by Avery Flynn
Now, as her step off the curb faltered, everything crystalized in front of him.
The bright morning sun glared off the Mercedes’s front window. The smell of burning rubber filled the air with the acrid smell of evil intentions. People screamed, hands covering their open mouths and their children’s eyes.
He lunged for her, extending his arm every millimeter it would go until he wrapped it around Sylvie’s narrow waist. They went down in a heap, but he kept his wits about him enough to twist at the last moment so she’d land on top of him instead of against the unforgiving concrete. The street met his back, knocking the breath out of him, leaving his lungs empty and aching.
Tires screeched as the Mercedes peeled off down the street.
Sylvie lay sprawled across him, the back of her head on his shoulder. The sweet curve of her ass brushed a part of him that had no business waking up at the moment. Her honey-brown hair had come loose from her ponytail, a few stragglers tickling his collar bone. The smell of her lavender perfume surrounded him.
His arm kept her tucked close, but she wouldn’t be safe for long if they stayed on the ground and the perp came back to finish the job. Shaking off the sensual impact, he rolled their bodies to a sitting position while still holding on to her…and couldn’t help relishing the feel of her weight against him.
Though he sure as hell didn’t want to let her go, he brought them up to their feet and forced a foot of daylight between their bodies.
As he regained his ability to breathe, she lost hers.
Her breath came in short, shallow gasps punctuated by coughs that shook her shoulders and left her unable to do anything but fight to pull in enough air while staring out through wide green eyes.
“You’re going to be okay.” Tony pushed a confidence he didn’t feel into his words. “Just hold your arms up above your head.”
She complied, but her frantic gaze wouldn’t stop moving all over the ground and the cars lining the busy street. The gasping and coughing continued, making her eyes water.
“Do you have asthma?” he asked, guessing at the cause.
She nodded in a jerky movement.
“Is your inhaler in your bag?”
Another nod.
“Okay, folks,” he hollered at the gawkers crowding around. “The lady is having some trouble breathing and needs her inhaler. Please look around on the ground for her bag. Check under the cars, by the curb.”
People scurried around them, but Tony stayed put. Another set of coughs wracked her petite frame as she frantically watched the flurry of activity.
He grasped her hands in his, maintaining eye contact. “Don’t worry about them, just look at me.”
Panic filled her green eyes, but she turned her focus to him. He folded up the worry eating away at him and stuffed it in a back corner of his mind. He’d learned when he first walked a beat that freaking out wouldn’t do anyone any good. He given up the badge, but he’d never forgotten the lesson.
“It’s going to be okay,” he declared. “I promise.”
One short, firm nod from her.
A commotion sounded behind him.
“Is this it?” A skinny eight-year-old boy in a soccer jersey ran up with a yellow purse.
She pulled out of Tony’s grasp, snatched the bag out of the boy’s hands, pawed through it, and then yanked out a small asthma inhaler that she immediately put to her lips. She closed her eyes, threaded the fingers of her free hand through his, and squeezed.
Tense and needing to help, Tony was powerless to do anything but watch.
He despised every second of helplessness.
At last, her shoulders rose as her lungs took in a deep breath. A tiny smile curled the corners of her raspberry lips, which parted the slightest bit to exhale a sigh. Her long dark eyelashes fluttered before opening to reveal eyes so bright they reminded him of the green in the Italian flag hanging outside his Poppi’s house.
His dad had once warned him that the most dangerous women in the world knew exactly what they wanted and were smart enough to get it.
“What’s wrong with that?” his fifteen-year-old self had asked.
His dad had leaned in so his mother wouldn’t overhear. “Absolutely nothing. I don’t know about you, but I like a little danger.” His dad had laughed then, catching his mother’s attention.
When she’d strolled closer, Dad had wrapped his meaty arms around her and they’d danced in the living room, stepping over his little brothers’ trucks and spinning around his sisters’ dolls.
Tony had never really understood what his dad had meant…until this moment. His pulse kicked up and his senses lasered in on the woman before him. With the upward lift of her jaw and the determined tilt to her head, Sylvie Bissette looked every inch a woman who knew exactly what she wanted.
Under different circumstances, he’d like nothing more than to find out just how dangerous they could be together. But he had his secret mission to consider. No way could he get involved with her. And hell, she had enough risk in her life right now—namely, a stalker who’d apparently made the move from the cyber world to the real one. Whether she liked it or not, she needed a bodyguard to neutralize the threat.
She needed him to keep her safe. Just as much as he needed to find Keith’s killer.
As of this moment this was officially his case, and she was his responsibility—and he didn’t sleep with clients. Especially not ones he’d screwed over before he even knew them. If she found out the truth about his secret investigation, so would her fathers. And then it would be impossible to avenge Keith.
A man broke out of the crowd that was still milling around gawking. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
Sylvie looked over at the other man and part of Tony growled its displeasure.
“I’m okay.” She slid her fingers with their short red nails from his. “Thanks to Tony.”
“Still, miss, you should stay here and wait for the ambulance—you both should. That was a close one.” He pushed his glasses back up his nose. “The nine-one-one operator said the police are on their way, too.”
The words had barely left the man’s mouth when a cruiser pulled to a stop in front of them, followed by an ambulance. The paramedics jumped down from the bus just as Anton and Henry burst through the throng, making a beeline for their daughter’s side.
Stepping back to give the paramedics space to do their thing, Tony scanned the crowd. Growing up in a family of cops and spending ten years on the job himself had taught him that just because the guy in the Mercedes was long gone, it didn’t mean Sylvie was in the clear. Someone had it in for her enough to attempt a hit-and-run in broad daylight, which told him three things.
One, the perp had lost patience.
Two, he—or she—may not have been the driver, but instead could be one of the rubberneckers crowding around them.
And three, the stalker knew Sylvie’s whereabouts well enough to anticipate she’d be at Coffee Grounds this morning.
Any one of those possibilities meant she needed 24/7 protection.
His phone was in his hand in the next heartbeat. “Cam, change of plans.”
“Fashion diva dissed you, eh? Can’t say I blame her. You should have sent me. I’d have charmed the pants off her. Literally.”
“Cut the shit.”
The subject of their conversation was showing her inhaler to the female paramedic while also soothing her parents with soft words he couldn’t hear over the crowd’s noise. Tony would have figured Anton for the one to go to pieces. But it was Henry whose skin had turned ashen.
“Our guy escalated big time,” Tony told Cam. “He tried to mow her down on a crowded street.”
The paramedic stuffed her equipment back in her black duffel and started to search the crowd. For Tony, no doubt. His ulcer woke up and pinched him hello. He’d need a limb hanging by a tendon before he’d cheerfully chat with another medical professional. Ever. Emergency surgery followed by months of agony-inducing physical thera
py tended to do that to a man.
“Well, shit. She okay?” The easygoing vibe faded fast on Cam’s end of the line.
Sylvie’s gaze found him in the crowd and he could only think one thing: dangerous. “She’s good. So how’s the Thompson case going?”
“Ryder’s got it handled. It’s the MacKenzie cluster that has me reaching for the Tums. That woman is hot enough to melt the sun, and mean enough to peel paint from the walls.”
Tony’s ulcer started doing the conga.
Maltese Security had finally started making a name for itself in the insular world of fashion. It was a niche market, but in a community where everyone knew everyone else, one good—or bad—word whispered in a friend’s ear could make or break his company, which already was hanging on by a thread. If either MacKenzie’s or Sylvie’s cases went south, he’d be filling out applications to be a mall cop.
“Please tell me you haven’t done anything stupid, Cam.”
“Nah, you’ve got nothing to worry about with me.”
That would be the day. “Good, because I’m going to be tied up on this case for the foreseeable future. I don’t know how to work it quite yet, but she’s going to need full-time surveillance. Get someone out here with a kit. I have a go-bag in my car so no worries about clothes.”
“So you’ll be taking one for the team, eh? You poor, poor boy. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
Tony’s ears heated up. “That’s not what this is.”
“Whatever you say, boss.” Cam hung up before Tony had a chance to respond. He was still staring at his phone when the paramedic found him.
“So I hear you’re the big hero. Let’s take a look and make sure you’re okay.”
Tony crossed his arms over his chest and tried to stare down the paramedic. “I’m good.”
“Come on, guy, I’m just doing my job here.” Judy, according to her name tag, dropped her duffel on the street and slammed her hands on her hips. “Stop being a baby and let me get a look at your back.”
His instincts screamed run. His head knew better. Judy looked like she’d wrestled alligators before breakfast and wasn’t into dealing with any more shit. He could identify.
Feeling like a twelve-year-old facing the principal, Tony shrugged out of his dad’s old motorcycle patrol jacket and lifted up the back of his shirt.
Judy tsked. “Now, that’s going to be one beauty of a bruise in the morning.” Her latex-covered hands made quick work of checking that his spine and ribs were all in the right places. “Lots of ice to take out the swelling, and no more kissing the concrete for a while.”
He knew better than to make promises. A whiff of Sylvie’s lavender perfume announced her arrival a second before she sashayed over.
“Don’t worry about that. I’ll make sure to find him something more appropriate to kiss.” Sylvie flashed him a saucy smile that sent a message his cock immediately understood, even if his mind was mystified. “Come on, sweetie, let’s get you back home for a little TLC.”
Shell-shocked didn’t begin to describe the white wall of confusion that decimated his brain at her endearment. He didn’t think he’d whacked his skull on the street, but he was beginning to have doubts. Lots of them.
“I already talked to the police,” she said. “They think this was just a case of a distracted driver and it doesn’t have anything to do with those e-mails I’ve been getting.” Her tone stayed light, but there was venom in her glare as she visually sliced and diced the uniforms. “They promised to look into it, though, so I’m sure little old me doesn’t have a thing to worry about.”
Linking her arm through his, she led him down the street like a stupid puppy, which was pretty much how he felt at the moment.
“Wha—”
“Just play along,” she whispered under his breath. “If we’re going to do this, we’re doing it my way. Meaning no one knows that I have a sicko stalker or that you’re a bodyguard. I’m not idiot enough to fool myself into thinking this guy hasn’t lost it, but that doesn’t mean I feel like living at the corner of gossip and schadenfreude for the foreseeable future. You’re working for me now. That means I’m calling the shots. As far as the world is concerned, until we catch that asshole, you’re my boyfriend.”
Chapter Four
“I’ve always thought of the T-shirt as the alpha and omega of the fashion alphabet.”
—Giorgio Armani
Her boyfriend.
What in God’s name had she been thinking? Sylvie had been too pissed to think about much. Now that the anger had worn off, anxiety was all she had left in her emotional tank.
Clad in her blogging uniform of leggings and a roomy dolman top made from the softest pink jersey, she finished her follow-up blog post to yesterday’s Pippa Worthington scoop. There was more to do on it, but she couldn’t stop pacing around her apartment and second-guessing her decision. Typing and marching around her bookshelf-lined living room did not go together.
Neither did she and Tony. If she told herself that often enough, maybe her boobs would take the hint and stop perking up every time she thought of him.
Girls, you’re just going to have to simmer down, because Tony is a means to an end. That is all.
The end being catching her stalker. She’d worked too hard and for too long to build the High-Heeled Wonder’s audience to let some twerp with a lead foot intimidate her into killing the site.
Killing.
Her hands shook at the turn of her thoughts. The driver this morning wasn’t a fluke accident, no matter what the police said. If they weren’t going to get to the bottom of it, she sure as hell would. To do that, she needed Tony’s detective skills. Her worrywart fathers were nothing if not cautious. If they’d decided his credentials were up to snuff, she had no reason doubt it.
After he’d walked her home, Tony had completed a sweep of her apartment while she tried to block him from seeing her collection of bras drying on the shower rod. He’d stared at her massive collection of sheer lace in every color from blush pink to pure ebony, blinked those dark brown eyes a few dozen times, then abruptly left the apartment, promising to be back in fifteen minutes.
That was twelve minutes ago.
Not that she was counting.
Sylvie’s laptop pinged and the screen came to life. She jumped at the sound, pressing a hand to her heart. Her pulse thundered in her ears and she wished like hell that she blogged about baseball instead of fashion. At least then she’d have a Louisville Slugger in her apartment instead of a photo shrine to Grace Kelly holding her namesake Hermes bag.
Cement filled Sylvie’s stomach, hardening it with heavy dread at the idea of getting a new e-mail from her sicko stalker. She eyed the seventeen-inch laptop with suspicion. A small, white block appeared in the middle of the screen.
Makeup Mama Calling.
Laughing with relief, she rushed to her desk, clicked the video chat icon, and sank into her teal chair to have a long-distance video chat with her bestie. “Hey, Drea. How’s L.A.?”
Drea rolled her heavily-made-up eyes. “I think every person here is blond and wants to look like hooker Barbie. Do you have any idea how boring it is to have to work with the same color palate all day?”
“So ditch La-La Land and come back to Harbor City. I miss you.”
“Wish I could, doll baby, but if I want to eat, I have to work, and this is where the job sent me. Look, I know it’s been a rough week for you, but…I have more bad news.” She puffed up her natural afro, a sure sign of nerves.
Sylvie sank back into her chair and rubbed her temples. “That sounds ominous.”
“You remember Emilio, Bloom’s old assistant?”
“Sure. How he ever lasted six months with that mean-spirited egomaniac is beyond me.”
“Emilio is made of stern stuff. Well, the kid just moved out here from Harbor City and I ran into him at a party last night. He said Anders knows you’re the High-Heeled Wonder, and the man is beyond pissed about your takedown of his
latest collection.”
Hell. This was not good on so many levels.
Anders’s homage to the Muppets had been awful. Matching felt vests and miniskirts. Miss Piggy ears on the runway. Rainbow-patterned parachute pants. However, because Anders was the fashion world’s latest l’enfant terrible, hardly anyone uttered a peep of criticism. The temperamental designer did not take kindly to the High-Heeled Wonder’s declaration that the collection should be worn only in case of a Fraggle Rock apocalypse.
“I don’t know if that has anything to do with the crazy sending you e-mails,” Drea said. “But I wouldn’t put it past Anders.”
The intercom buzzed. Sylvie glanced over to the screen by her front door and spotted Tony on the grainy surveillance video of the building’s security door. Her insides did a shimmy.
“You have company? Oh, I hope it’s someone hot and horny.”
Her apartment heated up about ten degrees. Maybe twenty. “Shut up, Drea.”
“Oh come on, you need to stop cleaning your already spic-and-span apartment and get laid.” Her best friend wiggled her perfectly arched eyebrows. “Sex is the best cure for what ails you.”
“And what is that?”
“A broken heart, babe. Get back on the horse—or, in your case, get back on a man.” She snickered.
“Very funny.” The buzz blared again and Sylvie used the virtual keypad app on her laptop to enter the code for the security door. “Look, I gotta go. Thanks for the heads up with Anders. We’ll talk soon.”
“Later, doll.”
With a click of a few buttons Drea disappeared, and Sylvie stared at her screensaver of the High-Heeled Wonder logo—a superwoman-type wearing thigh-high black leather stiletto boots and a cape.
God. She needed lipstick. Putting on her lips, as Nanna Anna always said, made a girl feel more in control and put together.
The doorbell rang as she clicked closed the cap of her favorite cherry-blossom pink lip stain.
She swung open the door. Tony filled up a good chunk of the doorway. He carried a duffel bag loosely in one hand and a large black case in the other.
“Hey, honey.” He winked.
