by Cindy Dees
“Why don’t you go back to work for some foreign dignitary and quit bugging me?” she snapped.
A pained shadow crossed his features. “Sorry. You’re stuck with me.”
“I’ll call my father and have him fire you.”
“By all means, make the call. I have no interest in working with someone who’s got a death wish. With this attitude, you won’t last a week—even with me here to guard you. You’re dead already.”
The stark words stopped her cold. Dead? Her? But…she was going to have a baby! She finally had something truly important to live for! Her fury drained away as suddenly as it had exploded. She wandered over to the plate glass windows and, hugging herself, gazed out at the glittering skyline. Night was falling. How could a place as hot as Las Vegas look so cold? And why did this have to be so bloody hard?
She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Without turning around, she said, “I’m sorry I snapped at you. I’m under a lot of pressure, but I have no right to take it out on you.” She would have in the old days. Heck, maybe she was finally growing up a little, after all. She continued doggedly, “There has to be a way for me to get my work done and still let you do your job. What do I have to do to make that happen?”
He spoke from so close behind her she about leaped out of her skin. “Have dinner with me, and let’s talk it over.”
She ventured a glance back at him. His jaw rippled as he stared out over her shoulder into the night, his gaze roving constantly, always seeking, always testing for threats. Lord, he was attractive. There was something incredibly sexy about having a man like him—a warrior in his prime—totally focused on her and her well-being.
Behind them, a quiet knock sounded on the hallway door.
“Into the bedroom,” he ordered her under his breath.
As Austin closed the door on her, she murmured, “Have the waiter lay out supper by the pool. It’s beautiful out there, and there’s a privacy wall so you can skinny-dip.”
Her last sight of him before the door shut was his eyebrows quirking. It dawned on her what she’d said, and her face exploded with heat.
“You can come out now.”
That was Austin’s rich baritone. If he put his diaphragm behind that voice, she’d bet he wasn’t a half-bad singer. The door opened, and his tall silhouette completely filled the door frame. She breathed a sigh of relief. Since when had she turned into such a thunder chicken? Oh, yeah. When she heard she was going to have a baby and someone tried to kill her.
She followed him outside onto the elegant, Zen-inspired pool deck. The simple granite block walls, oiled teak decking and spare bamboo plantings soothed her. The pool sparkled like a turquoise jewel beneath the descending blanket of night. It was still close to ninety degrees, but the temperature was dropping fast. In another hour, she’d need a sweater.
Austin frowned down at the linen-covered table. “There’s only one place setting.”
She shrugged. “I’ll take the salad fork and the dessert spoon, and you can have the rest.”
He grinned. “All I really need is a sharp knife. If you know your way around a blade, you can skin and carve just about anything.”
She shuddered in mock horror. “That sounds so…carnivorous.”
“You wimp.”
She nodded firmly. “Yup, that’s me. I like a steak well enough, but I don’t need any reminder of where it came from.”
He shrugged. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to hunt and kill my supper. You get used to it if the alternative is starving.”
She examined him closely. “You don’t look like a cold-blooded killer.”
Without comment, Austin fetched a second dining chair from inside and held it for her. Smiling up at him, she sank down into it. For an instant, his eyes glowed back with a heat that was anything but restrained and gentlemanly. She blinked, and the look was gone. Had she imagined that?
Still standing over her, he asked quietly, “So tell me, Silver. What exactly does a cold-blooded killer look like?”
“I dunno. Just…not you.”
“In my experience, the sheep and the wolves all look pretty much the same. The key is to trust no one. Then nobody can sucker you.”
“That’s a pretty cynical view of the world,” she murmured.
“Call me cautious. Comes with the job.”
Wow. That was a pessimistic take on life. It was completely unlike her own positive and generally trusting opinion of her fellow man. “How do you manage to make friends or have faith in anyone with an attitude like that?”
“I trust the guys in my unit.”
“No one else?” she probed.
“My boss. The support team for my unit.”
“And?”
He frowned down at her. “Who else do I need?”
“What about women? Do you have any girlfriends or just simple female friends?”
“There aren’t many women in my field.”
“Don’t you have any friends or social acquaintances outside of your work? Family that you’re close to?”
He frowned. “No. And no, I don’t feel I’m lacking anything in my life because of it.”
As exasperating as her own big, messy, extended family could be, she couldn’t imagine life without them. And although admittedly fewer these days, she couldn’t imagine life without her friends’ laughter and gossip…acceptance and understanding. “You’re missing out on what makes life most worth living.”
He crossed his arms defensively. “You have your measure of worth in life, and I have mine. I believe in honor, duty and country. I serve those three things above all else. And before you accuse me of being brainwashed, let me add that I do it freely and derive deep satisfaction from it.”
“You’re an odd duck, Austin Dearing.” She’d never met a man who actually put something like honor above his own well-being. Oh, she’d met plenty of guys who talked the talk, but this guy walked the walk. She didn’t know whether to eye him with new caution or new respect. Either way, he was an anomaly in her experience with men.
As he slid into his seat, his knee rubbed intimately against hers. Her breath hitched as his leg jerked away. Drat. She’d rather liked the contact, and it was disappointing that he didn’t seem to share her attraction.
“Sorry,” he mumbled.
“Don’t apologize,” she replied quickly. In a desperate bid not to sound quite so desperate, she added lamely, “It’s nice of you to share your supper with me.”
He shot her a sidelong grin that all but melted her insides. “In my experience, hungry women are grumpy women. When in doubt, feed ’em, I say.”
She laughed and reached for a fork. And immediately encountered a problem. Neither the steak nor the lobster was cut into bite-sized pieces, and he’d already picked up the only knife.
Austin grinned down at her. “Need me to cut up your meat, oh squeamish female consumer of meat products?”
“It’s either that or I’m picking up the whole steak and gnawing at it with my teeth. This squeamish girl is hungry.” It had hit her all of a sudden, but she’d gone from nauseous to ravenous sometime in the last sixty seconds or so.
He cut off a bite-sized chunk of the juicy, pink beef and held it toward her with his fork. She realized he was waiting for her to open her mouth. He fed her the succulent prime rib, and flaming heat reddened her cheeks. Next, he held out a piece of lobster. She had no choice but to open her mouth quickly or else drip butter all over her dress. There was something so personal about him feeding her supper like this. So…intimate.
A little freaked out by how fast they were becoming so involved with each other, she slid her chair around to the far side of the table to face him. A pair of candles flickered between them, casting a dance of light and shadow across his rugged features. It struck her yet again what a handsome man he was. Exasperating in the extreme at times, but definitely easy on the eye.
He glanced up at her. As if he’d captured her very thought, he murm
ured, “The candlelight is good to you.”
Son of a gun if her face didn’t get even hotter. She mumbled, “Candles hide a multitude of flaws. They’re good to all women.”
“Trust me, you didn’t need the help to begin with. Maybe you should do your show by candlelight. You wouldn’t have to worry about what the stage looks like that way.”
She laughed. “That’s a great idea.”
“Why not do something simple? Maybe just you and a spotlight.”
“I’m known for big productions. Elaborate stage sets, a bunch of dancers, fireworks.”
He shrugged. “I mostly listen to my favorite singers over the radio. I never see ’em. Seems to me a concert should be about great music and not all that other stuff.”
She gave him a thoughtful look. It actually was an interesting concept. A one-woman show. Just her and the music. No bells and whistles. One thing she knew for sure—it would be a complete departure from her past image.
“Want some of this cake?” Austin asked. “It looks like German chocolate.”
Usually, she loved the Grand’s version of the smooth milk chocolate cake, smothered in a rich butter frosting crammed with fresh-grated coconut. But tonight, the idea of all that gooey, über-sweet richness made her stomach churn. Great. Did she have to start feeling pregnant already? She reminded herself quickly to embrace the burbling nausea. It was all part and parcel of the miracle growing inside her.
“What were you just thinking about?” Austin asked.
She glanced up, startled. “Why do you ask?”
“Your face…glowed…all of a sudden.”
Yikes. She was going to have to be careful around other people if she was going to keep her secret. “Uh, nothing. I’m just relieved you’re willing to work with me. This show means the world to me.”
“Why?”
“Are you by any chance familiar with any of my past?”
“I’ve seen what was in the newspapers,” he answered noncommittally.
“You mean the tabloids?”
“Well, yeah. For a few years there, you were hard to miss in the grocery checkout line.”
She sighed. “I wasn’t nearly as wild as the tabloids said, but the things they published weren’t entirely lies, either. I did a real number on my career and my life when I was too young and stupid to know what I had. I’ve been laying low for the past seven years, trying to regain a little privacy.”
“It didn’t look like that was going too well today in the casino. The paparazzi were all over you.”
“They heard us arguing and smelled a story. And then when Mark showed up, they saw a love triangle and went into a feeding frenzy.”
“Speaking of Bubba, what possessed you to hire him as your bodyguard? He’s an idiot.”
She chewed on her lower lip. Privately, she had to agree with him. But Mark was supposed to be her boyfriend, and she couldn’t very well admit he was an idiot. She settled for mumbling, “He had a résumé.”
“He lied.”
“Why do you say that?”
“He didn’t have the faintest clue what to do today when bullets started flying. Then, he committed the mortal bodyguarding sin. He left your side. Failed to use his body to protect you. He should’ve stuck to you like glue. Instead he ran around screaming like a woman.”
“Okay, so he probably doesn’t have any formal training. Truth be told, my sister, Candace, recommended him to me.”
“And she was some sort of security expert, I gather? That’s why she’s dead, right?”
Silver flinched at that.
He swore under his breath. “I’m sorry. That was out of line.” He reached over and laid his hand on top of hers. “I’ve been out in the field with a bunch of soldiers for way too long. I don’t stop and think about what I say like I should. I’m sorry your sister died. I shouldn’t have spoken ill of her.”
Silver shrugged. “Why not? She was mostly a bitch and a bully. Being dead doesn’t change that.”
Austin blinked, clearly taken aback. Then he said noncommittally, “I’ve always wondered about people’s tendency not to be honest about the dead, no matter how flawed they were in life.”
She sighed. “Apparently, it’s time to air some of that past history you’re dying to hear all about. Candace and Natalie are my twin stepsisters. Well, they were until Candace died.”
“How are you related to them?”
“Their mother was Harold’s first wife. She died from complications during their younger sister Jenna’s birth. My mother was his second wife. Mom and Harold got married when I was about ten years old.”
Austin nodded. “And how did they feel about you coming into their lives?”
“They were jealous of the attention Harold paid to me. I wasn’t his blood daughter and they were. It only got worse as we got older. Sometimes I wonder if he played us off against each other. It would be his style.”
“Why do you say that?”
“He believes in jungle rules. Survival of the fittest. He wouldn’t hesitate to pit his daughters against each other to see who came out standing and who buckled under the pressure.”
“Who blinked first among you three?”
She sighed. “I did.”
“But you’re the rich and famous celebrity of the three of you.”
“I was well down the road to self-destruction when I bailed out on the fast life. Natalie bailed out next. But Candace never slowed down. She was wild till the end. She’d use anyone or anything to get her way. You should have seen how she used her kids…”
Faced with the prospect of becoming a mother herself, she didn’t understand how Candace could’ve treated her sons the way she had, ignoring them when they were inconvenient and using them like pawns to squeeze money from her father.
“Tell me more about how it was between you and your sisters.”
“When Harold put a lot of money and backing behind my career, they resented that. In retrospect, I see how Candace in particular set out to sabotage me. She led me into the heavy Hollywood party scene, introduced me to booze and drugs and hooked me up with a whole lot of people who were lousy for both me and my career.”
Austin’s expression was unreadable. But at least it didn’t contain outright condemnation.
“In my sister’s defense, I was gullible. I didn’t have to go along with any of it. At the end of the day, what happened to my career—to my life—was my fault.”
He made a sound of acknowledgment. Leave it to a military man like him not to make any attempt to let her off the hook. She appreciated his forthright worldview, even if it did sting her in the crossfire.
She continued grimly, “If you’re looking for people I pissed off with my success in all fairness, you’d have to put those two at the top of the list.”
“Except now Candace is dead.”
“Yeah, and Natalie’s totally past her resentment of me. In fact, we’ve grown a lot closer since Candace’s death.” She smiled proudly. “She’s a cop now, you know.”
That made Austin start. “How does Harold feel about that?”
“About like you’d think. That it’s too blue-collar for his daughter and it’s beneath a Rothchild. But she seems to really like it, and she’s good at it.” Silver stirred her ice water with her finger, chasing a stray cube around the glass. “Matt—he’s her fiancé—was a godsend. He really helped center her. But truth be told, since Candace died, she’s changed. It’s as if losing Candace was a wake-up call for her to truly appreciate her life and her family.”
“Are you positive Natalie’s not behind the attacks on you? As a cop, she certainly has access to resources and people who could come after you.”
Her gaze jerked up in surprise. “Not a chance. Not Nat. We’re sisters, blood kinship or not. And besides, she’s too direct for all these sneak attacks. They’re not her style.” She added ruefully, “If Natalie wanted to kill someone, she’d do it herself.”
Austin nodded. “I have to agree. Tam
pered brakes…shooting ambush…those don’t feel like sibling rivalry gone bad.”
“Mark thinks it’s a stalker fan.”
“Wow. An intelligent thought from the Neanderthal. Who’d have guessed he had one in him?”
She sighed. “At least he’s good at keeping the photographers away.”
Austin snorted. “Like today? Hell, he was posing for them more than you were. He did his damnedest to draw them to you.”
She blinked, surprised. “He did not—”
“Think about it. Who shouted and turned the whole thing into a big scene? Who made threats and slapped my hand off your shoulder?”
She studied him in the dim light. “You could just be saying that to cover your butt for your part in the incident.”
He took a slow, appreciative sip from his glass of wine. She noted with interest that, although he’d been sipping at the wine steadily through the meal, the level of the liquid in his glass had only gone down by about an inch. “Are you always this suspicious?” he asked.
“You get a little jaded when you’ve lived a life like mine.”
He studied her for a long moment. “Fair enough. And for the record, I have no reason to push blame onto Bubba. I’m man enough to fess up if I screw up.”
She believed him on that one. He’d been much more restrained than she’d expected him to be in the face of Mark’s truculence. Speaking of Mark. It was strange that he hadn’t been trying like crazy to call her. He was fond of micromanaging every last detail of her life if she let him.
She pulled out her cell phone to see if it was turned on. Yup, and the battery indicator said it was fully charged. That was really strange. Not that she minded the break from him, though. She hadn’t realized what a relief it would be to be away from his overbearing presence until he was gone.
No way could she ever actually get involved with him the way he was pushing her to do. The guy drove her around the bend. He actually had the temerity to tell her that a ‘little woman’ like her couldn’t raise a baby on her own. The rugrat needed a daddy. Like him. As if he was actually a viable candidate for parenthood. The very thought made her cringe.