Can't Help Loving You

by Nika Rhone

  Which made his attitude toward Roman’s shortcomings all the more perplexing.

  “Promise me you’ll be careful.”

  The honest concern in her brother’s tone helped calm her annoyance with his bossy attitude. “I promise.”

  Lillian made them each another cup of coffee as Peter questioned her about everyone else she’d come into contact with in the past few months—there were a lot—and which of them might be a potential suspect—none, at least to Lillian’s mind. Peter kept his thoughts to himself as he tucked his little notebook away and stood.

  “If anything else happens,” he said, draping his arm over her shoulders as they walked toward the door, “anything at all suspicious, you let me know. Immediately. Okay? Even if you don’t think it has anything to do with the case.”

  Great. She was a case.

  She bit her lip as they stopped at the door, dreading the next question but she had to ask. “You’re not going to tell dad about this, are you?” The incredulous look she got back was answer enough. Of course, he was. Hell, he probably already had.

  “Someone’s targeting you, Lil. You might treat your own safety like a joke, but I sure as hell don’t, and neither does Dad.”

  “I do not!” The unfair accusation made her bristle.

  “Oh yeah?” Peter crossed his arms, his biceps straining the sleeves of his uniform. “Is that why you refused to let him assign you a bodyguard when you moved out?”

  “I refused because I’m perfectly safe here.” Lillian crossed her own arms, but it didn’t have the same effect. “I agreed to the alarm system, didn’t I? And all the other things Dad insisted on. I don’t need a damned bodyguard too. You don’t have one.”

  “I’m a cop.” The exaggerated patience of the reply emphasized how impatient he actually was with her. “I don’t need a bodyguard. I carry my own gun.”

  “I could get a gun.”

  “God help us all,” Peter muttered.

  Since she didn’t want a gun anyway, Lillian abandoned that argument. “Theo and Richard don’t have bodyguards.”

  “They have staff.” Which, from the way he said it, translated to people with guns.

  “I’m safe,” she repeated.

  “Your car might disagree.”

  “Then get a bodyguard for my car.” Okay, she knew she was being a brat, but this was what always happened when she tried to have a rational discussion with one of her brothers. They’d state their position, she’d state hers, and then they’d go ahead and ignore everything she said like it didn’t even matter. It was infuriating as hell.

  Especially when Peter knew the reason she didn’t want a bodyguard lurking around. The mere thought gave her hives.

  The muscle along Peter’s jawline bunched and flexed, a sure sign that he was grinding his teeth. Lillian hid a grin. She couldn’t best her brother at being intimidating, but she could win any contest they had at being stubborn.

  “Just be careful, squirt.” Peter leaned down and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Mom wouldn’t be able to handle it if anything happened to you.”

  Lillian squeezed her eyes shut at his words. “Damn, you play dirty.”

  “Only when I have to.”

  Lillian shut the door and turned the deadbolt, knowing full well her brother was on the other side waiting to hear the lock slide home. Sure enough, he gave an acknowledging tap on the door after it did. She rolled her eyes, but still smiled as she walked back to the kitchen. Her baby brother might be a major pain in the ass, but he meant well.

  After rinsing the mugs and plates and putting them in the dishwasher, she dried her hands on the bright yellow dishtowel and considered her options. Peter’s little dig about their mother had found the soft spot in Lillian’s armor of independence. Patricia Beaumont loved all of her children equally, but it was no secret that she worried unequally when it came to her daughter.

  Lillian tossed the towel aside and wandered down the hallway to her bedroom. Her mother didn’t think less of her abilities to take care of herself. Lillian knew that. It was because of what had happened. But it didn’t feel that way, not when her mother was forever hovering in the background, checking up on her.

  For the first month after Lillian had moved into her apartment, her mother had stopped by often, and called her almost every day to “see how she was doing.” Lillian loved her mom, but all that helicoptering had made her feel about twelve instead of twenty-three.

  Thank God she’d managed to wean her mother off of the visits, and migrated most of the calls to texts. At least those she could exert a little more control over. Someday, maybe by the time she was thirty, she’d be able to live her life without checking in with anyone first.

  But not today. That was for sure.

  No, today her parents would be knocking down her door the minute she got home from work, her father leading the charge to demand she move back to the estate “just until things get straightened out.” Wasn’t going to happen. But it would be an uphill battle for her to resist the combined might of her parents’ powers of persuasion. Lucky for her, she’d inherited that same power from them. It was one of the reasons she’d always been able to get Thea and Amelia to go along with her harebrained plans.

  She considered calling Thea to see if she wanted to go out to dinner after the gallery closed, then discarded it as the coward’s way out. Plus, she’d already horned in on her friend’s Saturday night plans with her hunky hubby to whine about her problems. Two nights in a row would be pushing it, even for BFFs.

  No, she needed to face her parents as she meant to go on.

  Firm.

  Determined.

  Strong.

  Non-flaky.

  She flopped back onto the rumpled bed she’d crawled out of less than an hour ago and groaned. She was so screwed.

  Chapter Four

  “You want me to do what?”

  Rafe stared at the man sitting at his kitchen table, sipping coffee as though he hadn’t just said the most asinine thing Rafe ever heard in his life.

  “You heard me.”

  “You want me to spy on your sister?”

  The fingers of Peter Beaumont’s hand tapped a rapid staccato on the table. “Not spy. Keep an eye on.”

  “I don’t see a real difference.”

  “The difference is one is creepy, and the other is―”

  “Also creepy.” With a scowl, Rafe took a long swallow of his coffee, hating the small jump his pulse gave. He really was a perv if the mere thought of following Lillian around got his motor humming.

  “You did it once before and didn’t have a problem with it.”

  Of course, Peter would remind him of that one small lapse in judgment. “That was different. The guy had a bad driving record.” Which was why he’d allowed himself to be talked into following Lillian on her date in his police cruiser. To keep the guy from doing anything stupid while he had Lillian in the car. It had nothing at all to do with the fact it happened not long after he first met her and had that unfortunate bout of instant lust.

  Riiight.

  “And it worked.” Pete sounded smug, but he was right. It had worked. No speeding, no drinking and driving. In fact, the guy had dropped Lillian back at home nice and early, and was never heard from again. Of course, Lillian had been furious at her brother for his obvious involvement, but to this day she still had no idea of Rafe’s complicity in that night’s little adventure. And he planned to keep it that way.

  Rafe shook his head. “That may be. But what you’re talking about now is something else entirely.”

  “So, you don’t think the vandalism to her car is anything to worry about?”

  Hell yeah, he did. “That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying that if you want someone to keep an eye on your sister, your family has a whole slew of security people who get paid to do exactly that.” It was easy to forget sometimes Peter was loaded, but facts were facts, no matter how down-to-earth his friend was. The Beaumonts were Richie Rich
rich.

  “True, but she knows all of them.”

  “She knows me too.”

  “Yeah, but she likes you.”

  Good thing his mug was almost empty, or Rafe would have been wearing some second-degree burns in his lap when he jolted in surprise. “She what?”

  “You’re her neighbor, and my friend. She brought you cookies when you first moved in, didn’t she?”

  Rafe was still stuck back on the “she likes you” comment. “Yeah, so?”

  “So, my sister doesn’t bake for just anyone. If she brought you cookies, then she’s accepted you as one of her flock.”

  Rafe’s lip curled at the unflattering term Peter used for the eclectic group of people Lillian surrounded herself with. The woman was always in motion, going somewhere, doing something, dating someone. Peter had once likened her to the Pied Piper, and Rafe had to admit, he wasn’t wrong. Like her brothers, Lillian had a natural charisma that made her a born leader. Too bad the only place she seemed capable of leading anyone to was parties, dance clubs, and trouble.

  “She’s not stupid,” Rafe said. “Why don’t you explain it to her?”

  “I just wasted thirty minutes of my morning doing that,” Pete replied with disgust. “And no, she’s not stupid, but she is stubborn as hell, and she’s got her head set against having any security assigned to keep her safe, even now.” His fingers beat a faster staccato. “Look, I can’t tell you everything without breaking confidences, but there was…an incident before she left home, and it made her skittish about letting anyone get too much into her personal space. Which is why if she sees any of dad’s staff hanging around, she’ll go ballistic. But if she notices you…”

  “Then she’ll think I’m her weird neighbor who keeps following her around town. Hell, she’d probably mace my ass. Sorry, no.” He might not have a shot at ever getting together with her, much as that fantasy might pop into his brain at the most inopportune times. That didn’t mean he wanted her to think he was some sleezoid asshole, either.

  And what the hell was that about an incident making her skittish? What the fuck?

  Before he could ask, Peter said, “Look, I’m not asking you to do full-on surveillance or anything. Swing by the gallery once in a while when she’s working, take a look at some art. I don’t know, maybe go with her when she gets lunch. Or dinner.”

  “So, you want me to date your sister?” Rafe almost smiled at the growl that left his friend’s throat.

  “I’m talking about keeping an eye on her, not dating her.”

  “Sure sounded like a date to me.” Rafe hid his grin behind his coffee mug. Pete was as easy to bait as his own brothers.

  “It’s just for a couple of days,” Peter said, ignoring the taunt, “until either we catch a break in the case and make an arrest, or my father gets her to change her mind about the security detail. They’re going over her car today to look for any possible evidence.”

  As if it would be that easy. Rafe knew as well as Peter the chances of catching the person responsible for the vandalism to Lillian’s little toy car were slim at best. Finding trace evidence was a long shot. With no cameras on the gallery parking lot and no clear motive for anyone to have committed the acts, the police wouldn’t get very far.

  That left getting Lillian to change her mind. And while Rupert Beaumont might be one badass business tycoon who kept his minions quaking in their fancy Ferragamos, when it came to his little girl, she called the shots, not him. Look at what happened when she’d rejected the secure penthouse her father had picked out for her and moved in here instead. Daddy had caved, and then purchased the building on the sly so he could install all the extra security he wanted without Lillian’s feathers getting ruffled.

  That was when it clicked. Of course, Rupert wouldn’t just give up if he couldn’t convince his daughter to allow a bodyguard to shadow her. He’d work around her refusal and put his people in place anyhow, but in a way she wouldn’t notice. Asking Rafe to keep an eye on her was a stop-gap measure until the senior Beaumont and his scary-as-hell security chief got their pieces into place on the game board.

  Which made Rafe nothing more than a pawn.

  That realization should have pissed him off. But since the end game was all about protecting the Queen—the ridiculous call sign Lillian’s security detail had stuck her with years ago—Rafe was actually okay with it. What he wasn’t okay with was the idea of cozying up to Lillian under false pretenses. If he started spending time with her out of the blue, asking her to go places or even tagging along as one of her flock—he grimaced in distaste at the thought—she might get the wrong idea. Hell, if he spent that much time with her, he might start to get the wrong idea.

  Especially if she aimed any more of those ruby kisses his way.

  Fuck.

  Just thinking about those pouty lips had Rafe shifting to ease the sudden discomfort in his jeans.

  “Besides, if nothing else, it would get you out of this apartment,” Peter said, blessedly oblivious to where Rafe’s thoughts had strayed. “Weren’t you bitching the other day about being bored out of your skull? I mean, it’s not like you’ve got anything better to do at the moment, right?” Raising a mocking brow as he sipped his coffee, Peter leaned back in his chair and waited.

  Rafe glared. “You’re a real fuckhead, you know that?”

  “But I’m not wrong.”

  No, he wasn’t wrong. Rafe had been complaining when they’d gone out for a beer last weekend. He was so sick of his own company he was ready to chain himself to the front doors of the police station until they agreed to let him back on active duty. Oh, he helped out at the restaurant, or tinkered with his truck, or went to the gym until he was sore and hurting, but none of it lessened the boredom. All it did was eat up time. As much as he hated to admit it, following Lillian around for a few days would be anything but dull.

  The idea intrigued him in ways he couldn’t allow.

  “I don’t think it would work.”

  The mug thumped onto the table. Leaning forward, Peter said in a low, sincere tone, “She’s my sister, Rafe. I just want to keep her safe.”

  Fucking fuck.

  “Fine. I’ll think about it.”

  “Thanks, man.” Getting up from the table, Peter slapped Rafe on his shoulder as he walked by on his way out. “I knew I could count on you.”

  “I said I’d think about it,” Rafe called after him. The only answer he got was the apartment door slamming. “Asshole,” he muttered, and wondered not for the first time why the youngest Beaumont son had chosen to break tradition and not go into the family business. It was clear he’d inherited the same negotiation and manipulation skills that made his older siblings so damned successful.

  Still, he wasn’t going to be railroaded into anything, despite what his friend thought. As much as he didn’t want anything bad to happen to Lillian, he wasn’t convinced he was the best person for the job of babysitter. There were a lot of reasons. The biggest being if he found himself in close contact with the enticing little pixie, he wasn’t certain he’d be able to keep his hands to himself, no matter his good intentions.

  That, and the fact that the last time he’d tried to protect someone, it had all gone horribly wrong.

  Glancing at the clock on the microwave, Rafe finished the last dregs of his coffee and headed to his bedroom to finish getting dressed, massaging the dull leftover ache in his leg as he went. In addition to the regular doctors and physical therapists who had helped put all his pieces back together again, the department in all its questionable wisdom had decided he needed to start seeing a shrink, too. And while he’d love to tell them where to shove the idea, Rafe had a sick feeling that if he didn’t hit all his marks with Doctor Wong, he could kiss his career goodbye.

  The doctor’s office was on the other side of town. Since this was his third session with her, he knew exactly how the next hour would go before he even stepped into her muted-beige inner sanctum. How do you feel about what happen
ed? Are you still having the dreams? If you could go back and change one thing about that day, what would it be?

  The answers were easy. Hate it. Yes. And I’d shoot the fucker.

  Not that those were the answers he gave out loud. Rafe wasn’t that stupid. He gave the answers he figured the doc wanted to hear. The ones that didn’t scream Psycho cop, take his gun away! The ones that said instead Yes, I have my shit together and can be trusted to go back to work without endangering anyone, including myself.

  By the conclusion of another frustrating and pointless hour of having his thoughts and feelings poked and prodded until they were raw and bleeding, Rafe was in a foul mood. The drive home was made on full autopilot as he played and replayed the session in his head, questioning every expression, every gesture the doc had made in response to his answers. He wasn’t as certain she was buying his nothing wrong with me song-and-dance as he had been when he’d walked in her door.

  Especially when he wasn’t sure he believed it himself some days.

  He’d made a choice that had fucked not just his own life, but the lives of so many innocent people. One split-second. That was all he’d had to make a decision. And it had been the wrong one. Did he even have the right to be put back into that position of trust again?

  Idling at a red light, Rafe noticed for the first time where his absent-minded driving had taken him. Right into the heart of the mall district. In fact, he was only a block or so away from the gallery where Lillian worked. Well, hell. Even his subconscious seemed to be working against him today. He still hadn’t made up his mind about agreeing to Peter’s request, dammit.

  Part of him wanted nothing to do with getting in the middle of what seemed to be some kind of family power struggle. But another part of him knew that if for any reason his own sisters were in need of protection, from dangers real or imagined, he’d expect his friends to come through for him if he asked for help.