How Beauty Met the Beast

by Jax Garren

  Her voice was back under brisk control when she asked, “Do you get shot at a lot?”

  He shrugged and gave her an encouraging smile. “Every now and then.”

  “Has my...” She chewed on her lip—gods, it was cute, and brought his attention to that lovely mouth. Rich girls, poor girls and every girl in between could draw a man’s eyes to her mouth with a simple gesture. Money never did define sex appeal. Jolie released Slieod her lip and finished her thought. “Has my dad ever sent someone who shot at you?”

  Surprised by the question, he pulled his attention away from her mouth and back to her eyes. As far as Hauk was concerned, Ananke and their hit squad Atropos were one organization, so a shot from one member was a shot from another. But she probably wouldn’t see it that way, so he answered the question the way she meant it. “No, he hasn’t. I may not like the way Reginald Benoit slants the news, but I’m loath to interfere with the press. Most of what I do revolves around exposing the crimes of agriculture giants and other big-business scumbags who think they’re above the law.”

  “You’re not, like, a—an assassin, right?”

  He laughed, surprised. “No. I’m Brayden’s bodyguard. You got in an elevator with somebody you thought might be an assassin?”

  She rolled her eyes, but he saw the relieved breath she tried to hide. “Why does Brayden need a bodyguard?”

  “He’s a computer expert, one of the only ones the Austin Underlight has. We...” He shouldn’t be telling her this. But she was so enticing when her eyes brightened with interest, and he gave in. “We acquire evidence of illegal activities and get it in the right hands, where it can do some good. Brayden can break into any computer system invented—he grew up in the Seattle Underlight, where they’re not so technophobic—but he couldn’t save his ass in a tussle with a ten-year-old girl. I get us into and out of the building safely.” He straightened up, unwilling to be ashamed by his role as the brawn of the operation. It’s not like being strong made him stupid.

  But damn, he was an ugly brute from working-class Ohio with a crush on a gorgeous heiress with a perfect high kick and a penthouse.

  “So you’re, like, a spy. Should I call you Ethan and start the theme music?” She hummed the intro to Mission Impossible as the elevator dinged and the doors opened.

  “Thanks. Yeah, it’s just like that, with wireworks and exploding chewing gum.” And I’m practically Tom Cruise.

  The fifty-fifth floor foyer was immaculate, all brushed silver and soft blue walls. Hauk glanced around to make sure the hall was clear, but Jolie flounced right in and threw her wallet on a table. Tentatively Hauk stepped onto the cherry wood floor. The bank of four elevators was freestanding in the center of a spacious living area. To his left and right, floor-to-ceiling windows looked down on Austin, giving him the uncomfortable sensation of total exposure.

  “You have the whole floor?” Holy shit, she owns the whole fucking floor. He followed her around the elevators to a sunken living area that took up nearly a quarter the length of the elliptical building. Window walls continued around, giving the room a 180-degree view of the city. Late morning light poured in from east and north-facing windows, touching expertly arranged furnishings and artwork that no doubt cost more than his parents’ house.

  She may have turned down Daddy’s money, but that hadn’t dampened her lifestyle.

  The curving lines and deep colors of the furnishings reminded him of old New York City. The pool table had real felt and tassels on the pockets. Couches and chairs were straight-backed and slim but cushioned enough to be comfortable. Everything had the creative irregularity of antiques or handmade goods but without the wear and tear of age or the imperfections of handcraft.

  This is a new level S a ut the weaof out-of-your-league. Get it through your head. Alone is fine. Celibacy is... Fuck it all, celibacy was not fine. Not about to change any time soon, but not fine.

  Jolie looked over her shoulder at him. “Want something to drink? I’ve got...” She waved at an open kitchen that took up the point of the ellipse. “I don’t even know what I’ve got. How about we make lunch and you can tell me the plan? Pizza? I only eat pizza on bad days. Today counts.” She headed for a cavernous refrigerator and began pulling ingredients out with jerky movements that lacked her usual grace.

  Was she nervous? She wasn’t scared of him, so why would she be nervous?

  Hauk followed. “We’re going to make our own pizza?” He tried for a grin and a joke. “What, they don’t deliver this high in the air?”

  “I’m a good cook, I promise. I can’t eat wheat, so I had to learn.” The words chattered from her. She was definitely nervous. “Wheat is in everything so it’s hard for me to order in. Would you please get out that mixer and set it on the counter?”

  She pointed, and he moved an oversized mixer to the cool black granite and plugged it in. “No wheat? No bread, pasta, donuts...” That would be damn hard. “No birthday cake?”

  She wrinkled her nose. “Celiac disease. Wheat makes me real sick. Even just a little bit. So, no roux. No fried foods. No eating at a restaurant where wheatless food is cooked on the same surface as food with wheat, or where flour particles may blow into food that doesn’t have flour in it. Hence, no ordering in pizza. I’m a pain in the ass to be friends with.” She fluttered a hand toward the ingredients to her wheatless dough. “The crust may taste off to you. Sorry about that. But it’s still pizza. Enough cheese, and you barely notice. What toppings do you like? I have pepperoni, mushrooms, sun-dried tomatoes, olives, some green pepper, anchovies...”

  “Celiac disease.” He’d have to look that up. Apparently life found ways to throw challenges at everybody, even gorgeous women with money to burn and a cadre of pretty boys vying for their time. Hauk grabbed a green pepper from the counter and slid a knife from her block. “You make the crust. I’m no restaurant critic, so I’m sure I’ll like it however you make it. I’ll take care of the toppings. Sound good?”

  She chewed on her lip again and studied him, and then smiled as some of the tension in her shoulders eased. “Sounds good.”

  He chopped as she mixed. The silence was awkward, so he looked around the room for something to say. “Nice tree.”

  She shrugged and cracked another egg into her mixing bowl. “Thanks.”

  Unsure how to take that, he continued. “It looks like a magazine or something.” The Yule tree (or Christmas tree, or whatever she called it) was as tall as the ceiling allowed and had that silver and blue glittering perfection that every catalog shows and nobody in real life actually pulls off. Except, of course, Jolie Benoit. Then again, most people had family ornaments, things picked up on travels, celebratory markers and child-crafted oddities that made their holiday tree a thing of meaningful chaos. Perfect looks came with a distinct absence of character. He was, however, smart enough not to say that last part.

  Jolie shrugged again, still not looking at her tree. “I didn’t decorate it. They have a service. It’s pretty, I guess.” She started mixing and finally turned to study the tree, carrying the bowl around with her and rhythmically whacking the dough with a woo Sgh or wden spoon. “It doesn’t look like a Christmas tree to me. More like a...piece of tin foil.” She laughed a little. “I left a box of ornaments out for them to use. I guess they didn’t fit the scheme.” She rolled her eyes without looking at him. “I know what you’re thinking. I could have done it myself, but it’s depressing to decorate a tree alone, so I just hired somebody. Maybe next year...”

  Hauk paused in his cutting, surprised. “Why would you have to do it by yourself?”

  “I moved to Austin at the end of May, and I didn’t go out much while I was staying with my grandfather. I don’t know many people here. I mean, there was a social circle all waiting for me, the next generation of my father’s set. I just don’t like those people very much.” Her lips made a cute little snarl as she put the bowl back down. “And they all had ‘their people’ decorate their trees anyway, so it’s not
like they’d be excited about helping me with mine.”

  Hauk kept his eyes on the cutting board and his voice as neutral as he could. “What about Paul?”

  “Paul?” She slapped the dough on the granite and started rolling it out in a circle. “I don’t know if we’re there yet, at the ‘holiday decorating together’ phase of a relationship.”

  He kept his smirk in check and merely nodded. Then he pointed his knife at the refrigerator, where a handcrafted starburst hung from a magnet. “That one of your personal ornaments?” The metalwork was far prettier and better made than any of the generic baubles hanging from the tree.

  Jolie smiled and her face lit up with a joy he hadn’t seen since the show last night. “Yeah. I got that last year in Heidelburg at their annual Christmas market. I got my Masters at the university there. Best two years of my life! Also the farthest from home. Coincidence? I think not.”

  “You lived in Germany?”

  “Yup. Of course, I came back to Houston a lot. But it was amazing. Ever been there?”

  “Yeah. Landstuhl Medical Center’s the closest U.S. military hospital to Afghanistan. Unfortunately I didn’t get much sightseeing in.”

  Her face blanched. “They flew you from Afghanistan to Germany when you got burned? How many hours away is that?”

  “About seven. After stabilizing they sent me immediately to Brooke Army Medical here in Texas. Not many people go on a multi-continent jaunt without their luggage. Or skin. I don’t recommend it.”

  Jolie’s eyes widened and her jaw moved like she had something to say before she shut it tight.

  He silently cursed his big mouth. He should know better than to say shit like that in front of someone who didn’t know him. But that was how he dealt. He joked.

  Deciding to take a risk, he set the knife down and looked her in the eyes. “Look, it’s okay. I’m okay. You can ask me questions, and please just say what you’re thinking. It trips me out when all I can do is wonder what the hell is running through someone’s head. Spit it out. I’ve lived with this damage for five years. I was an Army Ranger and I’m a war veteran, whether or not I get the benefits. I’m not fragile. Don’t treat me like I am.”

  Jolie rinsed her hands off, breaking their eye contact and studiously keeping her face averted as she took an awfully long time at the sink. “All my questions are really stupid. I have nothing intelligent to say.”

  “Then ask a stup Sen . “Alid question. But don’t look at me mutely, like you’re afraid of saying the wrong thing. That’s worse than anything that could come out of your mouth.”

  She wiped her hands slowly and drew herself up in front of him. And this was that moment people had, the one where they either dropped into a shell and the two of them pretended life was always beautiful, or they mangled their way through an ugly conversation—one that actually meant something. She looked utterly lost for a moment, and then her thoughts coalesced into: “How much did it hurt?”

  He laughed. He couldn’t help it. After all the frightened insults he’d been given and intrusive questions he’d been asked, the daughter of the world’s most infamous newsman came up with that?

  She threw her hands in the air. “I told you I only had stupid questions.”

  He laughed harder. “It hurt a whole fucking lot. Are all your questions this hard-hitting, Miss Benoit?”

  “Shut up,” she grumbled, but there was no insult in her eyes. She put the pizza on a kitchen island and started spreading tomato sauce on the crust. “Wanna help top it?”

  He moved to the opposite side of the island and laid down provolone over the tomato sauce.

  “So tell me something I can’t figure out for myself.”

  “Okay. Burns hurt. Treating them hurts worse.”

  Cheese down, they each grabbed a handful of toppings and started an epic pile on top of their wheatless, extra-cheese pizza. “How so?”

  An invitation to grisly details? So far she’d been pretty tough, so he gave her the Halloween version, ghoulish voice and all. “They scrub all your skin off. Repeatedly, to prevent infection. Getting flayed is every bit as fun as it sounds.”

  Her face scrunched up. “Ew.” Her eyes widened again. “Sorry.”

  “Nuh-uh. Sorry is not allowed. Got any other questions?”

  She scowled. “Did you look like the pizza? All mottled red sauce? That a better question?”

  He pretended to contemplate it. “Actually...”

  She waved her hands. “Whoa! I was kidding. I don’t want to know. I want to eat our pizza.” But she snorted a laugh as her shoulders relaxed completely. “Okay, so how long were you in the hospital?”

  “Five months in the burn unit before I went into rehab. Thirty-two surgeries. I apparently had a near-miraculous recovery rate.”

  “Five months is near-miraculous?”

  “When eighty-two percent of your skin has third-degree burns and you lose a leg? Yeah.”

  She paused for a moment to blink down at his legs, and he realized she’d forgotten one was made of metal. Most people didn’t even realize his right was missing, but she’d seen the mechanical replacement this morning. He liked it that she forgot so readily. If only he could hide the scars on his face as simply as the rest of his mangled body, he might be able to live a more normal life. Eat at a restaurant or something.

  Although apparently, Jolie had a hard time eating at restaurants too.

  Her face took a far more sober expression, and her next question caught him by surprise. “What’d your family say? Do you still see them?”

  He leaned back against the counter and let her find room on the pizz Sm o liked ia for the last of the olives. That question wasn’t really about the burn scars. But he answered it anyway. “Mom came down. Freaked out on a grand scale. I hate to say I was happy to see her leave because my mom’s a good woman and I love her, but at the time I wasn’t able to deal with her pain. Dad came down twice and made me laugh for the first time since the incident. He’s a crude SOB, and I needed that bluntness and that humor.”

  Jolie picked up the pizza, now sporting more ingredients than one pizza should have to carry—hopefully a wheatless crust was up to the load—and pushed it into the oven.

  “I haven’t seen either of them since I deserted. I don’t want to lay that on them.”

  She snorted. “I’m pretty sure I would go nowhere near my dad in those circumstances.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “I’m pretty sure I would go nowhere near your dad in any circumstances.”

  “This Ananke business may be real, but I’m still unconvinced my father is part of it.” She set a timer, her thoughts once again buzzing silently through her head. Instead of returning to him, she pulled the Heidelberg ornament off the refrigerator.

  “What ya thinking?”

  She walked to the tree and dusted tinsel off a branch. “I’m thinking I’d rather have things I care about on the tree than have it look like a magazine.” She shot him a small smile. “And you’re here, so I’m not decorating alone.”

  She hung the ornament up, unbalancing the tree’s perfection, and grinned. When she came back, she squeezed his shoulder like it was the most natural thing in the world, which, of course, it wasn’t, and she looked him full in the face like she didn’t even notice the scars. “If you don’t mind, I’m going to go change into something I didn’t sleep in. Try a beer. The gluten-free stuff’s pretty good.” She dug in the fridge, lobbed a bottle at him and headed off, those pretty hips swaying in a graceful rhythm that was utterly absent of her earlier nerves.

  They were verging on friends, and that was so much more than he’d expected when he first saw her swinging from that hoop. So he should probably quit looking at her ass.

  But his friend had a really hot ass.

  He twisted open the top of the beer and took a sip. He could get used to gluten-free beer.

  He took another sip. He could get used to gluten-free beer if it meant he was hanging out with Jolie. Otherwise, n
o way.

  A buzzer rang.

  “Would you get that?” Jolie yelled. “It’s the doorbell.”

  He snorted. “Are you sure you want me to answer it?”

  “If they’re here to kill us, don’t let them in.”

  A monitor near the elevators had a blinking light. Figuring that was this place’s version of a doorbell, he trudged over, muttering, “I meant, are you sure you want to scare the crap out of your guest with my pretty face answering the door?” But if she’d somehow managed to forget what he looked like, he wasn’t going to remind her. A quick survey of the complicated keypad showed a likely button and he pressed it.

  To his surprise, Travis the valet was on the other end. “Can I come up? You left your phone in the car.”

  Apparently he could see Travis, but Travis couldn’t see him. “Sure. Do I have to punch a button?”

  Travis’s demeanor snapped from casual to proper as he worked Hauk through the process of granting access. A minute later the elevator pinged and the valet walked in.

  “I apologize for the interruption, sir, I—” Travis saw him, hesitated and, to his credit, his eyes widened but they didn’t drop. “I have Jolie’s phone. Is she here?”

  “She’s changing.” Hauk dropped onto a sofa like he belonged here. “Want to wait?” The kid could just hand him the phone, but he looked disinclined to leave without seeing Jolie, probably worried the scary monster had eaten her for dinner.

  And he was back to reality, where his scarred face mattered.

  Travis’s eyes darted back to the bedrooms, apparently he knew the layout of Jolie’s condo, and back to Hauk.

  Hauk huffed in irritation. And explained. “Afghanistan. My CHU burned down while I was in it. That’s a—”

  “Containerized Housing Unit.” Travis relaxed and sat down across the coffee table from Hauk. “You’re military.”