by Fiona Brand
Against the plain cream decor, she stood out like an exotic orchid in her dark suit and red shoes. The charcoal grey of the suit, which should have looked boring and a little nerdy, was somehow transformed by the sexy cut that clung to every delicate curve.
Jaw tightening at the sudden raft of memories, he set the coffee down.
Jenna slipped a book on criminal psychology she’d been examining back in the case. “I see you’re still interested in detective work.”
He saw the moment she registered that maybe the topic wasn’t a happy one.
“I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “You must miss detective work, you were passionate about it.”
He shrugged. “I still am, but I’ve got other focuses now.” Detective work had cost him his wife and child. From that point on, he had learned to temper the idealistic streak that had driven him so hard.
He was still black and white with his ideals. As far as he was concerned, justice was clear cut. If you did the crime then you deserved to do the time. Stepping out of the job had been a wrench, but overall it had been good for him. Leaving the force had also carried the bonus of allowing him to continue with his private investigation into the crime that had killed his family, a situation that had caused a lot of friction with his superior officer.
The edgy highs and lows were absent from his security work, but he didn’t miss the seamier side of life, the drunks or the narcs. Overall he had learned to live with the challenge of co-owning the security business.
Strolling over to his desk, Marc picked up his phone. “Private protection is a good option. With the shortage of police staffing, Farrell would probably be stretched to provide protection unless you received a threat that involved physical harm.”
Jenna crossed her arms over her chest and stared out of his window. “Can we not talk about Detective Farrell, please?”
O’Halloran was silent for a beat as he absorbed the subtext. Farrell was a good cop, but her bedside manner left something to be desired. He had never minded her abrasiveness. It had worked for him, because the last thing he had needed was a female partner who wanted more than just a professional relationship. Besides, he figured Farrell’s manner was a coping mechanism. “VIP protection is expensive.”
“I can afford it. I have a list of dates and the locations of the book signings.” She dug in her handbag and handed him a sheet of paper. “We’ll need to stay away, but that’s no problem. Naturally, I’ll pay all travel and hotel costs. Like I said, I can afford it.”
Marc noted Jenna’s use of we as if she assumed he was going to bodyguard her personally. The increased heat in his loins underlined the reason why that was not a good idea. “I’ll have to check with my partner and see who we’ve got available.”
Jenna’s gaze locked with his, and the flash of hurt in her eyes made him feel like a heel. “Of course.”
* * *
Marc stepped into Ben McCabe’s office. McCabe, an ex-member of the New Zealand Special Forces, the Special Air Service, was on a call and looked harassed.
He finished the call and checked his watch. “I’m out of here. Gotta pick up the kids from school today.”
Marc steeled himself against the subject of kids. He didn’t often allow himself to think about the son he had lost in the house fire, but he couldn’t ignore the small painful fact that if Jared had lived, he would have been a similar age to McCabe’s small son. “I know we’re committed with the art exhibition at the museum but I need a guy. Who’s on standby?”
McCabe slipped his laptop into a briefcase and checked his watch again. Since his wife was a high-profile member of the mega-wealthy Lombard hotelier family, security for his family was always a burning issue. “For the next week, no one. Howard and Burke are on vacation, Kinsella’s off sick. Why?”
“I’ve got Jenna Whitmore in my office.”
McCabe frowned as he slipped his cell phone into his pocket. “The name’s familiar.”
“She’s a novelist.”
McCabe’s expression cleared. “I saw her on TV a couple of weeks ago. She writes romance novels. My wife reads them.”
“Romantic suspense, actually.”
McCabe’s blank expression informed Marc that he shouldn’t have bothered to make the distinction. “She needs protection for her upcoming book tour.”
McCabe looked distracted as he searched the surface of his desk. “Then you’re going to have to do it, because there isn’t anyone else.”
Marc’s jaw firmed. “What about you? I could take your place at the museum job.”
McCabe found his car keys. “And art’s a lot more straightforward than personal bodyguarding? Sorry.” He sent Marc a rueful grin. “Jenna Whitmore is female. Even if I had the time, which I don’t, Roma would have me hung, drawn and quartered if I even mentioned that I was thinking about guarding a young, single woman. You’ll have to do it.”
Another flash of heat went through Marc at the thought of spending several days in close quarters with Jenna. He had decided he wanted Jenna, and it was a fact that he needed to stay close to her because he was certain that she was connected with the killer he was hunting. But the last thing he needed was the distraction of a sexual liaison, at least not yet. When they went to bed this time, he wanted to take things slow and easy. Nine years ago he had given in to adrenaline, and the jealousy that had seared him when he had found out, just days after their break-up, that Jenna was dating someone else. Not quite a cop, but close. A police recruit who had taken the same criminal psychology paper. Consequently, he had rushed her and for a woman like Jenna, it had been the wrong approach.
His jaw tightened. That sealed his decision. “I have priorities. Protecting Jenna Whitmore isn’t one of them.”
For one thing, with McCabe based at the museum for the next few days, supervising the security for the high-profile art exhibition, and every other able-bodied employee contracted out, he was more or less tied to the office. Problem solved. Jenna would have to approach another security firm.
Marc heard a whisper of sound behind him. Frowning, he checked the door. The corridor appeared to be empty.
McCabe snapped his fingers, as if he’d just had a light-bulb moment. He dropped his briefcase back on the desk. “There is a solution if you want it. Phillips can do office duty.”
He opened a drawer and pulled out an address book. Flipping through, he found a number, scribbled it on the back of a business card and handed it to Marc. “He’s staying at an apartment down on the viaduct, but he’s not a happy camper. Give him a call, I guarantee he’ll be in the office before you put the phone down.”
Marc took the card. The option was viable. Phillips, an ultra-fit adrenaline junkie who had broken his arm rock-climbing, had been constantly wandering into the office like a lost soul, complaining that he hated the downtime. Another ex-cop, he was more than qualified to cover in the office over the next week.
McCabe grabbed his jacket and briefcase and headed for the door. He frowned. “Jenna Whitmore? Didn’t you used to know her?”
“She’s a cousin of my wife.”
McCabe looked briefly arrested. “The woman you used to date?”
Marc’s brows jerked together. “How did you know about that?”
McCabe lifted a brow. “This is a security firm.”
With a sense of resignation, Marc slipped the card with Phillips’s address into his pocket. He should have guessed. He had done a thorough background check on McCabe before he had bought into the business. It made sense that McCabe had been just as cautious. “We were just good friends.”
McCabe’s smile was enigmatic. “Sure. Don’t break the company rule.”
After McCabe’s fall from grace when he had guarded Roma Lombard, who was now his wife, Marc figured there was only one hard and fast rule.
Be sure befo
re you sleep with the client.
Chapter 6
I have priorities. Protecting Jenna Whitmore isn’t one of them.
After using the facilities in the ladies’ room, Jenna washed her hands and yanked a paper towel from the dispenser. In the process, the dispenser flopped open and a pile of towels cascaded onto the floor.
Muttering beneath her breath at the obviously faulty piece of equipment, she jammed the bunch of excess towels back into the top of the dispenser and closed the unit. It didn’t look right, but there was nothing she could do about that.
Feeling increasingly irritable, hurt and mortified, she dried her hands on the one towel she had kept for herself then tossed it into the trash.
Balancing her handbag on the counter, she took time out to apply fresh lip gloss and control the burst of anger and hurt. She didn’t normally lose her temper.
Although that was because she was literally tied to her computer in her own home. No one else lived there, so of course there was no one to get mad at.
Feeling even more annoyed, with her life as well as with O’Halloran, she took another calming breath and strolled back to O’Halloran’s office, bracing herself to be, at the very least, neutral.
There was no need. When she walked into his office, O’Halloran was talking on the phone again. The sun slanting through the window accentuated the clean lines of his profile, his rock-solid jaw. While she’d been in the bathroom, he had taken off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves. She dragged her gaze away from tanned, muscled biceps.
She couldn’t help noticing that he looked fit and toned, as if he worked out. She guessed if he still personally took on VIP protection jobs for selected clients, a high level of fitness would be required.
Seconds later, he ended his conversation and strolled back to his desk. Too upset to sit, Jenna avoided his gaze and concentrated, instead, on a series of framed certificates on the wall. She remembered with a jolt that O’Halloran had qualified as a lawyer before he had applied for the police college.
O’Halloran’s expression was remote as he produced a sheaf of papers. Jaw tight, she wondered who he had managed to get to protect her.
“We can offer you our VIP protection service for the period of your book-signing tour, but before we go ahead with the paperwork I’m going to have to ask you a few personal questions.”
“Maybe I can shorten the process. I live alone, and I don’t have any pets or lovers. I do not have a current relationship.”
Come to that, she didn’t have a recent-past one, either. Not that it was any of O’Halloran’s business that the only man who had been on her personal horizon for the past few years was a man she had never met. She didn’t even know what her number-one fan, Lydell88, looked like since he had never supplied a photograph.
With a shrug, he handed her the agreement. “You sound like you know your way around a protection contract.”
Jenna took the sheets. “I had to research VIP protection for one of my books so I rang up a security firm. They were happy to tell me about their business and gave me a sample contract.”
Dropping her handbag on the floor, she sat and examined the pages. The print was just a shade too small for comfort. Automatically, she reached for her spectacles, then froze.
It was a small thing, but there was no way she was going to allow O’Halloran to see her wearing spectacles. She had gone to a lot of trouble with her outfit and her make-up. She wasn’t going to ruin it all now with a pair of nerdy glasses.
“If the print is too small, I can get Melanie to dig out a large-print version.”
She pretended not to hear the question. “This looks complicated.”
His rueful grin made her stomach tense.
“People are always complicated.”
She lifted the sheets a fraction closer, trying to ignore the crazy hit of attraction. Men who didn’t want you around, even when you were prepared to pay them, shouldn’t be attractive. “As opposed to art. That’s pretty straightforward.”
O’Halloran’s brows jerked together. “I knew it. You heard.”
Jenna tried for a distracted look, which wasn’t hard since she was trying to read the tiny print without squinting. “Heard what?”
“What I said in McCabe’s office.”
His narrowed gaze skewered hers. With an effort of will Jenna dragged her gaze free and tried to ignore her crazy, automatic response.
She turned a page. “McCabe. That would be the tall, good-looking one.”
O’Halloran crossed his arms over his chest. “I don’t tend to think of him that way, but we’re probably talking about the same guy.”
She gave up on trying to read a contract she could barely see and gave him the kind of steely glance she usually reserved for the marketing people when they messed with her covers. “All I need is a bodyguard for a few days. If you don’t want to take on the job, fine. I’m sure you’ll have someone who can.”
“You’re upset.”
“Not in the least.”
“Good. Then shall we get down to business?”
Minutes later, after O’Halloran had gone through the agreement clause by clause, underlining the disconcerting fact that even if he hadn’t chosen law as a career he had all the attributes of a lawyer, Jenna signed.
She placed the pen beside the contract, folded her copy and tucked it into her handbag. “I’m sure, whoever this mystery bodyguard is, he’ll be excellent at the job.”
A knock on the door broke the simmering tension. A tanned, muscular man, who looked like he had just walked in off the beach or a ski slope, entered the room. Despite the fact that one arm was encased in plaster, he could have been a poster boy for a bodyguard movie.
O’Halloran introduced Troy Phillips.
Jenna shook Phillips’s hand. When he smiled, he was even more dazzling. She couldn’t help thinking that if he was her protection at her book signings, which were overrun with women of all ages, he was the one who was going to be mobbed.
Grimly, Marc propped himself against his desk and noted the interested gleam in Phillips’s gaze and Jenna’s response.
It was a watershed moment. Jenna was single, attractive, vulnerable and his.
Despite his reservations, he couldn’t allow anyone else to protect her for the simple reason that he didn’t want any other man that close to her.
If he’d had any doubts that he was involved with Jenna, they would have crashed and burned in that moment. If Phillips had been fit and ready for duty, instead of here to answer calls and shuffle through some paperwork, there would be no way he would let him near her.
Jenna sent him a coolly professional glance that grated, and agreed to be in touch about exact travel dates and times.
Aware that he had been expertly dismissed, Marc followed her out into the corridor then punched the call button on the elevator.
Jenna glanced at a colourful abstract painting, which decorated the wall opposite. “Phillips certainly looks fit.”
Marc folded his arms across his chest. “He could probably handle just about anything with one arm tied behind his back, but he’s not on active duty at the moment. It’s not our policy to assign security personnel with broken limbs to a job.”
He saw the wariness in Jenna’s gaze and could have kicked himself. He had put that look there. She knew he had been looking for someone else to guard her, although not the reason why. If he could take back those moments he would.
The elevator doors slid open. She sent him a fierce glance as she stepped into the elevator. “Then who is?”
Marc muttered an imprecation beneath his breath, held the door before it closed and stepped inside the elevator. “Who do you think? I am.”
“You said you didn’t want to do the security.”
“For good reasons
. Personal reasons.”
The flare of surprise in her eyes made his chest tighten. Cupping her jaw, he dipped his head, giving her time to pull back if she wanted. He was taking a risk in kissing Jenna. He couldn’t rule out the fact that he had completely misread the situation; it had happened before.
He caught the startled moment of eye contact, the faint hitch in her breathing, then his mouth brushed hers once, twice, then settled more firmly.
Heat and sensation shot through him. Images of that long-ago night rose up to haunt him as she lifted up on her toes and angled her jaw to deepen the kiss. His phone vibrated, breaking the moment. Reluctantly lifting his head, Marc forced himself to release her and step back out into the hall.
As the doors slid closed on the elevator, he squashed the urge to take the stairs and continue the conversation down in the lobby. Although it wasn’t exactly a conversation that he wanted anymore, and now Jenna knew it.
Checking his phone and opting to leave the call, he strolled back to his office, although his mind was no longer on work.
It had been nine years since he had dated Jenna. A lot of water had passed under the proverbial bridge since then, but one thing was still true.
Whether she was dressed in jeans and oversized shirts, her long hair loose, or encased in a sexy, sophisticated suit with heels, the qualities that had originally drawn him were the same.
She had been funny, ultra-smart and sweet, with an intriguing bluntness that had been refreshing. She had also seemed to get his cop humour and she hadn’t blinked an eye when he’d had to carry a weapon, something that actively frightened most women. He guessed that coming from a military family showed.
He had wanted more—a lot more—than the casual dating that had seemed to suit her, but the second he had pushed she had closed down. He had accepted the rejection. He hadn’t wanted to let her go, but he had moved on. Almost ten years on she had developed some complex, fascinating layers that hooked him in even harder.