by A. C. Arthur
Besides, she wasn’t the type of woman he got excited over. She’d seen that in the look he’d given her when she was introduced as his bodyguard. He’d barely masked his disgust. Tomboys definitely weren’t on his platter as an appetizer. She visualized him with the tall, leggy, buxom, model type. The glamorous, giggling bombshell that would hang on his every word and grace the society pages with elegance—elegance that she would never possess.
She parked her Durango, the one luxury she had allowed herself upon her departure from the U.S. armed forces, and lifted the bag from the backseat. “God, Sam, did you pack everything out of the office in here?” she muttered as she slipped the black duffel onto her shoulder and climbed down out of the truck.
She pulled a piece of paper from her back pocket and glanced at the address again. He was on the third floor. She disregarded the elevator and took the stairs. She hadn’t had a chance to run this morning because Jeremy and his cute self was full of questions and stories for his auntie Bree, and she’d happily indulged him.
Besides, taking the stairs would give her the chance to check out the ins and outs of this building—this high-priced, glitzy condominium complex that she should have known the billionaire playboy would reside in. She wasn’t impressed. For all the money he undoubtedly paid to live here, the security wasn’t worth crap. She’d driven right into the garage and opened the stairway door and was now pulling it open without any security breaches.
There was a long hallway with only two doors to her right and one to her left. She went to the left first even though that wasn’t in the direction of the door she needed. At the end of that hall was a floor-to-ceiling window giving a view of the golf course that looped around from the country club up the street. There was no way to open the window, but there was no security tape around it that would signal any alarm if someone decided to bash it in and gain entrance. She turned and came back down the hall, passing the bright green Exit sign pointing to the stairs she’d just come from. The doors were numbered with big glossy black numerals. Looking up and down the dove-gray walls, she frowned at the lack of even a security camera. She stopped in front of the door with the numbers that matched those on the paper she still held and took a deep breath.
You can do this, Bree, he’s just a man. She shook her head vehemently. Correction, he’s just a client.
The incessant knocking resonated through the thick haze of Renny’s thoughts. He was focused, in a place that soothed and comforted him—that place his father called his fairy-tale land. He held his pencil in a loose grip, looking down at the paper filled with lines that were about to take shape even as someone continued to rap on his door.
Cursing, he stood from his desk and walked out of the studio. Through the CD player the smooth, sensual sounds of Brian McKnight filled the living room. He paused momentarily to turn it down a notch, then went to the door, pulling it open with all the frustration he was feeling at the moment.
Bree had been about to knock again but instead the door had flung open and she’d lost her balance, her raised arm and the top half of her body falling into what felt like a solid wall. She looked up into the stern face and dark eyes of the owner of that massive wall of a chest and forced herself to smile. “Oops. Mornin’,” she said in a voice that was much calmer, much more chipper than she really was.
Renny had caught the flailing female effortlessly, but the moment his hands made contact with the bare skin of her arms he knew it was a mistake. She’d haunted him last night and that hadn’t been enough. It wasn’t even eight o’clock and she was here on his doorstep, possibly to torment him some more.
He steadied her, then quickly took his hands off her. She wore lip gloss today, her pouting mouth almost begging to be kissed. She wore sunglasses so he couldn’t see those eyes, those deep-brown, expressive eyes. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail again and he fought the sudden urge to pull it free. She’d twisted and turned it in some fashion so that it looped around a few times and was dangling down her back, but he knew that if he just pulled on that band it would fall, cascading down her back like a curtain of pure satiny bliss.
He cleared his throat. “What are you doing here?” he asked gruffly.
Bree tried not to take his rudeness personally and pushed her glasses to the top of her head. Without the dimness of the shades she almost moaned. He was beautiful. He wore sweatpants that accentuated his trim waist and a sleeveless shirt that was glued to his muscled chest. That funny bronze skin of his almost glistened from his face to his neck, to the bulging biceps and big hands. Through his shirt she could easily make out the imprint of impressive pectorals and a six-pack of abs. He must work out religiously to keep that kind of body.
“Not a morning person, huh?” she said airily as she pushed past him and made her way into his condo. She instantly began looking around, surveying what was needed.
Renny closed the door, lounged against it, crossing his arms over his chest, and enjoyed the view for a moment. “Normal people don’t go around banging on doors this early.”
She shrugged, dropped her bag on the couch and moved to the windows. She was dragging her hands along the seals as if she was looking or feeling for something.
Renny watched her intently. With every stroke he let his detail-oriented eyes settle on her fingers. She had small hands, low-cut fingernails, no rings, no watch, no polish. Her touch was swift, methodical, yet he felt every stroke as if she were slowly guiding it over him, caressing him. He shifted his stance to relieve the tightness in his pants. “What are you doing?” he asked through a slightly cracked voice.
“I’m checking out your windows. I’ll need to wire the security system through here.” She moved from the patio door to the phone. She picked it up, put it to her ear and listened for a second or two, then put it down and lifted it to look at the underside. “No bugs.”
“I’m glad to hear that. I would hate to have to call an exterminator.”
She was moving toward the bedroom now and Renny felt his groin tighten.
“Don’t tell me you have a sense of humor.”
He tried like hell not to watch her butt as she walked in front of him, or to imagine that she was leading them right to his bedroom, to the bed where he’d dreamed of her only hours before. “Ah, yeah, something like that. But it’s still early.” He heard himself stumbling over his words. This was new for him. Of all the Bennett men he was the smoothest around the women, the charmer, the home-run hitter each and every time. “What exactly are you looking for?”
She was in his room now, turning her head this way and that, taking in everything he possessed. She paused at the bed. It was a four-poster Victorian antique he’d found on a trip to Paris. It sat on a platform in the middle of the floor, covered with cream-colored bedding that his mother had picked out.
“Wow! That’s a seriously big bed.” Bree was used to the military twin size. Even when she’d moved off base to her own apartment she’d purchased a full-size bed since it was only her. But this monstrosity looked like it could easily fit her, her two brothers, her sister and her two-year-old nephew.
“I like big things,” Renny said simply.
That remark poured over her as she found herself thinking he probably had a lot of big things in his possession. She couldn’t resist; she hadn’t wanted to, but it almost called to her. She stepped up on the platform, touched her hand to the thick dark wood and let it slide all the way down, then up again.
“How long have you lived here?” Bree asked, pulling her hand away from his bed. She wanted to sit on it, to feel what she knew would be soft against her back, but she digressed. She didn’t turn back to face him for fear he’d see the longing in her eyes, so she stepped down off the platform and went directly to the windows on the other side of the room.
“Ah, four years now.”
“And you haven’t done anything about security?” She turned to him then. “Americans are so gullible.”
Renny blinked quickly. “Excuse
me?”
“We take our safety for granted. You simply believe you’re safe and trust that the local authorities will protect you from anything bad. When what you should be doing is ensuring your own safety. Protecting what’s yours.”
“Listen, Sabrina, why don’t you just tell me why you’re here? We can handle any business we have to and then you can be on your way.”
Bree blinked at his curt tone and hooked her fingers in her belt loops, an awful habit she had that drove her mother crazy. “You are my business,” she informed him. “I mean, you are my job. I have to secure your premises and then we need to go over your schedule and how we’ll be traveling for the next few weeks.”
“So, how long is this going to take? I have my own work to do.”
“Oh, you work?” She looked clearly surprised.
Renny tried not to take offense. “Yes, I work. What? Did you think I just sat around living off my father’s money all day?”
He looked angry now. His brow had scrunched together, his luscious lips growing into a tight line, and for a moment she felt concerned—for a brief moment. She moved closer to him. “Actually, I thought you spent your days scouring for what new woman you would take to your bed. Isn’t that what rich playboys normally do?” Who he took to his bed should not have concerned her, yet with a fierce certainty it did.
Now he was officially turned off. How dared she barge into his house at the crack of dawn insulting him at every turn? “You’re not a morning person. Your house isn’t secure enough.” And now, “You’re just an unemployed rich playboy.” In a minute he was going to lose all the good manners his mother had taught him and say a few things that would likely send little Miss Bodyguard running. “I’ll have you know I am very gainfully employed. Outside of Bennett Industries,” he said, lifting his head high and poking his chest out just a bit.
She raised a brow. “Really? And what is it that you gainfully do outside of Bennett Industries?”
She’d folded her hands over her chest, effectively pushing her plump breasts up a few inches so that he could see the smooth skin slipping into the crevice between them. Damn. He was turned on again. He clenched his teeth until he was sure he’d develop lockjaw. He’d never been this physically aware of a woman before. He preferred soft, compliant women. Women that wore ultrasexy, ultrafeminine clothes and treated their hair and makeup as if they were their only commodity.
So why was Sabrina Desdune getting under his skin so easily?
“I am a sculptor and I own an art studio.” For a minute he thought he’d had her stumped. She blinked quickly. Then the corners of her mouth upturned and she gave him a wry grin.
“Bored, are we? Or are you simply rebelling against Daddy?”
That was it! That was the last insult he was going to take from her without striking back. He moved to the soft Italian leather couch and sat down slowly, stretching one arm over the back of the chair while the other one rested in his lap. “I could ask you the same thing. Running around playing cops and robbers with your big brother. What’s the matter? You couldn’t find a man to marry you and knock you up?”
Without another word she scooped up her bag and turned her back to him.
Damn, he hadn’t thought she’d pick up and run. A part of him was enjoying their little sparring match. Besides Gabrielle, his youngest sister, he didn’t have this type of exchange with anyone else. He jumped up from the chair and was at her side before she could take another step. “I’m sorry, Sabrina. I was out of line. Don’t go.” He cupped her elbow, turned her to face him.
Her head tilted to the side, a few strands of her ponytail draping over one shoulder. Her eyes sparked and glittered with flecks of gold he hadn’t noticed before. Then she smiled. And Renny felt his chest tighten. She was quite simply breathtaking.
“Oh, you were way out of line, but I wasn’t leaving.” She tossed the words at him as she purposely turned quickly so that her duffel bag hit him square in the stomach. Then she moved to the matching couch he’d just vacated and plopped herself and her stuff down. “But I have a job to do and I plan to do it. We don’t have to like each other and we don’t have to know each other’s personal business. I’ll just need your schedule and then I’ll show you how to work some of this stuff. Then we should be set.”
Renny rubbed his hand over his midsection. The jab she’d tossed him hadn’t been the least bit painful, but his ego sure was taking a beating. He was used to women falling over him, batting their eyes and doing everything in their power to attract him. Sabrina acted as if she couldn’t care less whether he took his next breath or not.
The bodyguard situation was turning out to be just as bad as he’d thought it would.
Chapter 2
“So, do you want to talk about it?” Lynn set her cup on the table, picked up her napkin and folded it neatly in her lap. Jeremy was in the living room watching his morning cartoons. The sun streamed through the windows on another unusually warm October day. And her baby sister sat across the table from her, looking as if she had the weight of the world on her shoulders.
Bree shrugged. “There’s nothing to talk about.” For the first few months of her return Lynn had been the quiet one, the one person in her family hadn’t asked a million questions about her sudden decision not to reenlist. She loved the military, loved the life of a marine. She’d served in Desert Storm, done a year in Germany, a year in Japan and was happily based in Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, when her glorious life came to a screeching halt.
“You were really happy in the service. You couldn’t wait to get away from here once you graduated from high school and you only came back on holidays. So I guess I’m just a little confused as to why you’re here now, doing this little security thing with Sam.”
Bree looked up at her sister, the oldest of the Desdune siblings. Lynette Desdune Richardson, her mother’s pride and joy. Lynn had always done the right things in her mother’s eyes. She’d been a cheerleader on the honor roll. She went to college, found a guy, married him and had a baby, exactly as planned. And in the last year that guy had walked out of her life, leaving her with a mortgage and a son to raise alone. Still, Lynn was the epitome of womanhood, according to her mother. She was tall and beautiful, with the coffee-brown skin that all the Desdune siblings shared, light brown eyes, full lips and a great body—yes, Lynn was the woman that Bree had secretly longed to be.
Even though she knew she’d definitely lose her mind if all she had to do from day to day was housework and taking care of kids, the small female percentage of her wanted the love of a good man and wanted that love to spill over into a couple of kids—but that wasn’t written in the scroll of her life; she accepted that. Besides, Lynn had a career now. She was an attorney at the Legal Aid Bureau. She said it was entertaining to say the very least, and Bree had to agree that her sister looked really happy. She wished she could feel that way.
“It was simply time to come home, Lynn. Don’t make a big deal out of it.” Bree bit into her muffin and tried to look away.
Lynn shook her head, sipped from her coffee cup, then smiled. “There’s nothing out that window that wasn’t out there yesterday or the day before. And you’re going to have to tell someone what happened sooner or later. I just thought you’d like to share with your only sister first.”
Bree frowned. “Oh, don’t give me that only-sister crap, I had to find out from Mommy that Roger had left. I didn’t see that sister bond reaching out then.”
“You weren’t here, Bree. You were doing your own thing and nobody really wanted to disturb you.”
“Except for Mommy, who wanted me to come home, anyway.”
Lynn smiled. “Mommy never wanted you to go. It was only because Daddy threatened to tie her up and lock her in her room that she didn’t board a plane and bring you home a million times herself.”
Bree laughed with her sister. “Yeah, Mommy never did understand.”
Lynn reached across the table, took Bree’s hand in hers. “
But I do, Bree. I know that there is something going on, something that has hurt you deeply. I can see it in your eyes.”
Was she really that transparent? It didn’t matter, she’d failed. She’d been so headstrong and so determined to make her life mean something, to prove to her family that she was more than just the baby of the troop, that she could hold her own. Yet when it really came down to it, she’d been a childish dreamer and as a result she was sitting here in her sister’s kitchen, sleeping in her guest bedroom and working security jobs with her twin brother.
“I remember Mommy saying that there was nothing like growing pains,” she began in a hushed tone. “Now I know that she was right. Again. Mommy always seems to be right.”
“Not always. Remember she thought that white dress and those white pumps would look fabulous on you for your prom.”
Bree smiled at the memory. “Yeah, except I couldn’t walk on those stilts and I ended up wobbling right into Bobby Spencer, who was carrying two glasses of punch that immediately landed all over my dress.”
The sisters laughed over the memory.
“Growing up is hard. But for the record, I think you’ve done a wonderful job.” Lynn still held her hand.
“Yeah, whatever.” Bree snatched her hand away, not willing to go any further. If she continued to sit there, Lynn with her caring eyes and tender touch would have her talking about things that were better off left alone. She stood abruptly and carried her own dishes over to the sink and rinsed off her plate.
Lynn, who was taller than Bree by a couple of inches, came up behind her, wrapped her arms around her sister’s shoulders and hugged her tight. “It’s okay, you’re with family now, with the people that love and cherish you. Whenever you’re ready to talk, just know that I’m ready to listen.”
