by Nika Rhone
“We can always do a fire drill and lose the loser.”
A fire drill. Thea grinned. They hadn’t pulled that stunt since their senior prom, when they hadn’t wanted their respective shadows tagging along to the after-prom party and ruining their fun. All three of them had bolted from their limo at a red light, dates in tow. By the time the light had changed and the cars with their security details had broken free of traffic, they’d been in a friend’s borrowed SUV and on their way to the party. Calls home had assured everyone they hadn’t been kidnapped, but there had still been hell to pay come morning.
Thea sighed. As good as the idea sounded, ditching Simon would be the height of stupidity. Even though she felt the threats that had been made against her family were unlikely to come to anything, she’d made a promise and she’d keep it.
That didn’t mean she wouldn’t keep trying to get Doyle to see reason about axing Simon from her detail, though. She was doing her best to be reasonable and adult in her war of wills with him over that, but he was making it tough. The fact that she got distracted by that panty-wetting belly tingle every time she was alone with him didn’t help.
Not that she was willing to admit that bit of information to anyone, not even her best friends. As far as they were concerned, her unrequited teenage longings for Brennan Doyle had been discarded along with her penchant for M&M binges and midnight skinny-dipping.
If only Doyle were as easy to give up as the chocolate.
Forcing her thoughts away from the too-sexy-for-her-peace-of-mind Doyle, Thea said, “As much as the idea appeals, I think I’ll just have to put up with him for today.” Her sense of humor reemerged. “Besides, I kind of like the idea of dragging him through every dress shop in town. It should bore him stupid.”
Lillian had just opened her mouth to comment when a raised voice outside the restroom caught everyone’s attention. All three stared at the door as the words “You have no right!” rang out loud and clear. Some woman was not a happy camper, and Thea knew exactly who was the cause. She swore under her breath.
“You’ll both testify that it was justifiable homicide, right?” she muttered through clenched teeth as she reached for the door. “Because I’m going to kill him.” Steeling herself, she yanked it open.
At first, all she saw was a lot of back, since Simon was standing in front of the opening doing his Secret Service impersonation. Then he shifted to the side to let her out—after she poked a hard finger into his ribs—and Thea saw the very angry woman who had been denied entry to the restroom while Thea’s oh-so-special personage was using it.
Janice Timberlake.
Of course.
Thea smiled a weak apology at the woman, but she was pretty sure she wouldn’t be getting that happy phone call she’d been expecting. In fact, she might as well forget about applying to any other design firms in the state of Colorado once Mrs. Timberlake got through with her reputation.
Oh yes, her humiliation was quite complete.
And she knew exactly who to blame.
****
There had been many times in Brennan Doyle’s thirty-four years that his sharply tuned instincts had saved his ass. They’d made him ditch his cigarette down the toilet just seconds ahead of the principal’s arrival back in his St. Cyril’s High School days. They’d let him slip unnoticed from Mary Jane Kelly’s bedroom window right before her mother did a surprise post-midnight bed check. They’d even kept him and his men alive during more than one mission in the Middle East and other hot-spots around the globe.
Several of his Marine Recon buddies had laughingly referred to it as “Doyle’s Spidey Sense,” but to a man they had respected it. If Doyle said jump, they didn’t ask why, they just asked which way.
Doyle’s instincts had never let him down yet. And those instincts were telling him that something was about to screw up his day. Big time.
Not five minutes after the troublesome feeling began, the door to his office in the security bungalow slammed open, and that something stalked in and stood in front of his desk, her eyes spitting blue fire at him.
“You have to do something about him.” The words sounded as though they were being ground out through clenched teeth, which, on closer inspection, Doyle saw they were. Everything about the rigid line of Cynthia Fordham’s lithe form screamed barely restrained fury. Her fists were clenched so tight at her sides that her fingers had gone white, and her entire body practically quivered like a live wire.
There was only one thing he could think of that would drive her to such a state. What the hell had Poole done now?
Adopting his professional tone and expression, Doyle said, “Why don’t you—”
“I don’t want to sit down, Doyle,” Thea said, anticipating his opening salvo. There wasn’t much room in the small office, packed as it was by a desk, credenza, filing cabinets, and two chairs, but she began to pace in tight, quick steps in the floor space available, right in front of his desk. It was as though she had to expend the tension in her body or explode from it.
“I don’t want to calm down. I don’t want to discuss this rationally. And I don’t want to hear how he’s a professional and I should just let him do his job.” Thea stopped and leaned on the front of the desk with both hands, bringing her eye-to-eye with Doyle. “I just want him gone.”
With great difficulty, Doyle ignored the way her silk blouse gaped as she leaned over, revealing creamy skin that he definitely shouldn’t have been noticing. Harder was not inhaling the intoxicating sweet scent of vanilla and honey that surrounded her like a delicious cloud.
“We’ve had this discussion before.” Eye contact, jackass, eye contact. “Several times, in fact. I’m not going to remove one of my people from a detail just because you don’t get along with him. He’s there as your bodyguard, not as your friend.”
“What he is is a pain in my—”
“Thea.”
Drawing herself upright, for which Doyle was eternally grateful, Thea glared down at him with narrowed eyes. “He’s embarrassed me for the last time, Doyle. He’s supposed to be a nice, invisible shadow. Everyone else is a shadow. Francine is a shadow. Daryl is a shadow. But Simon…”
“Not a shadow?” Doyle was half-amused despite her fury.
“Worse. He’s…he’s an attention-seeking Secret Service wannabe. Or a Men in Black wannabe. We can’t decide which.”
Doyle didn’t need to ask who the “we” was. The Royal Court, as the trio of friends had been dubbed for their combined wealth and family power as much as for the way people always seemed to gravitate toward them and try to ingratiate themselves into their inner circle.
Their security code names had even been derived from the teasing appellation: Lillian Beaumont was the Queen or Queen Bee, the one who led them on most of their outrageous stunts; Amelia Westlake was the Princess, the one born with a silver spoon in her mouth, and a dragon of a mother to guard the castle gates; and Thea was the Lady, the calming influence and voice of reason.
Usually.
Swiping a hand through the air as if to erase what she’d been saying as unimportant, Thea continued her tirade. “Whatever he is, today he went too far, Doyle. He humiliated me, and he cost me the job I wanted. One I would have been really good at, too, if anyone would give me half a chance to prove it.” She drew an unsteady breath. “So I’m not asking anymore, Doyle. I’m telling you. Get Simon off my detail. Today. Right now. This second.”
Doyle frowned. “What do you mean he cost you a job?”
“Mrs. Timberlake.” Her voice wobbled, making his gut tighten at that obvious sign of true distress. “Timberlake Interiors. She was there, at the coffeehouse, and he wouldn’t let her in, and I could tell. I could just tell from the look on her face, she was thinking everything that I told her was a lie. That I really was this spoiled little rich bitch, and there’s no way on earth she’s going to hire me now, and she’ll tell everybody what happened and no one else will, either. And I’m going to end up decorating t
acky little motel rooms in the middle of nowhere for the rest of my life, and it’s all his fault.” She ended in a near wail.
Since Thea wasn’t usually so verbally challenged, it took Doyle a few long seconds to make sense of her convoluted explanation. “He wouldn’t let her in to get coffee?”
“The bathroom, Doyle. He wouldn’t let her into the bathroom.” Thea rolled her eyes in disgust. “Don’t you get it? He stood there like…like…”
“Like a bodyguard?”
“Like a jerk”—Thea shot him a scathing look—“and refused to let her in. To a public restroom, Doyle. What part of public didn’t he get?”
“It stopped being public the minute you went into it.”
“For God’s sake, Doyle! How many times do we have to have the same argument? I don’t care how much money my father has. I’m not going to spend my life surrounded by bodyguards and handlers. I managed on my own just fine while I was away at college, and there’s no reason I can’t manage something as simple as going to the bathroom on my own now that I’m back home!”
There was, of course. A big, fat, dangerous reason, only not the one she thought. Not that Doyle would tell her that any more than he would tell her that she hadn’t been quite as alone during those four years away as she liked to think.
No. Right now his main concern was getting her calmed down before she did something impulsive or stupid. Thea was normally neither, but Doyle had sensed a change in her since she returned home two months ago. There was a sense of dissatisfaction that hadn’t been there before, an edgy restlessness that made him wonder who or what had put it there and what Thea might end up doing because of it. To do his job, he needed her happy and contained.
And if happy weren’t possible, well, then he’d settle for just contained.
“Your father’s takeover of Zephyr Industries made a lot of people very unhappy,” he said, drawing on the cover story Frank Fordham had insisted upon when the need to increase the security surrounding Thea had first arisen. “There were more than a few ugly threats made.”
“By a bunch of overpaid executives who were pissed at losing their cushy jobs and golden parachutes, both of which were why the company was failing and ripe to be bought out by Dad in the first place,” Thea replied with dismissive disgust.
Doyle stifled a grin. She might not want to work for her dad, but she was one hundred percent her father’s daughter. “All the more reason for them to want a little revenge. You saw the letters.”
Thea sighed. “I know.”
“They threatened to hurt him and his family as payback.”
“I know.”
“Your mother only agreed to go ahead with the trip your father had planned for them if you promised to accept as much security as I deemed necessary to keep you safe from any possible danger those threats might present.”
“I. Know.”
Invoking her mother’s concerns had been a little low, but Doyle refused to feel guilty. He needed Thea’s complete cooperation. If he had to push some buttons to get it, he would.
“I would have promised just about anything to keep her from cancelling their trip,” Thea said on a sigh.
Doyle remembered how his boss’s wife had cornered him the morning they’d left for the airport to drag a personal promise from him to keep her daughter safe. She’d been given the cover story as well, which Frank Fordham had deemed the lesser evil when given the truth of the real threat to their only child. Even if he hadn’t been following orders, Doyle would have also promised whatever it took to get Evie Fordham on that plane. The month-long trip had been planned as a way for her to finally de-stress after the health scare she struggled through earlier in the year.
The last thing she needed was to worry about the fact that Thea had acquired a stalker.
He might have had to lie about the reason, but he hadn’t lied about his promise. He had every intention of keeping Thea safe. He just wondered if either he or Frank would survive Evie’s wrath when she found out the truth. Doyle knew exactly from which side of her parentage Thea’s magnificent temper came.
“It won’t be forever.”
“No, it’ll only feel like it.” Thea sighed. “Fine. I’ve accepted that I have to have someone with me whenever I leave home. For now,” she added, reasserting her stand on being a Normal Person.
Doyle nodded. “For now.” He’d save that particular argument for another day.
“So, what about Simon?”
This time it was Doyle who sighed. “Do you honestly think he cost you that job?”
To her credit, Thea didn’t launch into another emotional tirade. Instead, she pushed her hand through her thick chestnut hair and took a moment to consider it. “I don’t know, Doyle. I really think he might have.”
Doyle felt his mouth dry up as the motion of Thea’s arm pushed her breasts snugly against her silk blouse. Her nipples, hardened by the air conditioning, dimpled the soft material as they stood at pert attention. Doyle jerked his attention away from the sight. He cleared his throat. Then cleared it again. “I’ll talk to Simon.”
“You’ve talked to him before.” Thea looked at him with pleading eyes. “Please, Doyle.”
Staring into those blue, blue eyes, Doyle knew he was doomed. He’d never been able to say no to Thea when she looked at him like that. Well, except once. But that time, saying no had been a matter of honor, not to mention self-preservation, and it had still been the hardest damn thing he’d ever had to do.
“I’ll take him off your detail.” It was a reluctant acceptance of the inevitable. Simon and Thea had clashed from their first meeting. Some people enjoyed the whole “look at me, I’m important enough to rate a bodyguard” thing, but Thea wasn’t one of them. Simon just hadn’t seemed to be able to get that through his thick head, no matter how many times Doyle explained it to him. Well, maybe now he would.
Thea gifted him with a dazzling smile. “Thank you, Doyle. You’re the best!”
Watching Thea’s exit was a trial, since her crisp linen slacks gave him a perfect view of her firm rear. Doyle slumped back in his chair. The best? Hell no. He was the worst kind of bastard, checking Thea out that way. It didn’t matter if her breasts were full and looked to be just enough to overflow his hands, or that her ass was tight and round, or her long legs would wrap just nicely around his waist while he…
Doyle snapped a leash on those thoughts and brought them to heel. This was Thea, for chrissake. Thea. He had no business thinking about her assets, full, tight, or otherwise. He worked for her father. The man trusted him to keep her safe. Even from himself. Especially from himself. She was a child, a mere twenty-two to his thirty-four. He was old enough to be her…well, her older brother. And here he was, practically drooling over her delectable young breasts.
God, he was disgusting.
Doyle picked up the phone and asked to have Simon sent to his office. After that, he called and left a message on Margo’s cell phone, asking if she was free for dinner the following night. If he was paying attention to little Thea’s assets, that meant he wasn’t availing himself of Margo’s generous charms as often as he should.
Yes, that was it. He was a healthy man in his sexual prime, and he’d been depriving himself of his needs for too long. It made perfect sense.
But it still didn’t explain why his palms itched when he thought again of little Thea and her perky assets.
Chapter Two
Thea glared at the phone on the corner of her sleek mahogany desk. Ring.
Her lips pressed into a grim line as she turned her chair and ignored the phone, staring instead at the still unfinished sketch of the bedroom her mother’s friend had asked her to redesign. It was slow going. Not because it was a difficult task—the room had great bones, and Mrs. Butler had wonderful taste and an openness to trying things out of the box, which gave Thea a lot of freedom to find the perfect look—but because her mind just wouldn’t stay focused.
Usually, the atmosphere of the home offi
ce she’d created in one of the spare bedrooms was perfect for blocking out all distractions and letting her focus solely on her work. But today was Friday, and that just wasn’t happening.
Come on, ring!
Since neither glaring nor ignoring had produced the desired effect, Thea resorted to something she hadn’t done since she was eight years old and wanted a pony for Christmas, even though her parents had said that they had no room in their two-bedroom house in Durango to keep one. She closed her eyes, crossed her fingers, and wished as hard as she could.
Please let the phone ring. Please, please, please, please…
After a few minutes of silent chanting, Thea groaned and dropped her head onto the desk. It was no use. Wishing wouldn’t get Janice Timberlake to call any more than it had gotten her that stupid pony. It was almost three o’clock. If the call was coming, it would have come by now. Her job at Timberlake Interiors was his-to-ry.
The pity party was intense but short. Thea pushed herself upright and took stock. Sure, she’d lost her best shot with Timberlake thanks to the Bathroom Incident, as Lillian now called it. And, yes, she’d pretty much exhausted all the other interior design firms in the greater Boulder area. That didn’t mean she was quitting now.
There were still dozens of firms out there. Just not as close to home. And while that might help to distance herself from her name and all the pitfalls that went with it, it would also mean removing herself from the one place she most wanted to be.
Near Doyle.
Ridiculous, really, since the man didn’t have a clue. He either treated her as a museum piece to be surrounded in bubble wrap and guarded, or he treated her the same way he had when he first came to work for her father: like a big brother. A very domineering, overprotective big brother.
Ugh!
Thinking of Doyle in the big brother role had been fine when she was thirteen, but she’d grown up in the nine years since then. Too bad Doyle seemed to have missed that little fact. When she looked at him now, she didn’t see the guy who taught her to hold her breath underwater, or who had comforted her while she cried her eyes out after her dog had been hit by a car.
