“She did very well,” Hal was saying. “As you know, we now need to keep her in isolation for several days, to give her blood transfusions and antibiotics, and to check that the graft is taking. We won’t know much for about forty-eight hours, but if she gets through that time with no fever, clotting, or bleeding, we can let you see her. Understood?”
“Yes,” Kat said. “So, we just wait?”
“You just wait.” Doctor Fife smiled. “Go home, guys. You can’t do anything here, I promise. You can’t even see her and just sitting here is pointless, so look after yourselves for the next two days. We’ll take good care of her for you, OK?”
Almost as one, they all sat down again.
Hal laughed aloud. “Yeah, I figured as much. I had to try though, right?” He shook his head, but it was an affectionate gesture. “I’ll make sure to keep you all updated.”
“Thank you,” Liv said.
“My pleasure.” His kind brown eyes sparkled and his voice lowered. “I have to tell you, you’re my favorite patient support group.” He snagged a cinnamon bun and winked. “You have the best baked goods.”
They all grinned and the tension in the room went down another notch.
“OK,” Jenny said. “I’ll go call Emma’s parents. They’re probably sitting by the phone waiting for news.”
Liv glanced at her watch. “What time is it in Angola?”
“Oh, right.” Jenny thought about it. “Around two a.m.”
“Call anyway,” Chris said. “I guarantee they’re not sleeping.”
“Yeah,” Dallas said. “Call and tell them their daughter’s still fighting like hell. They need to hear that she’s doing them damn proud.”
Chapter Thirteen
Two weeks later
Nigel glanced at the clock above Liv’s stove and gasped in horror. How had time gotten away from him so badly? How? How? It was all Abe’s fault – why did he have to drop by Liv’s house out-of-the-blue and bring some flowers for Emma? It was a lovely gesture, of course, but the man’s kisses were just too good to resist, and Nigel had easily lost a good ten minutes sending Abe on his way.
Now he spun around the gorgeous living room, fluffing cushions and double-checking that the wine glasses were streak-free. He frowned at the banner hanging over the roaring fireplace and moved it a bit to the left, then the right, then left again. He fussed with the fresh-cut flowers, changed the CD three times, and rearranged the platters of food that Jenny had prepared and brought over.
Nigel heard the garage door open two floors down, and knew that Liv was home. He gasped again and launched himself in to the entrance lobby of the house, waiting for the elevator doors to slide open. He caught his flustered reflection in the mirror and smoothed down his hair.
Wild with impatience, he listened to the elevator approaching, and when it dinged, he straightened his shoulders. The doors opened and there stood Liv and Emma.
Nigel stared at Emma in delight: she had color in her face and that short haircut actually suited her. She was all eyes and lips, her face calm and shining. She saw him and squealed. He held out his arms to her and she jumped in to them.
“Nigel!”
“Emma, doll! How you feeling?”
“Great. I feel great.”
“Well, you look great. I kid you not… who knew you had such incredible cheekbones?’
Emma smiled at him. “Thanks for getting everything ready, Nigel. I can’t believe you managed to get my parents here at no cost at all… no way they could have afforded those plane tickets. You’re a marvel.”
He waved his hand airily. “No problem.”
Behind Emma, Liv rolled her eyes. Nigel had been steadily and consistently freaking out about Emma’s party for approximately three days. She’d never seen him lose his cool like this – not even when her flight to the Bahamas had been cancelled and he’d had to organize how to get her to a photo shoot there at peak tourist season in less than twenty-four hours. The man had lost his mind about Emma, though, determined to make her celebration party perfect.
Emma looked around Liv’s house, thrilled. “It looks fantastic!”
Liv smiled. “Nigel worked his ass off, Em. Done no work for me whatsoever for the past three days – it was all about you. Not that I mind… you deserve this.”
Nigel led them in to the living room and pointed at the Champagne. “In the fridge, I have a bottle of the alcohol-free stuff for you,” he said to Emma. “But when I spoke to Doctor Fife, he said that one glass of the real thing is fine.”
“Thanks,” Emma said. “I’ll make sure to enjoy it.”
The door phone rang then, and Nigel dashed over to answer. He glanced at the monitor and saw Jenny standing there with a gorgeous blond man, balancing platters of food. Nigel buzzed them in and turned to Liv.
“Can I stay and meet the hot ex-soldiers? Please? Please? I promise not to paw them.”
Emma and Liv laughed.
“Of course you can,” Liv said. “Just watch out for Dallas – he’s kind of terrifying.”
“The bodyguard?”
“That’s the one.”
Nigel shivered. He had a thing for bodyguards.
The door phone rang again and again, and soon enough, the house was full of people chattering. All of Emma’s work colleagues had shown up except Helen Carrow from the HR department, and according to Liv, that wasn’t a big shock. Doctor Hal Fife had come, and so had several cancer patients that Emma had gotten friendly with over the course of her treatment. They looked thrilled to be at a celebration for one of their own.
Nigel looked around and saw that Emma was sitting on the sofa next to Dean. His tattooed arm was around her gently, and he was looking at her like she was the most amazing thing he’d ever seen in his life. Chris was helping Jenny with something in the kitchen, his huge hands carefully arranging tiny little things on trays. Nigel’s breath caught when he saw the startling golden eyes on the guy talking to Kat; Nigel hadn’t caught the man’s name on the way in. He did notice that Kat had dyed her hair black for the occasion, and the contrast with her creamy skin was incredible.
The last to arrive was a tall, broad, muscled man with ferocious blue eyes and arms full of tattoos. He stared at Nigel in the most intimidating-but-damn-sexy way, and Nigel took a step back, thinking that this could only be one person.
“Hi,” he said. “I’m Nigel. Are you Dallas?”
The man nodded, those eyes taking in the whole room at a glance. He saw Emma, found Liv, spotted Jenny and Kat. He returned his attention to Nigel, noticed the expensive clothes and cologne and then he saw Nigel’s tension. Dallas smiled and extended his hand, trying to set the other man at ease.
“Yeah, I’m Dallas.” His voice had a drawl to it, and Nigel almost wriggled. He loved Southern men. “You’re Olivia’s PA, right?”
“Yes.”
Dallas nodded. “Have you got her a new cell number yet?”
Nigel paused. “Uh – yes. Three days ago.”
“Has she received any more abusive texts?”
“No.”
Dallas nodded again. “OK. Good to meet you.” He went over to Emma and gave her a hug. Nigel almost swooned at those tattooed arms in that tight black t-shirt – the man had muscles on his muscles.
Dean sat next to Emma, still unable to believe how much better she was doing. The transplant had been almost textbook in its perfection, Doctor Fife had told them: no complications, no problems with the grafting process. Emma hadn’t even had a fever afterwards, though she had been sore for a few days.
Despite the good news, she wasn’t out of the woods yet, Dean knew. There was still a good chance that the donor stem cells could attack Emma’s own cells, and she’d need treatment for that. Dean had memorized the list of symptoms to look for, and so far, everything was OK. But he was ready if he had to get Emma back to
the hospital quickly.
And of course, she still had cancer; she still needed chemotherapy. They wouldn’t know for another few months if the transplant had helped to push her in to remission, and even if it had, she’d need a clean bill of health for three years before she could be declared cured of the disease. Dean fully intended to be there on the day that declaration happened: he was going to be there with her every day until she was totally, completely healthy.
Emma caught Dean’s eye and smiled at him. Not caring at all that they were surrounded by people, she leaned over and kissed him. Their eyes closed, their hands were gentle on each other’s faces and they were lost in their own little world.
She pulled back a bit. “I love you,” she said. “I love you for being here.”
“I love you too, honey. And I have some news, actually.”
“Yeah? What is it?”
“I bought us plane tickets to California for Christmas.”
“You did what?”
He stroked the curves of her lips, longing to taste them again already. “I asked Doctor Fife, and he said you’ll be OK to travel by then, for sure. I want you to be there with me when I go to the ocean.”
Emma’s eyes filled with tears. “For Kimberley?”
“Yeah. For Kimberley.” He smiled. “You’ll go to California with me?”
“Of course, babe. I’ll go anywhere with you.” She moved in to his arms again. “Anywhere at all.”
Excerpt from ‘Enemy Outside’
(Unseen Enemy #2)
Dear Reader,
I very much hope that you enjoyed meeting a new cast of characters in ‘Enemy Within’ (Unseen Enemy #1). As a thank you for your support, here is a short excerpt from the next book in the series, ‘Enemy Outside’ (Unseen Enemy #2).
**
“Well, I’d say that that was a raging success… wouldn’t you?” Nigel slumped in his chair, sipping his wine. “Everyone had fun, right?”
Olivia Jameson grinned at Nigel Ramirez. Her personal assistant looked exhausted and it was mostly because he had spent the previous three days organizing things for the party that evening, including getting the guest-of-honor’s parents in to Denver from Angola at no cost whatsoever. Normally, Nigel could have planned this party in two hours flat with one hand tied behind his back and while suffering from a debilitating flu, but this party had been very special.
Two weeks before, one of Liv’s best friends, Emma Cartwright, had received a stem cell transplant and now Emma’s chances of fighting off her leukemia had dramatically improved. She wasn’t anywhere near cured yet, but everyone around Emma could finally take a deep breath again. This party at Liv’s house had been to celebrate the success of the transplant as well as their newfound sense of optimism.
“It was perfect, Nigel,” Liv said. “You hit it out of the park, I promise you.”
“Well, Emma deserved it. And frankly, how can a party go wrong when a significant number of the guests are sexy ex-Rangers?” He sighed. “God, those boys are hot, Liv. Why don’t you have one? Actually – come to think of it – why don’t I have one?”
Liv laughed. No denying that Dean, Dallas, Chris and Jim were smoking hot guys. Tall, broad, muscular, tattooed, they checked almost every box – with the added bonus of being incredibly sweet and smart, too. They had pulled Emma and Liv, and their other good friends Jenny and Kat, through the past few months with Emma’s illness, and it was actually because of their efforts that Emma had received the transplant from a private donor.
“You don’t have one because you have Abe. And I don’t have one because I have more than enough on my plate without bringing a man in to it all.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Nigel flapped his hands at her. “OK, let’s clean this place up, doll.”
Liv looked around her spacious living room and glanced over at the kitchen. Jenny and Chris had cleaned up quite a bit since they were taking several things back to Jenny’s restaurant, but there were still towering stacks of dishes on her countertops and the wine glasses had to be rinsed out and dried by hand. The living room was a wreck, with chairs and tables in the wrong places and paper from Emma’s presents strewn over every surface. The banner Nigel had prepared was still hanging above the fireplace, and there were some platters of food scattered around.
“No, it’s OK,” she said. “I’ll do it all before I go to bed.”
Nigel raised his eyebrows. “Supermodels do not do the dishes, Liv. Supermodels hire people to do the dishes. I can have Carol come over tomorrow morning and clean up.”
Liv shook her head. Her mother had cleaned houses for years to make ends meet after kicking out Liv’s abusive father, and Liv was her mother’s daughter. No way was she able to leave dishes unwashed and go to sleep: everything needed to be done before she could get in to bed. She may be earning millions a year and live in a huge house and have graced the cover of every major magazine, but she could still wash a freaking wine glass and move a goddamned chair.
“Go home, Nigel,” she said. “You worked your ass off for the past few days. Leave everything else with me, OK? Get some rest, sleep in tomorrow. I’ll see you on Monday.”
“Really?” he asked.
“Yeah, really. Thanks again, Nigel. It was perfect.”
“My pleasure. Goodnight, doll.” He put on his coat and headed down the stairs and out the front door. She locked it behind him and set the security system before sighing at the pleasure of being home alone. She went back up to the kitchen and poured a half-glass of white wine, gazing out the window while she drank. Slowly, she started to unwind.
Sipping her wine, Liv wandered down the hall to her bedroom to change out of her tight dress and kick off her towering high heels. She donned a pair of jeans and a loose sweater, then went in to her attached bathroom to tie her long auburn hair back. She was a tall, slim woman with large breasts (all natural, at least for now) and curves that had been photographed in hundreds of bikinis and pieces of lingerie, as well as numerous items of clothing by top designers. Olivia Jameson was in demand, she was hot; she was also thirty years old now, and fully aware that her days in the industry were numbered.
She went back to the kitchen and ran hot water in to the sink. On a coffee table in the living room her cell phone beeped, indicating that she had received a text. She dried her hands and picked up the phone, wondering if Nigel had arranged for Carol to come and clean after all. If he had, Liv was cancelling her. No way Liv was ruining her cleaning lady’s Saturday morning. Her Mom had spent many a weekend cleaning up after parties at rich people’s houses, and Liv had always thought that even the woman who scrubbed the toilets was entitled to a day off.
Liv saw that she had received three new messages. She opened the first one, then froze. The text said, ‘HOPE YOU ENJOYED EMMA’S PARTY. WHEN DOES THE BITCH DIE OF CANCER?’
Liv gasped. How does he know about the party? About Emma? Was he – is he watching my house?
Holding her breath, she opened the second message: ‘YOUR RED DRESS MADE YOU LOOK LIKE A FUCKING SLUT. I WANNA RAPE YOU IN IT. I WANNA FUCK YOUR CUNT TIL YOU BLEED.’
She closed her eyes, afraid to read the last text. What she saw knocked the breath clean out of her chest: ‘COMING TO FUCK YOU WHORE. BE THERE SOON.’
She screamed and dropped the phone, then picked it up again, fumbling with the tiny little buttons. She found Greg Wallace’s number in her phone book and called him. Greg ran the private security company that her manager had hired to protect her, and he was supposed to be handling this fucking stalker situation. It had gone on for over two months now, and just seemed to get worse all the time. But these messages took it in to a whole new realm of threat: it was clear that this guy had actually seen her that night. This was the closest that he’d ever physically gotten to her.
The closest that I know of.
Greg’s phone rang and rang; Liv held
her breath and counted the rings. Ten. Eleven. Then it clicked over to voicemail. She cursed, disconnected, redialled. It went straight to voicemail this time and she hung up, furious.
Thanks a lot, Greg. So much for twenty-four-hour protection, huh? Also, wasn’t this fucking stalker supposed to be ‘no big deal’? Those were your words, right? OK, forget about him. Call someone else. The police? No. Dallas. Call Dallas. He’ll help.
He had been at Emma’s party and he had turned off his phone, she knew. But he did have that other phone, the one that he had told her about at the hospital a few weeks earlier… the private one for his clients. The one that he never turned off, he had said.
Fuck, fuck. Where did I put that business card?
She jerked open the kitchen drawer, the one where she threw all the business cards she didn’t know what to do with. She scrambled through them, her fingers trembling.
Shit. Where is it? Come on, focus, Olivia…
She found it and yanked it out of the drawer. Solid Security, Dallas Foreman, President and Private Bodyguard. She tried to enter the cell number listed on it, misdialled, cursed, tried again, misdialled again.
OK, Olivia. Deep breath. Try again.
She managed it this time and she stood in her living room, staring out the window at her long driveway, listening to the phone ringing at the other end.
Come on, come on. Pick up, Dallas, please. Please.
**
Dallas Foreman was wiped out. He kicked off his shoes and headed over to the fridge to get a beer. He leaned his massive body against the kitchen counter heavily, thinking about nothing more than a long, hot shower and then bed.
His cell phone rang and he groaned out loud. Since he had already switched off his personal phone, he knew that this was the phone, the one that only his most important clients had the number for. The one that he could never ignore and which he never turned off, no matter what.
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