The Billionaire's Bodyguard

by Elana Johnson

  Lexie kissed him back, trying to pour as much passion into her touch as she felt in his.

  Chapter Ten

  Jason could not believe he’d gone from standing behind a tree, watching Lexie hand drinks to customers to standing in her kitchen kissing her in only two days.

  He couldn’t believe he’d waited so long to contact her. Couldn’t believe she was kissing him like she needed him to keep breathing, keep living. But the way she pressed herself into him and prolonged the kiss, Jason felt like the last seven years hadn’t even happened.

  He finally slowed the kiss and pulled back, his heart racing like he’d been running for a long time. “Okay, wow.” He held her close to his chest, everything he’d ever hoped for. Well, almost. He still had to tell her what had really happened.

  She giggled and buried her face in his shirt. “Wow?”

  “Yeah.” He stepped back and picked up his bottle of water. “I’m too old to beat around the bush.” He finished the rest of the water. “I told you I’d never gotten over you. The only reason I haven’t tried to get you back earlier is because I didn’t know where you were.”

  Lexie reached up and pushed his hair off his forehead. “And you were bouncing around in hotels.”

  So she wanted to go there right now. “For a little while,” he hedged. “Didn’t last long. There’s always another story for reporters, you know?”

  “Is that why you went into journalism?”

  Jason couldn’t really name why he chose the jobs he did. “It was something I hadn’t done before,” he said. “I found I was good at writing. My PI experience allowed me to find the people no one else was interviewing.” He shrugged. “And I wasn’t afraid to ask questions until I got the answers I needed.”

  Plus, it had brought him to Hawaii when Tyler had gotten engaged. Jason had known from the first moment he’d laid eyes on Tawny and Tyler that the engagement was fake. All he’d had to do was wait for the right opportunity. Kind of like what he’d done with Lexie at Sweet Breeze the other night.

  “So what do you do at Sweet Breeze?” he asked, moving around the huge island and settling at her bar.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, you were there at nine o’clock the other night and didn’t come down until almost midnight.” He watched her, employing some of that patience he’d needed in his various careers.

  “I had a meeting,” she said, and Jason thought that was only part of the truth. He wasn’t sure he wanted to push it at the moment.

  “Owen said he can call in a sub for me,” Jason said, changing the topic.

  “That’s great.” Lexie smiled at him. “Did you want to take a nap?”

  “If we put on a movie, that’ll put me out.” He grinned back at her.

  Instead of leading him up to the loft, Lexie went into the living room, which had a much larger TV, and she put something on she wanted to watch. Jason honestly didn’t care, and he didn’t think Lexie would really watch it anyway.

  Sure enough, ten minutes into the movie, she said, “So you really didn’t tell the papers about us?”

  “I did not.” He lifted his arm and drew her into his side. “I quit at the bar the moment they walked through the door.” His mind flowed back to that day, and it had been a pretty awful day.

  He should’ve expected it, what with the storm that Lexie and her firm were weathering. But he hadn’t, and he’d had no choice and no chance to prepare himself.

  “I texted Louis and said I wouldn’t be coming back, and anyone else who came in asking about me he should just say I didn’t work there anymore and he didn’t know where I was.”

  Lexie laid her hand across his stomach, and all his muscles tightened then released. “I bounced around New York for about a week, and then I went to Miami. Got a job there working at a newspaper, and eventually I landed at Aces High.”

  “How do you think they found out about us?” she asked.

  “Honestly?”

  “Of course, honestly.” She tipped her head back and looked at him.

  Jason’s jaw tightened and he wondered if he should say anything. In the end, he didn’t want anything between them. “I think it was Luke.”

  “No.” Lexie shook her head immediately. “He wouldn’t do that. He didn’t even know about us.”

  “Lex.” Jason focused on the TV screen though he had no idea what was going on. “Luke is a lot of things, but stupid isn’t one of them.”

  Lexie fell silent after that, and Jason wasn’t sure what else he could say. His attention wandered, and he was tired, but he had one more thing to tell her.

  “I didn’t think you two needed to be at odds back then,” he said. “So I was willing to take the fall. You should know that Luke has never come out and admitted to me that he told the press about us, but I got a text from him right after I got to Miami.”

  Lexie looked at him, waiting for more.

  “It said ‘Thanks for being a good friend. Sorry about how everything happened.’”

  Tears gathered in Lexie’s eyes, but she blinked them back and anger replaced the emotion. “I’m going to kill him.”

  “No.” Jason eased her back into his arms. “It’s over, Lex. What would the point be?”

  “He said he hadn’t spoken to you once.”

  “That’s not entirely a lie. We didn’t speak. I didn’t even respond to his text.” Jason cleared his throat. “I did try to find you, once.”

  “You did?” She sat up again, and Jason wasn’t sure he’d be able to fall asleep at this point. Talking usually took the energy right from his body, especially hard stuff like this.

  “Yeah.” He nodded, remembering how he’d tried to track her down using some of his detective, police, and private investigator skills. “I asked Bruce if he’d just give me a hint of where you’d gone. He wouldn’t. Was pretty nasty about it too.”

  “So you just gave up, I’m sure,” Lexie said, that sexy sarcasm in her voice.

  “For a while,” he said. “Then I started making phone calls here and there. You used to have secretaries and lunch dates and friends. But you’d seemed to cut everything and everyone off and just disappear. I thought I might not be able to find you.”

  “But you did.”

  “It was luck,” he said. “Well, sort of. The day before Tyler’s bogus engagement hit the newswires, I’d finally gotten your ex-fiancé’s now ex-girlfriend to tell me that you’d gone somewhere tropical.”

  “That doesn’t mean Hawaii.”

  “Sure didn’t. But then I got Tyler’s story, and I was on my way here already. The rest is just dumb luck. Or fate. Or divine intervention. Something.”

  Lexie had always been able to absorb a lot of information and process it quickly. She was as smart as she was sexy, and Jason felt like a weight had been lifted from him with all he’d said.

  “Are you mad about me snooping into your life?” he asked.

  “No. Well, maybe a little.”

  “It was a long time ago,” he said.

  “Besides you were hanging around at The Straw for months.”

  “Months? Come on.” He chuckled. “I didn’t even come to Hawaii permanently until mid-February.” Two months. He felt better here among all the palms and sunshine than he ever had in New York City.

  “Feels like longer.”

  “To me too.”

  A few minutes passed, and Jason felt himself coming down off the adrenaline high of revealing important things. He’d just closed his eyes when Lexie said, “I think it was fate that brought you here,” she whispered, her lips touching his a moment after she finished talking.

  Surprised, Jason’s eyes flew open, but she kept kissing him, and he liked this kind of talking a lot more than any other type. He believed a lot could be said with a kiss, and Lexie was telling him she’d never gotten over him either.

  After the best make-out session of his life, Jason did manage to fall asleep. He woke to a loud bang and Steve’s booming bark and sat
up, the living room dark—and Lexie gone.

  He jumped to his feet, the light coming from the foyer making his eyes adjust to the darkness in a strange way. When a wash of headlights swept across the large window in the living room, Jason called, “Lex?” at the same time he ran to the front door. Steve stood a few feet away, snarling. He looked at Jason for a brief moment and barked again.

  She didn’t answer and Jason whipped open the front door. Steve launched himself out onto the porch, barking like a mad dog. Outside, Jason saw a car speeding off into the night. He cursed under his breath that he’d been asleep when he should’ve been bodyguarding—he wasn’t even going to valet tonight. He shouldn’t have been napping.

  Lexie yelped from inside the house, and Jason turned that way at the same time something acrid met his nose. The light spilling from the house illuminated smoke rising from Lexie’s front lawn. Panic built in Jason’s chest, and he darted back into the house and headed straight for the kitchen.

  “Fire extinguisher,” he said, his breath sticking in his throat as Steve continued to bark outside. He yanked open the cupboard under the sink, sure Lexie would have the proper gear in her kitchen. She was nothing if not detailed.

  “What’s going on?” she asked.

  He spied the red fire extinguisher and pulled it out, knocking over several bottles of cleaners and soaps in the process. “Someone was just here,” he explained quickly. “There’s something smoking on the front lawn.” He started back toward the open front door, but paused and turned back. “Stay here.”

  Lexie wrung her hands together, but thankfully, she stayed put. Jason nodded and headed back to the lawn. Beside the door, there were several light switches. Jason flipped them all, thankfully flooding the front of the house with light. Steve stood on the edge of the wide porch, barking at everything in front of him.

  There was no fire, just a steady stream of smoke that smelled like rotten eggs lifting into the sky. In the bright light from Lexie’s house, it looked like blue smoke, and Jason found the smoke bomb on the lawn easily.

  He kicked it out of the grass and into the rocks just as another car came down the quiet lane. He had no idea what time it was, but the car slowed enough to tell Jason that the two men driving by weren’t here for a social visit.

  They both had dark eyes and hair, and wore equally menacing looks. Steve dashed down the yard and stood in front of Jason, his bark so loud, Jason could barely hear himself think. His heart was in a contest to beat as loudly as Steve was barking.

  Jason made his shoulders boxy and lifted the fire extinguisher like he could do some real damage with it. His message was clear: Keep moving, boys. She’s not alone.

  The car did continue on, turning the corner at the end of the block before the roar of an engine filled the air and the car rocketed away.

  Steve quieted, Jason relaxed and looked at the smoke bomb that had marked Lexie’s house. So Victor couldn’t get within fifty feet of her, but that didn’t prevent him from sending a couple of goons to take care of the job.

  Jason wasn’t sure what “the job” entailed, but he now knew Victor Bunce wouldn’t be backing down, restraining order or not.

  A smoke bomb wasn’t dangerous, so he left it where it was and returned to the house, noting a blue mark against the door—probably where the bomb had hit and then bounced into the yard. Probably also the sound that had woken him.

  “Come on, Steve,” he said to the dog still standing on the lawn as if daring another car to come by.

  He entered the house, waited for Steve to sniff around and come inside, then closed the door behind him, locking it, and returning to the kitchen. Lexie wasn’t there, but the bottles he’d knocked over had been cleaned up. He set the fire extinguisher on the countertop, noted the cooked pizza on the stovetop, and went to find the woman he was supposed to protect.

  “Lexie?” he called, noting the back door was locked. As was her bedroom door. He knocked there, and said, “It’s Jason, and they’re gone.”

  A few moments later, she opened the door, her face stern and determined and yet seconds away from crumbling.

  “It’s okay,” he said, taking her into his arms. She practically collapsed against him, and the heat from her tears singed his chest. He just held her, right there in the doorway to her bedroom, wishing none of this was happening. Wishing he could truly protect her. Wishing he hadn’t fallen asleep like a pathetic snoozer.

  “I’m sorry, Lex,” he whispered over and over. “I’m so sorry.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Lexie only allowed herself to cry for a minute. Maybe two. Then she somehow gathered herself back together and straightened. Jason didn’t let go of her as she wiped her eyes. “I called the police,” she said, her voice much too high.

  “You did?”

  “You ran out with a fire extinguisher,” she said. “Steve was barking his fool head off.” The dog now sat at Jason’s feet, utterly nonplussed.

  “I’ll go change.” He started to ease away from her, but she latched onto his elbows.

  “Change?”

  “Yeah, I’m the bodyguard. I can’t be wearing sweats. That’s what the boyfriend does.” He hurried around the steps and took them two at a time up to his bedroom. Lexie felt lost and alone, and even when Keller Investments had indictments against them, she hadn’t felt like this. She’d had her family in her corner, a whole legal team, and Jason.

  Until she didn’t have him.

  She’d been stewing over what he’d said for hours. Luke had told the press about her secret relationship with the bartender? How had her brother even known?

  Jason had sworn up one side of the Mississippi and down the other that he’d never told Luke about Lexie, despite them being best friends.

  She didn’t have any more room to spare in her mind, but when Jason came downstairs wearing that gray suit…. Lexie could only think about how handsome he was, and how he hadn’t hesitated at all with that fire extinguisher.

  “You didn’t have to change.” She smoothed her hand down his lapel. “But this is hot.”

  “A bodyguard doesn’t wear sweats and a T-shirt.” He adjusted his tie and turned toward the front door as Steve got to his feet and gave a low growl in the back of his throat. “They must be here.” He strode away, clearly going to handle the situation, for which Lexie was grateful.

  But he seriously could’ve worn the sweats and the T-shirt, because he looked like a mafia boss in either outfit. She went into the kitchen, her appetite completely gone. By the time she finished with the police, she’d have to reheat the pizza anyway, so she left it where it was and went into the foyer, where Jason was just welcoming the cops.

  He gave his version of events, and Lexie had very little to offer. She hadn’t heard the smoke bomb hit the front door. The first she’d known of it, Steve had started barking and then Jason was in the kitchen, pulling stuff out from underneath the sink.

  The cops made notes, got Jason’s number, left their card, and collected the smoke bomb before they left.

  Jason leaned against the closed front door, weariness plain on his face despite his two-hour nap. “You better go pack a bag, sweetheart.” He stood and walked toward her, his new shoes making slapping sounds against her floor.

  “What? Why?”

  “We can’t stay here. I’ll get us a hotel.” He pulled out his phone, and her fantasies of having a Secret Service look-alike as her bodyguard all came true. “Yes, hi, my name is Brian DeLuth and I need two rooms for tonight. Do you have anything?”

  Brian DeLuth? she mouthed, and Jason waved at her and turned away. She giggled, though nothing about having to pack a bag and go to a hotel was funny. She’d just returned to her bedroom to pack when Jason said, “I need a card, Lex.”

  “Oh, right.” She hurried into the kitchen and pulled her purse off the built-in desk. She handed him her credit card and he hesitated.

  “You know what? Can we pay in cash when we get there? Yes…yes, we’re on
our way. Adjoining rooms…thank you.”

  Lexie’s heartbeat pumped a few extra times, and she dashed back into her bedroom to pack. Within ten minutes, Jason was turning back onto the highway that would lead them into town. And ten minutes after that, she’d gotten as much cash from her credit card as the ATM would allow and they stood at the check-in desk at Sunshine Sleep Inn, a rinky dink hotel across the street from the east bay.

  Jason entered her room first and ushered her inside. He went next door and opened the doors connecting their room. “I don’t think this will be necessary,” he said. “But I wanted to have it just in case.”

  Lexie nodded, mourning the loss—the sanctuary—of her own home. She wandered over to the window, but the view was the building next door, and she promptly pulled the curtains closed again. The only place to sit was the bed, so she perched on the end of it, all the happenings of the day flowing through her like water over a cliff.

  Exhaustion hit her at the same time her stomach growled. It must have been loud enough for Jason to hear, because he said, “I’ll get you something to eat,” and disappeared back into his room.

  Lexie didn’t want to be alone. A tremor of fear moved through her, and she got up to knock on Jason’s door. But she couldn’t do that either. In the end, she turned the TV on low and climbed onto the bed until Jason returned with a pre-made salad and a huge pizza from the gas station across from Sweet Breeze. It wasn’t the romantic Italian meal she’d had planned, but it would have to do.

  He didn’t stay very long, but he did tuck her into bed and kiss her with a fierceness she hadn’t experienced from him before. “Knock or text,” he said his voice almost as growly as Steve’s had been. “Any time. Okay?”

  She nodded, and he left, and she lay in bed for a long time, just thinking. What had he done with Steve? They’d just left him at her house. Would he sleep tonight? Why couldn’t she fall asleep?

  She thought of him next door, alone, and she wished she were brave enough to go crawling into his arms and sleep beside him the way she had in the loft the night before.