She wondered if he knew how much he revealed about their relationship in those few sentences. Did he still not see that he’d based a marriage proposal on the fact that Annamae checked off the boxes on his list of things a wife ought to be?
“I still think love can be more than just finding someone who understands you.” Not that she’d felt such a thing for herself. But she’d seen other people’s love and believed something deeper awaited the people who took their time in the search.
“Maybe.” His concession sounded gruff. Reluctant. “But mature love can grow over time. And I’m betting that it helps when you start with common interests and understanding. Similar points of view on life.”
“I can’t argue with that.” Something inside her softened toward Boone Sullivan. He might be an arrogant man in some ways, but obviously his fiancée had mattered to him. He’d really thought out their future.
And Valerie felt a sudden pang of envy for Annamae Jessup.
Pulling the truck over, Valerie realized they’d reached Forsyth Park.
“Do you want to get out? Walk around?” He peered down one of the nearby walking paths. “It’s dark enough out I don’t think anyone’s going to notice us.”
She’d been in hiding for so long the idea held unusual appeal. She never ventured far from her apartment building. As for walking around in the dark – it had always seemed too dangerous for a woman alone. But street thugs would think twice before tangling with a guy built like Boone. Besides, the park was a Savannah landmark.
“Let’s walk.” Maybe it would clear her head and help her decide what to do next. She really needed to tell him how much she’d just put him at risk by appearing in public with him.
“Okay. Maybe we should see if those photos have surfaced anywhere yet, just so we know what we’re up against before we walk around where someone might see us.” He switched his phone on.
Panic zipped through her. What if news reports were already saying that Serge Dimitri’s runaway granddaughter had been discovered in Savannah? Her criminal grandfather was behind bars, but he still managed to make headlines frequently with speculation that he still ran the family from a federal prison cell.
Duh.
“Boone, we really need to talk about—.”
“Here it is.” He held up his phone and twisted it to show her an unflattering photo of her with her mouth hanging open in front of her apartment door.
The caption read “The face of Sex Talk with Serena revealed with secret boyfriend – Atlanta Stars’ third baseman, Boone Sullivan!”
“So the photographers were from this—” She touched his phone screen to show more text below the photo and find a photo credit. “Atlanta Scene e-zine?”
“Doubtful.” He pocketed his phone and levered open the driver’s side door before coming around to open hers. “Freelancers like that usually sell their images to as many outlets as they can find. The tabloid guys are big time sharks, and they know who will pay the most and fastest.” He frowned. “I didn’t show you the headlines that suggested I needed sex therapy and sought out the best.”
“I’m sorry.” She really was. “It must be hard to live in the limelight like that. But Boone?”
He locked his truck and put a hand on the small of her back to guide her toward a brick path on the left.
It was a small touch. A social touch.
But it set off a tide of tingling sensations along her nerve endings, triggering awareness of the most feminine and fluttery kind.
“Yes?” His gaze darted around the park and the path, as if searching out dangers. Or photographers.
Either way, it was nice that he wanted to protect her. All the more reason she needed to tell him he was up against so much more than smarmy tabloid journalists.
“I’ve used the name Serena Allen for a year to hide my identity.” She walked close to his side, keeping her voice low. “My family is dangerous. Criminally dangerous, that is. And I’ve been in hiding from them. Now that the photos are out—”
“Hold up. Wait.” He shook his head like he couldn’t keep up. “What’s your real name? Can we start there?”
His impatience was back.
“Valerie.” That disclosure wasn’t so bad. The next part, however… “Dimitri.”
He stopped walking for a second. Even in the moonlight she could see his eyes narrow.
“The crime boss’s granddaughter who ditched her groom at the altar?”
Apparently her story had made its way to Georgia.
She nodded. “My fiancé was… only marrying me to solidify ties to the family. I didn’t realize until I saw a ring on our wedding day—” Shaking her head, she waved away the explanation. “Doesn’t matter. Anyway, he was a bad man and I was blind. Part of the reason I created an advice line was to help people understand themselves so that people wouldn’t make mistakes like me.”
“And now your go-to advice is to break up weddings.” The bitterness in his tone was another hit on a day full of them.
But she couldn’t worry about what Boone thought about her. Not now.
“Look. I’m telling you this because I’m worried about you. When the family comes looking for me, and they will, I don’t want them to come after you, too. Maybe we should plant a story in the papers about how we don’t even know each other—”
“No. Absolutely not.”
“Why not? Boone, these are dangerous, dangerous men.”
“And I move in a world where I’m watched almost constantly. I slipped away today with a lot of effort, but if we want to move in that circle of the team, we’ll never be out of the public eye or without team security.”
“We?” She felt marginally better to think his world would give him protection.
“You and me. Come to Atlanta with me tonight, Valerie. I’ll keep you safe.”
Chapter Four
‡
“Go with you to Atlanta? Have you been hit in the head with a baseball one too many times? There is no way I’m going to run off to another city with a complete stranger.” Valerie crossed her arms defensively and cocked her head to the side, her eyes dancing with jade fire.
“What do you plan to do then? Stand out here in Savannah with a target on your back for things a helluva lot more harmful than a baseball to the head?” He stepped closer, talking firmly but soft. They’d already been spotted once tonight. If he could make them look like a normal couple out for a stroll, that might be safer.
A couple? The thought put him on edge, all the more since this was a woman who cost him his stable future. And yet there was something undeniably sexy about her. Even if she was an uptight academic with a dangerous past.
He looked her up and down, noticed the way her crossed arms pushed the outlines of her breasts against her shirt.
“That’s harsh.” She snapped at him.
He shrugged, needing her to calm down. To see that he was trying to help her. “That’s reality. You said your family has dangerous connections. You also have some local stalker calling and watching you who’s likely tied into your company, but could also be from your father’s family.”
“I’m an intelligent woman. I understand I’m in a mess.” She looked at him sidelong, but some of the anger had slid out of her voice now. Dropping her arms to her sides, she was beginning to consider him. He could feel it in the way she held his gaze. There was a pulse of electric current between them, a feeling he hadn’t had in a long time.
A feeling that was damn foolish.
“So come with me to Atlanta. It’s not the moon.” His fingers rested just millimeters from hers as the scent of jasmine from the park wafted towards them on the night breeze, carrying the sounds of car engines and the low bass from a night club in the distance. A symphony of nightlife. If they had met under different circumstances…
“There has to be a different way. This is all happening too fast. I need to think.” But she didn’t pull her hand away. The warmth of her fingertips brushed against his.
But he refused to lose sight of his goal, no matter that the jasmine was filling his head and making him think thoughts he had no business thinking. He needed her to make right – publicly – what she’d done on her radio show wrecking his engagement.
Part of being a successful athlete involved making split decisions and he made one now. “I’ll hire you a bodyguard to watch over you while you stay here and sort through your life – a life, by the way, that is now tied to mine, thanks to your blabby neighbor calling in the news media and blasting those photos.”
“A bodyguard? Like I hole up in a hotel as if I’m a criminal?” Her brow furrowed and the anger from earlier rose into the corners of her lips. Grounding him. Reminding him that there was a fundamental problem with any sort of real relationship between them.
She was prickly and he was still nursing his wounds from Annamae. Wounds Serena—Valerie—had inflicted. But still, he couldn’t leave her in this place with people coming after her. What if the private detective he’d hired had inadvertently tipped off her family? Stirred up something that led to her being found?
He could be responsible for this.
“Actually, no. If you want to go somewhere, go. My guy will keep you safe.” He had hired extra security before so he had someone in mind. He would keep her safe.
“That simple?” Her eyebrows rose and she bit on a very plump lip.
“That simple.” Sort of. He fully intended to be working his own angle the whole time. “I just ask that we check in with phone calls while I’m in Atlanta. Let’s take it a day at time. Who knows, maybe your life will calm down.” Unlikely with Dimitri family connections. From what he recalled, she had a grandfather in prison and an uncle on trial for an assortment of crimes down in Miami.
“Why are you doing this?” She focused on him, searching his face for answers. “You have every reason to throw me to the wolves, yet you’re offering help. Why?”
“If there’s any chance that my PI caused someone dangerous to find you…” He would call that agency tomorrow and get some answers about how they traced her. “…I’m not okay with that. And I will keep you safe just in case. Once you’ve got your arrangements made here, you can come to Atlanta and go to the black tie gala with me.” That was his angle. The resolution for the mess she’d made of his life. “Once you’re around the team, it will be easy to hide in plain sight. The Stars’ fans provide a unique brand of security at all times.”
Not that he would discontinue the bodyguard. But she would be safest with him.
“I’m going to discuss your offer with my father,” she said finally, tipping her face up to toward the droplets of water that floated on the breeze from the fountain spray. “I want to see what he thinks. But until then… thank you. I accept your offer to bring in your bodyguard temporarily.”
Pleasantly surprised that she’d agreed, he waited for the catch. “And you’ll keep in touch with me? Daily?”
“Of course. That’s our deal.” She thrust out her hand and shook.
Damn. Her hands were soft and smelled lightly of some kind of flowery lotion. He wondered if the rest of her felt this good. Memories of her taking a call for her Sex Talk hotline returned, reminding him of a hidden earthy side that balanced the prickly academic. His body hardened in response, an attraction that overshadowed everything else between them.
Double damn. These next few nights were going to be some painful conversations.
*
Two hours later, Valerie paced the floor in the five-star hotel suite Boone had secured for her in downtown Savannah.
She hadn’t gone back for her go-kit in the apartment, so she had no money and no purse to pay for the room even if she wanted to. Which she did not. Who shelled out that much money for a hotel room when she could have gotten a place for a third the cost? But he’d been insistent. Persuasive. And she did understand that baseball players made crazy amounts of money. Especially the ones at the top of their game the way she knew Boone was after she’d read more about him in an article online.
At least she’d had her phone in her hand when she walked out of her apartment tonight. And Boone had her laundry basket, so she had a few of her own clothes. Thank God she hadn’t been babysitting for Desiree’s child or she would have been in a real bind. But she’d phoned Meg and come clean about her real identity since it would be all over the papers in a few hours at most. Meg certainly appreciated the implications of her revelation. As a prison guard, Meg knew plenty about the criminal world and she’d promised to keep an eye on Valerie’s place.
Not that Valerie had asked. She didn’t want anyone risking their neck to help her. Still, it had seemed sweet of Meg to want to help, and her friend had promised to let Desiree know what was going on. Between the two of them, they would make sure the meeting with radio executives’ attorney still happened. Her business was safe.
She just had to worry about her.
Dialing another number into the burner phone she’d bought at a gas station, Valerie listened to the ring. And ring.
“Hello?”
Her father’s voice answered. Cagey. Careful.
“Can you talk?” she asked. Equally cagey and careful.
They had a long history of saying a lot with few words.
“Oh baby, I’ve been scared. I saw you on the news, but the press hasn’t named you yet.”
“It’s okay. I got help. A friend brought me to a hotel room—”
“What kind of friend? That ball player? How the hell do you know that guy, Val?” He fired questions without waiting for answers, nervous and talking fast. “He’s an All-Star multiple times over. Guys like that have their mugs in the paper all the time—although that could be a good thing now that I think about it.”
“Daddy, it’s okay. I’m safe for now and alone. I don’t have much for resources, but this ball player feels guilty for outing me, I guess.” Actually, she wasn’t clear on why Boone Sullivan was going to such lengths to protect her. No one got involved with the Dimitri family willingly unless they were crooks themselves. Was he that dead set on having her tell the media she was to blame for his girlfriend jilting him?
The man took a hell of a risk for the sake of his pride.
“Sticking by him might not be such a bad idea,” her father mused, slowing his words in a way that meant he was thinking.
She could almost see him stroking his jaw and the beard he sometimes wore to remain less recognizable as the son of a famous gangster.
“Really? I got a prank call from someone who used a voice disguiser right before the photographers snapped the photo of me with Boone. I don’t know if that means someone is already close to me, or if that was an isolated incident, but whoever it was had obviously been watching me.”
“Shit.” Her father whistled low between his teeth. “When you step in it, you go with both feet, don’t you?”
“You were at my wedding, Dad. Do you really need to ask?” A wry grin tugged at her lips as she took a seat on a window cushion where she could look out at the Savannah River dotted with a few lighted boats.
“I’m going to do some asking around—”
“No.” She tugged the hotel bathrobe tighter around her, suddenly chilled. “I don’t want anyone in the family to know you’ve been talking to me. We’re not supposed to be in contact, remember? That’s how you stay safe.”
“Give the old man some credit, baby girl. I know how to ask the questions. But I’ll see what I can find out. In the meantime, you stick with this ball player and let the public eye keep you safe.”
Butterflies fluttered through her belly, part nerves. Part… something else.
At least she didn’t need to check in with Boone until tomorrow night. He’d already introduced her to the bodyguard who would watch over her tomorrow.
“Thank you, Daddy.” She missed him even if she’
d never known a minute’s safety when they were together.
“You bet. Give me three days, okay? Then send me a number I can text.”
“Okay.” She’d buy another phone for that purpose. “Love you.”
“You too, baby. Always.” He cleared his throat, not an overly demonstrative man. “And I want a signed baseball out of all this, okay? Maybe a hat, too.”
*
Valerie had no idea when she’d agreed to the bodyguard idea that meant a professional security team who watched sports wives and girlfriends in groups. It hadn’t been what she had expected at all. Boone had driven back to Atlanta last night after introducing her to Jumbo Reese, the head of a small security group already in town to watch the fiancée of another team member who’d come to Savannah to choose a wedding gown from a nationally renowned bridal shop – If Wishes Were Dresses.
But not until this morning did Valerie get to speak to the man at length and find out the day’s plan. Unlike his name suggested, Jumbo was not a huge man. But he was incredibly fit with the build of a bouncer, a physique common enough in the world she’d grown up in. He seemed like a nice enough guy, outlining the basics of their service and giving her a tracking device for her car and her purse to help the team know her whereabouts at all times. Ideally, she had eyes on her constantly. The tracking was just for back up.
Later, he explained, she’d be assigned her own bodyguard if she needed to go somewhere on her own. But Boone had arranged for Valerie to accompany a handful of other team members’ girlfriends to the dress boutique since they sold gowns suitable for the black tie event he wanted her to attend.
Bride on the Run Page 5
