by Stacy Gail
And disappeared.
Essie sank like a deflated balloon back into her seat, not realizing that she’d come to perch on the edge of it. Well. That had certainly been anticlimactic. In the week that Steel had been back from New York, they had spent every night together, as well as whatever time during the day they could spare. When they weren’t together, Steele had a lovely habit of texting her, and his texts were just like his bedroom talk—dirty. He’d encouraged her to text in kind, so at this point she was now perfectly comfortable talking with him about her panties—or lack of them. She wasn’t quite up to his level of dirty talk, but being more than a little racy in her communication with him was now second nature.
In just a few short weeks of being schooled by her Professor, she’d come a long, long way.
That was why she felt so let down when he hadn’t done anything more than glance at her like she was no more to him that Olivier or Dizzy Izz. She’d gotten used to sizzling fireworks, hot smiles and hotter looks whenever they were in sight of each other, but this had been the firework equivalent of a dud.
Then she shrugged. It was idiotic to expect that he’d slobber all over her. They were at his place of work. No doubt he had to present a professional air. For all she knew, his involvement with her was against company regulations, so maybe he had to keep their relationship under the radar. Copping a feel and enjoying a deep, wet kiss right there in the waiting area was definitely not keeping things under the radar, and it sure as hell wasn’t professional. She was silly for thinking he’d react any other way.
But still, a wink would have been nice.
“All right, our security team is ready to begin now that we’re all here.” The curly-headed woman approached them with a smile. “If you’ll follow—”
“Dizzy Izz doesn’t understand why this is necessary.” Jumping to her feet as though she’d sat on a tack, Dizzy appeared as though she might want to challenge the receptionist to hand-to-hand combat. “All these constant demands in the schedule interrupt the creative flow. Being called down here…this is not what Dizzy Izz signed up for.”
“Sorry, can’t help you.” Clearly not at all inclined to make herself the impromptu Complaints Department, the woman smiled brightly before turning on her heel to aim herself down the hall. “Follow me, please.”
Essie was only too happy to comply, eager to at last see what Steele was like in his natural habitat, and also to drink in whatever features that habitat possessed. She fell in line behind the woman, trying to take everything in at once while simultaneously doing her best to ignore the buzz of resentful muttering going on behind her.
“Do you have any idea why it was so important for these… these mall cops to call a meeting to hassle Dizzy Izz, as well as you and the other one?”
Great, Essie thought, her mood taking a dark swing. Security professionals worthy of covering the UN were now mall cops, and she was the other one. How traumatic it must have been for Dizzy Izz in that moment to realize she wasn’t the center of the universe, and she actually had to do things she didn’t want to do from time to time.
Geez.
For once, Essie was pleased to hear the contemptuous phlegm-clearing noise Olivier used with the frequency of a comma. “Are you speaking to me? Because I don’t think you should be speaking to me. Or has Dizzy Idiot forgotten that Payne had prohibited us from speaking to each other? Apparently he thinks we’re all horrible little children who can’t be trusted to not pull each other’s hair out.”
“Not that you have much hair left to pull out, Olivier. You should know that your Friar Tuck bald spot’s nearly blinding in the right light.”
Ouch. Score one petty point for Dizzy Izz.
“And don’t call Dizzy Izz an idiot. You’re the one who’s complacently going like a lamb to the slaughter. What do these people want? Are they going to question us yet again? Are they trying to destroy us?”
“You know, I didn’t think you could get any more insane—or annoying, for that matter. But once some paranoia’s injected into the mix, you really get the crazy train rolling, don’t you?”
“Do you not understand the power these mall cops have over this contest? Any perceived smear from their unrefined head of security—a man who knows nothing about how things are the fashion world—and that’ll be it. Game over. Reputations ruined and futures decimated, just because some Frankenstein of a mall cop dares to sit in judgment of Dizzy Izz on the creative process, a process he knows—”
Essie wheeled around so fast that Dizzy Izz walked right into her.
“Bitch, you really want to shut the fuck up. Like, now.”
Both Dizzy Izz and Olivier reared back, unvarnished surprise on their faces. Only then did Essie realize that just like the diligent rule-follower that she was, she’d never spoken to her fellow contestants before. But sometimes rules had to be broken.
Quickly Dizzy recovered. “You can’t talk to Dizzy—”
“The moment you opened that stupid yap of yours and denigrated someone for having scars, you gave me that right. PSI’s made up of combat military personnel. You know, military? That’s not just an abstract word, though I’m sure it seems that way to you. It means people who put their lives on the line every day so that ignorant people like you can continue to live without a care in their self-absorbed world. And yeah, they sure as hell get scarred up doing it, and they get maimed, and they die—something you obviously don’t appreciate, because you’re standing here disrespecting them and calling them fucking mall cops. Your behavior is so disgusting I’m embarrassed to even be seen with you.” She turned back to the curly-haired woman, who’d come to a halt to watch the scene without discernible emotion. “I’m truly sorry. I’d like for you to know that this woman doesn’t represent who I am. I just currently happen to be sharing the hallway with her.”
“That’s right.” To her surprise, Olivier came to stand next to her, for once looking less than haughty and, miracle of miracles, borderline human. “That woman isn’t with us.”
Us?
As Dizzy Izz let out an appalled squeak at being abandoned, Essie shot him a glance to see if he really was Olivier and not an alien stand-in. Nope. It was definitely Olivier.
He caught her glance and lifted a brow. “What? My father’s an Air Force lifer, first an F-16 fighter pilot and now a top-rated trainer down in Pensacola, set to retire later this year. He’s an unfeeling, unbending bastard who never tires of telling me that he can’t stand that I’m his son. But no one knows better than me what the military and their families go through.”
That had Essie doing some serious eyebrow-lifting of her own. “So, you are human. I wondered.”
The vicious disdain returned on a toxic level. “Don’t think for a moment this means I’m weak.”
“I’d never be stupid enough to think that.” She couldn’t help grin at him, and she refused to take it personally when he made his usual scoff of contempt while Dizzy mumbled a half-assed apology in the background.
Everyone had their scars, some more visible than others. If being a coldly haughty prick was how Olivier needed to be in order to survive whatever wounds life had dealt him, then that was just the way it was.
Their escort delicately cleared her throat. “Well, now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, if you’ll follow me.”
The hall led to a four-way junction, and as they were turned to the right into another hallway, this one lined with doors, Essie’s mind boggled at the size of PSI’s operation. She itched to open up every door they passed to take a peek inside, and her curiosity spiked through the roof when the woman stopped at one of the blank, white-washed doors, knocked twice and pushed through in a way that made Essie suspect the door could have survived a tank attack.
“Are you ready in here?” The woman stuck her head through the door, and Essie’s ears picked up the faint, comforting vibration of Steele’s voice, a sound she’d recognize anywhere. Then the woman turned to them and leaned back against the door
to hold it open for them. “Go on in.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Steele tried like hell not to let his attention linger on Essie as she and the other finalists filed in. The men he’d chosen for his team would pick up on that shit in a half a heartbeat.
But damn, it was tough.
Mary Jane Fogelmann-Case gave him and the others the all-clear nod before closing the soundproof security door behind her, signaling his moment to get his act together. He did so with difficulty, and he made himself focus on the finalists as a whole to keep up professional appearances.
Dizzy Izz was a twitchier train wreck than usual. Honest to God, she had every appearance of a woman being tormented by ghosts that only she could see. Olivier had his superior sneer working overtime, ratcheting up his better-than-everyone attitude so fiercely Steele half-feared one of his colleagues would lunge across the table and break the pompous little prick’s neck simply on principle.
And Essie…
His gaze drifted to her.
And lingered.
Essie.
It was obvious Essie had at last emerged from her cocoon as the embodiment of vibrant, womanly perfection.
Butterflies paled in comparison to her.
Today she looked the picture of innocence, dressed in a primly pleated dark blue polka dot skirt and a sleeveless white blouse, with all the pearly buttons done up to the neck. A lacy collar was the only embellishment, but it added to that overall aura of delicate femininity
Oh, yeah. Definitely the picture of innocence.
But he knew better.
He had the evidence on his phone.
“Thank you for agreeing to meet with me today.” He stood by the chair at the head of the table and gestured for the finalists to take seats on one side of it, as the other side was already occupied by Rudy, Havlik, Echo and Trace, who had also come to their feet. This was the small conference room within PSI, but still impressive in its overall size. It was used for private staff meetings, and on occasion it was the place where he and the rest of his colleagues coordinated their security teams. Usually visitors were shown into the much larger main conference room, complete with sunlit windows and leafy office plants, roomy leather swivel seats, CCTV, and a long, swank table.
That conference room was sophisticated and civilized. This smaller room was about getting down to business.
Of course, the small conference room was still nice—everything at PSI was. Eggshell-white walls, a flatscreen TV mounted in the far corner, nice lighting, an office cart that held all the crap needed for coffee, and a long table ringed with office chairs that matched the rust color of the carpet. But there were no windows here, or nice leafy plants. Best of all, it was soundproof, and had no annoying CCTV cameras.
Perfect.
“Before we get going, I’d like to ask you to mute your phones. It’s fine if you leave them on,” he added when Dizzy Izz opened her mouth to protest. After being exposed to her personality for months, he didn’t have to be a mind reader to know she’d protest if he’d told her the sky was blue. “But all phones are to be muted now.”
He sat at the head of the table, a signal for everyone to find a seat, and his eyes were watchful as Essie and her fellows muted their various phones as they went. He couldn’t help but note that while Dizzy Izz took the seat farthest away from where he sat, Essie made a beeline for the chair directly to his right. It surprised him to see that Olivier chose to sit next to Essie, conspicuously leaving three open seats between him and Dizzy Izz.
Clearly, Olivier wanted to sit next to Essie.
He didn’t like that.
“We’re now one week out from the fashion show that’s going to be streamed live from House Of Payne’s gallery.” Steele handed three folders to Essie, who glanced at them, found her name on one and handed down the other two. “There’s going to be a dress rehearsal twenty-four hours beforehand that isn’t going to be publicized, and we want to keep it as secret as possible. Considering how much hype Sebastian Payne’s poured into this project, keeping that rehearsal a secret is going to be a challenge.” More like a fucking pain in his ass, but that was why Payne had hired them in the first place. One way or another, PSI would always find a way to get the job done. “That’s why I needed to call you three in, so that we can coordinate how this gets done under everyone’s radar.”
“That’s why you called us here?” Dizzy Izz’s voice was higher pitched than normal. “To talk security?”
“We’re a security firm. What else would we talk about?”
Dizzy Izz stared at him as if she thought he was somehow pulling a fast one on her. To his left, Havlik shifted in his seat, and he glanced at his colleague to find that PSI’s close-quarters combat expert was staring at Dizzy with narrowed eyes. “Inside your folders, you’ll find a schedule of events that you need to adhere to for this project to be pulled off with no muss or fuss.” Keeping his gaze level around the table, he pulled his phone out, laid it on his thigh and typed in the passcode. “On Friday, the day of the dress rehearsal, you’re to arrive an hour early and come in through the employees’ entrance in the back of the building.” Glancing down, he opened up the text app, reread the message already there, and hit the Send button. “You’re instructed to have the clothes that you’ve made for the contest with you at that time. You’ll bring what you’ve made into the building completely covered. No one gets a peek at your clothing lines until the show.”
Seated beside him, Essie looked down at her lap before quietly fishing out her phone to glance at the screen. When the color in her face went nuclear and her lips rolled between her teeth to stifle what he suspected was a moan, he almost lost his train of thought as the message he’d sent her blared through his mind.
“Once this meeting’s over, we’re fucking like animals.”
“The gentlemen to my left are my colleagues here at Private Security International.” He nodded to his left, bringing Dizzy Izz and Olivier’s attention to his team. Essie, however, kept her gaze trained on her phone as she thumb-typed. Then she looked up with a distracted smile for the men seated across from her. “To my left, we have Rudy Panuzzi, Dorian Havlik, Ethan Echols and Trace Van Zandt. I handpicked them to be our security team at the House for both the rehearsal and the show, so memorize their faces. If anything goes wrong, they’re your go-to guys if I’m not available.” His phone vibrated to let him know a message awaited his attention, but he refused to look, stretching out the anticipation. “They’ll be posted at the entrances, the foot of the stairs and behind the scenes where your clothing lines will be stored. I’ll be what’s called a floater, which basically means I’ll be free to put out any fires anywhere onsite, should they arise.” At last he glanced down at his phone.
Careful. You’re making me wet.
His jaw locked. His skin grew so taut it felt like it was too tight for his body. Below the table, his cock began to throb.
He’d never felt better in his life.
“Are you anticipating trouble?” Essie laced her hands on the edge of the table, the thick curtain of her hair cascading over a shoulder as she turned to fully face him. God, he loved her hair. Just looking at it, he could feel those long coils of ebony silk cascading through his fingers as he pulled her mouth to him… “I mean, it’s just a little fashion show. We don’t even have any real models. Sure, it’s an important event to us, but beyond that, who really cares?”
Olivier scoffed in a way that made Steele immediately want to put his fist through the guy’s face. “With an attitude like that, I obviously don’t have to worry about you being any competition.”
“Keep telling yourself that, dude,” Essie returned sweetly even as Steele sucked in a breath to see if it was possible to verbally strip the skin off that smirking piece of shit. “Whatever you’ve gotta do to help you sleep at night, it’s all the same to me.”
To Steele’s surprise, Olivier’s haughty expression almost slid into a smile before he caught himself and looked aw
ay on noisy sigh. “I liked you better when you were mute.”
“Now now, honey, no need to lie. We both know you don’t like anyone.”
Steele scowled. Honey? Did she actually just say that? And was Olivier bantering with her? Olivier didn’t fucking banter. Olivier pissed in people’s Cheerios. He sure as hell didn’t banter.
It took him a couple of seconds to realize everyone was waiting for him to speak. “Let’s stay on point,” he said with strained calm, when what he really wanted to do was demand that Essie keep her attention trained on him where it belonged. “To answer the question, Payne had four hundred invitation-style tickets printed up—half were given to VIPs such as stars in the music industry, Hollywood A-listers and athletes from the football, basketball, baseball, hockey and MMA venues. That alone brings a huge security issue to the table. Every entrance is going to be clogged with paparazzi and star-watchers to see who’s going to show up on the red carpet. On top of that, we also anticipate a few idiots trying to crash the party.”
“It’s not a party ‘til someone’s trying to crash it,” Rudy Panuzzi murmured with a sharp grin. “We’ll be there to make sure they don’t succeed.”
Steele nodded. “The other half of the tickets for the fashion show went on sale online, and they sold out in less than five minutes. All this information tells me that this so-called little fashion show of yours is going to be huge. We have to be prepared for any and every problem that comes along.”
“Holy crud,” Essie said faintly, looking stunned. “That’s so much more than what I was expecting. I’m now actually thinking this security thingy you’ve got going on isn’t big enough. Can we call in the National Guard?”
Rudy, Havlik and Trace chuckled, and even Echo snorted, something Steele hadn’t thought was possible, as it was a calendar-marking event when somber Echo cracked a smile. It was because Essie was being so damn cute. Coupled with her glossy, thick coils of ebony hair, gorgeous amber eyes and knockout figure that made his mouth go dry, nobody could resist her when she decided to be cute.
