Dirty Charmer

by Emma Chase

  I flip through the pages. “That was quick.”

  “I wanted to get it done right away. You know . . . since I might not make it to tomorrow.”

  Stella is a raging hypochondriac. But she’s also Goth, so the idea of dropping dead at a moment’s notice doesn’t perturb her.

  “Thanks, Stell.”

  She nods, turns around and walks straight towards the back room, closing the door behind her. I tuck the binder under my arm for some late-night reading—and when it comes to Abby’s section, possibly some late-night tossing off.

  Shame is for losers—which is why I have none.

  In the ring, Walter manages to flip Bea off, and tries to pin her down with his foot, but she rolls away lickety-split, evading his stomping foot to the raucous cheers of the sweaty spectators.

  “Tommy—a walk-in just came in. You’re going to want to take this one.”

  Rounding out our band of misfit toys is Celia, our receptionist and bookkeeper. She’s a brown-haired girl, with kitty-cat eyeglasses and a snug pencil-skirt vintage style that shows off her perfect hourglass figure. Celia’s an upper-class lass who took the job to get out from under her father’s thumb. She and I hooked up a whole lot when she first started—I think knowing her father would be ticked about her fucking a bloke like me offered her an extra level of thrill. But eventually, it ran its course for both of us.

  Which brings me to our firm’s non-fraternization policy. We don’t have one.

  Fighting, fucking, competition and ribbing are good for morale. Trying to one-up each other keeps our people sharp, alert. As long as it doesn’t affect their professionalism in the field or infect the comradery of the team—Lo and I don’t give a damn what or who they do, when they’re off the clock.

  “Show them to my office, Celia. I’ll be right along.”

  I handle new client intakes. While Logan has a more cheerful disposition these days, he’s not exactly chatty. And putting a stranger at ease, getting them to reveal the details of why they need our services, takes a certain amount of finesse. Charm.

  I toss the stopwatch at Logan, who catches it one-handed without taking his eyes off the sparring pair. Incidentally, my money’s on Bea for the win. Walter may have the stats on his side—but she wants it more. And in my experience, when it comes to fighting—and life—desire kicks logic’s arse every single time.

  * * *

  Every country has that one couple that epitomizes relationship goals. The impeccable partners, the passionate love story, the pair that all the regular Joes and Janes hope to grow up to be. William and Kate, Beyoncé and Jay-Z, David Beckham and Posh Spice, Brangelina and their gaggle of children before that went to shit.

  In Wessco, Prince Nicholas and Olivia, the Duke and Duchess of Fairstone, are the reigning power couple of perfection. But for a while, it looked like Reid Frazier and Hartley Morrow would usurp them.

  Reid was the bad-boy, hot-shot footballer who’d finally found the right girl, and Hartley was the celestially stunning American movie star who gave up her career to follow his. They saturated the internet and celebrity magazines that Fiona gobbles down like sweets. The courtship, the multimillion-dollar wedding, the Instagram polished pictures of the birth of their son—it was all a pretty fairy tale.

  Until it wasn’t.

  Eventually it spiraled into tale-as-old-as-time tabloid fodder—infidelity, drugs, domestic disturbances and a nasty custody war over a smiling three-year-old boy.

  And now Hartley Morrow is sitting in my office. Light blond and tragically beautiful in that fragile, ashen way sad women are.

  “Hello, Miss Morrow—I’m Tommy Sullivan.”

  She stands, pushing her big round dark glasses to the top of her head and shaking my outstretched hand.

  “Can I get you something to drink?” I ask. “Tea, water . . . whiskey?”

  She lets out a jittery laugh. “A whiskey would be good.”

  At the minibar in the corner I pour myself a glass too, because no one likes drinking alone. Hartley’s hand trembles when she takes the glass from me, sipping it as I sit behind my desk.

  “What brings you here, miss? What can I do for you?”

  She slips a ragged piece of paper from her purse and lays it on the desk like it’s poisonous. “After I picked up Sammy from preschool today, I came home and found this. On my bed.”

  I read the lines scrawled across the paper—it’s a fairly typical but nasty death threat. Bitch, whore, hurting her child while she’s forced to watch, are big themes.

  “There have been threats, as I’m sure you can imagine. Awful online messages, voicemails and emails to my lawyer’s office . . . but this . . . whoever did this was inside my home, Mr. Sullivan. Where my son sleeps.”

  “Where’s your son now?”

  “At a hotel, with his nanny. I packed a bag and just left. I didn’t know what else to do—we couldn’t stay there.”

  “You did the right thing.” I nod.

  She breathes slow and takes another drink from the glass. “My friend—Penny Von—we did a film together years ago but we’ve stayed in touch. She recommended your firm.”

  Penny Von is the stage name of Penelope Von Titebottum, sister to Lady Sarah—Prince Henry’s wife and the future Queen of Wessco.

  “Reid’s had a terrible season and the fans, his teammates, the whole club blames me for it. Even his teammates’ wives . . . women who I thought were my friends . . . the ones who’ll still

  speak to me, just want the divorce finished so they can get back to focusing on winning games. My lawyer contacted the police about the threats, but they don’t really seem interested in investigating who’s doing it. They just add it to the file.”

  “Who do you think is doing it?”

  People should trust their instincts more. Nine times out of ten their gut already knows the answer and their brain is just standing in the way.

  “I think it was Reid. It’s insane that I can say that about the father of my child—about a man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with—but I think it’s him. He wants to scare me so I’ll give in, sign the divorce papers, stop fighting.”

  She scrapes out a bitter laugh, shaking her head.

  “And the joke is, I don’t even want anything—he can have the houses, the cars—I don’t even want child support. I just want Sammy. Full custody. Between practices and games, Reid is barely home most of the year. He hasn’t seen Sammy in months. It’s just about winning for him. He can’t stand to lose—ever. And I think he’s doing this now because it looks like I might actually win custody and that’s just not acceptable to him.”

  Doing this job long enough turns you into an amateur philosopher on the human condition. Not so much when it comes to women—they’re complicated, nuanced creatures. But men are simpler. There’s only a few types to us.

  Some are like my dad—kindhearted and gentle, but strong in their own way. In the way they provide, and the way they teach. Some are slick, underhanded—they get their jollies from pulling a fast one and getting away with shit they shouldn’t. Some men are like me, like Logan—simple tastes and low maintenance. We don’t care about much—but try to harm what we do care about? We’ll rip your throat out without breaking a sweat or batting an eye.

  And then there are men like Reid Frazier—possessive, with an undercurrent of anger and a desperate need to prove how big their cocks are. There’s something ugly inside them, and no matter how much they try to keep it in, eventually it spills out over everything.

  I really fucking hate men like Frazier.

  And they definitely don’t like men like me.

  I pick up the phone on my desk and punch the button for Celia.

  “Have Gordon come in, please. Tell him he’s on the clock.”

  I replace the receiver and look into Miss Morrow’s soft blue eyes.

  “Gordon is one of my more experienced bodyguards—he’s a good man. He’s going to go with you to collect Sammy and the nanny and then
he’ll get you settled in a new hotel so we can be sure you aren’t followed. Then he’ll stay there with you until we have a team in place.”

  Typically, teams of three are assigned to each client based on skills, personality and expectations. For example, old Walter’s first go in the field will be with the Dowager Countess—lucky him—because the threat level is low and he’s what a lady of her stature expects in a personal guard. If I sicced Harry on her, with his fresh mouth and fetish for pop music, it wouldn’t go over well.

  “We’re not private investigators,” I tell her, “so I can’t promise to find out who’s behind this, but I can refer you to some PIs who can.”

  Hartley seems surprised.

  “Just like that?”

  My tone grows gentler, becomes reassuring, because I think she needs that.

  “Yeah. Just like that.”

  She sits up straighter, like she’s just recalling something important.

  “Mr. Sullivan, Reid has frozen all the accounts. My lawyer has been working pro bono and our nanny’s been with Sammy since he was born. She’s practically family. I won’t be able to pay you until we sign—”

  I hold up my hand.

  “We’ll get that part sorted when things are more settled. Don’t worry about it now.”

  Her eyes go teary and she bites her lip as she whispers, “Thank you. I just . . . I just don’t want to be afraid anymore.”

  In real life, the opportunity to be a hero doesn’t usually come along, even if you’ve got the stuff for it. It’s like that David Bowie song—even just for one day isn’t attainable for most people.

  But around here, we’re not most people.

  “You don’t have to be afraid, Hartley. Not anymore. That, I can promise.”

  After Gordon comes in and he and Hartley head out, Lo walks into my office. “We’re packing it in for the day. Was that Hartley Morrow?”

  “Yeah, new client—I’ll fill you in. We should call James, see if he’s ready to come over full-time.”

  James Winchester was the third guard with me and Logan on Prince Nicholas’s personal security team. He’s top-notch and still works with the royal family—on Prince Henry & Co. Though he likes the job, he’s been looking for something with less travel, that will let him stay home more consistently with his little boy, who he’s raising on his own.

  “I think this one is just what James has been looking for.”

  * * *

  Later that night, after the shop is locked up and our new brood of hires has been sent on their merry way, and the Morrow situation is being dealt with, I get comfy in my bed. I settle in, lay back shirtless between the cool sheets, with the Haddock file perched on my lap, as I prepare to discover all of Abby’s filthy little secrets.

  There’s a formal picture of her—white coat, delicate chin raised, brow relaxed, her smart mouth settled in a slight, refined smile. It was taken just after she finished medical school and began her residency, around the time of our first unforgettable meeting.

  I looked for her, in the days after our kiss and slap. I asked around, tried to see her again, to get her number before they discharged me from the hospital. When she remained elusive, I figured maybe she was involved with someone. Unavailable. For a moment, I considered maybe she wasn’t even real—that she had been a seductive angel in my imagination, sent by God to bring me back from the pull of death. And then, after I’d fully recovered from my knock on the head, I got swept up in the rush of building the business, of starting something new that belonged to me and Lo alone, and the rough thrill of one dangerous job after the next.

  I was a bloody fool not to have gone back for her, to have tried harder, looked more.

  In my experience, second chances don’t come around often and I have no intention of wasting this one.

  I can’t help but smile as I picture her in that swimming pool the other day—railing at an unruly frog, her wild mass of red hair glinting gold in the sun, and her wet, snug bathing suit highlighting those lissome limbs, the fine curve of her hips, and scintillating swell of her perfect breasts.

  I get to guard that beautiful body for the next two weeks, up close and personal.

  Fuck—I love my job.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Abby

  “WHO IS THIS PERSON?”

  The surgical residency program at Highgrove Hospital encompasses rotations between several departments—general surgery, orthopedics, thoracic, plastics, pediatrics and oncology, to name a few. Each rotation lasts three to seven weeks, under the supervision of the department’s attending physician.

  “Who is this person and why is he on my rounds?”

  Rounds commence at 6:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. sharp. They are teaching sessions—the observation and discussion of current patients between the attending surgeon and residents, interns and medical students. Rounds can make or break a career. It’s the chance to show off, suck up—to demonstrate your knowledge and skill. Perform well and you’ll be rewarded with scrubbing in for the most sought-after procedures—a hemispherectomy, a rotationplasty, or the unicorn, pot of gold at the end of the rainbow—an osteo-odonto-keratoprosthesis.

  It’s every bit as weird as it sounds and in surgery, weird is definitely what you want.

  Perform poorly on rounds and you’ll be banished to the tedious tundra of updating illegible charts and reinserting blown IVs.

  I’m typically outstanding on rounds. I’m quick on my feet, confident in my knowledge, well-practiced in the ability to retrieve tiny tidbits of information we spent all of two minutes learning in medical school. I’m also a killer Trivial Pursuit player.

  But this is not a typical situation.

  “Anyone? Anyone!”

  Dr. Dickmaster is the supervising attending on staff today and at the moment, he is not a happy man. He’s never been a jolly fellow—not the sort who’d wear a silly clown nose or pull a coin out from behind a child’s ear. But today, he’s especially ticked.

  Because today is the first day that Tommy Sullivan is guarding me.

  Damn it all to hell.

  When I met him outside the hospital early this morning, just before the start of my shift, he watched me approach with a cocky sort of air about him. Arrogance is a common trait among the aristocracy—I grew up surrounded by it, submerged in it—it’s easy to sense. Tommy Sullivan’s arrogance was the victorious variety, like a cat who already knows he’s got the mouse right where he wants her.

  I suspect he anticipated I was going to complain to the Dowager Countess about hiring him, and the fact that he was still on the job was a win in his column. There was a moment, when I had considered voicing my misgivings to Grandmother—but it was only for a moment.

  Because Haddocks don’t do drama. We don’t complain or whine—and we never, ever nitpick. We persevere. Push on. It’s one of the secrets to our success.

  I ignored the weak-kneed, wobbly feeling that oozed up my limbs when Tommy Sullivan aimed that devilish smile at me and smoothly said, “Good morning, Abby.”

  And then I set out on ignoring him.

  It shouldn’t have been difficult—I’ve had personal security before, and disregarding them was as effortless as blinking. They blended into the background, like wallpaper in a room you’ve walked through a thousand times—you know it’s there, but you don’t actually see it anymore.

  But Tommy Sullivan isn’t the kind of man who can be ignored.

  He was built to stand out, to be noticed, and I don’t just mean his looks. He has a presence—the way he stands, the way he walks—with the confident swagger of a man who’s capable of handling things. Handling everything.

  Even now, as he leans innocuously against the corridor wall a few feet away—arms crossed, a dark suit molded to his impressive frame like he just stepped out of an Armani advertisement—the nurses can’t take their eyes off him. Their heads turn and their gazes drag his way again and again.

  He’s a terrible, awful distraction. And I’m not the o
nly one who thinks so.

  “I have asked a question!”

  Dr. Dickmaster’s flabby cheeks and pointy nose begin to change color—going from its typical pale to dark pink and fast approaching crimson—like a chameleon on a hot brick. Because nothing, nothing, infuriates a doctor more than asking a question their underlings can’t answer.

  “Is someone going to answer me, or are you all just going to stand there looking like double-damned idiots?”

  Professionalism is a valued trait in any field—mandatory in most. But no one cares if a king is unprofessional, or if they do, they rarely have the guts to point it out.

  In the field of pediatric cardiac surgery, Dr. Wilhelm Dickmaster is not a king.

  He’s a bloody god.

  And he knows it.

  Pissing off a god is never a good idea.

  I step through to the front of the group.

  “He’s with me.”

  But that doesn’t sound right.

  “I mean . . . I’m with him. But only for a few days.”

  And that sounds even worse.

  I’m usually very good under pressure, but at the moment it’s as though I’m having an anaphylactic reaction to the attention. My throat tightens and my tongue goes thick and sandpaper-dry.

  Chad Templeton, our weasely chief resident, smirks over at me. The chief resident is the head tattletale—who reports to the attending about who’s late or leaves early, who’s slacking off on labs or charts. And I don’t hold the weaseliness against him per se—sometimes weaseliness is necessary if you want to succeed.

  Chad’s just a real wanker about it.

  “I . . . you see, Dr. Dickmaster, it’s—well . . .”

  Dear God, I’m fidgeting. Surgeons do not fidget. I’m sure that’s written in stone on a wall somewhere.

  But then suddenly, the air shifts and a sense of calm settles over me. Because he’s there, standing behind my shoulder. I don’t turn around to see him, I don’t have to . . . I can feel him. The heat and bulk and presence of him.

  “Tommy Sullivan, S&S Securities. I’ll be shadowing Dr. Haddock for the next few weeks.”