Honor Bound

by Samantha Chase

  I couldn’t help it. I had to look back up at him. Then I couldn’t look away from his beautiful green eyes, which seemed to be full of admiration, interest, and humor. “Maybe a little,” I admitted.

  “That’s what I thought.”

  I have no idea how long I would have stood there like a statue, staring up at him, swaying slightly, waiting for something to happen.

  My phone rang then, though, and I jerked in surprise before I reached to answer it.

  It was Cheryl, who had about ten questions and twenty-five suggestions for me to do while I was at the house—all of them vague and mostly unhelpful. I waved in Sebastian’s direction when he started to leave the room, trying to feel relieved that he was gone.

  I didn’t feel relieved, though. I felt disappointment.

  I really needed to get it together and remember priorities.

  ***

  An hour later, I’d done all of the real work I’d come here to do, but I wanted to make sure to scout out the home office while I was here.

  I knew Gentry had to have an office in the house. And that would be the most likely location for any incriminating information I could find.

  So I left the east wing and wandered into the west wing, holding the sketch of the layout of the house I’d been creating and trying to look like I was doing what I was supposed to do.

  No one was around. I hadn’t seen Sebastian since the library, so I assumed he had left. He wouldn’t have any reason to hang around here all morning, when Gentry wasn’t even in residence.

  I was planning to be careful, though. No sense to rush headlong into potential danger, just because the coast looked clear.

  I found a few guest bedrooms until I got to the back of the wing, where I discovered a workout room and, across the hall, a door that opened into what was clearly an office. There was a big walnut desk, computer, printer, and other office equipment, and a huge walnut credenza with what looked like file drawers.

  Perfect.

  I closed the door behind me and went to the desk, but there were no notes of any kind on the desktop, and the top drawers just held pens and paper and assorted supplies.

  The bottom two drawers were locked.

  The computer was turned off, of course, so I went to the credenza. The file drawers were all locked too.

  I checked out the locks, as if I could somehow figure out how to pick them.

  This was purely wishful thinking because I was about as clueless about lock-picking as you can be.

  At least I knew where the office was, though, and what was in it, so I could make a plan for getting into it later on, after I had time to do some thinking.

  Satisfied I’d at least taken a step in the right direction, I was heading for the door when I saw it start to open.

  I had about three seconds to act, and I did the only thing that crossed my mind. I extended my tape measure partway and bent over, acting like I was just rolling it back up as the door opened all the way.

  “What are you doing in here?” Sebastian asked as I stood up and looked back at him, trying to put on a look of casual interest, as if I wasn’t worried at all about his arrival here.

  I’d known it would be Sebastian. Who else would appear without warning, just where I didn’t want him?

  “I told you. I’m supposed to take measurements and the layout of the whole house.” I showed him my sketch pad again, as if that would be evidence enough.

  “But guests won’t be back here.” He didn’t look angry, but there wasn’t a smile in his eyes, the way there had been on the other two times I’d seen him. “This is a private office.”

  For some stupid reason, I missed that smile in his eyes.

  “I know.” I tried for a slightly resigned tone. “But Cheryl wants the plan of the entire house, whether we’ll be using it for the event or not. I hope that’s okay.” I widened my eyes. “Should I not be back here?”

  “Probably not.” The smile sparked in his eyes again, and he put a hand on my back to lead me out of the room. “Just make things up on the plans for the private areas. She’ll never know if they’re accurate or not.”

  I giggled at his dry tone, and it wasn’t entirely for the pretense.

  I’d never expected a Maxwell to be so warm and funny and almost sweet.

  I wondered if it was real or not. It felt real, but that didn’t mean it was.

  “So you’re a Maxwell?” I asked, as we walked down the hall together. I figured, if I’d met him innocently, it would have been something I might have asked anyway. “I mean, one of the Maxwells?”

  He let out an audible sigh. “Yeah. One of them.”

  “You don’t sound excited about it.”

  “It’s not always all it’s cracked up to be.”

  He didn’t add anything to the understated comment. He didn’t whine about his family or bemoan his poor-little-rich-boy upbringing or claim to want to be someone else. But I still felt a little thrill of hope.

  If Sebastian wasn’t like the rest of his family—if he wasn’t a real Maxwell—then maybe it wasn’t the end of the world that I was so attracted to him.

  After all, he could hardly be blamed if his father and his father’s business partners were cold, heartless bastards.

  “What are you doing here today?” I asked, since someone needed to say something.

  “What do you mean? I’m doing security for the big event. I thought you knew that.”

  “Yeah, yeah. I knew that. But I didn’t know why you’d have to be here when Mr. Gentry wasn’t. Don’t you just loom around, intimidating threats?”

  He chuckled. “There’s a little more to the security business than that. In fact, I’ll have to approve all the plans you make to make sure it won’t interfere with security.”

  “Okay. That’s fine.” I felt a little excited again, since it meant I’d see him again.

  Not that I should be excited about that, of course.

  He walked me to my car, and there was that warm promise in his eyes when he said he was sure he’d see me again soon.

  I hadn’t had much a social life, if you want to know the truth. I did date in high school some, but since my dad lost his job, I’d been so busy working and trying to hold the family together that I didn’t have time or energy to date.

  So it had been a really long time since I felt that jittery thrill of interest in a good-looking guy, who might—just might—ask me out.

  It was definitely not my priority, though, something I reminded myself of on my way home.

  And on and off throughout the evening too.

  ***

  I went over to the Gentry house three times the following week—certainly more than was necessary, although I had reasonable excuses for every trip.

  Searching for incriminating evidence in the house was harder than I’d been expecting. I got into his office a second time, but was equally unsuccessful at finding anything useful. Plus, by the end of the week, I’d still only managed to search about half the house.

  When I made myself think rationally, I realized that the kind of evidence I needed was most likely to be found in his company office and not in his home. But I could never get into his office downtown, and I could get here. He worked at home sometimes. I knew that much. And people sometimes felt safer at home and left things lying around in a way they never would have at work.

  It was my only hope, so I wasn’t giving it up.

  On Friday, my plan was to check out the second floor. There was nothing but private rooms upstairs, so I had no good reason for being up there at all, but I was determined to check them out anyway.

  Maybe Gentry kept a desk upstairs in his master suite. Or maybe I could find a storage closet with files stored away. Unlikely, but possible. And I couldn’t just ignore one entire floor of the house.

  So after I took the measurements I’d pretended to have forgotten on my last visit—so I could come back out here today—I made sure the coast was clear and headed upstairs.

&n
bsp; The house was dead quiet. Neither Gentry nor his wife were here today.

  I’d seen Sebastian on the other visits I’d made this week, but I hadn’t seen his fancy car out front today.

  Part of me was disappointed. He’d lingered each time I’d come, and we’d chatted about all kinds of stuff. He was smart and funny, and he seemed to genuinely listen to anything I said about my life and interests. He was definitely flirting with me—even clueless as I was, I could recognize that much. But he hadn’t asked me out. Yet.

  Part of me hoped he’d be here today and that maybe he would.

  But the other part of me was relieved by his absence, since his lingering made any investigation impossible.

  I walked down the hall and tried to get a sense of the layout, but there were so many doors off the hallway that I had to just start opening them to see what was in them.

  The first doors on the east wing were obviously guest rooms, so I turned and went down the west wing hall instead. The room I checked out first was a media room. There were books and newspapers on the coffee table that appeared to have been read, and an enormous TV and media console took up most of one wall.

  On the far side, there was a door onto a wide balcony with a great view of the pool and property.

  This looked like the kind of room where Gentry and his wife would actually spend time, so I scanned carefully to see if there was anything worth looking into.

  Most of the shelves were open and were lined with movies, games, or books. But I spotted a laptop on a side table that made me perk up.

  A laptop was worth checking out, for sure.

  I hurried over and lifted the lid, my breath hitching as I saw that it had just been on hibernate and the monitor was coming back on.

  When it did, I pulled up the documents folder and searched the list of titles.

  There were almost no documents on the computer at all. I pulled up those I saw, and they only consisted of menus and travel itineraries for trips to Europe and Australia.

  I shook my head. This was obviously Mrs. Gentry’s laptop. There wouldn’t be anything helpful on it at all.

  With a sigh, I closed out the documents. I was considering pulling up the email account when I heard a voice down the hall.

  Startled, I closed the laptop quickly and then stood in the middle of the room, torn in two directions at once.

  I was dying to get out of this room, since I definitely didn’t belong here. But, if someone was in the hall, then they would see me, and I’d have to explain my presence.

  In a panic, I ran to the door that opened onto the balcony and stepped outside. I could just hang out there for a minute until whoever it was moved on.

  I cracked the door behind me—I was too scared to close it all the way for fear it would lock, the way balcony doors always seemed to do in movies—and I moved to the corner, catching my breath and trying to think of an excuse for why I might be here. Just in case I was caught.

  I’d been caught before, after all.

  Usually by Sebastian.

  As if on cue, I heard his voice in the media room, muffled by the mostly closed balcony door. He must have been talking on the phone because his was the only voice I heard. He said, “Hold on a minute. No one is supposed to be up here, but I thought I heard something.”

  I moved as far into the corner of the balcony as I could, so I wouldn’t be seen through the glass panes of the door.

  Maybe Sebastian wouldn’t notice that the damned door wasn’t closed all the way.

  He noticed.

  My heart hammered with growing anxiety as I saw the door start to open. Then Sebastian stepped out onto the balcony.

  My mouth went dry, and I desperately searched for something to say to explain my presence.

  He had his phone to his ear as he saw me, and his questioning expression relaxed into a smile. “Let me call you back,” he said into the phone, amusement edging his tone. “I’ve got to take care of something.”

  When he disconnected, he lifted his eyebrows. “Did Cheryl decide she needed measurements of all the balconies in the house so she could sprinkle rose petals on them or something?”

  His tone was teasing—he obviously didn’t for a minute think I was a threat—but I was still so nervous I couldn’t say much. “No.”

  He chuckled. “Then what are you doing up here?”

  “I…She wanted me to take some pictures of the outside space from above, so she could get a sense of the big picture.” Damn, where had that come from? It actually wasn’t too bad as an explanation. Fortunately, I had my tablet in my hand, so I showed it to him—as evidence for how I was taking the pictures.

  His questioning expression tempered, and it looked like he might believe me.

  I widened my eyes, trying to appear innocent. “Should I not be up here?”

  “Probably not, but don’t worry about it.” He stepped over until he was beside me, giving me that warm, genuine smile. “I was hoping I’d run into you today.”

  “You did?” I tried—unsuccessfully—not to blush. “I thought you weren’t here. I didn’t see your car.”

  “So you were looking for me, were you?” He twitched his eyebrows flirtatiously.

  I glanced down. “I wasn’t looking. It’s just such a fancy car that it stands out.”

  He gave a strange sigh. “Yeah.”

  “You don’t like your car?”

  “It was a present.”

  “It’s a pretty nice present.”

  “It might have been, if it hadn’t come with strings.”

  Genuine interest was drowning my anxiety from before. “What strings did the car come with?”

  “Oh, you know. Do what you’re supposed to do.”

  “What are you supposed to do?”

  He gave a half-shrug. “Most of the time, I don’t even know.”

  I felt a surge of sympathy and reached out instinctively to touch his arm.

  He put his big hand over mine on his arm. “You know, when you look at me like that, nothing seems all that bad.”

  I darted a quick look up at his face, checking to see if he was teasing or serious. He still had that soft amusement in his expression, but his eyes held mine. Like he meant it. Like he really thought I made things better for him.

  My heart started to pound again—not from fear, this time.

  “I bet you’d never give a present with strings,” he murmured, sliding his hand up my arm and even higher, until he rubbed his knuckles gently across my cheekbones.

  “I’m terrible about picking out presents.” Yeah, that was a pretty silly comment, but it was the only thing I could think of.

  “I can think of a few things you might—” His words cut off when his phone beeped with a text. He lowered his hand and pulled the phone out of his pocket to check it.

  Obviously, it wasn’t important because he slid the phone back into his pocket.

  But the moment was gone, and he looked like his normal, laidback self again. “It is a nice view from up here,” he said idly.

  “Yeah.” I turned around to face the railing and the view. “Except those picketers kind of break the scenery. Cheryl is going to want to know if you can’t do anything about them.”

  “They’re in the public park, so they’re legally allowed to stay there. Obnoxious, but not breaking any laws.”

  “That’s what I thought. But Cheryl doesn’t like obnoxious things to get in the way of her events.”

  “Duly noted.” His mouth turned up slightly in an ironic expression that made me smile.

  “Does Mr. Gentry really think those picketers are a danger to him?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You seem to be here all the time, like there’s a real threat.”

  There was a strange expression on his face that I didn’t understand. “Yeah. I’m hired to do this, whether there’s a real threat or not.”

  “Oh. I guess that makes sense. How long have you been in the security business?”

&nbs
p; He looked faintly surprised. “Not long. I was a Marine until last year. Didn’t you know that?”

  “Why would I know that?”

  “I don’t know. A lot of people do.” His expression turned sheepish. “I guess I’m overestimating my own notoriety.”

  I liked that he could laugh at himself. I liked that he seemed authentic—not with that fake charisma that oozed off some guys. Like Gentry. Like Sebastian’s father.

  I was starting to really believe that Sebastian wasn’t anything at all like the rest of them, but I still had to be careful. Even smart women were sometimes fooled by attractive men—and I wasn’t always as smart as I should have been.

  “Why did you get out of the Marines?” I asked.

  “There was an accident. We were…I was injured.” He gestured to his side, which was evidently where the injury was. “It was just the right time.”

  I blinked, surprised by this, since he always seemed so strong and powerful. “What happened?”

  He sighed and stared down at the pool. “Who the hell knows what happened? A friend of mine was killed. One of my best friends.”

  Emotion caught in my throat at the bleak feeling radiating off him, and I reached out to put a hand on his forearm again. “Oh, that’s awful. I’m so sorry. I guess that…that changes things. I mean, the way you look at things.”

  “Yeah. It does.” He turned his head and met my eyes.

  We stared at each other for a minute, and it seemed like we really connected. Like I really knew him. Like he really knew me. Like we were more than two strangers who’d hung out and flirted for a couple of weeks.

  But that was a dangerous thought because, the truth was, I didn’t really know him.

  I broke the gaze and stared down at my hand on his arm. I shouldn’t be touching him. Even if he was the nice guy he seemed, he still was an obstacle to my mission in this house.

  Exposing information on his father and his family company.

  I straightened up. “I should get back to work.”

  “Yeah. I guess so. Did you get the pictures you need?”

  “Yes. Thanks. I’ve done everything I need to do here for today.”

  “I’ll walk you to your car.”

  Maybe it was just a polite way to make sure I didn’t sneak around into any more private areas, but I didn’t think so. It felt like he was being nice. Almost gentlemanly. I really liked it.