by Lizzie Shane
“Can I get you anything before takeoff? Orange Juice? Champagne? Mimosa?”
First class. She wasn’t used to being fussed over on planes. Usually she was one of the grim-faced passengers headed to the back of the plane, craning her neck to see if there were still overhead bins available in Siberia, but Ren always flew in style so Candy had bought the good seats when she got their tickets.
“Right. Sorry. Yes. I’d love some.”
“Champagne? Or mimosa?”
For a moment, the words sounded like Swahili before they resolved into recognizable syllables. “Champagne.” Always colorless liquids on planes. It was part of her mother’s bible. A little turbulence and that orange juice would be all over her cream-colored skirt. The last thing she wanted to do was show up at the family farm wearing her mimosa.
The flight attendant turned her attention to Pretty Boy, her smile brightening—but then, what woman didn’t brighten when she saw him? Candy studied them, trying not to frown. Was he flirting? Holding that eye contact a little too long? She’d never been the jealous type, but they were “married” now and as long as he was wearing that gold band she’d bought on clearance from Target he could damn well act like he was off the market.
The leggy flight attendant was nearly a foot taller than Candy—was there some kind of requirement that flight attendants be physically imposing?—and had the delicate, almost-translucent skin of a natural redhead. Gorgeous. With a sweetness to the smile that she was now aiming at Pretty Boy.
She was probably a lovely human being. And Candy wanted to throttle her.
Pretty Boy thanked her and sent her off with their drink order with his warmest smile—which of course made Candy want to smack him. Even leaving aside the ring on his finger, what about Jessica? Didn’t his girlfriend have a right to expect him not to batt his ridiculously long eyelashes at every female he met?
Though, admittedly, she was sharing him with Candy this week.
Belatedly, Candy realized she’d never asked him how his honey had reacted to the whole fake husband situation. “Was Jessica okay with all this?” She waved a hand at the plane, encompassing all the insanity of the coming week in the gesture.
Pretty Boy shrugged, blasé as ever. “As okay as could be expected.”
Candy didn’t think she would be as okay as could be expected if the situation was reversed. But then, she didn’t do relationships so she never had to worry about that. Jessica was certainly more confident than Candy was—or maybe she was just that certain of Pretty Boy. Did she have reason to be certain? Some kind of assurances?
Candy waited until there was a break in the flow of coach passengers shuffling past and lowered her voice. “Does Jessica know? About your parents?”
A slight pause was the only sign that her question had caught him off guard. “Not yet.”
Candy felt a small thrill of relief that she knew one part of him that Jessica couldn’t touch—but that thrill was short lived as she remembered that he hadn’t confided in her either, she’d just kept digging into his past until she found the truth. Tenacity, not trust.
The flight attendant returned then, all but purring as she handed over their drinks. When the coach passengers needed the aisle, she murmured an apology and sidled into Pretty Boy’s space to let them pass.
And Candy devoted her attention to her champagne in an effort to avoid actions that would get her put on a no-fly list. Did the flight attendant not see the ring? Candy was sitting right here, thank you very much.
Her irritation built as a seemingly endless stream of passengers boarded the plane, making it impossible for the oh-so-helpful redhead to return to her post at the front of the plane, her cute little ass hovering right in Pretty Boy’s line of sight. Though he seemed to be paying more attention to the other passengers than to Red.
Finally, a young mother struggling with a toddler and the medley of diaper bags and carry-ons required to travel with one created enough of a gap to allow Red to escape. Just in time, as far as Candy was concerned. She was halfway through her champagne and building up to a diatribe that would definitely have put her on a watch list.
“Enjoying the view?” she snapped at Pretty Boy as soon as the redhead was out of earshot.
*
The acidic tone yanked Ren’s attention away from the passengers streaming past.
He’d been absently twirling his wedding ring, wondering if it was a good sign or a bad sign that he liked wearing it, and trying to figure out if he ought to tell Candy he and Jessica had broken up. He didn’t know quite why he hadn’t taken the opportunity to tell her, though some instinct had told him to keep his mouth shut. He had a feeling she would either feel guilty for wrecking his relationship or feel like she needed to put walls up between them the way she always had in the past whenever they were both single.
She was finally letting him in and he wasn’t going to screw that up.
Though she didn’t look particularly open at the moment.
Ever since he’d picked her up this morning, she’d been wound so tight he was waiting for her to snap. In her cream skirt and blouse with her hair a neutral ash blonde gathered in a loose chignon, she looked like country club Barbie. Not a look he was used to seeing on her.
But then, neither was the jealousy flashing in her eyes.
“Huh?” he asked eloquently.
“I didn’t bring you along to flirt with the flight attendant.”
Ren blinked, unable to conceal his surprise—or his smile, which only made her eyes narrow more. Candy was the antithesis of the possessive type, but there was no mistaking the angry spark in her eyes. Was this a good sign? A sign that she was finally acknowledging that he meant something to her? Or a sign that she was completely losing it before they even made it down the runway?
He eyed her death grip on her half-empty champagne flute. “Are you okay?”
“Just stop ogling the flight attendant and I’ll be fine.”
He smothered a snort—risking her death glare. He’d barely noticed the flight attendant, smiling at her by reflex, but he knew better than to argue. He wasn’t stupid. He’d spent the latter half of his teen years navigating the emotional upheavals of women who starved themselves for beauty—he’d learned a thing or two. This wasn’t about the flight attendant.
Ren pried one of her hands off the champagne and threaded his fingers through hers. “It’s going to be fine, Candy. I’ve got this.”
She shot him a dark look, but when he met it without flinching something unclenched in her jaw and she sighed. “It’s not you I’m worried about.”
CHAPTER SIX
Four and a half years ago…
The last quarter bounced off the table, landing in the shot glass with a clink of metal on glass, and Ren groaned as Candy threw up her arms in victory and their coworkers cheered. Poppy Christmas music blared through the speakers around them.
Tank clapped him on the back hard enough to rock him forward in his chair. “Looks like you’re buying, Pretty Boy. And none of that cheap shit.”
Ren stood, raising his hands in surrender. “I’m man enough to admit defeat. Just remember that I crushed every one of your sorry asses at the gun range today.”
“Yeah, yeah, get the drinks, Pretty Boy,” Candy called, as his coworkers chucked wadded up cocktail napkins at him until he retreated to the bar.
Elite Protection’s private gun range had just been completed, so of course they’d had to break it in with a little friendly competition—which Ren had won, thank you very much—before migrating to the posh bar where Max had rented out a room for the office Christmas party to continue the competition with any contest they could come up with. Tank kept trying to get someone to arm wrestle him, but so far the former-NFL lineman had no takers. Everyone was determined to win back their honor after being defeated by “Pretty Boy.”
Candy’s initial nickname for him had stuck, becoming almost a call sign among the Elite Protection bodyguards, and he’d even st
arted to like it.
After she’d pinned up copies of several of his biggest magazine spreads in the break room, it had been inevitable that he would be Pretty Boy for the rest of his life as far as Elite Protection was concerned, but even as she teased him mercilessly, her eyes glittering with unholy glee, he’d seen what she was doing.
She’d put him in a box. The model. Without saying a word she’d told the other guys what to see when they looked at him—so no one looked any further. With that one move, she’d hidden his past more effectively than he ever could have.
And then she’d gone one step farther and helped him bury the trail to his past that she’d followed when she did his background check, creating an entirely new identity for him, complete with a new birthday. Though she still pretended she could barely stand him.
Ren had invited her out for countless after-hours drinks, but Candy had kept her distance in the months since the Elite Protection launch, always perfectly aloof. Perfectly professional.
He hadn’t realized it when he’d been getting his ass handed to him during his interview, but Candy’s primary role at Elite Protection wasn’t as the resident badass—it was on the technological side of things. At barely over five feet, she wasn’t exactly an intimidating presence and most celebrities didn’t want soft cover bodyguards who could blend in, they wanted intimidating behemoths who would stand out like Tank, the former NFL lineman. So Candy worked behind the scenes.
The other thing he hadn’t realized when they’d met was that the cotton candy cheerleader persona was only one of many identities Candy liked to try on. She changed personalities the same way some models he’d known changed shoes.
Today the look was decidedly punk rock, from the torn t-shirt and jeans to the tattoos—which he knew to be fake—which crawled up the side of her neck. He’d thought the blonde hair he pulled in their first sparring session was real, but lately he’d begun to wonder if she just had an impressive collection of wigs. Today her hair was chin-length and spiky, bleach blond with visible black roots.
He hadn’t seen this persona before, but it was a good look on her, bringing out her natural edge. He always liked the harsher looks—somehow they seemed more real, though it was hard to tell what was real where Candy was concerned.
He’d just ordered another round when a soft voice spoke at his elbow. “Okay, how did you do it?”
He glanced down at Candy, arching a brow. “Do what?”
“Your application said you’d never shot a gun and now you’re our resident sniper? How does that work?”
“Maybe I’m a quick study.”
Her eyes, smoky with liner, narrowed. “Maybe you’re full of shit.”
He smiled, slow and easy. “Maybe I’m just that good with my hands.”
“Is that why I just schooled you at quarters?” She leaned toward him, their elbows brushing on the bar. “Come on, Pretty Boy. Where did you learn to shoot like that?”
He leaned in, whispering the answer against the shell of her ear like an erotic secret. “Video games. Lots and lots of video games.”
And he’d been practicing on the sly to get used to the weight and kick so he’d be able to impress her.
He felt her breath against his skin as she laughed. “Of course. I should have known.”
The bartender set the drinks in front of them and Candy shifted away from him, picking up two of them.
“Careful,” he commented, keeping his voice light though something warm still clenched in his gut from her closeness. “You keep helping me and they’ll never believe you can’t stand me.”
She shrugged one shoulder, eyeing him from the corner of one eye. “Maybe I like you a little bit.”
About damn time. “Don’t worry. I won’t tell a soul.”
*
Present day…
She kept it together through the safety presentation. She was the picture of calm during taxi and take off.
It wasn’t until they were thirty-thousand feet in the air that Candy started fixating on exactly what they’d gotten themselves into and stopped being able to breathe.
It all started when Ren asked a perfectly normal question.
“What should I expect? What’s your family like?”
She opened her mouth to describe them—picture the Borgias trying to convince everyone they’re the Brady Bunch—but all at once the gravity of what she’d done hit and suddenly her lungs were too small.
This was a mistake. She shouldn’t have brought him. All this work she’d done to keep the two parts of her life separate and here she was crashing them together. Like two trains running headlong for one another on the same track. Inevitable now.
If train one leaves Los Angeles at one thirty in the afternoon and train two leaves DC at ten in the morning, what time will Candy’s life implode?
She flexed her hands, trying to restore sensation to her fingertips, but she couldn’t feel anything, her head going light and dizzy as less and less oxygen made it to her brain.
Why wasn’t anyone panicking? Why weren’t the oxygen masks deploying? Couldn’t they tell the plane had lost cabin pressure?
“Candy?”
Ren’s voice seemed to echo from far away. Well, at least if the plane was going to go down in a fiery blaze he would never get tangled up in the Machiavellian mess that was her family.
“Candy.”
She saw him take both of her hands and wanted to tell him that she couldn’t feel them right now, but she was too busy trying to remember the emergency briefing. Something about floatation devices…
“Slow down, baby. Breathe with me. In and out, nice and slow, just match me.”
She saw his chest rising and falling and forced herself to match his rhythm, even as her brain jabbered incoherently that she wasn’t baby or honey or anything that he’d ever called Jessica. The endearments were taken. And he’d never called Candy by pet names anyway. Had he? She struggled to remember. They hadn’t ever been that sweetie pie and sugar couple.
But something about the tone of his voice, the gently whispered, “Easy, hon, just breathe,” helped and the vise gripping her chest loosened. Her breathing slowed and she closed her eyes against the embarrassment chaser that rushed in as soon as the panic gave it room.
He’d seen her like that before—when she’d wake up feeling like someone had shoved cotton down her throat, clawing at the sheets and hyperventilating—but that didn’t make it any easier now.
“Better?” the question was gentle when she finally opened her eyes to find him watching her, his green eyes soft with understanding and so damn sympathetic she wanted to crawl away and hide. She fucking hated that look.
“Fine.” Her voice was a little too sharp, but she still felt like all her soft places were exposed as he looked at her with so much goddamn compassion she wanted to scream at him until he stopped.
“I’m guessing you don’t like talking about your family.”
Thank God he didn’t mention the nightmares. His grin was wry and allowed some more air back into her lungs.
“It’s not them exactly,” she admitted.
“Okay. I’m not sure what that means.”
“It means there are two versions of my family—the public version and the real one, but even when we’re alone together no one acknowledges the real one. It’s a giant show, but even when there isn’t an audience we perform. Does that make sense?”
“I guess. There’s a pretty big distance between what people think about my family and what we really are too.” He paused for a beat, his eyes going serious. “Speaking of my family, why didn’t you tell me someone had been calling EP asking for me?”
Candy’s eyes wanted to slide to the side, but she forced herself not to evade his gaze. “Max said he was going to.”
“But you knew. You could have told me anytime.”
She shrugged. “I guess I wanted to know how much of a threat it was before I said anything.”
Which was true, if not the whole tr
uth.
She’d been digging into any possible truth behind the caller’s claims, hoping to find out what was going on at his parents’ foundation. She had a hunch, her initial digging had all pointed in one direction—but if it was what she thought it was she wanted to be sure before she told him. Pretty Boy didn’t have much family. She didn’t want to taint what was left until she knew for certain she was right.
He nodded, seeming to accept her answer at face value—which only made her feel more guilty for the slight evasion. She was becoming a master of guilt.
“This sister who’s getting married,” he prompted, “are you close?”
“No.” The word jumped out, more definitive than she’d intended, but there wasn’t any point in sugar coating it. He’d see for himself soon enough. “We were. When we were kids. But when I was twelve—” The words burned on the tip of her tongue, waiting to be spoken aloud, but it seemed like too big a discussion for the semi-privacy of a plane so she hedged. “We stopped seeing the world the same way. You know when people talk about the political establishment?” she asked. “My family is what they’re talking about. Just… do me a favor and don’t drink the Kool-Aid.”
His eyebrows arched in surprise. “What does that mean?”
“They’ll try to convince you we’re one big happy family. It’s all lies. Don’t believe the illusion. Don’t trust anyone.”
“I grew up in LA. I’ve gotten pretty good at seeing through the surface image.”
She shook her head. “It’s a different kind of illusion.” Or it had always seemed that way to her. She’d moved from one image-conscious place to another when she was eighteen, but Hollywood, with its celebrity scandals, had always seemed somehow more innocent to her than DC.
“So you don’t get along with the bride,” Pretty Boy prompted.
“It’s not that we don’t get along. It’s more like we’re two alien species trying to figure out how to communicate without a translator. I was a total daddy’s girl when I was little, wanted to be exactly like him, but when I realized that wasn’t what I wanted anymore, Charlotte couldn’t understand it. She drank the family Kool-Aid a long time ago and never looked back. Her first husband was a K-Street lobbyist with all the right connections. It was a political alliance from the beginning, but she might have loved him. Honestly, I don’t know. All I know is they got a speedy divorce after his affair with the junior senator from Vermont was discovered. The male junior Senator.”