by Livia Grant
Funny how it's all about choices. Minutes before she couldn't be bothered to talk with her parents, but now, faced with talking to them or eating a heavy dinner, they suddenly looked better.
"Cześć, Papa. Do czego mam ten zaszczyt?" She almost laughed out loud at the surprised look on Ryder's face as she carried on the conversation with her father in Polish. It distracted her enough that she almost missed the animated shouting at the other end of the phone.
"Wait. Slow down. What did you say?" Only after she'd spoken did she catch that she'd flipped back to English.
Her father answered her in the same. "A package came for you this evening at the house. Your mother and I thought it strange since you have not called this your address for over seven years."
She had to agree, but that hardly warranted his panicked call. "I'll have my assistant contact you and arrange for you to forward it." Feeling snarky, she added, "I'm sorry it inconvenienced you."
"Stop, Kalina. Listen to me. There was something odd about this package. It smelled funny and the address was filled out with words cut from magazines and newspapers. It was, oh how you say in English... tykanie."
Her brain translated the word, taking a few seconds to understand its true meaning. "Ticking? The package is ticking?" Awareness of the danger must have shown on her face because Ryder grabbed the phone from her hand and then blew her away.
"Nie otwieraj opakowania. Natychmiast wezwij policję."
Had Ryder Helms just spoken in fluent Polish? She translated in her head. Yes. He'd said, "Don't open the package. Call the police immediately."
The conversation went on, her gleaning what was happening by Ryder's side of the exchange. She sighed with relief when she heard they had opened the box already and the ticking had been an old-fashioned wind-up alarm clock. An odd thing to mail a celebrity, until you factored in the threatening letter that accompanied it, warning that the next one would be a real bomb if Khloe didn't get rid of her newest bodyguard, effective immediately.
Ryder and her father's dialogue continued as she tried to make sense of the threat. Feeling left out, Trevor was standing, pressing her for details of what was being said in Polish. She couldn't talk, listen, and translate at the same time so she shushed him, listening to Ryder directing her father to call 911 immediately and report the delivery. He explained that Khloe had a stalker and that they needed to record the threat so when Ryder caught the culprit––and he would catch them––they had the evidence they'd need to put them away for a long time.
It was only when Ryder started lecturing her father that she wondered if her Polish was getting rusty from lack of use. Was he really telling her father to “get his head out of his ass and support his wonderful and talented daughter?” She had to have the translation wrong for his, “Khloe is so special. She deserves your love. She deserves the world.”
Ryder's gaze was so intense. So protective. So possessive. It scared her. It wasn't what he was saying that frightened her. It was that despite his passionate defense of her, she could feel him pulling away. She felt it in her bones. He was constructing a wall around himself, treading careful not to let her get too close. Little did he know, he was already too late. She'd known in February that what they had was extraordinary. She'd let him walk out once.
She wouldn't make that mistake again.
Trevor finally insisted on an update so she filled him in while Ryder got additional details about the package. When had it been sent? What did the return address look like? Had it been delivered by ground or air? By an express shipper or the USPS? The interrogation went on in Polish, telling her Ryder did not just speak some of the language. He was completely fluent, his accent perfect.
The call lasted until the police arrived at her parents' small bungalow in the Bronx. Ryder switched to English, barking orders to the responding officers as if he were the Chief of Police. Despite being thousands of miles away, chilling pictures arrived on her phone, making the threat more real.
By the time they hung up, the delicious food Ryder had prepared sat stone cold on their plates. The trio sat silently, each taking in all that had happened in the bizarre turn of events.
Trevor spoke first. "I'm trying to interpret this clue. On the one hand, everyone in Khloe's inner circle knows she is estranged from her parents. At first I thought the stalker had tipped his hand that he didn't know her as well as we'd thought he did. But I'm not so sure. My gut tells me it's the opposite."
Ryder pressed him. "Why's that?"
"They mention you for one thing. That means it's someone who has been close enough to her physically in the last few days to know you're not only here, but they're afraid of you. They want you to back off. For Khloe to fire you. With that in mind, I think whoever it is was afraid to send the package to anywhere you might intercept it and have a higher probability of tracking them down. I think they purposefully sent this message to her parents knowing we wouldn't be monitoring their house."
She hated that Trevor's explanation made sense to her because that meant that it really was someone in her inner circle responsible for terrorizing her.
Ryder didn't comment, instead pulling apart the crusty bread and dipping a bite in the olive oil before holding it to her lips. "Open up, baby."
"I'm not..."
Like at breakfast, he shoved the food in when she opened her mouth to protest. And so the game went on, this time lasting longer than the standoff that morning. When she zipped her lips closed and pushed to her feet about halfway through the entree, Ryder was ready for her. He hugged her to him, pulling her to sit in his lap as she wiggled to be free. She didn't fight hard. She was a realist. If he wanted to subdue her, he would.
"There's no use in fighting me on this. You're gonna eat the whole portion. Period."
She choked down a few more bites, but by the time she got to the last quarter of the pasta, the food threatened to come back up even without her finger's help. She tried to tell him, but every time she opened her mouth to speak, he'd shovel another bite onto her tongue.
Her panic spiked until she was cursing him and fighting like a madwoman to be free from him. His hand cracked her ass through the thin robe, surprising her more than anything.
Trevor intervened, coming around to their side of the island. Tears of gratitude for his help, turned to sobs of frustration when her long time guard and friend picked up her fork and held the food against her lips, helping Ryder.
She was furious. How dare they gang up on her? How dare they force her to do something she clearly did not want to do? How dare they...
Gone was his dominant demand. Ryder's soothing voice cut through the loud hum of dread in her head, calming her. "Shhh, it's gonna be okay. Every bite you take, tell yourself it's going to keep you healthy. Every bite you eat makes you stronger. To hell with Hollywood rules. You're Khloe Fucking Monroe. It's time you make your own rules."
And so it went, for what seemed like forever. Ryder holding her, rocking her, soothing her with his smooth words while Trevor fed her, slowly... with small bites... like he knew she needed, until the miraculous happened.
Her plate was clean.
She felt over-full... fat even. She'd be lying if she said she didn't want to run to the bathroom that very minute.
But overshadowing her need to purge was a sense of accomplishment.
"How are you feeling?"
"I can't believe you guys did that," she pouted.
Ryder smiled, unfazed. "Would you have finished on your own?"
She didn't answer. There was no use incriminating herself. He knew the truth anyway.
"Listen, I need to go call Axel and fill him in on the newest threat. If there are any clues with the delivery, he'll figure it out. Can I trust you to stay out of the bathroom, or do I need to tie you down?"
The sexy smoldering in his eyes challenged her to defy him. They also broadcast how much he'd love to tie her down.
Trevor stood, clearing his throat as if he were an uncomfortable
third wheel. He started clearing the dishes as he offered, "I'll keep an eye on her to make sure she doesn't head in that direction"
"Traitor," she whispered under her breath.
"Nope. Friend." A sad smile on his face.
"Same thing."
Ryder'd been gone for almost two hours, and while Khloe was grateful to have Trevor there with her, she longed to be alone so she could cry.
It didn't make any sense, really. She had every right to be upset about some asshole stalking her–scaring the shit out of her and disrupting her life. She had more than earned the right to be angry at the Kaplans and even the producers for being more interested in capitalizing off the danger than stopping it. And sure as hell, the feminist in her was furious at the way not only Ryder, but now Trevor too, had manhandled her, particularly when it came to her eating disorder.
But in her heart, those were not the reasons she fought back tears, or at least not the only motivations.
No. At the heart of her pending meltdown was a need so deep, she had no label for it. She'd been sitting curled up on Ryder's comfortable couch, a bestseller novel open in her lap, but her eyes didn't see the words on the page. Instead, her mind raced to retrace every moment of their time together, trying to understand how she could possibly feel so connected to someone she barely knew. Sexual chemistry aside, it didn't make sense.
Still, there was no denying that uneasy ball in the pit of her stomach that had nothing to do with the food lodged there and everything to do with the man who'd put it there.
Where had he gone? Why wasn't he back yet?
Why do I care so much?
A litany of questions was on auto-loop in her brain. The most frequent being... when would he leave again?
He was as much of a mystery to her tonight as he had been the night they'd met. All she knew with any certainty was that he had changed her. He had drawn out desires inside her hidden so deep, she hadn't even known they were there, and it was throwing every part of her life into a spin.
"It's getting late. Why don't you go to bed?" Trevor was only trying to be helpful, but she resented his interference, especially because she suspected he only suggested it because her staying up to worry about Ryder annoyed him.
"I'm not tired," she lied. She was exhausted. "But you can head to bed if you want. I'll be fine out here reading my book."
The corner of her friend's mouth curled up in an attempt at a smile. "You actually have to turn the pages to read a book, you know."
Busted.
She slammed the hardback closed in an exaggerated huff, leaning forward to throw the book onto the coffee table.
"I know it's none of my business, but it's driving me nuts. I'm with you almost non-stop. Where the hell did you two meet? He's clearly not part of the Hollywood scene."
Trevor was sitting in the chair across from her, his feet propped up on the ottoman. Despite having changed into jeans and a T-shirt, he didn't look relaxed. She'd been so wrapped up in her own worries, she'd missed that he looked to be wound tight enough to explode.
She didn't owe her security guard answers to his personal question, but Trevor was so much more than an employee.
She sighed, deciding that maybe talking to her friend might help her make sense of her jumbled feelings. "We met on Valentine's Day." When he didn't acknowledge, she added, "Chase, Jaxson and Emma set us up."
Technically, that was true, in the strictest of definitions. She wouldn't explain that, in reality, it had been the turn of a roulette wheel that had sealed their fate.
She watched him internalize her answer before he dug deeper. "I've never asked you, but how did you end up in D.C. that weekend? I know you flew to New York, not Washington. You came back acting so different. Upset even. I thought it was because you and Dean had broken up."
Funny how it was easier for her to talk about being humiliated by Dean than it was to explain her and Ryder's confusing connection.
"I went back early to surprise Dean, only I was the one who was shocked. I walked into my bedroom just in time to watch him fucking Gloria Mining as she hung from a hook he had the balls to install into the ceiling of my bedroom."
"Ouch."
"Can you believe Daniel Mining invited me to a foursome with him, Gloria and Dean in New York? That was why I didn't want to stay at The Plaza. They were pressuring me to join them."
He looked furious. "I wish I'd known."
"Why? What could you have done about it?"
"Well for one, I would have told Natalie to fuck off when she told me she'd arranged for Dean to be on the red carpet waiting for you at the theater."
They'd never discussed it, but now was the perfect time. "You should have told her to fuck off anyway," she protested. "I expect that kind of shit from her, but I need you to protect me, not just from the public, but even from her bullshit."
"I told you I'm sorry for that, and I am. But..." he stopped abruptly, looking tempted to say more.
"What?" she coaxed.
"You like to pick and choose what you want me to protect you from." She heard the anger in his tone as he continued. "I mean, seriously. Who the hell is Helms to swoop in on a motorcycle and steal you from right in front of me? No warning. It gave me a fucking heart attack, Khloe. Then when I have the audacity to try to protect you from him today at the studio, you side with him even though he beat you!"
Embarrassment warred with surprise, yet she couldn't let his statement stand without correction. "He didn't beat me."
"I don't know what else to call it. Don't you dare lie to me. I saw the marks on your ass as we pulled you under the door in the bathroom this afternoon."
She felt the heat rushing to her cheeks. "He didn't beat me." Their eyes locked, he waited expectantly. "He spanked me. There's a difference."
"Why the hell would he do that? You're a grown woman, for Christ's sake."
"I don't expect you to understand. Hell, I don't even understand. It's just the kind of relationship we have."
"Some kind of relationship. Where has he been since Valentine's Day?"
She was about to lose her cool. He was digging into the very heart of what she didn't know herself.
"I have no idea. We haven't even spoken. And before you ask, he knew where to find me from Jaxson."
"So it was his semen in your apartment."
She was confused. "What?"
"On the underwear. The forensics guy found semen on your underwear. I assumed it was Dean's."
"It's none of your..."
"Bullshit. You don't get to pick and choose when you want me to be more than your bodyguard, remember?"
Okay, he was right. "Yes, it was Ryder's."
She felt like she was under a microscope. Trevor glared at her silently before asking the million-dollar question.
"Do you love him?"
She tried to laugh it off. "I barely know him."
"Yet you let him completely control you. Today on set, pulling you out of an active scene. Hell, even your eating."
"It's just how he is..."
"I see that. What bothers me is how you've reacted to it, not just letting him do it, but... you like it."
"I'm tired, Trevor. I don't have the energy to fight him."
"It's more than that. You seem less tired, not more, since he got here. You seem..." He hesitated, unsure if he should continue, but he did. "Calmer."
She certainly didn't feel calmer. But then she realized the only thing she wasn't calm thinking about was wondering when Ryder would leave her again. How she could be so upset over someone she barely knew, outside of his sexual prowess, didn't make sense to her.
"Don't ask me to explain it. I don't understand myself. All I know is..." She paused, trying to decide if she could say the words she could barely comprehend internally. "He makes me feel different. Like... not Khloe Monroe, the actress. Just Khloe."
He whistled. "You have it bad."
"I do not," she protested. "I'm just off-base is all."
; "Uh-ha."
"Stop it."
"What?"
"Analyzing me. I don't like it."
"I'm not analyzing, although I am curious about who Ryder Helms really is. I haven't been able to dig up anything helpful at all."
"That's because I do my best to stay under the radar." Ryder's voice boomed from the doorway where he'd arrived undetected. She blushed, wondering how long he'd been listening.
Trevor seemed embarrassed, as well, at being caught doing a background check. "Hey, you're back." He reluctantly added, "Sorry for invading your privacy."
Ryder was moving closer, slowly, finally admitting, "I'd be disappointed if you hadn't. What kind of a personal bodyguard would you be, especially under the circumstances, if you didn't check out the new guy." He turned his attention to Khloe. "You look tired. Time for bed, baby."
"Excuse me? First eating and now you get to tell me when to go to bed?" Her pulse raced, in part because he was so near, but more because she remembered the things he'd done to her the night before in that waiting bed.
He was next to her when he answered, holding his hand out for her to latch onto for help standing. Only once she was on her feet, pulled into his open arms did he add, "If memory serves, I offered to control all things in your life."
She countered, flirting. "And I distinctly remember telling you you'd have to earn it."
"Ah yes, I do remember something like that. I guess you'll have to decide for yourself if you want to share my bed again tonight." The invitation was anything but innocent. Ryder held her against his chest, humping his body into hers in an age-old dance.
She was acutely aware that Trevor was a few feet away, watching their dynamic carefully. She bit back her reply, unwilling to egg him on with his overt advances even as his hands reached lower to cup her ass, feeling her up.
Self-conscious, she tried to make light of the sexual overtones. "I guess I am tired, and we'll have a long day tomorrow, so we should get some sleep."
Ryder may be talking against the shell of her ear, but she knew damn well he spoke loud enough for Trevor to hear his naughty challenge. "You can try to get some sleep, I guess, but I'm planning on being up most of the night." He lifted her feet off the ground, hugging her to him until she instinctively wrapped her legs around his torso as he started walking them towards the master bedroom. "I'll sleep on the plane."
