by Dana Marton
“You took that information to your father.” A picture was beginning to gel in his brain.
She looked at her feet. “He was going to look into it. He and my mom were in a car accident two weeks later.”
“What did you do next?”
“I didn’t connect the dots at first. I was so devastated by the accident. Months passed before I thought of the missing money again. I told everything to Lance.”
“Then he died.”
She nodded. “I talked to the police, but the deaths were all ruled accidents. Half the time they thought I was loopy from grief, the other half they were accusing me of wanting more media attention.”
His jaw tightened. “But you told your uncle, too, and nothing happened to him.”
“He didn’t believe me. My father did—he was going to investigate the company records. So was Lance. My uncle is too trusting. He thought I just needed some rest.”
“How long ago did you talk to him?”
“Almost a year.”
“And you haven’t brought it up since?”
“Once I figured out that looking into the missing money might have led to the accidents, I didn’t dare.”
Her uncle might not have taken her murder theory seriously, but he cared enough to talk her into getting an extra guard when Tsini had been threatened. And he’d been smart enough to recommend Welkins’s group. “Your uncle leads the company now?”
“He’s one of the VPs.”
“And he handles Greg’s trust fund.” That had come up at one point in his research. “Did you ever say anything about your suspicions to Greg?”
“No. There’s no point. It would just upset him.”
“But you think all this is somehow connected to the company.” He’d spent hours considering that and always came to the conclusion that Landon Enterprises and the hundreds of millions of dollars it represented was the most likely motive.
He couldn’t figure out, however, what someone might get out of killing the family. The stockholders owned the company, although both Greg and Kayla—and, he assumed, their uncle—owned considerable stock. There was no power struggle as far as he could tell, no bad blood between the CEO and any of the VPs.
“So the motive is to cover up a past crime, embezzlement.” It was all too possible.
“Or it could have nothing to do with the missing money. Maybe a business competitor figures that if Landon Enterprises gets decapitated and falls apart, they can snap up the market share,” Kayla said in a way that showed that she’d given this considerable thought.
“None of your competitors were in your apartment the night before last. And no Landon Enterprises employees were either, other than you and Greg.”
“But someone could have bribed one of my staff.”
He could see in her tight face that saying those words cost her. This was the first time she’d admitted that one of them had probably betrayed her. The blue-ribbon spark was gone from her eyes. She looked so sad, he couldn’t take it.
“Hey—” He leaned toward her and tucked a stray lock of blond hair behind her ear, and nearly drowned in her ocean-blue eyes. “Whatever it takes, I’m going to get you out of this mess.” And keep my hands off you.
They were sitting so damn close that their lips were separated by inches.
She was everything he couldn’t have. And he was a hairline away from not giving a damn. All he would have to do was dip his head. In another second, as she looked at him with those wide blue eyes, he might have.
But someone banged on the elevator shaft door below them, startling him back to sanity.
“You in there?” Mike’s voice filtered through. “Everything okay?”
Nash stood, rolling his shoulders, never happier for an interruption in his life. Mike had just saved him from making a colossal mistake. He owed the man.
“When are they going to get this thing moving?” The sooner the better. No room to escape the scent of her perfume in here. No matter how far he tried to pull away from her, she was always within reach. He needed to clear his head.
“They’re working on it. Something’s wrong with the computer.”
“Are all the elevators out?”
“Just this one.”
That gave him pause. He didn’t believe in coincidence. He looked at the door. Mike was here. Between the two of them they could…
“I’m going to force the inner door open and hold it. You do the same with the outer door. If there’s enough room, Kayla can slip out.”
He didn’t trust the elevator all of a sudden. And maybe he was right, because out of the blue, the damn thing jostled.
He pried the tips of his fingers into the crack and strained his muscles pulling. He could hear Mike swearing outside. Progress was slow, inch by inch. Kayla stepped out of her heels, getting ready. Then Mike began to gain some headway at last, as well. When they both had a gap about a foot wide, Kayla slipped out, landing on the floor with a thump. The bottom of the elevator was at least three feet above floor level outside.
“Now you,” she said immediately, before even putting her shoes back on.
The elevator jerked and dropped a foot.
She yelped, rushing to give Mike a hand. “Hurry.”
Nash nearly lost his hold on the door as the damn thing shook. “If I let go of the door, it’ll close on me. I can’t.” She was safe. Maybe the elevator wouldn’t fall. He would have to chance it.
From the look of utter desperation that came into her eyes, she didn’t agree. “What are you talking about?” She was looking around wildly.
“You can let that close,” Nash was saying to Mike, getting ready to let his own end go.
“Wait,” she interrupted, running off already. “I’ll be right back.”
And true to her word, she was back in a minute, just when Nash’s back was beginning to ache from the effort of holding the inner door open. She shoved a fire extinguisher into the crack. Must have gotten it from the fire stairs.
Damn, but he could really come to like this woman. She was so much more than a pretty face. Seemed stupid now that he’d ever thought that of her.
“Good thinking.” He grinned at her and slipped through, going at an angle to get his shoulders past the narrow crack.
Then Mike let the doors close, flexing his arms afterwards. He was strong, had to give him that.
“Thanks.” Nash clapped him on the back. There was still some animosity between them, but now he knew that Mike could be counted on to put all that aside and come through in a pinch.
The man was sweating. “That’s my job, and—”
The elevator rattled, cutting him off. Then there was a loud hissing sound that went on for long seconds. Then a crash that seemed to shake the building.
Kayla went white.
Nash sprang into action. “You take her to the suite. Don’t open the door to anyone but me. Keep your gun handy,” he told Mike and began running as a sudden idea popped into his head.
If anyone wanted to mess with the elevator, they could either do that through the main computer at the security office—which would be pretty hard to get into—or at the backup panel and the manual override that was usually at the bottom of the shaft. In the basement.
He took the stairs two at a time. Swore. He was never going to make it down there at this rate.
He left the fire stairs on the next floor and went back to the elevator bank, pushed the button. According to Mike, none of the other elevators were affected. And this was his only chance.
Still, time seemed to crawl by the time he reached the lobby level. Going below that on the elevator required a special key. He got off and looked for the stairs, found them. The steel door to the basement would have normally been locked, but personnel were rushing in and out now. The elevator crash had definitely been heard and felt.
He sneaked by them, acting as though he belonged there. He’d had plenty of practice at this sort of thing. He could be damn near invisible if the occasion c
alled for it.
He moved toward the sounds of people barking commands. Everyone was in uniform, everyone looked like part of a team assessing damage and trying to figure out if the elevator had been empty. Storage areas took up this side of the space, boxes piled against the bare cement walls. A jumble of pipes of various sizes ran along the ceiling.
He scanned the section of the huge basement that he could see. A lot of it was partitioned off. There was a door in the back that was swinging as if someone had just passed through there. He took off running that way. With all eyes on the elevator and the damage it caused, nobody paid him any attention.
The swinging door led to another set of stairs. He ran up and found himself in a long corridor somewhere in the back of the building. A man in hotel uniform was hurrying toward the door at the end.
“Stop,” Nash called out. “Stop right there.”
The man broke into a run. He was lithe and quick, around thirty if that.
Nash tore after him, ignoring the pain in his bad leg, and pushed through the door. Loading docks. Empty, save for the guy he was chasing. Probably everyone was at lunch or gawking at the elevator accident. The guy up ahead turned for a second. Nash was gaining on him.
He caught him in the far corner as he slipped through a gap between a parked truck and the wall. Nash couldn’t go after him; he was bigger and wouldn’t fit through the crack. But he had a firm hold of the man’s shirt.
He yanked the guy hard against the corner of the truck. Blond hair, green eyes, a narrow face with an unhealthy tan and crooked teeth. “Who do you work for?” He tried to pull the man back in, but the guy twisted right out of his loose uniform shirt and dashed forward, out of reach.
Then all Nash could hear was the screech of tires and a thump. By the time he made his way around the truck, the man was sprawled in a pool of his own blood on the ground. His lifeless eyes stared right at Nash.
“Damn.” He swore a blue streak as he moved closer, pulling his cell phone from his pocket.
“I didn’t see him. He jumped out of nowhere.” The white-faced driver of the delivery truck that had clipped the bastard was climbing down from his cab. His voice shook so hard, he almost sounded as if he was speaking with an accent.
Nash hit the speed dial for Mike. Before he did anything else, he needed to know if Kayla and Greg were all right.
She’d saved his life back at that elevator.
Whatever everyone else thought about her, Kayla Landon was a helluva woman.
And he was not going to let anything happen to her. He let go all of his resolutions then and there. To hell with not getting in up to his eyebrows. To hell with professional distance. To hell with making sure the job stayed just a job. As of now, this was personal.
Chapter Six
She couldn’t sleep. The elevator had been a close call. Her whole body still vibrated with tension. Nash lying there, within view, didn’t help either. His presence was impossible to ignore, day or night. Kayla pushed back the covers and got up. She needed to get rid of some nervous energy. If she were at home, she would have had yoga with Ilona today. The popular instructor came to her house three times a week.
She needed exercise, to exhaust herself to the point of passing out. Her laboring mind and jittery body might never get any rest otherwise.
She grabbed a pair of shorts and a sports top from her dresser and put them on in her bathroom, picked up her gym bag. She always took that with her when she traveled.
“Where are you going?” Nash asked out of the darkness when she walked into the living room.
He didn’t startle her. She knew that he, too, was still awake. She’d heard him get up a couple of times since they’d gone to bed. She would have stayed put if he were sleeping, would have let him rest.
“Gym’s open around the clock,” she said.
“Hang on a sec.” He went and got Dave up to take over and guard Greg, then grabbed his own bag, checked the hallway before letting her step outside.
Nothing but a small table lamp had been on inside the suite, but the lights were on in the hallway. Nash’s short hair was mussed, but he didn’t sport the same sleep-deprived look she knew must be evident on her face. His eyes were sharp and alert. His body…
She looked away. The flat-out best thing she could do for herself was not think about his body at all, especially when they were alone in the middle of the night. Temporarily alone. She hoped the hotel was full of insomniacs and the gym would be buzzing.
“Let’s take the stairs.” She walked toward the door at the end of the hall. The gym was only two floors above them.
He stood still, watching her. “The guy is dead. He can’t hurt you anymore,” he said softly.
She knew that. In the morning, she would take an elevator down, but tonight, the near crash was still too close. “Extra exercise,” she told him.
Whether he believed her or not, he followed her. Their footsteps echoed off the bare walls of the staircase as they made the short trip up. He passed her, putting his body squarely in front of her like a shield.
Which left her with little to do but look at his butt. The man could sell jeans. No other marketing message was needed. She forced herself to look away. The physical attraction was insane. Made her nervous.
For the most part, she was in control of her life. It was a wonderful feeling and fairly new. Before his death, her father had run the family and the business with an iron hand. Stepping up to the plate fully, making million-dollar decisions, taking on more responsibility and facing down difficult challenges had been scary for her at first. But she’d found that she liked it. She was her father’s daughter after all. She did like to be in control.
Except that with Nash Wilder, she couldn’t pretend that she had a prayer. He could take control of the growing sexual tension between them so fast it would leave her head spinning. Which meant her best bet was not to give him any sign, any clue at all that she was the least bit attracted to him.
“Good luck with that,” she murmured under her breath as they arrived at last.
The gym was empty save for the two of them. For a second, she thought of turning right around. But she didn’t want to explain why she had changed her mind suddenly. He turned on the overhead lights. She went straight to the treadmill. He seemed to be set on working with weights. She tried not to watch him.
That worked for about two minutes.
His movements were even, efficient and powerful. His body was a well-oiled machine. He went through the stations, pushing insane amounts of weight slowly, deliberately as he completed his repetitions. Long, fabulous muscles stretched and contracted, forming mesmerizing bulges.
It’d been a long time since she’d been in the presence of a man she was attracted to. And she’d never been as attracted to a man as she was to Nash. Even if she knew nothing about him beyond that he worked for a top-notch agency and was supposed to be a top-notch bodyguard.
“Do you have a girlfriend…or something? At home. Wherever that is.” She was surprised by how much she hated that possibility.
He stopped doing bench presses and sat up, looked at her, an amused smile playing above his top lip. “When would I have time for that?”
Good point. Yet she couldn’t picture a man like him remaining celibate either. She supposed there was downtime between assignments. She didn’t want to think about what he did during those times and with whom he did it. Just too damn depressing. But there were plenty of other things she wanted to know about other areas of his life.
“What did you do before you became a bodyguard?”
“This and that.”
Oh, for heaven’s sake. He took the dark and mysterious act too far. “On the good side or on the bad? I’d like to know at least whether you were a soldier or an assassin.”
A dark eyebrow slid up his forehead, his gaze steady on her and heating. “Started out as a marine.”
Right. His Semper Fi tattoo was all but staring her in the face, but she didn�
�t seem to be able to hold many coherent thoughts in her mind just now. The heart-rate monitor built into the handle of the treadmill beeped. She slowed a little. “And after that?”
“Why the sudden interest?” He let the weight slide back, got up and came closer.
Her feet slowed further on the treadmill. Because I want to know more about the man who’s making me blind with lust. “I’m trusting you with my life.”
“I’m going to save it or die trying. That’s all you need to know.” He was almost directly in front of her now, his gold whiskey eyes still holding her gaze.
The hotel was quiet around them. They were the only two people in the world. Energy and power radiated from him, a potent masculinity she clearly wasn’t immune to. She shut the treadmill down before she tripped over her own feet.
“I’m—” God, it was hot in here. “I’m going to rinse off and swim a few laps.” She stepped off and escaped his nearness. It was either that or step into his arms.
“Good idea.” He followed.
Right into the women’s dressing room.
She stopped and turned to face him. “I think I’ll be safe in here.”
“I have to rinse off, too, and I’m not leaving you alone.” His voice was dangerously low.
They were going to shower together? Her throat went dry. Every nerve ending in her body came alive.
“You take that stall, I’ll take one on the other side. Close the curtain. I won’t peek.” His eyes darkened even as he said it.
“I’m not comfortable with this.”
He said nothing. He simply turned and walked away.
Embarrassment washed over her. Of course he could keep his hands off her. Girlfriend or not, a guy like him had to have a dozen women at his beck and call. She turned and marched off into her corner, waited until he disappeared around a dividing wall to go to his shower on the other side.
She undressed and rinsed off as quickly as possible, much too aware of how little space separated their naked bodies. She paid a minimum of attention to the luxurious finishes, the marble tile on the wall and the fancy towels. She finished first. For another minute or so, she could still hear his shower running. She pulled on her swimsuit with superspeed, trying hard not to think of him naked, water sluicing over his wide shoulders.
