Seduced

by Angel Payne

  “No!” Ava’s reflexes weren’t clouded so she was able to get the protest out faster than Bella. She was also able to step to the man, grab his wrist, and wrench it down before he could wreak any more damage to the ’do. As he glowered, she charged, “Stop. Now. Fingers don’t go near the head again tonight. That is an order, Sergeant.”

  “Amen, sister!”

  She couldn’t help chuckling at Bella’s tipsy vote of support. Her mirth seemed to calm Ethan too. “All right, all right,” he muttered. “This isn’t a fight I’m going to win. Torture me, Mistress Ava, but don’t expect me to give up state secrets.”

  Ava rolled her eyes while searching for a discreet alcove. The idea of having her hands in his hair both thrilled and gutted her, meaning she wasn’t totally opposed to the sudden appearance of Enzo Lemare.

  “Sister?” the man questioned in his rich Italian accent. He strolled up in a luxurious double-breasted tux—probably Armani or D&G—that was impeccably tailored for his elegant build. “Davvero?” He directed his attention, full of smoldering green eyes and smooth hands, right at her. “Why did I not see the resemblance before? It is clear to me now. What a clever move, Bella, to hire your stunning sister as your stylist. Who better to know the family secrets and keep them that way, yes?”

  Ava threw back an indulgent smile. “Thank you for the lovely compliment, Mr. Lemare, but I’m not—”

  “Stunning?” Bella looked as puzzled by the statement as she did her empty champagne glass. “Sister? Oh, Enzo, you and that language barrier. Darling, I meant—”

  “To have me take you inside.” Ethan saved her from the embarrassing blurt by smoothly grabbing her waist, making sure the booze didn’t deliver Bella face first into the concrete. “It’s getting chilly out here. Your wrap is already at the table.”

  “Awww.” Bella crooned it with adoring eyes while stroking his jaw with a finger. “You take such good care of me.”

  Ava could’ve sworn Ethan’s whole body tensed at that but wrote the perception off to her own reaction, unplugging the electroshock in favor of old-fashioned nausea. But the moment she thought they’d finally leave, giving her five minutes to grab some water with a Pepto-Bismol chaser, their offside soiree turned into a full attention-getter. Bella’s caress on Ethan’s cheek was captured by a blinding photographer’s flash. When Bella herself winced at the intrusion, Enzo stepped forward again.

  “Mie scuse, cara.” He spread his hands. “I was so busy basking in your sister’s beauty, I neglected to tell you I brought a friend.”

  Protesting the man’s error seemed fruitless right now, especially when someone laughed at Lemare from the darkness beyond the flash. “Friend? That’s debatable at the moment. Put your wizzler back in your pants, Enzo, before you get me killed. You told me Miss Lanza would be on the arm of an army man, not a bloody demigod.”

  Ava forgot about wanting to puke. For a long moment, she wasn’t even cognizant of her stomach. A fast peek at Bella corroborated her awe. That cosmopolitan mix of accents, delivered in that unmistakable mix of snark, swagger, and sex, only belonged to one man on earth. She gasped his name at Bella now. “Grant Fulsom?”

  “Mio Dio, Ava,” she replied. “I think so.”

  Sure enough, the iconic photographer himself strolled up in a wrinkled polo shirt and khakis, his angular face weathered from years of capturing superstars everywhere from Athens to Montserrat to Zimbabwe. In the world of celebrity, being immortalized by Fulsom was one of the rites of passage into superstardom. It was one of the things on the “big list” to cross off. Memoir. Fragrance. Shoe line. White House visit. Grant Fulsom photo shoot.

  “Mr. Fulsom.” Bella’s voice actually shook. Ava watched Ethan’s arm tighten around her waist in silent reinforcement. “It’s— What an honor to—”

  Fulsom chopped her short by swooping her hand to his lips. He followed with a vigorous laugh. “By God, Enzo, you’re right. She’s an enchanting dish.” The man wheeled an equally suggestive appraisal toward Ethan. “And so is he.”

  Ethan barely moved, though his growl sounded like a living beast in the air. “Kiss my hand and your wizzler is dust, assface.”

  “Ooohhh.” Fulsom’s dark-green eyes went wide. “Yes, sir!”

  Mr. Lemare chuckled and backhanded Fulsom’s shoulder. “Down, amico. You’ll need plenty of energy in the days to come.”

  “Oh?” Bella flashed her most charismatic smile. “Are you in town to shoot someone big?”

  Ethan glowered at her and then the men. “What the hell?”

  Lemare let out his own booming laugh at that. “She means a photography shoot, Ethan. How do they say it in your unit? It is all right to…stand down?”

  “Not for too long,” Fulsom asserted, still giving Ethan a workup with his gaze. “He’s bloody fine in the standing position too.”

  While Ethan fumed and Bella threw Lemare a probing gaze, Ava kept an eye on Fulsom. She was pretty certain what he was thinking. She looked at Bella in the same way all the time, projecting elements like skin tone, hairstyle, eye brightness, and facial features into the future to determine how certain lighting was going to affect the look of each. By the time a full minute had passed, she could nearly predict what Lemare was about to say to his show’s leading lady.

  “He is in town as a favor to me, Bella.” Enzo grinned like a dad about to tell his kids they were skipping school to go to the fair all day. “I think our live broadcast would be well-served with some of Grant’s photos to accompany it.” When Bella gave that just a tiny smile of hope, he went on, “Photos of you, cara—with one of our fine soldier advisors as your strapping alpha hero.” He nodded at Ethan in conclusion to that.

  Bella squealed.

  Ethan paled.

  “Okay, whoa,” he mumbled. “Bella—oof!” He stumbled back a step as she threw herself into his arms. “Wait. Wait.” He glared back through her hair. “Look, Mr. Lemare—”

  “Enzo.” The man held out placating arms. “I already told you, Sergeant, you must start calling me Enzo.”

  “Great. Enzo. Look, I’m not a model.”

  “Now you are.” Bella kissed his cheek long enough to leave an imprint that was only going to come out via remover wipe. “This is going to be wildly fun, Ethan! You’ll see.”

  He set her back, his eyes getting darker. “The only thing I’m supposed to be seeing are the scripts, the set, and the route back to my hotel. Bella, we had to jump through a bunch of hoops just for Rhett and me to come to this thing. A damn photo shoot—”

  “Has already been approved by your captain and his chain of command,” Lemare filled in.

  Ethan’s lips twisted. “Yeah,” he said, “I’ll bet.”

  “And there will be plenty of us there from the show’s production staff, myself included, to make sure you two behave…most of the time.”

  That drew another delighted giggle out of Bella. Ava studied her for a long moment. When the woman was truly happy, not just putting it on for paparazzi or acting it for the camera, the emotion transformed her from beautiful to breathtaking. She’d tried to make Bella see that, but the starlet was one of those stunning women who’d been told, somewhere in those important years of their girlhood, that they were ugly and always would be. Ava had met many such girls during the weekly beauty class she volunteered with through the inner-city church cooperative. Maybe, with the love of a good man or thousands of dollars in therapy, the star would comprehend her true worth one day—but right now, Ava was certain that Ethan’s psyche was going to be her bigger concern.

  The conclusion plummeted her gaze to the ground in self-beratement. Mierda. She’d tell herself not to take one more step down that path…if she wasn’t already on it. If she didn’t know, from the core of her spirit, that she was really concerned about how this bizarre turn of events would affect Ethan. During those two days in Seattle for Garrett and Sage’s wedding, she’d seen why he wasn’t the guy with the shrimp tails on his fingers. He’d grown up in a w
orld where appearances were everything yet had given him nothing, leading him to take a leap of faith and dedicate himself to a job where nothing mattered but his mind and his mettle. Now he was being ordered to let one of the world’s biggest image makers capitalize on the one thing for which he never wanted to be seen.

  So yeah, despite everything they’d been through this week and what they’d never have again, her heart lurched for him. No matter what, he was a friend. If he needed a commiserating ear, then—

  As soon as her gaze found his face, she blinked in perplexity.

  Maybe it was just an anomaly, that his expression seemed tight but determined…and nearly as peaceful as the waves lapping at the sand a few feet away.

  Huh?

  Shouldn’t he be seething and tense? Shouldn’t he be looking for an escape to go call Franzen with a string of what the fucks? Why did he just keep standing there, arm still dutifully around Bella, seeming damn near resigned about all this?

  The party was awash in custom lighting, but she suddenly felt trapped in the dark. It wasn’t a sensation that sat well with her, not since those days she and Zoe had spent wondering what had happened to Mom and not being told anything until it was too late.

  On unwavering steps, she moved to the side of Ethan not occupied by Bella’s clinging form. In a discreet murmur, she offered, “Should I get that hair fixed now?”

  As she’d hoped, Bella gushed in gratitude. After shoving Ethan at her, the starlet moved away, phone in hand, determined to make the news of their sessions with Fulsom into a viral buzz inside of ten minutes. Ethan said nothing, becoming a silent shadow as Ava rushed inside, leading him down a deserted hallway.

  She stopped when she was reasonably certain they wouldn’t be seen or heard, though Ethan got the first word in.

  “Hey, are you okay?”

  She already had some fresh hair serum in her palm and rubbed her hands together with a briskness that defied her tone. “I’m fine, Sergeant. How about you? What’s new?”

  “I, uh—ow!” He exclaimed it as she worked the new product in with the old, making her fingers stick for a second. Damn it, even with all the goop in his hair, it filled her grip with a heady combination of strength and softness. “I think you know the answer to that one, Miss Chestain.” He emphasized his formality with a sarcastic snarl.

  “Really?” she shot back. “Do I, now?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  She was about to give him a finishing sweep with a wide-toothed comb. Instead, she parked that hand against her hip and eyed him for a long moment. When she spoke again, it was with quiet conviction.

  “What’s going on, Ethan?”

  He dipped his head. “I guess we’re going to go take a lot of pictures.”

  “And you’re really this calm about it?”

  He jutted his jaw and looked down the hall. “Guess I have to be.”

  “Then why won’t you look at me and say it?”

  With an angry grunt, he lifted his head. But the second his stare tore into hers, his ire transformed to something else, an emotion she couldn’t place, intense and conflicted. The force of it pulled at every muscle in her body…and reawakened every nerve in her sex. Holy shit, how could the man do this to her with one look? Why was he doing this to her with one look? He was with Bella. Belonged with her. End of story. Someone cue the dramatic music and the happily-ever-after sunset backdrop, please.

  “Ava.” It finally fell from him on a guttural rasp. His chest rose and fell, betraying more of his inner battle. “Please don’t push. Not now.”

  For a second, his urgent voice rendered her without one. She blinked again, processing the realization that the tickles of her instinct were founded in truth—a truth that had made Ethan, a man who took orders from nobody except his superiors, pleading with her to back the hell away. “Don’t push at what?”

  The perfect cliffs of his features fell into deeper shadow.

  “Ethan?” She took a step toward him, cocked her head, and glared. “Damn it, talk to me. Don’t push at what?”

  The next moment, as he watched someone appear around the corner, his features darkened into deep secrecy again. The moment was gone.

  “My dolce Ava!”

  She spun at Enzo Lemare’s greeting. The man approached with a champagne flute in each hand, his deep-set Roman eyes sweeping over her. After a gallant bow, he offered her one of the glasses.

  “Mr. Lemare,” she murmured. “Errmm, thank you, but I’m working tonight and—”

  “Not anymore.” With the aplomb of Caesar, the man pushed her hand up, urging her to take a sip of the chilled Cristal. “I told Bella that since you’ll be working very hard the next few days, you have the rest of the night off. And you’re enjoying dinner at my table, as my guest.”

  She managed a smile, but there wasn’t a shred of comfort behind it. “That…is so…sweet…” Sweet? Did you seriously just use the same word on Enzo Lemare that you pulled out to turn down Bobby Weller for junior prom? “But I’m…I’m not dressed correctly…and look at my hair…”

  “All right.” He stunned her into silence by deftly yanking out the two pins that held together her “style” and then combing his fingers down to bring it all tumbling around her face. “If you insist.”

  For some reason, every bone in her body longed to run.

  One look at Ethan convinced her otherwise.

  Though his lips were fixed in a cordial expression, his eyes betrayed a different objective. The potent desire to hurt Enzo Lemare.

  Didn’t take the man long to return with the mixed messages. Okay, despite Lemare’s insistence that Ethan use a first-name basis with him, an underline of tension between them was a given. Bella had been with Lemare, at least for a night, before scooping up Ethan. That had likely been filtered by the Dominant side of Ethan’s brain into a degree of protective jealousy. But the octane level of his glare was burning much higher. He looked like he longed to remove the man’s spleen by hand. Why?

  Mierda. She needed to go home, trade the champagne for a cup of chamomile tea, and call it a night. No espionage books. No more binge-watching her favorite spy shows. Straight to bed with the vow that Ethan was Bella’s concern now, no matter how much she ached to do it…no matter how deep the certainty that the woman rarely coupled the word “concern” with anything past crow’s feet and where she ranked on the latest best-dressed lists.

  The same certainty that made her stomach fold over on itself.

  Which was why she gritted a smile at Lemare and allowed him to tuck her hand into the crook of his elbow before guiding her into the ballroom for dinner.

  * * *

  She should have opted for the tea and her pillow.

  Two hours and a crap-load of discomfort later, she was no closer to figuring out the purpose behind Ethan’s cryptic words in the hallway. The man himself didn’t turn over a single clue, spending the evening between his whispering love cocoon with Bella and his robust “man chat” with Enzo. That itself gave her eyebrows a nice workout. Ethan actually looked like he enjoyed hashing out the finer points of his first manicure, the nuances of a good chianti, and what shoe silhouette was going to prevail over the fall and winter.

  When Ava wasn’t biting back giggles, she was swallowing back tears. Apparently the interesting half of the table ended at Enzo. Despite the producer’s attempts to include her in their exchanges, Ethan barely acknowledged her beyond a few polite nods. In short, he did everything he could to enforce his command from out in the hall. Whatever door she’d been pushing, he wanted her off the stoop for good.

  It hurt. She didn’t want it to. She didn’t need it to. Damn it, wasn’t she the one who told him they’d be better off this way? Then why was she the one who could only pick at her filet and prawns, appetite gone and apprehension on high? Why was she the one who couldn’t banish the memory of that brilliant blue gaze, unwavering at her, filled with the same force of his words? Ava. Don’t push.


  It was finally time for dessert, though even the triple-chocolate ganache wasn’t enough to keep her at the table. As Bradley Cooper, the night’s master of ceremonies, got up to announce they’d be starting the program soon, she frantically looked for the door. Even a few minutes of respite from Ethan and his weirdness would be heaven.

  “Needing some air, mi dolce?”

  She smiled in real gratitude at Enzo. Though his overtones of gallantry were a little excessive tonight, she couldn’t blame the guy for wanting to lick the wounds Bella had dealt by pouncing on Ethan two days after he’d left her bed. Enzo would realize that in the morning, after the wine had worn off. In the meantime, she appreciated him fabricating an excuse to take a phone call in order to escort her out to the foyer, where she scooted into the ladies room for some much-needed solitude.

  The break helped freshen her lipstick, if not her senses. Like the tides hitting the beach outside, she was awash in confusion one second but bright with clarity the next. She didn’t care what Ethan did but watched his every move through the night—and by doing so had gotten another huge lesson in puzzlement. Why did he fawn over Bella only when she was looking? Why did his regard of Enzo swing to such extremes, openly admiring one second but seething with animosity the next? And why did he stare at everyone else in the room like they were all potential suicide bombers?

  She headed out from the bathroom with a growing headache.

  There was no sign of Enzo anymore. A spattering of applause sounded from the ballroom, so she assumed he’d gone back inside so as to not miss the start of the program. She released a little sigh of relief. One last chance to get her shit together before returning to Awkward Central.

  There was a small buzz from her purse. She smiled when pulling it out. A text from Charlie.

  When the HELL were you going to text me about Grant Fulsom?

  “Oh, dear.” She murmured it on half a giggle, making her way out to the patio to dash a quick retort. The glowing, empty screen taunted her. This message had to be a doozy. Something full of breezy yet witty remorse, ending with the kicker that she’d been unable to message due to being occupied at dinner with—