Fiancé by Friday

by Catherine Bybee

  Neil MacBain paused the audio feed, shook his head, rewound the damn thing, and listened to it again.

  “You do know that no one wears those anymore.”

  “If that were true, finding a place to buy garters and stockings would be impossible.”

  “Yeah, but you need to go to those sexy bra stores in order to find them.”

  “Men love frilly underwear.”

  Neil slapped his hand on the mouse and turned off the sound before he tortured himself anymore.

  Fuck! I need to get laid!

  Listening to Gwen’s polished accent mentioning garters and stockings shot his brain straight to his cock.

  The desire to click on the video monitor made his right eye twitch, but he refrained and forced himself away from his surveillance room.

  Blake Samantha, their son Eddie, and even Samantha’s sister Jordan were in Europe with plans to stay for at least a month. Their absence meant fewer people to watch over and plenty of time to think.

  He hated thinking.

  Doing was such a better pastime.

  Doing meant standing in the shadows of tall buildings and watching over the only Harrison stateside he could.

  Not that watching Gwen was a chore. Tonight she wore a floor-length, gold beaded number that sparkled in the light given off by the flash of photographers’ cameras by the red carpet. Though she wasn’t the focus of their lenses, she was the center of his. She offered one look, and one smile, to the paparazzi before walking inside the venue. Her lithe frame moved with the sort of grace and elegance that most of the people around her tried to buy but never quite achieved.

  Gwen had played center stage to many of his fantasies.

  Fantasies that would never become reality.

  Neil shrugged out of his black leather jacket and tossed it on the side of his sofa. He unhooked his holster that carried the Beretta M9 he never left home without and set it on top of his jacket.

  The two-bedroom guesthouse that sat on Blake and Samantha’s Malibu estate had been his refuge for five years. After five years, he finally felt some degree of comfort…of belonging. Other than the housekeeper and cook, Neil had no one on site he needed to watch over during the night.

  He double-checked the system in Tarzana, and confirmed that someone there had set the internal alarms that shouldn’t go off unless breached. Gwen and Karen set the alarms when they left or when they turned in for the night.

  Neil flicked on the local news, more for background noise than for company. He poured himself a drink and stretched out on the couch.

  This was the life he wanted…low stress, even lower profile. He could guard a duke and his family in his sleep. No, make that in his sleep with a hangover…the kind you woke up from with the room still spinning. The people he’d known in the past would say he was wasting his time.

  But it was his time to waste.

  He brushed away memories of those past people, tilted his head back, and closed his eyes. His consciousness slid into sleep, his body relaxing with it.

  The high-pitched scream of a security breach shot him to his feet and he was fully awake in half a breath.

  Neil ran to his security room, hit a master switch, and a dozen monitors sprang to life. He scanned them quickly and found the breach in question in Tarzana. The monitor flashed red and displayed video feeds from inside and outside the house. Neil hit speed dial with one hand and placed the Tarzana feed onto his big screen.

  The hall was clear, the motion detector hadn’t tripped the outside lights…the front door was closed. But the back door wasn’t secure.

  “Gwen?” Neil overheard Karen calling from inside the Tarzana house, the audio feed now relaying every word clearly. The alarm sounded inside the house, probably loud enough to wake the neighbors. He heard the phone ringing both in his ear and in the house.

  He flipped the feed, searching for her…his heart skipped several beats before Gwen appeared on screen.

  She ran to the control panel, opened it, and started hitting numbers. Seeing her unharmed, Neil kept scanning the feeds. “Answer the fucking phone,” he said through clenched teeth.

  “I forgot…” Gwen’s voice rose above the alarm.

  “Turn the noise off,” Karen said.

  Both Gwen and Karen were standing at the control panel. Once the numbers were pressed in, the alarm went silent.

  Gwen moved from the panel to the phone. “Hello?”

  “What happened?” Neil’s hand hovered over the mouse on the master controls, the one that would alert the local police to respond.

  “Hello, Neil.”

  This wasn’t a fucking social call. “Gwen?” His tone was strained.

  “I opened the back door. Forgot to cancel the alarm first.”

  Karen was walking back up the stairs seemingly unaffected by the drama.

  Gwen moved through one room to another. The nightgown she wore hardly covered her ass.

  “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  “The back door, why is it open?” The backyard feed was dark, no sign of problems.

  “It’s a nice night. I thought I’d let some fresh air in. Everything is fine, Neil. I’m sorry I woke you.”

  She was leaning against the door she’d opened and talking on the phone to him.

  “I wasn’t asleep.”

  “Of course you weren’t. You never sleep, do you?”

  “I sleep.” Just not in a bed. And not for extended periods of time.

  “And what does Neil dream of when he sleeps?” For some reason only known to Gwen, she taunted him by talking about him in third person.

  Neil turned off his alarms and sat in the tall back leather chair in the center of the room.

  “Well?”

  What was the question? Oh, right…what does he dream of? Platinum blondes with British accents wearing garters and stockings…and nothing else.

  “I don’t dream.”

  “Everyone dreams.”

  Guns, explosions…burning bodies.

  “I don’t.”

  “I’ve heard that a lack of dreams is a sign of poor health.” She twirled a lock of hair and stared out the back door. The door that should be closed, locked, and alarmed.

  “There’s nothing wrong with my health. How long are you keeping that door open?”

  Gwen stopped playing with her hair and looked around the room. “Are you watching me?”

  Neil swallowed…hard.

  “Neil?”

  “You need to lock the door and reset the alarm.”

  Gwen turned to a kitchen chair and lifted her foot on top of it. The short nightgown rode higher on her thigh as she played at scratching her leg, which he knew wasn’t by accident. She knew he was watching her. Gwen had been flirting with him for a very long time.

  “Lock the door, Gwen.”

  “I like the breeze. It’s warmer here than in Malibu.”

  “Turn on the air conditioner.” And put your leg down.

  “You’re worried for nothing, Neil. No one is out to harm Karen or myself.”

  “Lock the door.”

  “I’m hanging up now, Neil. Try and get some sleep.”

  He knew she wasn’t going to close the door, let alone lock it. “Gwen!”

  “Sweet dreams.”

  “Damn it, Gwen!”

  She hung up, ignoring his request. There was only one person who refused to take his direction and it was Gwen Harrison…no, Lady Gwen Harrison.

  Lady Gwen finished her tea in the breeze before locking the screen door the neighborhood cat could breach. And then, she turned off the kitchen light and left the room.

  Leaving the back door wide open.

  I didn’t want to sleep tonight anyway.

  Chapter Two

  Gwen moved the blinds a fraction of an inch and peered outside. Across the street, Neil reclined in the front seat of his dark sedan, his head bobbing every so often as he fought sleep.

  A tiny bit of guilt laced her thoughts
when she’d peeked through an hour earlier and realized that Neil had driven over sometime in the night to keep an eye on her. She’d kept the back door open to prod him, but she hadn’t thought he’d actually come over and do anything about it.

  She’d been wrong.

  The remorse she felt was cloaked by something else…exhilaration.

  The man cared. Oh, he tried hard not to, but Gwen knew that somewhere in that hard shell of a man was a huge heart.

  He kept his distance from her every chance he could. Physically anyway. He’d not once taken her up on her not so subtle hints about her attraction to him. He was as movable as a brick wall at times. Yet last night, all it took was one open door and he was there.

  Hmmm, she’d have to think about that.

  In the kitchen, the coffeemaker pinged to tell her it was finished brewing. Although she preferred tea, she made a pot of coffee, intending to apologize for her actions by giving Neil something for his trouble.

  Not the something she truly wanted to give him, but something he’d actually accept.

  Gwen poured a cup, considered cream and sugar, and then shook her head.

  He’ll take it black. Anything else simply wouldn’t fit his personality. Strong, robust…

  He’ll take it black.

  Gwen tightened the belt on her soft, pink bathrobe and slid her feet into matching slippers. With a cup of coffee in hand, she stepped into the early morning dew.

  The quiet Tarzana neighborhood had yet to wake and the street was void of any activity.

  Peering into the tinted window of the car Gwen spotted a laptop computer and a tablet, both of which streamed video feeds of her home. Neil’s head listed to the side and his massive chest rose and fell in even breaths.

  He does sleep.

  Her earlier excitement shifted back to guilt.

  She took a deep, fortifying breath and laid her knuckles to the window. She tapped lightly, hoping she wouldn’t jar Neil awake.

  Her plan didn’t work.

  Neil’s explosive response, complete with a gun coming from nowhere and pointed directly at her, resulted in her screaming and the coffee cup crashing to the ground.

  Her heart lodged somewhere in her throat and her leg blistered in pain from hot coffee and shards of glass.

  Recognition washed over Neil’s face. His gun disappeared and he pushed himself out of his car.

  “What the hell are you doing? Trying to get yourself killed?”

  Unable to form any words, she stood there shaking.

  Neil moved toward her, his foot crushing the remainder of the coffee cup on the ground. He glanced down and swore under his breath.

  He kicked his car door shut and lifted her in his arms before she found her voice.

  “Put me down.”

  He marched across the street, ignoring her request.

  He plowed through the front door of her home like a linebacker who took down three-hundred-pound men.

  “Put me down, Neil.”

  Storming through the house, he placed her on the kitchen counter and brought her aching leg over to the sink. He turned on the water, nearly ripping the faucet from the sink. With a gentleness she hadn’t expected, he removed her soaked slipper and splashed cool water over her leg.

  “What’s all the noise?” Karen shrugged into a robe as she walked into the room. “Neil?” she asked, obviously surprised to see him there.

  Gwen winced as Neil brushed over the glass lodged in the cut on her leg. “I-I dropped a coffee cup.”

  Karen moved from one side of Neil to the other, attempting to get a look at Gwen’s leg.

  “Ouch!” Gwen squealed.

  “Hold still.” Neil’s large fingers passed over the embedded glass again, working it free.

  “That hurts.”

  Neil huffed and continued probing her skin.

  Karen moved away. “I think you’ll live,” she said as she found a cup and filled it with coffee. “What are you doing here anyway?”

  Gwen met Neil’s hazel eyes, which changed color with his mood. As usual, Neil didn’t offer an explanation for his appearance. He focused on her leg again. The cut was superficial but the hot coffee left an angry shade of red in its wake.

  “Always nice talking to you, Neil,” Karen said with a laugh. “Gwen?”

  “I…” She cleared her throat. “I left the back door open. Neil was checking on us.”

  Karen sipped her coffee. “Oh.” With her comment, Karen left the room huddled over her cup of coffee.

  After turning off the water, Neil cradled Gwen’s calf in his big hand and gently blotted her skin dry with a paper towel.

  “You’ll need medicated cream on this,” he told her.

  “We have some upstairs.”

  He stopped touching her injury but kept his hand on her ankle. Without looking at her face, he said, “Don’t sneak up on me.”

  Gwen would swear his voice trembled, but that would show some sign of weakness, and Neil was never weak.

  “You don’t have to tell me twice. Lesson learned.” She wouldn’t soon forget the hard expression on his face as he drew his gun.

  He hesitated when he let her go and turned toward the back door. He closed and locked it with a loud click.

  Without any other words, he left the room and the house through the front door, leaving Gwen to stare after him.

  Neil waited until he was around the corner from her home to stop on a side street.

  He gripped the wheel until his knuckles were white. His heart hadn’t stopped racing since her knock on the car door. The absolute look of horror and fear that raced over Gwen’s face when he turned his gun on her would live with him forever. His finger had been poised over the trigger. One squeeze and he would have…He shook his head, banished the thought.

  How the fuck had he fallen asleep? Not seen her approach?

  He was getting soft and when that happened people got hurt. Killed.

  If something happened to Gwen on his watch…and it was always his watch…he’d never be able to live with it.

  With one press of a button, he had one of his men, the ones he called on when he needed backup, on the phone. “I’m going dark for a couple of hours,” he told Dillon when he answered the phone. “I need your eyes on Tarzana and Malibu.”

  “You got it, Boss.”

  Neil hung up and turned off the video feeds. He needed to regroup. The only way to achieve that was hard, physical work.

  He ran on the treadmill for a solid hour instead of his usual thirty minutes. He doubled his repetitions with his weights, added twenty more pounds, and pushed his muscles past their limits. After a shower, he stretched out naked on his bed…the one he seldom slept in…and closed his eyes.

  And he dreamed.

  Oh, he dreamed…

  Dressed down, at least as much as Gwen knew how to, she sat at an outside café in Santa Monica sipping iced tea. She’d arrived early to assure the table she occupied was not one where others could spy upon her and her client.

  She wore a hat, and not the kind she preferred, but a brimmed variety that flattened her hair and made her feel very American.

  She scanned the entry to the patio and spotted Michael as he slipped past the hostess and walked straight toward her. A hat also covered his dark hair, and sunglasses hid his eyes and most of his features from those in the restaurant. Gwen stood as he approached and didn’t back away when he greeted her with a hug and a kiss to the cheek as if they were old friends. “So good to see you again,” she said, avoiding the use of his name should anyone be listening.

  “Thank you for meeting me.” He waited for her to sit before taking his seat. He looked around the room. It wasn’t lunch or dinner hour so the restaurant wasn’t busy. The closest group of people was well out of hearing range.

  “I assumed you wanted some privacy,” she said just above a whisper. “I hope this establishment meets your needs.”

  He glanced around again. “I’m hoping this is the only t
ime we meet in private.”

  The waiter arrived and took their drink order. They ordered a couple of appetizers and let the waiter know that they weren’t there for a meal.

  Once his soda arrived, and the waiter walked away, Gwen started asking questions. “Tell me, Michael…should I call you Michael?”

  “Let’s stick with Mike for today. For some reason my fans don’t think of me as a Mike.”

  Gwen smiled and continued. “What do you know about Alliance, Mike?”

  “I know you have the ability to find a companion for my needs. My temporary needs.”

  “You make us sound like a call service.”

  Michael smiled, and shook his head. “That won’t be one of my needs.”

  Ahh, yes. The confirmation she needed of his sexual orientation. But just in case she was mistaken, she prodded him one last time. “I’m told you can have any woman you want. Why come to us?”

  Michael leaned forward and peered over the top of his sunglasses. “I can have any woman I want. I’m coming to you because although I don’t want one, I need one.”

  “I see.”

  He slid his glasses up on his nose and kicked back in his chair. “I’m an actor, Miss Harrison. I pretend to be something I’m not every day of my life. My wife will be required to do the same.”

  “That’s understood. All my clients understand the rules.”

  “But mine will have to do it in front of the public eye. She will have to be as skilled as I am in convincing people we’re happily married and that ruse must not fall until after the divorce.”

  Gwen noticed the waiter approaching and shifted their conversation to the weather. Once the food was on the table, she continued. “How long will you require a wife?”

  “A year…maybe slightly longer. My filming schedule is massive over the next eighteen months, which will take me out of the country quite a bit.”

  “All of which will make it easier for you and your wife to live a life apart from each other.”

  “Yes, but when together, we need to be the perfect couple. She will be kissed in public, held in front of the cameras, and passed off as my lover.”

  The entire time they talked, Gwen thought of Karen. How apt she was for this role. Karen could have been an actress if she were so inclined. Her liberal views on sexuality and ability to get along with kids from the street just as equally as the political elite made her the perfect choice for Michael.