Maxi loved her boss, but the woman had a very difficult time relinquishing any control and could sometimes display OCD behavior. That bothered some people, but not Maxi. She took pride in her and her team’s work and never worried about Jessie checking up on her. In fact, the few times that she and her team had missed something, Jessie had caught it and Maxi was grateful. She welcomed the scrutiny, especially this week. The next ten days had to be perfect.
Two months ago she’d signed her most high-profile client to date. Ricco Kingsley, who was born and raised in Chicago. His fans, the Ricco-Nation, made Justin Bieber’s Beliebers and Beyoncé’s Beyhive look tame. His sophomore album was the most anticipated release of the year and it was dropping next week. Today was his first listening party and she crossed her fingers and toes that everything would run smoothly.
This was the opportunity she’d worked towards for years. This was it. The big leagues. It was do or die. Sink or swim. A smile of anticipation tilted her lips as nerves, disguised as butterflies, flitted in her stomach as the elevator doors slid open. But the moment she entered the hallway, her smile fell. The air was heavy and a prickling feeling crept up her arm. Six weeks ago, she probably would’ve ignored the sensation. But now, now she knew better than to dismiss her instincts.
She walked down the hallway and noticed that her door was slightly ajar. Reaching into the side pocket of her hoodie, she pulled out her key ring, which held pepper spray, and detached it. Her hand shook as she pushed the door open, lifting the pepper spray in front of her as it swung. The scene that it revealed caused her feet to cement in place and her entire body to go numb. Her chest rose and fell in labored breaths as her adrenaline spiked.
“Max, is everything okay?”
Maxi jumped and spun around to see her neighbor Jana behind her. Her friend’s long blonde hair fell over her shoulders as she tilted her head to see past Maxi.
“Oh my God!” Jana exclaimed. “Have you called the police?”
Maxi shook her head and lifted her phone as she turned to enter her apartment. “I need to call work—”
Before she’d even made it one step, she was jerked backwards. “You are not going in there.” Jana whisper-yelled as she pulled Maxi into her apartment, which was across the hall, and shut and locked the door. “You don’t know if whoever did that is still there.”
Good point.
“You call your work, I’m calling the cops.”
She and Jana had become fast friends when Maxi moved into the building three years ago, right after college. Over the time they’d lived across the hall from each other they’d shared movie nights, borrowed milk, let the other in when they’d been locked out, and drank more wine together than all the Real Housewives combined. She’d always appreciated the convenience of living so close, but she’d never been so happy to have a friend near as she was right now.
Jana’s voice faded as she walked into her kitchen on the phone with the nine-one-one operator.
Maxi was happy for the semi-privacy. Before she called work she needed to make another call to Statesville Correctional and she didn’t want an audience when she did it. This nightmare just kept getting worse and she had to know if he was the one orchestrating it.
She felt so alone. So scared. So exposed.
Her hand was still shaking as she ran her finger over the screen of her phone and fought the urge to call the one person that she knew would make this better. Her prince. Billy. Since his retirement from boxing, the former heavyweight champion fighter had transitioned to a badass bodyguard. She knew that he would come to her rescue and save the day, but then what?
Nothing. That’s what.
It was all she could do lately to hold it together. Involving her greatest weakness when she was at her most vulnerable could have catastrophic results.
This was real life. Not a fairytale. Or, if it was, it was the Brothers Grimm version. Just as she always had, she reminded herself that Billy “The Big Bad Wolf” Marshall was not her knight in shining armor. He’d had enough drama in his life without her adding to it. He was not her happily-ever-after. He was her never-gonna-happen…
Chapter 2
Thank God it’s Friday.
Billy Marshall had never been a TGIF kinda guy, probably because he’d never been in professions that were nine to five, Monday through Friday. But, today TGIF was his new motto. All he planned on doing this weekend was eating and sleeping.
After pulling into his reserved parking space at Elite Protection Security Group, Billy closed his heavy lids. Lifting his arms, which felt like they’d been dipped in cement, he scrubbed his hands over his face as he leaned back against the headrest. If a sound hadn’t interrupted his peaceful moment he might’ve stayed like that for hours. When he heard the audible intrusion, he inhaled deeply through his nose and lifted his neck. With a sigh, he squinted in an attempt to focus on the LED light shining from his dashboard, but the numbers appeared blurry. It took several moments for his eyesight to clear. When it did, he saw that it was just before noon.
Shit.
No wonder he was exhausted. Rolling his head to the left and then to the right he heard and felt several cracks, which relieved some of the tension he’d been carrying there. His last assignment had only lasted seventy-two hours, but they had been very long hours. On Monday at the risk factor debriefing, everything had appeared routine. Senator Robbins was a controversial politician attending multiple rallies, fundraisers, and events to garner support for re-election. With the current political climate, his people had reached out to Elite Protection for a security detail. Billy had been put on the detail.
The first rally had been fairly uneventful. There were the usual protesters, but nothing too bat-shit crazy. The luncheon that followed had produced a little more excitement when a “supporter” showed up with, not one, but two concealed weapons.
Thankfully, Billy had noticed the guy’s squirrely behavior as he fidgeted while waiting in the receiving line. He’d approached the man and the instant he’d seen the look in his eyes he’d known that his instincts were right. Internal alarms were flashing, telling Billy that something was definitely off.
Not wanting to put anyone in danger or cause a scene, he’d lied and told the man that he’d won a VIP one-on-one. After hearing that information, the suspect practically started salivating at the thought of being alone with the Senator. Once Billy had relocated the “supporter” to a side room, it took only a matter of seconds to disarm and detain him, then radio for the authorities. The rest of the event was smooth sailing and the police were able to confirm that he’d acted alone with the intent to shoot the Senator.
At the gala Tuesday evening, things got a little hairier. Two men and one woman posing as waitstaff were able to get close enough to Senator Robbins to spray pepper spray in his direction. The only upside to the attack was that it was over almost before it started. Billy shielded the Senator and got him to a secure location.
After day one had played out like a Bourne movie, Robbins requested that Billy remain on his detail day and night, even escorting him on his flight to Washington D.C. this morning. Which he had. Once the Senator was safely at the Capitol building, Billy had turned around and got right back on a plane. He’d landed back at O’Hare an hour and a half ago and had driven straight to the office after receiving a voicemail from his boss, the owner of Elite Protection, Seth Sloan, telling him to come see him as soon as he got back to Harper’s Crossing.
So here he was.
If he hadn’t respected the man that signed his paychecks as much as he did, Billy probably would’ve told the former Marine that he could take his request and shove it up his ass. He’d passed exhausted twenty-four hours ago and was now running entirely on fumes.
A second startling ding sounded and Billy lifted his phone from the console beside him. A quick glance revealed that he’d received two messages from Elissa; one with a photo of her in lacy lingerie attached.
Hey Stranger! I went shopping,
do you like?
I miss you! Call me. XO
He could add these to his growing list of what he’d named P.B.C. (Preemptive Booty Call) texts. What used to only show up on his phone at two a.m. on the weekends, were now coming in the middle of the afternoon on weekdays. The change in pattern had begun about six months ago when Billy had started spending his weekends alone. After a few weekends of unavailability, women started to hit him up earlier in the week trying to schedule hookups in advance. Little did they know, the problem wasn’t overbooking; it was total and complete disinterest. His lack of interest wasn’t only confusing his rotating roster of female companions; it was also bothering the hell out of him.
Casual sex. That’s what he did best. In relationships, it was the only thing he did. And he was up front about his commitment to not being committed. He only dated—and he used that term loosely—women that wanted what he did. Fun. They wanted a good time, and if there was one thing he could provide, it was a good time. The only problem was, lately, one night of fun with a random chick wasn’t that much fun at all. It’d been almost three months since he’d put his bread into anyone’s oven and he was starting to think he’d never bake again.
His phone lit up, and when he saw who the call was from, he wanted to throw the device out of the window. Three letters were on his screen: Mom. He did the same thing he’d done for the past three days; sent her to voicemail. He already knew what she wanted. Money, which wasn’t new. What was new was that she said it was for rehab. Since he’d paid for her almost a dozen attempts, all of which had been court ordered, he wasn’t exactly holding his breath that this time would be different just because it was her idea and not mandated by a judge.
Irritation and frustration crowded his shoulders, but like he did every time any real emotion crept its way into his consciousness, he pushed it down and ignored it. After typing back a quick response to Elissa saying that he wasn’t going to be around this weekend, he opened his door and the sweltering summer temperature surrounded him in smothering heat. The short walk into the air conditioned offices was miserable. He knew he was being particularly cranky thanks to sleep deprivation, but it had to be over a hundred degrees.
Darla, who was nearly eighty, looked up when he walked in. She was on a stool retrieving paper, which she insisted they keep above the top shelf. In a gravelly voice—one that sounded exactly how you would expect someone who’d smoked for the better part of their life to sound—she announced in her straight-to-the-point tone, “Seth’s been waiting for you.”
“I’ll get that, beautiful.” He easily reached above her head and grabbed a ream.
Darla snapped her fingers after she gingerly stepped off the stool. “Oh, I got a few messages for you. One from a Trina, one from a Georgia, and one from a Nora. Let me grab them.”
“You can toss them.” He had no interest in hearing what any of them had to say.
When he handed the paper to her, genuine concern clouded her wrinkled face. “Are you okay, hon? You seem…off.”
“I’m great. Just a little tired.” He winked as he headed back to Seth’s office.
His dried-up sex life wasn’t the only thing that was making him feel off these days. Since the moment he was born, he’d been a flirt. Literally. His mom, in one of her sober moments—which were few and far between—had told him that even as a newborn he’d winked at the nurses. Not one nurse. Every nurse that had taken care of him.
Sure, it had probably just been gas or an involuntary movement. But either way, Billy had lived up to the reputation that he’d come out of the womb with. Women loved him and he loved them back. He never lied. Never told a woman that she was beautiful if he didn’t think she was. But that was the thing, he could find something beautiful in any woman.
Over the past eighteen months, he’d felt like everything around him had lost its beauty. His life had gone from Technicolor to black and white. A year and a half ago he’d walked away from boxing after getting the identical prognosis from not one, not two, but three specialists that one more blow to his head had a ninety percent chance of causing permanent brain damage.
At the time, he’d thought he was ready to lay down the gloves. It wasn’t like boxing had ever really been his passion. As a teen it had been the thing that had kept a roof over his and his mom’s head. It had kept him off the streets and most likely out of jail. As an adult it had been what paid the bills and the only thing he’d ever known. But it wasn’t like he’d grown up dreaming of being the next Marciano, Ali, or Tyson. He hadn’t.
So when he’d made the decision to put his career in the rear view, he’d been excited for the next chapter in his life. Now, all these months later, he felt like something was missing, and not just in his personal life.
When he reached his boss’ office, he lifted his hand and rapped his knuckles on the door twice.
“Come in.” Seth’s voice sounded through the wood.
Before he’d even made it one step inside, he knew that he wasn’t going to like whatever his boss had to say. The same alarms that had gone off when he’d looked into the armed man’s eyes at the luncheon were going off again.
Something’s wrong.
After clicking the door shut Seth nodded towards the chair across from his desk as he handed Billy an iPad. “I have something for you and you’re gonna want to sit down for this.”
Really wrong.
The tiny hairs on the back of his neck stood on end, which only ever happened when there was a disturbance in the force—or at least that’s how he’d described it when he was eight and obsessed with Star Wars. He took the seat that Seth had indicated.
Billy was trying to brace himself for impact as he half-listened to Seth breakdown his next assignment, which sounded like a fairly straight-forward stalker situation. Needing to do something, Billy began flipping through the PowerPoint on the iPad that held all of the pertinent information on the case. He was just starting to think that his Spidey senses were on the fritz when he got to the third page and read the name of the target.
His world stopped spinning as his stomach twisted into knots.
Maxine Rizzo.
The only daughter of Charlie Rizzo, his boxing trainer for twelve years and the closest thing that Billy had ever had to a father figure. The man that had taken him off the streets, literally, and led him to winning two world championships in boxing. Charlie hadn’t just mentored Billy in the ring, he’d opened his home to him more times than he could count. Billy had spent more holidays with the Rizzos than he ever had with his own mom. Not that she noticed when he was around or not, unless she needed money, that is.
There was no question that Charlie was a paternal figure to Billy, but Maxi was the farthest thing from a sister that you could get. No matter how badly Billy wished like hell that was how he felt about her, he didn’t. His feelings for her were nothing close to familial. He’d tried to deny his feelings. Ignore his feelings. And hell, even act on his feelings, but Maxi shut him down. None of that mattered to his heart though. She was the only woman he’d ever trusted. Ever cared about.
And she was in trouble…
Chapter 3
Two hours later, as Billy sat in the high rise offices of SPC Advertising, he still hadn’t been able to slow his racing heartbeat. He was so amped with fear and stress that it was taking all of his focus to maintain an outwardly calm demeanor. Especially considering adrenaline was racing through his veins like a drug that he was overdosing on. The only upshot to his heightened emotional and physical state was that he was no longer tired. He could run a 10K and have energy to spare.
“No. Absolutely not.” Maxi’s head spun Linda-Blair-Exorcist style. Her possessed eyes were now pointed at Billy.
He did his damnedest to ignore the sweet floral scent that filled the air when her hair fanned out beside him, but he couldn’t help inhaling a little deeper and savoring the aroma. It was just one more piece of evidence that Maxi was here. She was okay.
Frustration
and anger rolled off of her in waves as she whipped her head back towards her boss. “I did not agree to this.”
Pissed…but okay.
“He doesn’t need to be here.” The flowery fragrance invaded his senses again as she pointed her stare back at him. Through clenched teeth she spoke in a controlled tone, “You don’t need to be here.”
What was that saying about protesting too much?
Billy couldn’t remember the exact quote but he was pretty sure it applied here. He stared straight ahead and did what he did best in life: he brushed off Maxi’s statement. Although, he had to admit her adamant insistence was a little harder not to take personally than most things he let slide.
Jessie Sloan-Courtland, his best friend Zach’s wife and Maxi’s boss at SPC, lifted her left brow slightly, but her expression remained unreadable. “I can put in a call to Seth and ask if he has anyone else available. I know he’s stretched tight, but I will see what I can do. Until then, the arrangement stands as is.”
Heat crawled up the side of Billy’s neck and over his left cheek from Maxi’s piercing stare still boring into the side of his face, but his gaze remained locked straight ahead. He hadn’t made eye contact with the brunette beauty since he’d stepped into the spacious high rise office about ten minutes ago. He couldn’t. Not until he got himself under—or at least in the ballpark of—control.
That was proving to be an extremely difficult task since the incidents that he’d been briefed on were running through his head on a constant loop. His jaw tensed as his chest tightened painfully. He still couldn’t believe that all of this had been going on and she hadn’t said one word to him about it. He’d read the report, the first incident had been six weeks ago. Six weeks. Over that time he’d seen her a half dozen times at Sunday night at “family dinner,” plus a few times when he’d stopped by the gym to visit Charlie and she’d been on her way out.
All He Wants Page 2
