by A. C. Arthur
For a moment Bree’s heart filled and she wanted nothing more than to rid herself of all these hurtful feelings, but she just couldn’t. They wouldn’t understand why she’d done the things she had and she didn’t want to see the disappointment in their eyes. So she took a deep breath and rubbed a hand over her sister’s arm. “Thanks, Lynn. But I’m going to be okay. I’m going to find an apartment and make a life for myself here in Greenwich. This is my home and this is where I belong. I should never have forgotten that.”
When a yell from the living room pulled Lynn away, Bree stood at the kitchen sink, looking out the window in front of her.
Greenwich was her home but it had never emotionally filled her. She wanted to see the world, to find action and adventure, to live her life on the edge, and joining the marines was the closest she was ever going to get to that. Her first four years had been fantastic; she trained in the Special Weapons Division. Because that was what had intrigued her most and she’d mastered everything, from martial arts to taking apart a semiautomatic weapon and putting it back together again in less than ten minutes. She’d been having the time of her life.
Then all that had changed.
The phone rang, startling Bree out of her reverie. Hastily, she dried her hands on the dish towel and scooped the receiver off the mounting on the wall. “Hello?”
“What are you doing still home? You should be on your way to Bennett’s place.”
“Good morning, Sam. Yes, I’ve had breakfast and am about to start my workday. And how are you this glorious fall morning?” Sam’s voice had been curt, laced with a bit of tension. But then if she had to spend every evening with Leeza, she’d be stressed, too.
“Sorry, sis. I guess I’ve just got a lot going on this morning. But really, you should be on your way out. I hear Bennett is an early starter.”
Bree cradled the phone between her shoulder and her ear and looked down at her hands. “Yeah, he gets up at the break of dawn, sort of reminds me of my days on the base.” She hadn’t cut her nails in a few days and was surprised to see the beginnings of growth. She’d never had fingernails before or worn fingernail polish for that matter. She wondered briefly what it would feel like.
“Alex says he’s opening an art gallery in a couple of weeks. You should probably check out his building and find out what type of celebration he’s planning. It might be a good time for a hit.”
Her adrenaline started to pump, slowly. “Really? You think it’ll go that far?” She pushed her hands into her pockets, not really sure why she was thinking about nail polish and stuff, anyway.
“I think we need to be prepared for anything. This merger is worth billions of dollars. A lot of people stand to become rich just as a lot of people stand to lose their jobs. It’s our duty to make sure our people are protected from whatever goes down.”
Bree nodded even though Sam couldn’t see her. Her brother had pored over those letters, studying every detail, the homicide detective in him never leaving the job the way Sam had. He said the Force was simply too restrictive. He wanted to really make a difference, so he set out to provide security for the citizens of Greenwich so that they wouldn’t end up on the desk of some homicide detective. “Well, I’m ready for whatever goes down.”
Sam chuckled. “You’re always ready for anything, Rambo.”
“That’s why you hired me.” She smiled. Sam hadn’t called her Rambo since she’d been back home. She realized she’d missed the stupid nickname.
“Well, get moving before I fire you. And, Bree?”
“Yeah?”
“Be careful,” he warned solemnly.
“Be careful of what, Sam? We live in Greenwich.”
Sam sighed. “I know how you feel about our rural little town, but a lot of sick things have happened since you’ve been away fighting wars. It can get dangerous out there. But that’s not what I’m talking about.”
“Then what are you talking about?”
“Renny Bennett has a reputation and I don’t want you getting caught up in it.”
Now she was intrigued. Of course Renny had a playboy reputation. With those looks and that body, why shouldn’t he? But that had nothing to do with her; she was so not his type. “Please, I’m the last person he’s thinking about in that way.”
“Bree, just watch yourself around him. Okay? He’s smooth with the ladies and I don’t want to have to walk away from this job because he stepped out of line.”
“Sammy, you’ve clearly had too much coffee this morning. There’s no chance of that happening so don’t even worry about it. Now, I can’t get to work if I’m on the phone with you.”
“You’ve been forewarned,” Sam said before disconnecting the line.
Bree hung up the phone and ran back upstairs to get her cell phone and keys. She walked past the full-length mirror that hung on the wall near the closet and stopped. She’d put on khakis today, a powder-blue color that her mother had picked out for her. Her shirt still resembled a T-shirt but it had a slight V-neck and was the same pale shade as her pants. On her feet were purely functional Reebok classic tennis shoes and her hair was pulled back in her signature ponytail, except it swung loose today.
She stood to the side, studied her silhouette. She didn’t have a bad shape. Sure, she wasn’t as curvy as Lynn and didn’t look as soft as other women, her own muscled biceps flexing as she moved her hands up and down her body, but she was clearly a woman. She turned to get a frontal view. Her face was free of makeup. She never really liked the stuff, but looking at her plain face now she thought maybe some gloss would be okay. After moving to the dresser and finally finding a tube that wasn’t dried out or caked up, she smeared it on her lips, then groaned.
“You’re his bodyguard. This is so silly. He would never be interested in someone like you.” She swiped the back of her hand over her lips and sighed. “And you don’t want him to be, either.”
Without glancing in that traitorous mirror again, Bree grabbed her jacket, keys and phone and left the room. She had a job to do.
Renny had a busy schedule today. He needed to go by the foundry to check on a last-minute piece he’d added to the collection. Then he needed to go past the gallery to meet the decorator and go over the details for the opening with his general manager. And he had to squeeze in time to work on his newest piece. The piece that had been keeping him awake at night.
It was so clear in his mind and as he’d drawn it, he’d felt his pulse quicken, his breath hitch. He’d mounted the armature and had just started to apply the clay earlier this morning. He wasn’t sure if this piece would ever see the light of day. Still, he was compelled to finish it, to have the picture of her etched forever in bronze.
She’d been with him for the past two days. From sunup until sundown, she’d been at his condo hooking up one gizmo after the next. He found her to be very thorough in her duties. She checked and double-checked everything the moment she got there and just before she left. He felt like he was on display in his own home. She had cameras and motion sensors outside his door, along the windows, and bugs in his phone. It was as if he didn’t have any privacy left at all. Not that it was an issue since he never brought women to his home, anyway. It was simply too personal and the moment they were in his house, to their mind’s thinking, they were in his heart and in his pocket, neither of which he was allowing.
He loved women, but he didn’t want a permanent one. As in love as his parents were, Renny was in no hurry to have those emotional entanglements. It just wasn’t for him. He was too focused on himself, his work and his gallery. He’d be no good to a woman. His father had said as much the day he told him refusing to work for Bennett Industries meant he didn’t have a care for his future stability. To Marvin Bennett, being an artist was not stable, it was stupid.
Renny accepted his father’s view, but didn’t let it sway his decision. He wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to offer a woman the fame and fortune that went along with the Bennett name—because Marvin swore he
wouldn’t leave Renny one piece of the company as long as he was playing around with clay and drawing. Renny had a handsome trust fund set up for him by his grandfather on his mother’s side, so he really wasn’t worried about being the proverbial starving artist, but women expected more from a Bennett. They expected to have it all once they landed him and he would ultimately have to disappoint them.
So instead, he dated, had sex and left soon after. There were no mornings waking up beside Renny Bennett, and if any woman dared to say she had, she was surely lying. A hotel or her place was the destination of choice, so he could get up and leave when it suited him. None of them even had his home number, and his cell number was changed periodically because he especially hated the ones that couldn’t let go. His brothers called him ruthless as a businessman when it came to women; he called it a necessity to his own survival and didn’t have any plans of changing his routine.
His bodyguard wasn’t here yet this morning, but then he was leaving a little earlier than she normally arrived. It didn’t matter; she had a key to his place, so if she wanted to go in and check on her gadgets she could. He really didn’t understand why he needed a bodyguard in the first place, and wondered what this little woman could actually do to protect him, anyway. She had loads of energy, though. She moved from the time she came in until the time she left. She drank her water, but he never saw her eat much. Yesterday, he had convinced her to have a slice of pizza, but she hadn’t sat down at the table to consume it. Instead she’d held it in one hand while she pored over maps of the city, saying they needed to have safe routes mapped out in case of an emergency. He’d gone back into his studio then. All her moving about was making him tired. He was as much of a workaholic as the next guy, but his job was more slow, more graceful, while hers seemed to be adrenaline driven, and she was really into it.
His mind had wandered out into the living room as he wondered what she was doing. Had she had enough to eat? When was she going to go to the bathroom after she’d consumed almost a half gallon of water in three hours? And was she biting on her bottom lip like she did when she was concentrating?
As he stepped through the door he shook his head. He shouldn’t even have thought about her lips or the fact that he’d remembered such an inconsequential detail about her like that. He checked the locks the way she told him and even smiled up at the camera just above the entryway. He had his bag on his shoulder as he took the stairs down to his car. Pulling his keys from his back pocket, he hit the button disengaging the alarm and was just about to open his car door when he felt a jab in his back.
He turned around quickly and was faced with her wrath.
“Where the hell do you think you’re going? You didn’t say you were going out today. And you shouldn’t be out here by yourself. You didn’t even look around or check your surroundings. You didn’t see or hear me come up behind you, did you?”
She was like a madwoman, spouting off questions, not waiting for answers. Her sienna eyes sparkling with anger, her chest heaving. Yeah, he found his eyes resting on her chest quite frequently in the past couple of days. He’d never considered himself a breast man before, but admitted that his fingers tingled each time he looked at the perfect roundness of hers.
“Good morning, Sabrina.” He smiled down at her and she clamped her lips closed so tightly he thought she would break a tooth. She opened her mouth to speak again, but closed it just as quickly before taking a deep, steadying breath. She was even more beautiful when she was angry.
Bree instantly felt guilty. Hadn’t Sam just done the same thing to her less than an hour ago? It was a good morning and she should have said that first, but he hadn’t heard her come up behind him and she could have been a hit man with a gun and he wouldn’t have had any time to protect himself and…he’d smiled at her. That smile that left her breathless. “Good morning, Renny.”
“That’s so much better.” He reached for the handle and opened his door.
Bree stepped back to avoid being hit. “You still didn’t tell me where you were going, and you weren’t watching your back.”
Renny tossed his bag into the backseat and climbed inside. “Isn’t that what you get paid to do?”
Oh, no, he wasn’t popping an attitude now. “Yes, it is, and that’s precisely why I’m angry with you now. You should have told me last night before I left that you’d be going out this morning and I would have been here earlier. It’s clear you don’t have a care for your own safety, which makes my job even harder.” That and the fact that you are one mouthwatering piece of eye candy.
“We’ve already established the fact that I don’t buy into this whole threat and need for a bodyguard, and I wasn’t aware that I had to tell you my every move.”
“Well, you do. So you might as well start now.” She folded her arms over her chest and waited.
Renny expelled a deep breath. She sure was a feisty little thing. He actually enjoyed getting her all riled up. Her eyes looked wild, filled with untamed passion that he’d love to tap into. He sat back in his seat, his hands on the steering wheel, because he wanted to reach out and touch her more than anything else. “I have a couple of errands to run. Is that okay with you?”
He really was infuriating. But Sam had warned her that in cases like this there were always people who didn’t see the need for a personal guard—especially men. “Fine. I’ll follow you.”
She turned to walk away and Renny felt a sudden loss that he couldn’t quite explain. He pushed on his horn. She was just at the front of his car, so the loud sound startled her and she jumped a bit. He grinned and shrugged, poking his head out of the window. “Sorry.”
“Yeah, right,” she snapped.
“Hey, if you’re supposed to be guarding my body shouldn’t you be a little closer to it?” he shouted.
Bree almost collapsed right there. How had he known she’d just been thinking about being up close and personal with his body? Then it dawned on her he didn’t know, he was simply teasing her about her job again. “I’ll be right behind you in my truck.”
“That’s not acceptable. I happen to know that my brother is paying you a pretty penny and I want him to get his money’s worth. Hop in.” He could see her trying to think of a reason to decline and wondered for a moment if Miss Bodyguard was feeling the heat between them as he was. “C’mon, I’m going to be late.”
She didn’t have a choice. It was her job and he had a point; to effectively protect him she did need to stay close. Squaring her shoulders, she took those first steps toward the passenger side door and then climbed in beside him. This was a great car, a Porsche, candy-apple-red with all the niceties that came with it—even the devilishly handsome driver. Clasping her seat belt, Bree laid her head back on the headrest and tried to remind herself that this was work, he was Renny Bennett and she was Sabrina Desdune, ex-marine, lifetime tomboy. That was it, plain and simple.
“We’re here,” Renny announced as he pulled into a parking lot.
Bree looked around. It looked like a deserted building from where she was sitting, so she couldn’t help but ask, “Where is here?”
Renny reached over, undid her seat belt and grabbed his bag from the back. “It’s a foundry.” He hopped out before she could ask another question and came around to the other side of the car just as she was swinging the door open. He reached for her hand and she stared at it as if it were a foreign object.
“What are you doing?”
Renny smiled, reached in and grabbed her hand, pulling her resistant body out of the car. “You sure do keep your guard up. I’m helping you out of the car. That’s what a man is supposed to do.”
He closed the door behind her and dropped her hand. She was glad of that because the heat that soared up her arm at his touch was disconcerting to say the least. “Being alert is part of my training,” she said to his now-retreating back.
Renny looked over his shoulder to see her following him. “You actually trained to become a bodyguard?”
Was that humor she heard in his voice? She frowned. “No. I actually trained to become a marine.”
Renny stopped abruptly. Bree had been looking at her surroundings and didn’t realize he wasn’t moving anymore until she collided with him and that alluring chest again. He grabbed her shoulders.
“Sorry. I keep doing that,” she mumbled, then tried to move around him, but he wouldn’t let her go.
“You’re a marine?”
He looked absolutely flabbergasted. It was kind of funny, this look men got when they were confronted with a female soldier, especially a marine. There were men who hadn’t made it through the Marine Corps, so a woman was definitely a shock. Bree kind of liked the effect. “For sixteen years.”
She was so tiny he would never have imagined her climbing over walls and dodging bullets, yet the thought was a definite turn-on. He was quickly realizing that there was a lot about his bodyguard that turned him on.
“Do you have a problem with that?” He was staring at her and it made her uncomfortable. His dark eyes raked over her body as if he were searching for something…and amazingly enough had found it. She battled with whether she liked it or not. Then he smiled and she wanted to melt into his arms.
“No problem at all. I guess I’m really protected now.” He should stop touching her. She was steady now; there was no need to have his hands on her. Except the need deep inside him that wanted to get closer. The light blue outfit she wore today was refreshing from her normal denim and white attire. It gave her a softer look that he really liked. A slight breeze mussed her hair, the back of the ponytail swayed gently.
“Are we going into this foundry or what?” She managed to move away from his touch this time and walked around him. Her stomach was doing somersaults and they were standing out in the open where he was a clear shot.
Renny dropped his arms to his side and led her into the building. He was tall and didn’t walk slowly. Usually he’d have to slow down to almost baby steps when walking with a woman, but Sabrina, even with her shorter legs, kept up with him without a problem. She didn’t carry a purse, just a small pouch at her waist. She didn’t wear long flourishing earrings, just simple studs. Her watch was the only jewelry that adorned her arms, and today he couldn’t even see her ankle bracelet. She looked around, taking in everything and seemingly recording it for future use.
