanky-panky between them.

  No! Be strong!

  Swearing at his stupidly overdeveloped sense of responsibility, he beat a tactical retreat from the living room, away from temptation.

  Stone might accuse him of being the great people reader, but the guy wasn’t doing a half-bad job himself tonight. He was beat after today’s wild emotional swings. A press release could actually wait until first thing in the morning. Media outlets wouldn’t expect one until then anyway.

  By the time he reached his bed in the suite’s second bedroom, he was all but stumbling with exhaustion. Everything from the past few days—hell, the past few decades—seemed to be catching up with him all at once. He fell into bed and passed out, asleep practically before he got horizontal.

  Sometime in the thick darkness of the wee hours, he woke up enough to feel the mattress shift. Warm arms enveloped him, and he drifted toward sleep again, safe in their embrace.

  Very faintly in the back of his mind, a little voice suggested that something was wrong with how right those arms felt, but he was too unconscious to sort it out. Relaxed and comfortable, he went back to sleep.

  He woke abruptly, panicked for no apparent reason. And then it dawned on him that he was not alone in his bed. Crap! He’d promised himself he would swear off Stone after yesterday’s erotic encounter in the SUV. He leaped out of bed like the pillows were on fire.

  “What’s wrong?” Stone bit out tersely, sitting up sharply.

  “Nothing. Go back to sleep. I’ve got to put out a quick press release.”

  Stone frowned but did lie back down. Thank God. Christian didn’t have the energy to spare for a fight just yet. First, he had a few crises to manage. Then maybe there could be fighting.

  Four more days. He had to get through today’s charity benefit, tomorrow’s golf tournament, and the big casino night on Saturday. And then Jack Lacey could spend the next month floating around the damned Caribbean, screwing his girlfriend, and no one would be the wiser. Please, God, let Jack’s paranoia about paparazzi protect him from discovery in the meantime.

  Christian drafted the press release quickly and sent it out, and then he headed for the shower. By the time he emerged, he’d developed a long to-do list for himself.

  Stone observed him with hawklike intensity but seemed content to leave him alone this morning to work. Or to at least pretend to work, as it turned out.

  It was impossible to concentrate with those intelligent eyes registering his every tiny movement. He felt like an antelope squarely in the sights of a hunting tiger.

  He managed to scroll down through Jack’s email, answered the easy requests, scheduled a few meetings for when they got back to Washington and added them to Jack’s calendar, and stored the other messages in a file to deal with later.

  And then he opened an innocuous-looking message titled simply, “For Senator Jack Lacey—Urgent.”

  Your time is coming very soon, you worthless piece of shit. Settle your affairs and say goodbye because I’m coming to send you to hell where you belong.

  It wasn’t signed. The “From” line said simply “unnamed sender.” The email address itself was a random-looking string of numbers and letters. Not helpful.

  He snatched up the phone and dialed Tucker. “Where are you, Travis?”

  “At the venue for tonight’s gala. This place is a nightmare
—”

  “I need you to get back here right now,” he interrupted.

  “What’s wrong?” Tucker’s voice already was jumping, as if the man was running while talking.

  “Stone’s safe. But Jack just got another death threat. And this one said specifically that he’s going to be attacked soon.”

  “Keep Stone in the room, and I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”

  “Got it.” He hung up the phone anxiously.

  From the sofa across the suite, Stone said grimly, “And you didn’t think to tell me first that there’s another death threat? Given that I’m the expert security consultant and effectively the target?”

  “You heard at the same time I told Tucker.”

  “That’s not my point. You see something alarming, something that has to cause you significant stress, and you don’t tell me first?”

  “I followed protocol,” he said defensively. “Secure the principal and tell the bodyguard immediately.”

  Christian braced himself for an explosion out of Stone but instead got only a terse, “Give me everything you’ve got on tonight’s benefit. I need the full list of attendees.”

  Christian handed over the hard copy of the guest list and went to work downloading and printing out the schedule of events, timeline, and correspondence from the event organizers. Stone turned his attention to the paperwork, but anger rolled off his muscular shoulders in palpable waves. What the hell did Stone want him to say?

  His mind was blown by what had transpired between them yesterday, and he needed some time to process it. And now was not the moment to have a huge fight with Stone over the fact that he’d meant it when he said they were over last night.

  The silent standoff grew more and more uncomfortable as Stone appeared to grow steadily angrier. Christian was by turns defensive and irritable himself.

  The first priority was Stone’s safety, and that meant telling his chief of security immediately about any incoming threats. He’d done the right thing by calling Tucker first, dammit.

  At least they’d established that the two of them could have a knock-down-drag-out fight without ever uttering a single word aloud to each other. It was a first for him with any man and actually a rather impressive feat.

  Gradually, Stone’s focus shifted to the papers he had spread out all over a table. He was poring over some sort of tourist map of downtown Miami when Tucker burst into the suite and into the middle of their silent battle of wills.

  Christian had never been so relieved to see the man. “What’s the plan, Tucker?” He felt a bigger, better wave of irritation surge off the couch at him for asking Tucker and not Stone for a plan of action.

  “Lemme see the email,” Tucker replied.

  While Christian pulled it up and turned his laptop for Tucker to see the short message, Stone reported tersely, “The tech experts at Wild Cards have had no success tracing the sender of the email. It was likely sent from a location outside the United States and bounced off a bunch of servers to anonymize it.”

  Tucker nodded as he glanced through the short message. “What else did your analysts have to say?”

  “As for the message’s content, there’s nothing new except the addition of the attack coming soon. The Wild Cards’ profiler says the assassin is hinting at having a concrete timetable. You and I could have figured that out for ourselves, though. Talk to me about the venue.”

  “You’re not going to go through with the appearance, are you?” Tucker demanded, sounding startled.

  “We might as well catch ourselves a psychopath while we wait for Jack to get tired of Chesty.”

  Christian’s mouth opened and a protest danced on the tip of his tongue. Why in the name of God didn’t Stone value his life more than this? Why was he so damned willing to throw himself in front of a madman and roll the dice with death?

  At least Tucker was also staring in what looked like shock.

  Stone muttered, “Talk to me, Tuck.”

  The security chief moved over to the venue map on the coffee table in front of Stone and started jabbing at intersections and buildings, giving a rapid-fire description of the area around the large plaza where the evening charity auction and ball would be held under the stars.

  “The whole plaza will be blocked off for the night with police barricades here, here, here, and here. They’ll be manned by cops but should be considered porous.”

  Stone made a noise of disgust.

  Tucker continued, “At least ten high-rises are close, with a half dozen well within five hundred yards.”

  Stone grimaced and Christian asked, “What’s significant about five hundred yards?”

  “Any half-decent sniper with a half-decent weapon can kill a man at that distance,” Stone replied.

  “Are we worried that the stalker is going to make a hit tonight? I thought you guys decided the casino night was the event the attacker would target because of how high profile it will be.”

  “Given the latest communication, I think we have to consider every appearance that I—Jack—makes to be at high risk.”

  “And yet you’re going through with it. Look. Jack bailed out on all of us. If he ruins his ability to collect any campaign donations and blows his chances for reelection, it’s no skin off my nose at this point. Although you may be prepared to sacrifice your life at the drop of a hat, Stone, I am not willing to throw you to the wolves. I’m pulling the plug on this thing right now. I’ll write up a press release that Jack has had to leave town unexpectedly and is bowing out—”

  “And what happens when this would-be killer shows up at your DC office and shoots the entire staff, including you? Or he shows up at Jack’s home and murders his wife… and the dog too, just to make his point?”

  Jeez. The bald violence Stone was hinting at stopped him in his mental tracks.

  Stone continued grimly, “Hiding from nutjobs gives them a sense of control. They’re successfully manipulating their target. If we can draw this person out into the open without Jack around to screw up our plans, as only he can, it would be a win for everyone.”

  Christian reluctantly saw the logic. But he didn’t like it. Not one bit.

  Nope, and his dislike of this plan to proceed on schedule had nothing to do with his feelings for Stone Jackson.

  And he had a bridge in Brooklyn to sell.

  God. Damn. It.

  STONE WASN’T fond of bulletproof vests. In the first place, they weren’t actually proof against a high-caliber round, and there was always a head shot to consider. Even if the Wild Cards guys didn’t believe this attacker was a pro, a shooter could still get lucky and nail the target in an unprotected part of the body.

  Bullet-resistant vests tended to give their wearers a dangerous and potentially life-threatening sense of invincibility. Furthermore, they were hot and bulky, and they made his—well, Jack’s—suits lie funny, no matter how good the tailor might be.

  But Tucker was having no part of him going out in public without one.

  Christian had opted to sit in the front seat of the SUV with Tucker en route to the gala tonight, and Stone didn’t know whether to be insulted, hurt, or amused. He settled on being a little of all three.

  At least he had the satisfaction of knowing he’d really shaken up Christian yesterday. Poor guy didn’t know what to do with himself when all that careful control he wore like armor was stripped away from him.

  He didn’t for a minute think Christian was serious about the two of them never making love again. He’d just overwhelmed the guy a little. Or maybe a lot.

  Good. Christian had been badly in need of a shock. He was stuck in the mother of all ruts and was too awesome a human being to languish in the bottom of it forever.

  His mind drifted to the insane pleasure they’d shared, and his fly started to bulge alarmingly. Swearing, he pulled out the dry-as-dust speech and practiced reading it aloud in Jack’s Texas accent.

  Thankfully, it did the trick of killing his erection, and he would be abl
e to walk upright when they arrived at the venue.

  The SUV pulled to a stop, and the privacy panel slid down. “All right, then, sir. Good luck,” Tucker announced.

  Stone responded, “Christian, I want you to stay away from me at the gala tonight.”

  Christian’s eyes registered hurt, but he quickly masked the expression.

  “It’s nothing personal,” he explained quickly. “We just need Jack to play the flirt with the ladies. He wouldn’t do that in front of his senior aide who knows his wife well, would he?”

  “Not so much,” Christian responded thoughtfully. He added, “But you don’t have to throw yourself at women in the name of impersonating Jack—” Christian started.

  “It’s okay. I knew what I was signing up for when I agreed to play this role. Also, I happen to know Jack has a history of making his security staff stay away from him.”

  Tucker snorted from the driver’s seat.

  “More importantly, though,” Stone continued grimly, “I don’t want you hit by a stray bullet in case our stalker chooses tonight to find out how lousy a shot he is.”

  “Oh.” The single syllable from Christian thudded like lead between them.

  Christian swore quietly and got out of the SUV without waiting for Jack. Remorsefully, Stone watched him walk away.

  Jesus, his job sucked sometimes.

  And then it was time for him to climb out of the SUV, get mobbed by sycophants, and play United States senator for the next hour. Suddenly, being a plain old bodyguard who only risked death for a living didn’t seem quite so bad.

  Maybe he was just feeling antisocial tonight, but the aggressive interest of a huge crowd of people all eager to steal a minute of his time went against every minute of training he’d ever had at covert operations, avoiding detection, and above all, not being noticed.

  And the women. Oy.

  Apparently, this event had been declared some sort of open season on the politicians in attendance. At least every two minutes, some beautiful woman came sashaying his way, inviting him silently to look down her dress or feel up her thigh.