by KS Augustin
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. He doesn’t say. Just capable, discreet, and versatile.” Ryan refolded the paper and put it back in his pocket. “It’s not even a twenty-four by seven job. Just on demand.”
She frowned at him. “Does that mean what I think it means?”
Ryan shrugged. “It’s the perfect introduction to a solo assignment. They’ll probably call you to accompany them to meetings and social events and the rest of the time will be yours. What’s there not to like?”
“Will he be expecting a woman?” Helen asked. She didn’t kid herself that gender wasn’t an important part of security work. People who took orders from a six-foot hunk of muscle sometimes had problems taking the same orders from a five-eight woman.
“He wants someone good, he’ll get someone good,” the older man dismissed airily. “Who cares if it’s a man or woman?”
It looked like her old chief instructor had already made up his mind that she was the right person—the only person—for the task.
“Did they say how long the job was for?”
“Two weeks initially, with the option of extending the assignment at his discretion.”
Of course, it was never at the worker’s discretion, always the client. Well, considering they were the ones paying the bill, that seemed fair enough.
“And how much money are they offering?”
Ryan looked at her carefully and named a sum that had her sagging in her chair, her mind in a whirl.
“And that’s for the two weeks?” she asked faintly.
He nodded.
“Are you sure you got that number right?” she asked. Her voice was a bit breathless from disbelief. “You didn’t accidentally add an extra zero to it, did you?”
Ryan looked annoyed, as if he could even be accused of making such a mistake. “I asked for confirmation, and they sent back the same number. It’s probably a more reasonable rate in euros, but it adds up to a pretty little sum in Aussie dollars.”
The figure Ryan mentioned was more than pretty, it was dazzling. Why, with that kind of money, Helen could take a very comfortable sum with her to Byron—certainly enough to lease or buy her own small building and restart her business there. She wouldn’t even have to depend on selling her Fortitude Valley apartment first. The proceeds from this one job were enough to guarantee her independence for at least a year. And all for just two weeks’ work.
“It sounds too good to be true,” she remarked, trying to find a catch in what she’d been told.
“I asked for a fifty percent deposit,” Ryan added. “It hit my account late this morning.” He drew out another, slimmer piece of paper and slid it across the table. “This is for you.”
With suddenly chilled fingers, Helen reached for the cheque and unfolded it, drawing in a quick breath as she saw her name and the written amount. There were so many zeroes in it! Then her mind kicked in to the implications behind his words.
“You’ve already set up this whole deal,” she accused.
Ryan was unrepentant. “After the first query, we swapped a few more, in between me catching some American football on late-night television. He got on the phone to me around midnight.” He paused. “He wanted an answer right away, Hel. What was I supposed to do? Put him on hold while I spent the next hour trying to talk you around?”
She tried to work up some righteous anger, but Ryan’s generosity short-circuited all attempts at indignation.
“I took out ten percent,” he said, as if wanting to remind her that he really wasn’t as soft-hearted as circumstances indicated.
“Yes, I noticed that.”
“I thought that was a fair enough commission,” he added gruffly.
She nodded. “I’ll expect you’ll take your commission out of the final payment as well.”
“That’s right. Business is business.”
The side of her mouth curled upwards in a barely repressed smile. Ryan Greenwood hated it if anyone thought there was a heart beating inside that solid chest of his. She was tempted to get up and give him a hug, just to embarrass him.
“So when’s my new employer arriving?”
“Tomorrow, he says. He’ll be coming with his assistant. They’re staying at Heritage House.”
Helen’s smoke-coloured eyebrows shot upwards. The Heritage House wasn’t so much a hotel as a fully-catered two-storey, historical residence on the curving banks of the Brisbane River, just on the edge of the busy city centre. Nestled next to the greenery of one of the city’s botanical gardens, it was opulent and discreet, with a private garden that overlooked the river and the cliffs and private multi-level houses of Kangaroo Point on the opposite shore. Helen had gone abseiling on those cliffs several times, and always took time out to gaze at the renovated residence, its severe lines softened by wide verandahs, tropical climbers and hedges of immaculately maintained rose bushes. She wondered which of the four available suites Guy Aubrac was renting.
Ryan correctly interpreted Helen’s look of astonishment. “Yeah, the guy must have money coming out of his ears. He wants to meet you tomorrow at eleven.”
“In the morning? Won’t he be jet-lagged?”
Her ex-instructor shrugged. “I doubt his type get jet-lagged.”
Or else he didn’t fully realise the kind of distances involved in travelling to Australia. Just flying from one side of the island continent to the other was a trip of more than five hours in a passenger jet. It always confused tourists from smaller countries, who fully expected to drive from, say, Brisbane to Sydney for dinner and then drive back to their hotel again that night!
But it looks so close on the map, they’d wail, and Helen would patiently explain the scale of things in the country, by which stage they’d be wide-eyed and impressed. Perhaps this Guy Aubrac was like that, a savvy businessman in Europe, but ignorant of how large Australia really was.
“All right,” she conceded. “Eleven o’clock tomorrow morning at Heritage House. What suite will he be in?”
“Just knock on the door and ask for him. It seems he took the whole house.”
For the second time in as many minutes, Helen was stunned. The entire house? That certainly put the amount on her cheque in perspective. Was there anything this man couldn’t afford?
“I wonder why he didn’t bring his own security with him,” she mused. “It looks like he’s got enough money to do it.”
“I’m not one to look a gift horse in the mouth,” Ryan countered. “He wants someone, the job doesn’t sound too complicated, and I’ve nominated you. All you have to do now is stun him with your brilliance, and you’re in. And Hel,” he added as an afterthought, “you will remember to dress nice, won’t you?”
Helen couldn’t help herself. She stuck her tongue out at him.
* * * *
Dress nice.
Ryan’s words echoed through her head for the rest of the day and the entirety of a sleepless night, but at least it had the advantage of taking her mind off Pete’s senseless death for the first time in weeks. She spent the morning sifting through her wardrobe several times, choosing then discarding outfit after outfit. She wanted to appear capable but not too masculine. Discreet, efficient but not aloof.
Screaming her frustration to the ceiling, Helen went through her choices, one more time, and finally decided on an outfit that looked like something an upmarket waiter would wear. Her black pants were slim-fitting but elastic, so they didn’t hamper her movements, and she wore medium-heeled patent leather pumps on her feet. Underneath a lightweight, forest green jacket, she didn’t wear a blouse, because that was too hot for the climate, but a high-buttoned sleeveless vest with a mandarin collar, made from the same material as her jacket, but in a lighter shade.
She felt—nervous and a bit sick, although why that should be she didn’t know. This wasn’t the first time she’d met new clients. In fact, she often spoke to a panel of representatives when approaching companies and interest groups. But, for some reason, there was
something about this particular assignment—the speed with which it had been organised, the unknown quantity that the client represented, and the ridiculous amount of money involved—that gave her a sense of foreboding.
She caught a taxi to the house and, after paying, walked carefully up the footpath, checking her watch for the twentieth time. Five minutes to eleven. She ran a quick hand down the creaseless jacket and pants. Wriggled her toes in her shoes. Took a breath. And pressed the vintage-styled call button next to the heavy front door of Heritage House.
She didn’t hear the bell, but it must have gone off somewhere because barely ten seconds elapsed before she heard the sound of footsteps on the other side of the door and it swung open. A slim, dark-haired woman, obviously one of the staff, smiled at her.
“May I help you?”
“Er, I’m Helen Collier. I have an appointment with Monsieur Guy Aubrac.” She let her voice tilt upwards at the end, turning the statement into a bit of a question, but the staff member ushered her in with a slightly puzzled smile.
“I was expecting a Collier, but—” She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. I imagine there’s been a bit of a mix-up. Please make your way upstairs, Ms. Collier, and turn left. The meeting room is the first door on your right.”
Helen wanted to call her back.
Mix-up? What mix-up? I thought Ryan Greenwood had arranged everything.
But the woman, obviously interrupted by the doorbell, bustled off, leaving Helen alone in the foyer. Black polished granite with white streaks glinted under her feet, and her heels clacked noisily as she walked to the stairs. Thankfully, they were carpeted, the long navy runner held in place by brass stair rods. The pile was thick and Helen’s feet sank into it as she ascended.
Turn left and first door on the right, she repeated to herself. The steps at the top ended along a corridor that ran the length of the building, with rooms opening on either side. In front of her, a void opened to the foyer below, and an expanse of windows looked out over the river and the garden below.
This must be where they divided the house, she thought, noticing sets of discreet metal runners inset into the polished timber flooring, one before each wing of rooms began, presumably put there to screen one half of the floor from the other half. There were no partitions in evidence at all, and Helen remembered Ryan telling her that Guy Aubrac had leased the entire building for his own personal use. That was serious money talking.
Helen walked along the suspended corridor and knocked at the first door on her right.
“Entrez,” a voice answered. That was French, all right.
She twisted the brass knob and walked in.
There were two men in the room, one sitting in an armchair next to the far wall, overlooking the vista outside, and the other standing just next to the door. The man sitting should, by rights, be the businessman—he looked relaxed and slightly aloof, with dark brown hair and hazel eyes. He regarded her frankly and with a little surprise. But it was the other man who caught and held her attention. This man was tall and well-built, with black hair, olive skin and a piercing pair of icy blue eyes. He hooded them as he watched her, lowering the most sinfully long eyelashes she had ever seen on a man. He must be the assistant, but something told Helen that the one standing was infinitely more dangerous than the man seated on the other side of the room.
“Monsieur Guy Aubrac?” she enquired, looking from one to the other. She hoped they wouldn’t ask her any questions in French, because she had just exhausted almost her entire foreign vocabulary with that one word!
“I am Guy Aubrac,” the man in the armchair replied. “But who are you, mademoiselle?”
Helen frowned. “I’m Helen Collier. I’m to be your security escort for the next two weeks.”
The man who stood to her right shifted impatiently. “There must be some mistake,” he said, and his voice was low with a hint of huskiness.
A bedroom voice, Helen thought before she ruthlessly strangled that thought.
“We were expecting a professional, not a little girl! Are you his daughter perhaps?”
Helen stiffened. Although life had become easier for her over the past few years, she still had to battle the inevitable sexism when men thought of ability and martial arts. It looked like she wasn’t going to give up the fight any time soon.
She deliberately turned her face away from the tall and disturbing stranger near her and directed all her attention to the man in the armchair.
“I believe you spoke to a colleague of mine?” she asked. “Ryan Greenwood?”
“Oui, this is correct,” Guy Aubrac agreed, shrugging. “We sent each other some emails and had a telephone conversation. I informed him of my needs, and he said he had someone eminently suitable.”
Helen took a deep breath. “That’s me.”
“But how can this be?” the taller man interrupted. “We asked for a bodyguard. Not a...” he swept a hand up and down her figure, as if lost for words.
“I must agree with my, er, assistant, Mademoiselle Collier,” Aubrac added. “Monsieur Greenwood told me a Monsieur ‘Hell’ Collier would be meeting with us this morning. At the time, I admit I was a bit concerned by such an evocative nickname, but the Greenwood name is highly respected.”
Helen wasn’t surprised. The number of people worldwide connected with martial arts that Ryan didn’t know could be counted on the fingers of one hand. He’d be happy to have that snippet of news passed onto him. But that still didn’t get her out of her current predicament. She wondered darkly if Ryan had deliberately misled the two Frenchmen, or if it was due to a genuine miscommunication.
“My name is Helen Collier,” she told them. “Hel, with one ‘l’, for short.”
“And what of your father?” The tall, disturbing one asked.
“Dead,” she answered succinctly, looking him full in the face, daring him to contradict her.
The corner of that sensuous mouth twitched at her tone. “And do you have any brothers?”
“One. Overseas.”
“Uncles?” he asked with a lift of an eyebrow.
“My father was an only child.”
“So no nephews?”
“None.” She enunciated the word as clearly as she could.
They stared at each other for several long moments. Helen couldn’t tell exactly, but there was something about the man that irritated her intensely. Irritated her and tempted her to rip off his clothes, right there and then, and run her tongue down the taut flesh of the muscled body she knew lay under the long-sleeved business shirt. What would he look like in the throes of passion, with that superior smirk wiped from his face? She was dying to know.
Someone cleared their throat, and Helen was brought back to reality with a thump. She flushed and turned to face her prospective employer, hoping that she hadn’t just irretrievably wrecked her chances at the assignment. Think of the money Hel, she told herself, and keep your mouth shut.
“This is a very large misunderstanding, Maidemoiselle Collier.”
Aubrac shook his head from side to side, and Helen’s heart dropped to the floor. She had really done it this time—turned a sweet gig into a disaster. Ryan was going to have a field day with what she had just managed to do. Her dreams of moving to Byron Bay sometime within the next decade died a swift death.
“I’m afraid I have,” Aubrac flicked a glance at his assistant then suddenly spluttered into a coughing fit. He thumped his chest a couple of times before continuing. “I mean, I, er, was wondering if there is a way that, er, you could illustrate your competence.”
“An exhibition of my skills, you mean?”
“Oui. Yes. An exhibition.”
This was better. Helen was on more familiar ground with a request like that. People never liked to think that a slim, young woman could pound someone bigger and heavier into the ground, and she often had to prove herself to win contracts. She could win this one, she thought with sudden determination. She always did.
“On who
?” she asked. “You?”
“How about me?” that low, molten voice interrupted.
A smile slowly formed on Helen’s face.
* * * *
For the first time in his adult life, Yves didn’t know what to think. He had worked out a small ploy—it wasn’t anything that would deter anybody who knew either of them well, but would serve to grant them a little extra peace. For the moment—and only for the moment—he and Guy would trade places. He would be the assistant, and Guy would be the high-profile, super-rich businessman in need of some discreet security.
But when that girl—non! That woman—had walked through the door, Yves had felt something catch in his throat, making it difficult to breathe. He had met confident women before, but this slim scrap exuded a self-assurance that he had only seen in men decades older. Her black trousers clung to her legs and thighs, and what Yves saw, as his gaze raced up her figure, was slender and enticing, until the rest was hidden by the hem of an embroidered green jacket. He knew it wasn’t an haute couture piece, but the needlework indicated this was still a valuable, one-off item of clothing, probably sewn by a local designer. It was a perfect fit on Helen Collier’s body, tucking in to emphasise a trim waist before flaring over a pair of most feminine hips.
Helen Collier, not Hell Collier.
Yves wasn’t sure whether the mistake was made by Ryan Greenwood, a highly-recommended and discreet personal security expert, who had served several of his close friends, or by Guy himself. Whatever the case, he had arrived in Brisbane, expecting a grizzled and experienced man—much like Ryan Greenwood himself—and, instead, was confronted by one of the most perplexingly attractive women he’d ever met.
His gaze wandered over her face, taking the opportunity to look at her more closely while she traded words with Guy. Her hair was severely scraped back from her forehead and held in place by a pair of long clips, but he knew she found it an ongoing struggle to control those sun-kissed, curly blonde locks. Even as he looked, an errant tendril snapped free of its restraint and fell, caressing her cheek. Her skin was smooth and glowing, dotted with pale freckles, and her eyes were large and candid, accentuated by the darker, delicate eyebrows winging above each of them. Only her mouth—a sweetly pink cupid’s bow when at rest, but tightened with determination at the moment—commanded more attention, begging to be kissed and sucked until it moaned in pleasure.
