by Haley Travis
“Wow, usually the getaway driving happens at top speed,” I joked.
“I will never speed with you in the car, Hayden,” he said, taking my hand.
Although I had a distinct feeling that he had orchestrated the skateboarders’ ambush on Craig’s car to help us get away without being followed, I didn’t mention it.
Leif drove north, to a neighborhood I didn’t know very well. I was impressed as he pulled up to a huge metal gate which immediately began to open.
“Hey there, Gavin,” he said, waving to the security guard.
“Good evening, Mr. Martin,” the older man said with a nod.
We drove up a beautiful street with huge old houses set on enormous plots of land. The farther in we went, the more the homes were obscured by high stone fences and tall hedges.
Leif tapped a button on a clip attached to his sun visor, which opened another heavy black gate. At first I thought it was another street, then I realized this was his driveway. The house wasn’t quite as big as the first few we passed, but it was still extremely large.
“Who lives here?” I asked.
“Just me. My youngest brother lived with me for a while, but he decided to move to New York to study acting.”
“Wow. Has he been in anything yet?”
“Remember that credit card commercial with the string of bad things that happen to good people? And one of them was a guy pouting because he had to be at his daughter’s tea party instead of the big game?”
I laughed a bit too loudly. “I love that one. That was him?”
“Yup, That’s Jamie. He was in the security business with me and our older brother Julian for a while. He wired up a whole bunch of actors’ homes with new security systems, and I guess he got talking to some of them. Caught the acting bug. Started taking classes. We’ll see if it goes anywhere.”
The garage door opened automatically as soon as we were fifty feet away. Leif ran around to get my door, then pulled my duffel bag from the backseat. We didn’t even have to go outside, since there was a door from the garage into a massive foyer, once he entered a lengthy-sounding code.
He set my bag down, then held my hands in his. “I want you to take a few deep breaths, Hayden.”
Nodding, I did.
“There’s no way in hell that Gavin down there is letting Craig in. This house has motion sensors, triggered flood lights, and cameras. The entire neighborhood does. But even if it didn’t, there’s no way that he could possibly know to come here, since he doesn’t even know my name.”
“Wow,” I whispered. “You’re right.”
“So I want you to relax completely. We’re going to have a chat tomorrow about restraining orders, and how it would be illegal for his father to penalize you in any way, and all that. But for the moment, I want you to think of this as a vacation from all the stress. All right?”
I squeezed his hands. “I can’t thank you enough.”
“It’s purely selfish,” he said with a smirk. “I can’t stand seeing such a beautiful girl upset. It causes me pain.”
He took my hand, using it to poke the side of his upper abdomen, which was surprisingly firm. “Right here. There’s a spot that hurts whenever you’re upset. So I really need you to be relaxed and happy. Okay?”
Bursting into laughter, my arms flung around his neck as I hugged him. “Okay. Thank you.”
“No, thank you,” he said. “We wouldn’t want my pancreas to explode or anything.”
I would never have expected such a big tough guy to be so funny. It seems like all of my preconceived notions were completely wrong.
From the way he held me so close, to doing everything in his power to make me feel completely safe and comfortable, I was becoming pretty damn certain that Leif’s feelings for me were real.
Chapter 6
_____
Leif
Hayden’s energy seemed to become lighter as she looked around my home. We left her bag at the foot of the stairs, and I walked her through the kitchen.
“Help yourself to absolutely anything you need,” I said. “What do you think of a snack and a comedy special or something before bed?”
“Perfect,” she smiled.
“Great. You go find something on TV, and I’ll be there in a minute.”
I wanted her to feel comfortable here, and I knew that would be easier if she spent a little time alone. I’d studied a bit of psychology for my security work. Making the client feel safe was almost equal with actually keeping them physically safe.
I made us some non alcoholic fruit and sparkling water cocktails, and put together a plate of cheese, crackers, grapes and apple slices.
As I came into the living room, she was flipping through some books on the shelf. Her eyes lit up when she saw our snacks.
“Wow. I was expecting a bag of chips or something.”
“We’re on vacation, remember? Time to pull out all the stops.” Plopping myself down on the couch, I nodded at the bookshelves. “Find anything interesting?”
She sat beside me at a polite distance. “I’m impressed by the variety.”
“We always have to keep the old noggin sharp,” I said, popping a grape into my mouth.
I handed her the TV remote control, and she found some comedy special with a scruffy looking British guy. I’d never heard of him, but ten minutes later we were laughing our heads off, barely able to keep from spraying cracker crumbs everywhere.
It was so good to see her absolutely let her guard down. Hayden looked so damn cute, with her bare feet tucked up underneath her on the couch.
Although it was impossibly tempting to try to snuggle up to her, I knew that I had to keep my distance a while longer. She had to be comfortable. I needed her to come to me.
Still, through the hour-long program, Hayden often reached over to tap my knee, and I stretched my arm out to feed her grapes. Slowly we managed to shift closer and closer on the sofa.
Getting over her fear of men, especially big men, was going to be a process. But every time we touched, it was a sweet blend of flirty and friendly.
I kept getting lost in the beautiful details of Hayden. Her tiny silver hoop earrings. Her short tidy fingernails polished with a translucent pink. The way she laughed louder at the clean jokes, and a bit more quietly during the dirty ones.
I knew that I was becoming obsessed with winning her over, and hoped that I didn’t cross any lines in the process. It was going to be an interesting dance for the next few days as I made sure that she was as comfortable as possible with me.
If Hayden didn’t fall for me completely, I honestly had no idea what I was going to do.
Watching her from the corner of my eye while she laughed at a British comedian teaching us the difference between American and Canadian accents, I knew that I was already partially in love with her.
If she showed any more interest in me, I was definitely staying here. Julian would eventually forgive me for not heading up that division. There was also the possibility that if I showed up on his doorstep in a year and begged, he would still take me on.
Julian always needed plans to go his way. Once a plan was formulated, it bothered him if things went off the rails. I honestly didn’t know how he was going to take it if I turned down his job offer.
But I didn’t care about that. Right now, my only thoughts could be of Hayden. Caring for her, keeping her safe, and making sure that she stayed away from that creep long enough that she could relax and get her bearings.
When her eyelashes began to droop, I put the food away, then came back to see her lying across the couch. I scooped her up in my arms, headed for the stairs. “Hey,” she protested sleepily, “I can walk.”
“You could, but why bother?” I said.
At the bottom of the stairs, I held her precariously with one arm for a second to sling her duffel bag over my shoulder while she giggled.
Then I carried her up to the spare bedroom with an en suite washroom. The two rooms together were about th
e same size as her entire apartment.
“Wow,” she said as I sat her gently on the bed.
I waited while she looked around. My decorator had chosen a blue and warm gray palette, which was soothing, if not very interesting.
“It’s like a fancy hotel,” she said with a grin. “Just as nice as the ones in our magazines.”
“Unfortunately, your only option for room service is me,” I said. “My room is the last door in this hallway. Feel free to come in and wake me up if you need anything, okay?”
Hayden nodded. “I’m fine. Thank you so much.” Her lips turned up in that special soft smile that turned my insides to pudding. “I had a wonderful night. Thank you.”
I knelt down beside the high bed so her face was just a bit above mine, then reached out to skim my thumb along her cheek bone. “It’s decision time, Hayden.”
“What do you mean?”
“Whether or not you want a kiss good night.”
She automatically licked her lips as her eyes smiled down at me.
“Now, we’ve got plenty of options here,” I said in my best cheesy used car salesman voice. “We’ve got the fake boyfriend kiss on the top of the head. That’s been a crowd favorite in the past.”
Hayden giggled adorably.
“We’ve got the real kiss, that tells the poor sap that he might actually have a chance with the gorgeous girl someday, if he plays his cards right.”
I paused, waiting for her saucier smile.
“Then of course, we’ve got the good old-fashioned slap across the face that means ‘get the hell out of my room because I need to sleep’. That’s always been an option right from the start, I hope you realize that.”
I loved that she raised her hand teasingly before leaning down. Her kiss was gentle. Tentative. Slipping my arms around her waist, I pulled her closer.
I had chosen this position very carefully so that she was above me. She could feel like she had the upper hand this way. It would be very easy for her to back away when she had enough.
To my absolute delight she leaned in, her lips parting for mine, allowing us both to deepen the kiss until we were breathless.
Her soft lips on mine made me painfully hard, but that was not going to be her concern for a while. It was crucial that I took my time with my sweet girl.
Reaching up to wind my fingers through the back of her hair, I pulled her closer, kissing her harder until she moaned against my lips.
Her hands moved along the backs of my shoulders, holding me close. I could feel the shift within both of us, as we clearly needed more. But since she was already sitting on a bed, I didn’t want her to think for one second that I was getting any ideas.
We pulled back at the same time, then I darted in to kiss her chin, making her giggle again. “Help yourself to everything. Wake me up if you need anything else. Sleep well, beautiful.”
Standing, I ran my hand over her glossy hair as she stared up at me. I was already enchanted every time I saw that sweet smile. I closed the door behind me. I wanted her to feel like she had her own private space.
Down the hall, I went into my office, which was next to my bedroom, leaving the door open in case she came this way.
I was hardly ever away from my computers for such a long stretch of time, so I had to catch up on lots of emails, messages, and notes from my team.
There were several high profile private clients that required constant security, but all of my people were reporting that things were running smoothly. More importantly, Toby, my most resourceful private investigator, had dug up some more information on Craig Landers.
He wasn’t even close to his father. He’d been raised by his mother, and she was the one who was paying to send him to university in California in September. It turned out that she had to pull a lot of strings, and probably greased some palms, to get him in. Craig was a lousy student, and was not liked by his peers, or his teachers.
No wonder. He was clearly an asshole.
He must have mentioned his father to Hayden once he found out about her classes at Huntley, in an attempt to get some leverage over her. What kind of a loser does that to a young woman?
Leaning back in my huge leather chair, I stared out the window into the dark, pondering my options.
There were many possibilities when trying to remove a threat. I’d had stalkers’ cars impounded so they couldn’t harass my clients before an important event, like a wedding or graduation. Yes, it was definitely underhanded for a slew of parking tickets to suddenly appear in the system, but it was definitely the lesser of two evils.
People had a right to privacy. It was one of the most basic things I believed in. But when someone harasses an innocent person, they give up that right.
Even though I already had Craig’s home address, I wanted to be able to know where he was at all times. Since he seemed to enjoy sitting in his car outside of Hayden’s home and workplace, I had decided to take that privilege away from him.
Calling up my tracker app, I transferred the code to my phone.
The little red blip showed that Craig was parked in front of Hayden’s building. Running his coordinates for the past few hours, I could see he had tried to follow us, but given up fairly quickly. After an hour of circling aimlessly, he had parked in front of her house again and remained there.
The fifty bucks I had slipped those skateboarders to place a magnetic tracker the size of a silver dollar under his back bumper was money well spent.
Hayden had told me not to confront him, but she hadn’t specifically said that I shouldn’t keep an incredibly close eye on him. Maybe it was a gray area, but I had to do absolutely everything I could to help her relax.
I wasn’t sure why it bothered me so much that she hadn’t been enjoying her summer. Maybe it was because the break between college and a person’s first real job was their last shot at youthful, irresponsible, high energy freedom.
Hayden seemed like a hard worker, and such a nice girl. She deserved that one big hurrah.
Somehow, I was going to find every possible opportunity to give it to her.
Chapter 7
_____
Hayden
I stared groggily at the ceiling. There was something wrong with the texture. Then I bolted up, gripping the covers and looking around. It took three blinks to realize where I was, then I relaxed and smiled.
Not only was I in Leif’s house, I was somewhere far away from Craig. It was the first time in ages that I felt like I had a white cloud full of rainbows following me around instead of doom and gloom.
After a quick shower, I got dressed for work, hoping that Leif wouldn’t mind giving me a ride. But when I went to check my phone, it was completely dead.
Following the smell of coffee, I went downstairs to the vast, gorgeous kitchen.
“Good morning,” Leif said, immediately reaching into a cupboard to grab a mug. “How do you take your coffee? Or would you prefer tea?”
“Coffee is great. Just a splash of milk, thanks.” He set it on the long marble countertop in front of a stool.
“I knew I would forget something,” I said, holding up my phone. “Do you have a charging cable I could borrow?”
“Of course.” He rummaged in a drawer, then plugged my phone into the outlet right beside me.
I barely had two sips of coffee when it sprang to life, already ringing. “Hello?”
“Hi, Hayden, it’s Alex.”
If my manager was calling me an hour before I was due in, something must be terribly wrong. I could already feel my stress levels rising.
“What happened?” I asked, standing up so I could think on my feet. “Do I need to come in early? Sorry if you called earlier and I missed it, my phone was dead and I’ve just now been able to start charging it.”
“Relax,” Alex laughed. “I’m calling to tell you not to come in at all.”
“Oh.” I was so taken aback that I nearly sputtered for a second. “Why?”
“There’s some proble
m with the security alarms,” Alex said. “They started going off for no reason about an hour ago, and the security company can’t find the cause. We can’t have people working in there with alarms going off sporadically all day long, so Jerry said we might as well take a long weekend.”
“A free Friday off?” I repeated. Leif’s head jerked up from the stove with a surprised smile.
“Yes. He said, and I quote, what the heck, we deserve it anyway. See you on Monday.”