Bulletproof Weeks

by Taryn Elliott

  He still got weekly deliveries of white dahlias and red roses which he immediately re-routed to nursing homes and hospitals. Once upon a time he’d loved the wild, full flower, but again…it had been tainted by her.

  And there was no way to get the flower shop to stop delivering to him. So there was never a time he wasn’t reminded that she was still out there waiting for him.

  “You don’t make my life easy, King.”

  A smile, the first in days, stretched his mouth. “I keep the lights on at the very least.”

  “Even your pretty payments can’t do that in Manhattan, my friend. I’ll be in touch.”

  “Thanks.”

  Logan tossed his cell on the counter and dragged his sorry ass into the shower. Twenty minutes later he was dressed and out the door. He used the maintenance elevator so he could escape the building through the delivery entrance.

  He didn’t keep a personal detail on himself. Aimee only liked to ambush him in public where there was a camera to satiate her need for attention.

  And the paparazzi still loved her face. The innocence that she so deftly wielded with her huge gray eyes and ready smiles. She was beautiful, there was no doubt about that. It was the crazy hiding under the beauty that he had a healthy fear of.

  He hated it, but he owned it.

  His career wasn’t just his own. It belonged to the record label and the five other men that he called brothers. She’d done enough damage to his reputation the previous year and he was still digging out from under it.

  She was the wronged woman, and he the unrepentant bad boy rockstar who had broken her heart. The newspapers didn’t see the calculating gleam in her eyes as she caused scene after scene. They’d only seen him lose it.

  They only remembered his anger that had flared and cost him a cool eighty thousand dollars in damages to a string of her family hotels. He barely remembered it, but there was photo and video proof of his rage and destruction.

  He’d walked right into her trap. She made herself look like the wronged woman even though she’d taunted him for weeks. Slowly chipping away at him. Screaming in private about how she loved him and she’d wait for him. There was nothing more important than their love.

  The madness in her eyes had scared him and shamed him. Because he’d led her on. He’d thought they were having fun, they talked about how they were screwing with the reporters and paparazzi, they’d become the hottest couple on the scene. His record sales had soared and she’d ended up signing some cosmetics deal. It was a mutually beneficial hoax.

  And she was beautiful and acerbically funny and didn’t seem to want anything other than to have fun.

  Until that night in Vegas when everything changed.

  The defining moment that he barely remembered, but had changed her view of them in every single way.

  He flipped up the collar of his jacket and jammed his hands into his pockets against the spitting snow. The cold cleared his head and pushed thoughts of Aimee Collen to the back of his mind. He forced himself not to let Isabella in. He’d swallowed enough self-loathing for a day.

  He slipped on aviators and walked into his favorite deli. They knew him there, but never made a fuss, never even called him by name. And that anonymity was more welcome than they’d ever know. Within fifteen minutes, he was out the door with a six pack of Southern Tier and a hot meatball sub.

  When he got back to his apartment building, there was a cluster around the door. There were two other celebrities that had moved in, so it wasn’t automatically for him, but if the photogs spotted him it was all over.

  A familiar doughy face made him pick up his speed and cross to a side street. He knew this area, but so did the paparazzi. Too many celebrities had taken over SoHo for his liking these days. A year ago he’d loved the quick and easy way to get his mug in the papers. A little buzz and the record company, as well as his manager, left him alone.

  Oh, how things had changed.

  He slid into the back alley of a Chinese restaurant. The overpowering scent of decomposing cabbage and a rancid dumpster full of refuse had him jogging up and over another street. He was closing in on his favorite exit and entry strategy when two women in their twenties spotted him.

  The shrill shriek of recognition nailed him to the pavement. He held up a hand. “Hi girls. I’ll sign whatever you want, take a picture, just don’t bring the hoards, okay?”

  They quickly nodded and rushed forward. The curvier girl held a small measure of composure, but her friend was about a nanosecond away from losing her shit again. He smiled and did the small talk thing, but each second it took to get them situated with phones and pens was another moment that they could be discovered.

  The little firecracker of a girl with her huge dark eyes and matching hair snuggled into his side. As her friend took a picture, the girl boldly cupped his ass. He smiled through the groping and firmly moved out of her space as soon as the picture was done.

  She looked disappointed, but optimistic. He didn’t like to crush hope, but the fact that he was heading for thirty-seven and she was maybe twenty-three didn’t seem to matter to her. It more than mattered to him.

  And seeing the dark hair just reminded him of Iz—Isabella. This girl was too obvious with her perfectly curled hair, manicured nails, and flashing gold at her ears, neck, and fingers.

  Nothing like her.

  A group of people came to the mouth of the side street. He winked at the curvy girl. “Cover for me?”

  She blushed, but grabbed her friend and turned around with sagging shoulders. “He escaped inside.”

  Logan heard the excited voices and the slapping of feet as he slipped inside. As he shut the door, he saw Brian, the photographer that stalked him almost as much as Aimee, snapping shots of him.

  He closed the door firmly. Evidently he was going to hit the rags today anyway. He shut himself in the elevator, pulled a beer from his six pack, flicked off the top with his keychain bottle opener, and took a long swallow.

  People would know he was in SoHo within the hour.

  Dammit.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “What do you mean you’re not going to Vancouver?”

  Bella moved up in the ticket line. “I just dropped off the Seattle book. Another pleased customer and I need a break.”

  “Are you sure? All you’ve been talking about is that open auction that Sandra and Thomas are doing.”

  Bella bit back a sigh. Nichole, her best friend, knew her far too well. The fact that they’d lived in each other’s pockets for the last ten years only had a little to do with that. Running a business together was the other.

  “Oh, I don’t know. Possibly the extra eleven hours tacked onto this last trip did me in.” She flipped her carry-on to the other arm and fed her credit card into the ticket kiosk. “And I called Sandra and talked her out of The Canterbury Tales and the hand painted Atlas she’s been teasing me with.”

  “There’s my girl. I knew you wouldn’t leave empty-handed on that trip.”

  She’d wanted to get away to Vancouver more than she even wanted to deal with Sandra Kennedy’s impressive array of books. But now she needed answers. “Yeah, well, I’m going to stop into New York City then come home.”

  “Good. I miss you, B.”

  Bella gripped the top of the kiosk, waiting for it to verify her tickets. “I know. I miss you too, sweetie. So don’t worry, okay?”

  “Whenever you’re traveling my worrywart comes out.”

  “Yeah, it does.”

  Nic laughed. “All right. Be safe.”

  “You got it.” She tucked her phone back in her pocket. She didn’t like lying to her best friend, but Nic was a worrier. If she knew about the bodyguard action, she’d be on a plane out to meet Bella faster than her new ticket could be printed.

  No, she needed answers. And she was only going to find them by going to see one Marcus Roth in Manhattan. An internet search had yielded a little information. Like where their headquarters were, what they o
ffered in services—which was just as startling as learning she was inadvertently a client. They specialized in corporate and personal security, the kind that included CEO’s of major companies and supplemented government jobs protecting dignitaries.

  New York City was one of the most powerful cities in the United States. Roth Defense didn’t exactly have a testimonial page. That wasn’t how that world worked. It was reputation and contacts.

  That was the part that made the least sense of all. That wasn’t her world. Oh, she rubbed elbows with the rich and powerful because of the collections she dealt with, but her worth was only in what she could procure for a client.

  Her status didn’t earn her a bodyguard standing off to the side in plain sight. And the absence of the Navy guy was also weird. As if Roth Defense finally figured out they were working the wrong job. That she really wasn’t as important as they’d thought. And yet she was still left with RBF—aka Sarah.

  The woman didn’t speak to her, didn’t even acknowledge her. She simply watched over Bella from an arbitrary distance that only Sarah seemed to know. If they were near a ticket booth, it was twenty feet. If it was a restaurant, the woman was within three tables of her.

  It made her wonder just how long she’d been following her before Bella had even had an inkling of being under watch.

  Marcus Roth had told her the better part of six months.

  The time was unfathomable.

  What the hell had she done that would warrant a protective detail? She’d called to all the auction houses that had ever showed an interest in her in the last two years. Nada. They all said they did extensive background checks that included criminal investigations, but none that would include a company like Roth Defense.

  She’d even gone through her acquisitions for the last eight months. Nothing rang any bells. Well, one book had been worth about three times as much as she’d thought, so at least the research had turned a small profit.

  It made sense why she’d had quite a few tugs on the website to look at the book lately. She’d adjusted the appraisal on it which had been the catalyst for Nic’s phone call.

  The difference had been sizable enough that she’d worry if Nic hadn’t at least texted her. But Between the Lines taking a ten thousand dollar hit on the profit side wouldn’t raise any flags. The nature of her business was betting on nostalgia as much as value. A bidding war could drive it up, or disinterest could kill a bid.

  God, her head hurt. Trying to understand anything that happened in the last thirty-six hours was migraine inducing.

  She changed the date and destination of her ticket and settled in to wait for her plane once more. Thank God, a flight from Seattle to New York was fairly commonplace. Her only problem was the time difference. She’d be arriving in the city toward the end of the business day.

  If she called Roth again, she’d be turned away with the usual client privilege bullshit. Her only course of action was to show up and hope a face-to-face would get her a few answers. She used her time on the plane wisely. The direct flight meant she got a good chunk of time to sleep.

  An hour before they were to land, she changed out of her travel jeans and ballet shoes to her dress pants and four inch heeled boots. If she was going to go in she was going to make sure she looked the part of a serious businesswoman. Not the roadkill she felt like.

  She swept her hair up into a twist and clipped it tight, fixed her makeup, and glossed on a deep burgundy lipstick. She looked like she belonged in New York City. And for a long time she had, but she didn’t want to go back to that Isabella Grace.

  She liked the one that lived in Winchester Falls and did the occasional travel for work. It was time to find that Bella again.

  She opened the door to the first class cabin and smiled at the startled attendant. His appreciative gaze gave her the boost she needed to get through the last twenty minutes of the flight.

  When she got to the JFK airport terminal, she slid through the sea of bodies. She caught RBF’s stony glare as she jumped on a glider and headed for the escalators. She felt bad that she intentionally tried to lose her, but she didn’t want her bodyguard to figure out where she was headed.

  She charmed her way around a businessman waiting for a cab and shared the fare to the upper west side of Manhattan. He was a rather adorable new father that gushed about his little girl the entire ride to West 70th.

  His chatter was exactly what she needed to calm herself down. By the time she stepped out of the cab in front of the wall of glass that made up Roth Defense, she was filled with determination. New York was already dimming into darkness and the lights of the city bounced off the onyx-like sheen of the windows.

  The lobby was a misty gray glow thanks to tinted windows. She lifted her chin as a man behind the huge U-shaped desk stood. He was a giant. Easily scaling into the six and a half feet range. It was as if he’d been ripped from a graphic novel. His suit looked as if it was going to buckle at the seams from his huge shoulders. The obsidian desk matched the outdoor windows with its wet gleam and the man behind it stood with his massive hands resting on his domain.

  “May I help you?”

  Bella lifted her chin. “Yes, I need to see Marcus Roth, please.”

  “Do you have an appointment?”

  “No.”

  “Mr. Roth is a very busy man.” He tipped his head slightly. “If you’d like to make an appointment, I’d be happy to—”

  “No. I need to see him today. Please tell him that—”

  “You.”

  Bella turned as the door swung open and RBF skidded into the lobby. Today she was head-to-toe black except for a tiny slash of white that peeked from the space between her dark pants and vest. A hank of her usually smooth blond hair hung in front of her face.

  The man behind the desk looked from RBF to Bella and back again. “Is there a problem, Ms. Webster?”

  Bella schooled her features. It probably wouldn’t be the best time to smile, or laugh for that matter.

  RBF pulled her vest down and tucked the lock of hair back into her smooth tail. “Tell me Marcus or Aidan is in house.”

  The giant glanced down to his desk. “Both are here. But Aidan is with Jonas.”

  Bella blinked as the stoic RBF rolled her eyes. “Yeah, leave that be. See if Marcus is available.”

  “Yes, please. That would be helpful,” Bella said.

  Her bodyguard came up beside her and clamped a hand on her upper arm. “If you ever try to give me the slip again, I’m going to stun your ass.”

  Bella lifted an eyebrow. “Is that in the job description?”

  “For you, I’ll make sure of it.”

  “Mr. Roth, I have a…small situation.” The man paused. “Yes, I have Sarah here with her charge. It seems they would both like to see you.”

  Bella muscled her arm away from RBF and stepped closer to the desk. “If that’s Marcus, tell him it’s Isabella Grace.”

  “Yes, ma’am, he knows it’s you.”

  Bella shifted her bag to her other shoulder and set her briefcase at her feet. “Please let him know that I won’t be leaving until he sees me.” She glanced at his name tag. “Thank you, Mr. Barnett.”

  The man’s lips twitched. “He’s aware.” He looked past Bella to RBF. “You can take her up to the conference room. I’ll clear you.”

  “I’ve dealt with royalty that are less trouble than you are. C’mon,” RBF muttered as she pushed her toward the elevators.

  Bella snagged her briefcase and stepped in when the doors opened. Her bodyguard stepped up to a scanner and stood still as it scanned her face. No…her eye. What the hell kind of crazy world had she wandered into?

  Even the elevator was slick and black with backlit black buttons that named fifteen floors and then a W.

  “What’s the W stand for?”

  “War Room.”

  Isabella’s eyebrows shot up. “What exactly do you people do here?”

  “Many different things. Evidently I must have pis
sed someone off to get this crap assignment. A week ago I was in Paris.”

  “Is it professional to gripe around the clients?”

  “I passed professional nineteen hours ago.”

  “And you think that’s the way to get reassigned to a better job?”

  “Shut up.”

  Bella pursed her lips and watched the lights change. There was probably something wrong with her because she liked the surly Sarah better than the stoic RBF version.

  When the door opened, Bella stepped out. “Does your boss have an aversion to color?”

  “Black goes with everything.”

  Bella looked down at Sarah’s clothes. Yeah, she was definitely asking the wrong person that question. The space was unquestionably male and well-maintained, because this level of gleaming black would show dirt and smudges immediately. And the building, hell, the sidewalk had been immaculate.

  Sort of scary, actually.

  They rounded the corner and she stopped dead at the top of a short set of stairs. War Room was accurate. A huge black—shocker—conference table dominated the room. She followed Sarah down the stairs to the half dozen over-sized leather chairs and set her bag and briefcase in one. A huge map dominated the wall across from the entrance. Two massive televisions played news channels. The wall across from that had a third, larger screen that looked to be attached to their computer system.

  Two frosted glass offices flanked the back of the room and looked down upon the sunken conference area. There wasn’t a single window in the place, somehow making the huge space claustrophobic.

  A man came out of the office marked with an M, cut into the glass. He wore a tailored suit that accentuated his long, lean body and surprisingly wide shoulders. A closely cropped beard framed his strong jaw and friendly brown eyes. He held a black folder with a white embossed RD in the top corner.

  He came down the stairs with his hand out. “Pleased to meet you, Ms. Grace.”

  “I doubt it.”

  His smile widened. “I’m Marcus Roth. My brother, Aidan, and I run this company. He’s been detained.”

  “I want to talk to whichever of you two who will actually tell me why a woman like me—a book curator for all intents and purposes—needs security?”