by Nina Singh
When Ani stopped playing, he inhaled a fortifying breath and rang her bell.
He heard shuffling on the other side. Yet the door didn’t open. She must have seen him through the peephole but wasn’t responding.
Served him right. He shouldn’t have come unannounced. He felt his hope deflate like a punctured balloon. She was going to ignore him.
He opened his mouth to try to reason with her through the door, but couldn’t seem to find the right words. All the lines he’d rehearsed back at home seemed inadequate now. He braced both hands on opposite sides of the doorway and resigned himself to the facts—this time, the damage he’d caused was irreparable. And he would have to live with that.
He turned around to leave.
* * *
Ani stood frozen in front of her door, torn as to what to do. She longed to see Adam, to talk to him. She longed to be in his arms again.
But her emotions were still too raw, and she had a piece to finish if she was going to be ready for this first audition.
Still, she’d missed him so much. Hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him since arriving back home. He’d texted and left voice mails but she hadn’t had the fortitude to try to answer. And now he was here in person.
She watched through the peephole as he stood there, simply waiting. Even through the distorted view, her breath caught at how handsome he was.
She flung the door open before she could change her mind, catching him just as he was turning to leave.
“You didn’t try very hard,” she said with as steady a voice as she could muster. “Only rang the doorbell once.”
He flashed that charming smile of his she’d missed so much. He was dressed casually in khakis and a soft white V-neck. Dark stubble covered his strong jawline. She itched to reach out and run her fingertips over it.
“I was going to come back with a bouquet,” he said. “Flowers convinced you to see me last time.”
She looked upward as if contemplating his statement. “Though that didn’t end too well, did it?” she countered.
“Touché. Can I come in?”
She stepped aside and nearly reached out to touch him as he walked past her into the living room. The familiar scent of his aftershave brought forth memories of Paris and Monaco and all that they’d shared.
He walked over to her grand piano in the corner of the room. Trailed a finger along the keyboard. “That was an extraordinary piece you were playing when I arrived.”
“I’ve been working on it all week. It’s starting to come around.”
“You wrote that?”
She nodded. “I did.” Little did he know, he’d played a major part in the process. Ani had thought of him while creating the stanzas. She’d poured all the anguish, the longing, the loss she’d felt since leaving Brussels into the music.
“You’re unbelievable, Ani. I don’t know anything about music, but what I heard had me mesmerized outside your door.”
She could only thank him. For several moments, they both simply stood in silence. Unspoken words hung heavily in the air between them. Ani wasn’t going to budge. This was all on him.
“What’s the name of the piece?” he finally asked.
Ani took a deep breath before responding. “Monaco Moonlight.”
His eyes darkened when he heard her answer. He glanced from her to the music sheet. When he finally spoke, his voice was thick with raw emotion. “Ani, I’ve been such a blind idiot.”
She crossed her arms in front of her chest. A desperate attempt to keep from rushing into his arms the way she so badly wanted to. She’d missed him so much. But he’d broken her heart that night in Brussels. In so many pieces. She was still in the process of trying to mend it. “You won’t get any argument from me on that front.”
“I was a fool to say the things I did. I was only protecting myself.”
“Your duty was to protect me.” Instead, he’d shattered her.
He visibly cringed. “I know. If you let me, I’ll never forfeit that duty again. I promise.”
“You pushed me away, Adam.”
“I know, kitten. The truth is, I need protecting, too.”
That was a bit of an unexpected curve. “You do?”
He reached for her, but Ani wasn’t ready to accept the hand he offered. Not just yet. She stayed firm where she was, though every cell in her body cried out to go to him, to hell with the consequences.
“Ani, please save me from myself. Say you’ll forgive me.”
She felt the last bricks of her wall crumble, slowly but surely. She was fooling herself to think she could deny what she felt for him, that she’d ever be able to get over him in this lifetime. How did she have any recourse but to forgive him?
“I guess I don’t have a choice,” she said on a sigh with mock resignation.
“Yeah?”
She shook her head seriously. “It appears you’ve somehow managed to become my muse. I’ll have to keep you around. In the interest of my professional growth.”
He reached her in one quick stride, then lifted her in his arms. Ani felt her whole body shudder with desire at being held by him again.
He trailed a line of soft kisses along her neck. “I can think of all sorts of ways to inspire you, kitten.”
EPILOGUE
“IT’S MUCH WINDIER up here than I would have thought.” Ani adjusted the tie holding her hair back, but it was no match for the wind. Several strands escaped again and whipped about her face.
“We are pretty high up.” Adam stated the obvious.
“I can’t believe we didn’t come up here that first trip to Paris.”
Ani glanced down at the breathtaking scene from the viewing deck of the Eiffel Tower. The stunning image would stay with her forever. The city lights framed by the majestic river could have been a painting hanging in a museum.
Adam took her in his arms from behind and rested his chin atop her head. He’d surprised her with a weeklong trip to France, followed by several days at his Monaco villa. Almost a replay of their first time here without any of the angst.
All to celebrate her latest successful audition. Ani hadn’t quite decided if she would take the freelance opportunity with the Boston Pops Orchestra. The thought of leaving her beloved Dallas still had her torn.
The good news was, Adam had vowed to follow her wherever she wanted to go. And as long as he was by her side, she was home.
She snuggled tighter up against him. She wouldn’t have thought it was possible to fall more in love with him over the past year, yet somehow she had.
Even after all this time, her heart still fluttered in her chest whenever he walked into a room. They stood there for several moments, enjoying the view and the night. She didn’t think she’d ever felt this content.
Finally, Adam turned her around to face him. “So, I was thinking next time you go to Boston that I should come with you.”
“I’d like that very much.” She was planning to visit at least a couple more times before making her final decision.
“In fact, I think you should have your own personal bodyguard when you go.”
She smiled at him with all the love filling her heart. “A girl can’t be too careful.”
“Exactly,” he agreed and reached into his jacket pocket. Ani lost her breath when she saw the object he pulled out.
A small velvet box. He opened it to reveal a sparkling tear-shaped diamond ring on a tricolor gold band.
Ani clasped a shaky hand to her mouth. “Adam, it’s lovely.”
He took her hand in his, dropped a kiss to the inside of her wrist. “Anikita Terrance, you’ve been my top VIP for as long as I can remember. Would you please do me the honor of becoming my wife?”
Her whole body vibrated with pure happiness. She didn’t think it was possible to feel this much joy. Throwing her arms
around his neck, she finally managed to make her mouth work enough to give him an answer.
“Oui, mon amour! Yes!”
* * *
If you enjoyed this story, check out these other great reads from Nina Singh
Their Festive Island Escape
Swept Away by the Venetian Millionaire
Captivated by the Millionaire
Christmas with Her Secret Prince
All available now!
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The Bodyguard and the Heiress
by Susan Meier
CHAPTER ONE
“GO TO PENNSYLVANIA, they said...”
Jace MacDonald mumbled to himself as he walked through three inches of mud coating the little hills and valleys created by a dozen pieces of heavy equipment digging what looked to be a foundation for an enormous building.
“All you have to do is tell her she’s one of the heirs to Mark Hinton’s estate, get her on a plane to New York and keep her out of the public eye until her vetting process is complete.”
His fancy Italian loafer sank into the unstable dirt as he took another step, and he groaned. Charlotte Fillion was a bigwig in some highbrow construction company. Yet when he’d called them for her location, they’d sent him here...to a jobsite.
Luckily, he was almost at the worn and rusty trailer housing the office where she was supposedly working that day. He took the last three steps, scraped the inch of mud off his ruined shoes and opened the trailer door. Wood paneling and the scent of three-day-old coffee greeted him. And silence.
The two desks in the main room were empty. No one stood in the cramped space. No sound came from the offices on each side of the trailer.
“Hello? Anybody here?”
The squeak of a desk chair moving across an uneven floor came from the room on the right. Then suddenly she stood in the doorway. He barely recognized her as the pulled-together executive from her headshot in the company’s annual statement. This woman wore jeans, a plaid work shirt and a hard hat. But this was her. Charlotte Fillion.
“What do you want?”
She was one long, tall drink of water. Slender, with jeans that slid along her body like a second skin and blue eyes boring into him, she stood like a goddess.
His heart stopped, then bumped to life again. It had been so long since he’d been unexpectedly attracted to a woman that he’d almost forgotten what it felt like. Still, he dismissed the sensations oozing through him. He’d had the love of his life. Or so he’d thought. While he’d believed Mary Beth was supporting him through two tours in Afghanistan, she’d been cheating with his friend.
“I’m Jace MacDonald. I own Around the World Security. I’ve been sent here by the estate of Mark Hinton.”
Charlotte Fillion actually laughed. “Huh. So, you finally found me.”
She turned and walked back into her office.
Confused, Jace scrambled after her. “You know about the estate? You know Mark Hinton is your dad?”
“Of course, I do. My mother might have had to raise me alone, but she didn’t make a secret of who my father was.” She fell to the noisy desk chair, one that obviously needed a visit from an oil can. “We didn’t go around announcing it to the world because the man was trouble. We didn’t want any of that showing up at our door.” She picked up a clipboard and began reading.
He inched his way to her desk. “The man wasn’t trouble. He was rich.”
She didn’t lift her gaze from whatever she was reading on the clipboard. “You call it rich. I call it trouble. Bodyguards. Kidnapping attempts. Death threats. We wanted no part of that. Still don’t.”
“Well, brace yourself but you’re in line to get a big chunk of his money.”
“What would you say if I told you I don’t give a damn?”
He gaped at her. Were all Mark Hinton’s heirs going to be pains in the butt? Seriously. The first one they’d found, Leni Long, hadn’t wanted her share of the money and now Charlotte Fillion was acting as if she wanted to bow out, too?
“I’d say you’re crazy. But it’s not my job to talk to you about this. It’s Danny Manelli’s. He’s the attorney for the estate. Whether you take the money or walk away, you have to sign papers.”
“Fine.” She held out her hand. “Give ’em to me.”
“You can’t sign them as an heir until you prove you are an heir.”
“I’ll tell my mom to send over my birth certificate.”
In a lady’s presence or not, he cursed, then told himself she was probably accustomed to it because she wasn’t merely prickly; she also worked in construction where a man who hit his thumb with a hammer didn’t say, “Oh, gracious me.”
“We have your birth certificate. We need irrefutable proof. DNA.”
“Want to swab my cheek?”
He shook his head. “Are you being rude deliberately?”
She set the clipboard on her desk with a thump. “I have eight weeks to get this building under roof. Eight weeks. Do you know what the weather is like in Western Pennsylvania in April? I’ll tell you. It’s unpredictable. So, I don’t want to spend even ten minutes arguing with some fancy pants from the big city. I have work to do.”
Jace couldn’t help it. He laughed. When she got all fired up, she was like poetry in motion. Her forehead wrinkled, causing blue eyes flashing fire to narrow. The image implanted itself in his brain and he knew all he’d have to do would be think about it and he’d laugh again. And get that weird shot of attraction again, because the woman was like nobody he’d ever met.
But she was about to find out he wasn’t like anybody she’d ever met, either.
“You’re going to have to call in a replacement. Because come hell or high water I’m getting you to New York.”
“Guess again, Ringo.”
He frowned. “Ringo?”
“Ringo, Gringo, take your pick.”
“You think I’m a greenhorn?” He chuckled and plopped down on the seat in front of her shabby desk. “Lady, I wrote the book on stubbornness, intimidation and getting my own way. You wanna have a contest? Give it your best shot.”
“I can call the police, and have you arrested for trespassing.”
“I invite you to do that, except then you’ll have to explain to the police why you don’t want to go to New York and accept billions of dollars from your father’s estate.”
She scowled.
“You think I didn’t catch the fact that you’ve kept your biological dad’s identity a secret?” He stood and leaned across the desk. “You think I didn’t catch the fact that you know three million reporters will descend on this jobsite once I make it known that you’re a Hinton heir?”
She glared at him.
“Oh, honey, that glare might intimidate guys who push dirt and hang drywall. But I did two tours in Afghanistan. I started my security firm right after I got home.” His chest tightened when he remembered arriving home, remembered finding Mary Beth kissing Dave, remembered the two weeks of drinking himself into oblivion and then the day he picked himself up and started the company he’d always planned. “I’ve dealt with rock stars so high they didn’t know their own names. Socialites who threw temper tantrums and billionaires’ spoiled kids.” He leaned in so close he could smell her scent. Not soft or floral, but pure female.
It jolted him that he noticed, but he had a purpose here. He refused to be distracted. “Give it your best shot.”
* * *
Charlotte held the gaze of the absolutely gorgeous guy, and—da
mn it—the fierce expression on his handsome face made her swallow. His eyes were as dark as a moonless night. His black hair and the angles and planes of his face gave him a severe look, a countenance that probably scared lesser people. With a name like MacDonald, his ancestors undoubtedly wore that same expression when they fought with William Wallace for Scottish independence.
He meant what he’d said. But then again so had she. She didn’t get to this point in her career by backing down from what she wanted.
“Okay. So, you have ammo. You could out me to the press.” Her instinct was to move in closer to show him she wasn’t afraid of him. But she stifled that urge and leaned back. Casual. Composed. “But I have a job to do. I don’t disappoint. I perform. Since we’re at an impasse, let me suggest a compromise.”
He retreated to his seat.
She smiled. Some days the way she could get people to do her bidding made her giddy. “Give me the time I need to get another foreman here.”
“You don’t have one on standby?”
She laughed, easing up, making him think they were friends. “There is no such thing as standby when a company is trying to make money. Some of our foremen get tapped for double duty.”
“So, you gonna call one of them?”
“I told you. They’re already doing double duty. I wouldn’t be in the field if the company wasn’t stretched to the max. We’ll have to wait for one of my supervisors to get to a place in his project that he can pass off his current work to crew foremen and come here.”
He scrubbed his hand across his handsome face and Charlotte took the opportunity to simply look at him. Black overcoat, with a white shirt beneath a black suit—probably silk—and a neutral-colored tie that was definitely silk.
A thought struck her, and she had to hold back a laugh. She’d bet her last buck he’d ruined a pair of Italian loafers in the mud.
“I can’t wait forever.”
