by Shayla Black
Dear god. There wasn’t enough Scotch in the world. “I think we can skip the drumming.”
Lara nodded. “It makes Lincoln howl and then my next-door neighbor yells at me. He’s a very unhappy man.”
Oddly, Connor didn’t like the thought of someone yelling at her. She would never yell back. She would likely try to “understand” the man. He pushed those thoughts out of his head. He wasn’t here to protect her from herself. “Let me put this to you as straight as I possibly can. Do you two understand that someone tried to kill Lara this afternoon?”
Tom’s eyes widened and he slumped down on Lara’s love seat, making a place for Kiki to sit beside him. “The radio said they thought it was random or maybe some form of drug deal gone bad.”
He would be honest with them—to a point. “It wasn’t. The gunman stopped right in front of where we were sitting and pointed straight at her. There’s no doubt who his target was.” He turned to Lara. “My first question is, who knew where you were going to be this afternoon?”
It was time to start getting some real answers. Sure, the whole bodyguard thing was a cover, and once he found the information he needed, she would be on her own, but he had to look like he was doing his job.
“I met Lara at the coffeehouse, but I had to leave before you got there,” Tom admitted. “I don’t think she told anyone about it but me and Kiki.”
“She just wanted company in case you turned out to be creepy,” Kiki added. “Of course then she got a look at you and she dumped my ass really fast.”
“I did not. I just realized that I was late. You totally could have come along.” Lara sent her friend some seriously pleading looks.
This would be a tough group to keep on task. “So, Lara, no one else knew where you were going to be this afternoon?”
She turned to him and shook her head. “No one. I just told Kiki and Tom and only because a woman on her own can’t be too careful. Anytime I’m meeting someone, I always make sure one of my friends knows when and where the meeting place is.”
Something about the way she’d hesitated over the word always made him think she was lying.
He would bet half his fortune that her friends didn’t know she was meeting Deep Throat.
“All right. I’m going to need to figure out who’s tracking you and how. I need access to anything you were carrying with you today.” Most likely, someone had traced her cell phone. He’d run a few programs to see if someone had tampered with her device.
Tom held up his phone. “Or you could just look on Facebook. She told all 3,274 friends of hers exactly where she was at. See? She checked in at Ebenezers.”
He would always have to remember that he wasn’t dealing with a polished operative. He was dealing with someone more like Miley Cyrus, and if she’d been shot, she would likely have taken a selfie of her bullet wounds and posted it on Instagram before bleeding out. He turned to Lara, who gave him a sheepish smile.
“Yeah, I forgot about that. I do little check-ins through the day. You know, in case there are any friends who happen to be in the area.”
“Yes, I understand. Social networking is so important for your generation. It’s how you let assassins know where to find you. Lara is . . . enjoying a latte. Please come murder her.” He crossed his arms over his chest and gave her a stare assured to send the most seasoned operative into a fetal position. “You will shut down all social media today.”
Lara just stared back at him. Her eyes narrowed, her lips thinning, and he wondered if she was making fun of him. “Won’t that send out the wrong message? We told the press this attack was random. Shouldn’t I act all normal and stuff?”
Freaking hell, she was right. “All right, but I’m in charge of your social media now. You don’t put a single word out there unless it goes through me.”
She coughed, but he could have sworn it sounded like Gestapo.
He ignored her. He wasn’t the Gestapo, Nazi Germany’s infamous state police. He was so much fucking worse, but she would find that out on her own. So he had narrowed down his suspects to roughly 3,200. Thank you, Internet.
He turned to Tom and Kiki. “I’ve been told you two know about Lara’s website.”
Kiki sighed. “You really think this is someone Capitol Scandals burned? Do you think those people would follow her social media?”
“If I’d had my life trashed by a tabloid and found out who ran it, you can bet I would use everything I had to track that person down,” he explained.
“I told you that site would get you in trouble,” Tom complained.
Lara sat on the couch, apparently expecting Connor to take the single chair since she spread out. “You didn’t hate the site when I ran that article on the circuit court judge selling verdicts.”
Tom shrugged. “He was a total asshole and his clerks were jerks. They kept me out of the fantasy football league. They deserved it.”
It was good he had his priorities. Connor shook his head. “Your opinion of the site is irrelevant. All that matters is figuring out who’s trying to kill Lara.”
“Isn’t this what the police should be doing?” Tom asked.
Kiki rolled her eyes. “As childish as he made that question sound, it’s valid. Why aren’t we letting the police handle this? I’m not questioning Connor’s ability to protect you, but the police have resources he just doesn’t have.”
She had no idea what resources he could call to his fingertips, but he couldn’t explain to her that he could count on both Langley and the executive branch to aid him. “I’m good with investigations and I’m excellent with a computer.”
“But the police . . .” Tom argued stubbornly.
“Connor and my dad think that’s a bad idea,” Lara explained.
“Since when do you do what your dad tells you to?” Tom shot back.
“Since he ganged up on me with him.” Lara was pointing his way. “They’re surprisingly immune to my arguments.”
Those big blue eyes were killing him. Fuck. She was cute. He didn’t do cute. He wasn’t the guy who liked cute intellectuals with great asses. He definitely wasn’t buying into her bullshit. Professional. That’s how he had to stay, which meant getting some distance between them. Except when he went to sit down, he found himself on the couch, plunking down right beside her so she damn near fell against him.
“Hey. I left that seat for you,” she said, scrambling to right herself and Lincoln, who was growling again.
“I think it’s best if you got used to me being on top of you,” he said, settling in. “In a nonliteral sense, of course.”
She would look pretty riding his cock.
Fuck, had he just thought that? He could sleep with her for the sake of the mission, but he would be in control. He would never again be vulnerable like he had with Greta.
He forced his head back in the game. “If we bring the police in, we have to tell them our suspicions.”
Kiki groaned. “And then they find out about Capitol Scandals.”
“The police could keep that quiet,” Tom insisted.
He was as naive as Lara. “Maybe the cops wouldn’t mention it, but if the press got wind of an investigation, they would start digging and it wouldn’t be long before they found her out. She’s got a good setup. While I’m here with her, I’ll strengthen her firewalls and put some more layers of protection in, but she’ll always be vulnerable.”
“So you’re covering up the murder attempt to keep it out of the press,” Tom allowed. “What’s with the lip lock? Are you trying to convince her that sleeping with you is good protection? That’s kind of sleazy, isn’t it? Or is that the way she’s paying your fee?”
After that comment, surely rendering the kid unconscious would be acceptable. Maybe even applauded.
“Tom, are you trying to say I would sell myself?” Lara’s face had turned a vibrant red and Connor finally knew what she looked like when she was actually angry.
Tom backed down really quick, his angry posture changing i
n a split second. His shoulders slumped and his gaze slid away from hers. “I’m so sorry, L. I would never say that. I’m just upset because I think this guy is using you. We should talk to your dad.”
“I told you. Dad is all on board with Connor. Apparently Connor’s in good with Hayes, and you know Dad really wants into that circle.” Lara sat back.
That was a dangerous line of thought. The last thing he needed was someone thinking he was in Zack Hayes’s inner circle. “Not exactly. I did some work for the president back when he was just a kid in Congress. He came overseas on a fact-finding mission. He was part of the Armed Forces Services Committee. Well, what happened after that is classified, but he told me afterward if I ever needed a reference to go to him.”
Zack had actually been in the Middle East with a congressional committee, and Connor had provided security. He’d just been in the CIA when he did it and he certainly hadn’t been merely muscle. He’d been responsible for evaluating any and all threats to the American delegation.
So he wasn’t exactly lying. It was always best that any story he told her held a grain of truth.
“Tom, I have the skills needed to protect Lara. Her father is confident in that and so is she.” He looked her way.
She didn’t appear at all confident but after a few seconds, she got the idea. She nodded. “Yes. I am. He’s right.”
He needed to work on her acting skills. “And I kissed Lara in the elevator because it’s part of our cover, one all of us need to stick to. You two and her parents are the only ones who know that she’s the force behind Capitol Scandals.”
“And that there’s a douche bag who’s trying to murder me,” Lara added.
“Obviously, we don’t want him in on our plan. Tom and Kiki, if anyone asks, I expect you to keep our cover. If a reporter happens to phone you for a quote, you tell them she’s doing all right and she’s happily nesting with her new boyfriend.”
Kiki clapped her hands in what seemed like delight. “You’re going to pretend to be her fiancé so the press doesn’t think she has a bodyguard because then the press would wonder why she needed one and bam, we’re right back where we started. I love this plan.”
“Boyfriend,” Connor corrected. He damn straight wasn’t anyone’s fiancé. He’d never even come close to wanting that.
“Fine, boyfriend with an eye to marriage because no one’s going to believe Lara would just start sleeping with someone off the street,” Kiki explained.
Tom huffed a little. “Right. No one will believe that.”
Lara held up her left hand and those blue eyes sparkled with mischief. “I think I look best with a princess cut, but no blood diamonds. You have to make sure you don’t buy conflict gemstones. We’re going to be an earth-kindness home.”
He held up a hand to stop that line of thought right there. “Hey, slow down, princess. This isn’t real and we’ll just say we’ve been talking over the Internet.”
“Yeah, L. How are you going to explain this to your real boyfriend?” Tom sounded a little like a six-year-old on the playground. “How’s Niall going to take it?”
He watched her flush again, but this time any anger or mischief was gone. In its place was something he feared. Guilt. Shame.
Fuck it all, she thought she was really in love with Niall Smith. Niall Smith, who didn’t actually exist. Niall Smith—Connor’s own creation—was likely going to keep him out of Lara’s bed.
“I’ll talk to him tonight. I’m going to see if I can get him on the phone. I don’t want him to think this is real at all.” The words came out in a rush.
Lara’s hand drifted restlessly over the dog. Lincoln, as though sensing his mistress’s deep distress, settled down and rubbed against her.
“How serious is this thing with you and Niall?” Connor asked.
“We’re friends, but we’ve talked about trying to be more. You know what a great guy he is,” Lara said.
“You know you’ve got a whole country between you.” She had to see that it couldn’t work.
“That’s what I told her,” Tom explained.
He hated being on the same side as Tom, but this was a problem he should have thought of. All his careful planning could go up in smoke. He reflected on everything and realized he’d played Niall far too well. He’d constructed the guy to be a savior of endangered animals, her intellectual equal, and a sensitive activist. In short, her fantasy. Niall seemed a little like a walking vagina to Connor. If he didn’t work this angle correctly, his imaginary creation could screw up everything.
Fantasies always beat out reality. He needed Lara to trust him, to turn to him. Deep Throat was coming back, and Connor wanted Lara to tell him everything because he was important to her.
He couldn’t be as long as Niall was in the picture.
“Who knows,” Lara said with a wistful smile on her face that let him know she’d been thinking about this for a while. “He might like D.C.”
Connor shook his head. “No. That is one California boy. He won’t ever leave.”
“Then maybe I’ll like California.” She stood. “I should go and make dinner. Isn’t your package going to be here soon? I assume you had them deliver something that previously had a face and a mother who probably loved it very much before she was brutally murdered for her meat.”
Niall was a vegan. Another point for him. Shit. He should have sucked it up and eaten whatever she put in front of him. He gave her a wink because there was nothing to do now but brazen through. “You know the secret ingredient to any burger is love.”
She frowned and flounced away, her ugly dog in her arms, likely dreaming of a man who didn’t exist and who would have to prove himself to be all too human very soon.
Tom leaned over, his eyes wide. “Please tell me you ordered enough for all of us because I heard her talking about tofu tacos. I can’t do that. Have you ever tried to pass vegan cheese through your digestive tract?”
Kiki shook her head. “Men. I’ll go help Lara while you two plan your next kill.”
“I don’t kill it,” Tom called out. “It just shows up in a nice plastic wrapper at the grocery store. It could have died a natural death. We’ll never know.”
Kiki stopped in front of Connor. “If you like my friend, you should know that Niall is going to be an issue for her. I think he’s too good to be true and I don’t trust anyone I meet on the Internet, but she’s spent weeks building some serious picket-fence dreams around him. And I’ve seen his picture. He is a very cute boy.”
Connor had used pictures of a barely-out-of-college intern who’d once done work as a wilderness guide in Northern California. He was a twenty-four-year-old kid with too-long blond hair and a smile that could probably get him in the movies. In all the pictures on his social networking sites, Niall was climbing a mountain or river rafting.
Niall wasn’t covered in scars, both internal and external. He wouldn’t use sarcasm as a shield. He was bright and fucking shiny, like Lara herself. Niall didn’t cling to the shadows because the darkness felt like home.
If this was a fairy tale, Niall would be the handsome prince and Connor the villain who tore him away from the fair princess and broke her heart.
Lara was going to have to get used to the fact that this wasn’t a fucking fairy tale and princes didn’t exist. It was time to start resetting her expectations.
“I’m afraid she doesn’t know everything about him.”
Kiki’s eyes closed briefly, and she sighed when she opened them again. “Just let her down easy. She really likes him.”
“He likes her, too, but that doesn’t mean he’s right for her. Or that he’s in love with her.” At least he’d been careful about that. He’d been flirty and nice, but he hadn’t said anything about love. Even when he was playing a role, he would never have mentioned that word.
“Tell me he’s an asshole.” Tom seemed more than willing to talk to him now.
Kiki shook her head and walked off as the doorbell rang. “That’s
probably your food, carnivores.”
When Connor got to the door, he realized it was so much worse.
A small army stood there. They were a motley group. A couple looked damn near homeless, but that was just how twenty-year-olds seemed to dress these days. There were two elderly ladies, one complete with a walker. A worried-looking mom with a child clutching each of her hands.
One of the homeless stepped up. “Is Lara here? We heard about her on the news.”
He was just about to toss them all out when he heard a little cry behind him.