Her father’s eyes nearly bugged out. “She does?”
“I do?” Tegan wasn’t any less shocked. She glanced at Wrath.
He smiled. “We need someone to run the business end of things. Nash here sucks at it.” Then Wrath sent a pointed glare at the beefcake duo. “You know, so people will get paid on time and not take bribes from the clients.”
“This is outrageous!” Stedman blustered!
“No.” Mr. Nash waved his hand around to indicate the cops swarming the estate. “What’s going on right now is outrageous. You put my agents in an untenable position. Do you understand that? If this happens one more time, I will terminate our contract and you can take your chances with Sokolov on your own. Do you get me?”
“Yes.” Stedman swung back around toward the house. “I understand exactly what you’re about. Don’t think this incident won’t come back to bite you in the ass.”
“You first,” Mr. Nash muttered.
WRATH LAUGHED AS Stedman Hyde-Pierson threw the adult male version of a hissy fit and stalked back into his palatial estate house. Bridge and Jinx made a move to follow. Nash clucked his tongue.
“Analise and Quinten will take that shift tonight,” Nash told Bridge and Jinx. “The two of you and I need to have a talk. This business with tossing Wrath around like a chew toy needs to be discussed. Now.”
Wrath felt better about that. If a man couldn’t trust his team, who could he trust? He waited until Bridge and Jinx had moved away before speaking to Nash once again. “So, hiring Tegan?”
“That’s what you were hinting at the other day, wasn’t it?” Nash snorted. He shoved his fingers through his short white-blond hair. “It’s not like subtlety is really your thing.” Then Nash winked at Tegan. “Besides, if Tegan is holding the purse strings, she might be able to get you to stop totaling cars. You’re costing me too much money, Wrath.”
“Ha!” Tegan burst out. “I knew it! I asked him about that, and he claimed it was no big deal. Handing out an endless supply of cars for him to destroy is hardly cost-effective, and it certainly doesn’t preserve the bottom line. I think you should take it out of his pay!”
“I love the way this woman thinks,” Nash quipped. Then he slugged Wrath in the shoulder, his bad one. Wrath winced and Nash rolled his eyes in response. “Sure. You can hang off the edge of a vehicle while driving off-road and have half a dozen fights, but one little touch from me and you’re acting like a complete pussy. I should be flattered.”
“Get the hell out of here, and don’t tempt me to give you a matching wound,” Wrath threatened.
Nash walked off, leaving Wrath and Tegan alone together. He felt strangely awkward. For some reason, everything felt different now. The money was still a big deal to him. It probably always would be. But maybe there was a way to make things work in spite of their vastly different financial situations.
“What?” Tegan murmured. She slid her hands around his waist and pressed her face to his chest. “What are you thinking now? I wish you would just stop.”
“I was thinking that I’m still not sure what to think about being with a woman who has so much more money than I do.” Then Wrath considered something else. “Plus, now there’s the interoffice no dating policy to consider.”
“I don’t work with you in the field,” she reasoned. “I’m not going to compromise you like that.”
“I suppose that’s logical,” Wrath agreed. “And after today, I’m not entirely certain that you couldn’t kick my ass if you decided to.” He wrapped her in his embrace and rested his chin on top of her head. She smelled amazing. He loved her hair. It was so soft. And he kept getting distracted by the thought of what it would feel like spread across his belly.
“I have to admit that I’m more than a little impressed by my own skills as an off-road driver.” Tegan looked up into his face and wrinkled her nose.
He kissed the tip of that adorable little nose and then shook his head. “If it was up to me, I would never let you behind the wheel of a car again. Do you even have a license? You’re a horrible driver, and that’s coming from the guy who has wrecked like three cars this week alone.”
“So maybe I need to hire a driver,” she suggested. “Would that make you feel better?”
“Sure. As long as it’s not Analise. The two of you would sit around and make fun of me behind my back all day long. I’m sure of it.” Wrath kissed her lips. He was well aware of all the cops periodically looking their way. He just didn’t care. Let the world know that this woman was his.
“Am I safe now?” Tegan asked softly. “I’ve been running for my life since we met. How can I be safe now?”
“Working for us will change things. Besides, Chroboski is going to change things too when he starts giving up names and information. The network will go down soon enough, and this thing with your father will be done.” Wrath preferred to think about those days. The days when this bullshit with Stedman Hyde-Pierson was done and over with and he could get back to the only thing that really mattered. Tegan.
“Will you teach me to shoot a gun?” Tegan asked suddenly.
Wrath bobbed his head. “Sure. What will you trade me for the lessons?”
“Investment advice.”
“Huh?” Wrath looked confused.
“A few months with me and your bank account will be bigger than mine.” Her eyes twinkled, and he was stunned once again that someone like her could ever want someone like him. Then she giggled and stood on tiptoe to kiss him. “You don’t think my financial experience is all boring stuff, do you? I’ve been paying attention around the family business for years. I do all my own investments. That’s how my trust fund has grown the way it has.”
Wrath didn’t know what to say. Was she trying to make him feel better or worse about the money thing? He couldn’t really tell.
Then Tegan gave him the most beatific smile he’d ever seen. It warmed him to his toes and made him feel like a millionaire without having a dime in his pocket. “If our financial situations are holding things up,” Tegan began slowly. “Then you should probably know that I’m a problem solver. If you want a million dollars in the bank before you ask me to be all yours, then I’ll make it happen one way or another.”
How could any man say no to a woman who offered him so much without asking much of anything in return? Wrath nuzzled Tegan and brushed his lips over hers. “I love you. Did you know that?”
“I did, actually,” she whispered back. “I think I knew that when you told me your name.”
He thought about that a minute and nodded. Then he frowned. “Isn’t there something you want to say in return?”
“You already know I love you, Dante Wright,” Tegan said with a smile. “But if you want to hear it, I’ll say it anytime you want.”
“I want.”
She kissed him nice and slow. “I love you,” she whispered against his lips. “I love you. I love you.”
And that was enough for Wrath.
CARSON
Chapter One
Kayla Hyde put the finishing touches on the clay pot she was throwing. She adjusted her position on the round stool before her pottery wheel and tried to be objective about the work. The enormous piece was a consignment for one of her best customers. It wasn’t the pot itself that was the difficult part of the job. The blue glaze would be tricky as hell to apply in just the right way to get the effect that the customer wanted on the finished product.
The buzzing doorbell echoed through the studio. Kayla nearly jumped out of her skin. Trying not to fall forward into the still wet clay, Kayla flung her weight back. She shifted her right foot and accidentally put it down on the cat’s tail.
Creepers yowled at the top of his lungs. He hissed and spit as he bolted away from Kayla. The new startle nearly caused her to fly forward. At the last second, she managed to topple off the stool and onto the floor. Her arm slammed against her rolling workstation as she fell. A shallow tub full of dirty water sailed into the air and landed
right on her chest.
“Shit!” Kayla held her hands up to protect her face as half a dozen razor-sharp clay shaping tools flipped off the cart and onto Kayla. “Ow!” she howled as a particularly vicious scraper sliced the back of her left hand wide open.
The doorbell buzzed again. Dammit. Nobody was scheduled to come over today. There were no deliveries arriving, and she didn’t have enough of a social life to merit an unannounced visit from a friend.
“Process server, I bet,” Kayla muttered. “Like hell I’m going to get served.”
She crept across the floor of her studio toward the elevator access. The building’s main entrance was on the ground floor. That was where you caught an elevator to come upstairs, but you had to either have a code or be buzzed in to use it. It served her second-story loft and the third-floor one above it.
To her utter horror, she heard the unmistakable sound of someone punching in a six-digit code. The grinding noise of the elevator made the floor vibrate. Kayla leaped to her feet. She could hope that the person was going up to the third floor. Maybe they’d buzzed her loft by mistake. Then she realized that the stupid elevator was gearing down and stopping pretty much right on the other side of the door in front of her face.
This was why Kayla hated uninvited visitors. There was no lobby in her loft. The big freight elevator dumped people out right into what amounted to her living room. Not. Cool!
She frantically glanced down at her water-soaked and clay-encrusted navy T-shirt and cut-off shorts. Her feet were bare and filthy from working with the clay that constantly peppered and dripped onto her toes. She was in no condition to receive any kind of visitor, much less an unwelcome one.
The elevator stopped. There was a brief pause. Then the doors swung wide open to reveal a very large man. Kayla felt her mouth pop open in surprise. He had to be well over six feet tall. He wore black cargo pants, black boots, and a black T-shirt. If the close-cropped hair was anything to go by, he was most definitely military. She just couldn’t figure out what he would be doing in her elevator.
“Excuse me.” Kayla made a little twirling motion with her right hand. “I don’t know you and you’re not welcome here. So why don’t you do an about-face and head on back downstairs. You’ve got the wrong address, mister.”
“Kayla Hyde?”
Now she was plainly suspicious. “Who wants to know? If you’re here to serve some papers, then nope. I’m not Kayla Hyde, and I have no idea where anyone by that name would be.”
The ghost of a smile played at the corners of his mouth. It was odd, but the expression turned him almost—well, human. He had the prettiest dark eyes, and his lashes were crazy long, and—and why was she waxing poetic about this man’s eyelashes? He did not belong here. Whatever the reason he was on her doorstep, it was probably going to cause her no end of trouble. The guy’s eyelashes had nothing to do with that, and they certainly weren’t likely to make up for things!
“My name is Carson Holcum.”
Kayla kept waiting for him to explain why she should care. Carson Holcum. Okay. Was he going to do some name, rank, serial number thing? Was this a weird military introduction or something?
Finally, she decided there would be no more information forthcoming. He was just staring at her as though she were the strangest thing he’d ever seen. She pointed to the elevator. “Awesome. Carson Holcum, get the hell out of my loft. You’re not invited, not welcome, and please let the door hit you on the ass on your way out.”
“Is that supposed to be funny?” He cocked his head as though he really had no clue.
Kayla did not miss a beat. “If you want to laugh, go ahead. Just do it on your way out.”
“My name is Carson Holcum.” He tried again. “Stedman Hyde-Pierson sent me as part of a protection detail.”
“Protection detail,” she repeated. “Why in God’s name would my uncle think I needed protection? If I needed protection, I would say that he was the one I needed protection from. So, I hardly think there’s any reason for you to be here.”
Carson’s expression never changed. It was rather eerie. “Your uncle received a death threat naming you as a possible target. He feels honor bound to offer you protection since the threat is in response to a business decision made by him.”
“Is that right,” Kayla snorted. “I’d like to say I’m surprised, but I’m not. No doubt my uncle managed to get caught with his hand in the wrong cookie jar.”
“Actually, he turned down an offer from a mafia organization to launder their money.” Carson’s deadpan tone of voice did nothing to make that statement more believable.
“If my uncle turned down an offer to launder money,” Kayla began sarcastically, “it was only because he couldn’t figure out a way to cheat the mafia out of their money.”
Finally. Finally! Carson’s expression changed. His brow furrowed and he actually looked troubled. “My team—the Nash Protection Agency—has been more than a little… Let’s just say we’re bothered by the allegations continually made by Mr. Hyde-Pierson’s family members.”
“You’re a bodyguard for the rich assholes of the world and you’re used to people being all positive about them?” Kayla crossed her arms over her chest. “You must live in one happy hunky-dory world, dude.”
DUDE? CARSON COULD safely say that nobody had ever called him such a thing before. He’d been named Soldier. Marine. Private—back when it was an appropriate label—and several other much less complimentary names of course. Then, Kayla Hyde was not at all behaving in the way that Carson had anticipated. Of course, she didn’t look like he’d expected either.
Hyde-Pierson had described her as a wild bohemian type with very little taste and even less in the charms department. The truth was that Kayla Hyde was gorgeous. Her waist-length sable brown hair was pulled back away from her face with two enamel clips shaped like butterflies. Her short shorts showed off a pair of tanned legs, and her butt was round and perfectly shaped. Her T-shirt appeared damp and clung to her breasts in a way that made him want to stare even though he had a feeling she would kill him if she caught him doing it. Yes. Bohemian maybe, but beautiful most definitely.
He had expected to arrive, be welcomed into her home, explain his task, and then accept her thanks for the offer of protection. Didn’t the woman realize that she was in actual danger?
Carson cleared his throat. “The threat was specific. It named you, your cousins Tegan and Ralston, and your aunts. All are key people in Mr. Hyde-Pierson’s life. Your cousin Tegan has been attacked multiple times in just the last two weeks.”
“Are you sure Tegan’s not just making it all up to get Daddy’s attention?” Kayla said sarcastically.
Everything about her body language was closed. And now she actually turned her back on him while she squatted down beside what appeared to be a potter’s wheel. She was picking up fallen tools and setting them on a cart. She appeared to pay him no mind at all.
Carson tried to get back to the topic at hand. Proving to this recalcitrant, stubborn woman that she needed protection. “I’m quite certain that your cousin isn’t making things up. My friend and coworker was shot and run off the road several times by a man attempting to murder Tegan.”
At least that seemed to get a reaction. Kayla sat back on her heels and cocked her head at Carson. “Is Tegan all right?”
“Yes. She’s fine. She’s actually working for us now, so we have her under twenty-four-hour surveillance.” Carson gave a nod. He wanted Kayla to know that he could be friendly when he chose.
“Too bad.” Kayla shrugged and went back to her cleaning up. “Tegan could use a bullet or two to improve her personality.”
“Excuse me?” Surely Carson had heard her wrong.
She stood up and glared at him. “You heard me right. Now hear me again. Get. Out. Of. My. Loft! Now! I don’t want your services. I don’t need them. You’re trespassing, and obviously, my uncle was an asshole enough to give you the code to my building because he fucking owns
it. I can’t get away from him, but I can get away from you. Either you’re gone in ten seconds or I’m going to call the police and have you removed. Got it?”
No. Carson did not have it! He could not understand what was wrong with this woman. He opened his mouth to protest, to tell her she was being foolish, something. But she brandished a sharp instrument at him and began backing him toward the elevator.
Carson stumbled backward. He didn’t know what the little scraper thing was, but it was sharp! She poked him again, this time in the chest. He practically fell into the elevator. It was like a scene from some really bad chick flick. He had no notion of what this idiotic woman could be thinking!
“That’s it, good job!” She wiggled her fingers at him as she slammed the big freight doors closed. “Now go home, boy, go home!”
Carson watched the elevator slowly begin to descend through the building. He felt like he had been blindsided by Kayla Hyde’s reaction to his announcement. What reasonable person would not want help when their life was being threatened? It made absolutely no sense.
He reached the ground floor and exited the elevator. The building was quiet. Carson knew that the owner of the protection company—Nash—had researched the other tenants. They were artists much like Kayla. The guy on the third floor was a painter, and the man on the first floor ran a graphic design business out of his loft space. Stedman Hyde-Pierson owned the building. From what they could tell, Kayla paid him rent like clockwork every month. Other than that, there was no contact. Stedman had speculated that the rental agreement was how the mafia had traced Kayla’s connection to him. Now Carson wasn’t so sure.
He left the building via a side door and looked around. From the alley, he tilted his head back in order to stare up at the second floor. There was a wide bank of windows that faced the alley and the brick wall of the building next door. From what Carson could tell, Kayla didn’t have the windows covered.
Carson took a leap and snatched at the fire escape ladder on the second building. He scrambled to the top and accessed the roof of the building directly next door to Kayla’s. He found what he was looking for almost immediately.
Nash Security Solutions Page 16
