Protecting the Enemy (The Protectors)

by Samantha Chase

  “Yeah. With three of my buddies from the Marines.”

  “That’s... not what you always planned to do.”

  “No. It’s not.”

  I slanted a look up to him but couldn’t read anything on his face. “Why did you decide to do that?”

  “I don’t even know. I thought after the Marines, I’d start working for my father. But when I came back, it all felt... I don’t know... empty. Even emptier than it had before. I wanted to do something entirely different. And I’m really pretty good at this, you know.”

  I nodded. I wasn’t surprised he was good at it. He’d always been good at everything.

  A lump of emotion in my throat surprised me. I had no idea where it had come from or why I was feeling it now.

  He reached out and stroked my cheek gently with his thumb. “I’ve changed, Ali.”

  I blinked, the emotion growing even tighter, aching in my throat.

  “I just wanted you to know. I look back at... at what happened between us, and I hate myself for it. If I could do it over, I would have made another decision.”

  “Really?” The one word cracked audibly.

  “Yes.” His eyes were very green, very soft. “It’s the biggest regret of my life.”

  I couldn’t say anything. I felt tears burning in my eyes. He meant it. He really seemed to mean it. And it healed something broken in my heart. Since I couldn’t get any words out, I nodded again.

  “Do you believe me?” he asked, his voice soft and husky.

  “Yeah,” I managed to whisper. “Thank you.”

  We stood in silence for more than a minute, but the air between us wasn’t stiff or awkward.

  It felt natural, comfortable, like we might be friends again.

  “What are you doing here today?” I asked since someone needed to say something to bring us back to normal.

  “What do you mean? I’m doing security for the big event. I thought you knew that.”

  “Yeah, yeah. I knew that. But I didn’t know why you’d have to be here when Mr. Gentry wasn’t. Don’t you just loom around, intimidating threats?”

  He chuckled. “There’s a little more to the security business than that. In fact, I’ll have to approve all the plans you make to make sure it won’t interfere with security.”

  “Okay. That’s fine.” I felt a little excited again since it meant I’d see him again.

  Not that I should be excited about that, of course.

  He walked me to my car, and there was that warm promise in his eyes when he said he was sure he’d see me again soon.

  ***

  I went over to the Gentry house three times the following week—certainly more than was necessary although I had reasonable excuses for every trip.

  Searching for incriminating evidence in the house was harder than I’d been expecting. I got into his office a second time but was equally unsuccessful at finding anything useful. Plus by the end of the week, I’d still only managed to search about half the house.

  When I made myself think rationally, I realized that the kind of evidence I needed was most likely to be found in his company office and not in his home. But I could never get into his office downtown, and I could get here. He worked at home sometimes. I knew that much. And people sometimes felt safer at home and left things lying around in a way they never would have at work.

  It was my only hope, so I wasn’t giving it up.

  On Friday, my plan was to check out the second floor. There was nothing but private rooms upstairs, so I had no good reason for being up there at all, but I was determined to check them out anyway.

  Maybe Gentry kept a desk upstairs in his master suite. Or maybe I could find a storage closet with files stored away. Unlikely, but possible. And I couldn’t just ignore one entire floor of the house.

  So after I took the measurements I’d pretended to have forgotten on my last visit—so I could come back out here today—I made sure the coast was clear and headed upstairs.

  The house was dead quiet. Neither Gentry nor his wife were here today.

  Neither was Sebastian. At least I hadn’t seen his fancy car. Part of me was disappointed.

  But the other part of me was relieved by his absence since his lingering made any investigation impossible.

  I walked down the hall and tried to get a sense of the layout, but there were so many doors off the hallway that I had to just start opening them to see what was in them.

  The first doors on the east wing were obviously guest rooms, so I turned and went down the west wing hall instead. The room I checked out first was a media room. There were books and newspapers on the coffee table that appeared to have been read, and an enormous TV and media console took up most of one wall.

  On the far side, there was a door onto a wide balcony with a great view of the pool and property.

  This looked like the kind of room where Gentry and his wife would actually spend time, so I scanned carefully to see if there was anything worth looking into.

  Most of the shelves were open and were lined with movies, games, or books. But I spotted a laptop on a side table that made me perk up.

  A laptop was worth checking out, for sure.

  I hurried over and lifted the lid, my breath hitching as I saw that it had just been on hibernate and the monitor was coming back on.

  When it did, I pulled up the documents folder and searched the list of titles.

  There were almost no documents on the computer at all. I pulled up those I saw, and they only consisted of menus and travel itineraries for trips to Europe and Australia.

  I shook my head. This was obviously Mrs. Gentry’s laptop. There wouldn’t be anything helpful on it at all.

  With a sigh, I closed out the documents. I was considering pulling up the email account when I heard a voice down the hall.

  Startled, I closed the laptop quickly and then stood in the middle of the room, torn in two directions at once.

  I was dying to get out of this room since I definitely didn’t belong here. But if someone was in the hall, then they would see me and I’d have to explain my presence.

  In a panic, I ran to the door that opened onto the balcony and stepped outside. I could just hang out there for a minute until whoever it was moved on.

  I cracked the door behind me—I was too scared to close it all the way for fear it would lock, the way balcony doors always seemed to do in movies—and I moved to the corner, catching my breath and trying to think of an excuse for why I might be here. Just in case I was caught.

  I’d been caught before, after all.

  Usually by Sebastian.

  As if on cue, I heard his voice in the media room, muffled by the mostly closed balcony door. He must have been talking on the phone because his was the only voice I heard. He said, “Hold on a minute. No one is supposed to be up here, but I thought I heard something.”

  I moved as far into the corner of the balcony as I could so I wouldn’t be seen through the glass panes of the door.

  Maybe Sebastian wouldn’t notice that the damned door wasn’t closed all the way.

  He noticed.

  My heart hammered with growing anxiety as I saw the door start to open. Then Sebastian stepped out onto the balcony.

  My mouth went dry, and I desperately searched for something to say to explain my presence.

  He had his phone to his ear as he saw me, and his questioning expression relaxed into a smile. “Let me call you back,” he said into the phone, amusement edging his tone. “I’ve got to take care of something.”

  When he disconnected, he lifted his eyebrows. “Did Cheryl decide she needed measurements of all the balconies in the house so she could sprinkle rose petals on them or something?”

  His tone was teasing—he obviously didn’t for a minute think I was a threat—but I was still so nervous I couldn’t say much. “No.”

  He chuckled. “Then what are you doing up here?”

  “I... She wanted me to take some pictures of the outside space
from above so she could get a sense of the big picture.” Damn, where had that come from? It actually wasn’t too bad as an explanation. Fortunately, I had my tablet in my hand, so I showed it to him—as evidence for how I was taking the pictures.

  His questioning expression tempered, and it looked like he might believe me.

  I widened my eyes, trying to appear innocent. “Should I not be up here?”

  “Probably not, but don’t worry about it.” He stepped over until he was beside me, giving me that warm, genuine smile. “I was hoping I’d run into you today.”

  “You did?” I tried—unsuccessfully—not to blush. “I thought you weren’t here. I didn’t see your car.”

  “So you were looking for me, were you?” He twitched his eyebrows flirtatiously.

  I glanced down. “I wasn’t looking. It’s just such a fancy car that it stands out.”

  He gave a strange sigh. “Yeah.”

  “You don’t like your car?”

  “It was a present.”

  “It’s a pretty nice present.”

  “It might have been if it hadn’t come with strings.”

  Genuine interest was drowning my anxiety from before. “What strings did the car come with?”

  “Oh, you know. Do what you’re supposed to do.”

  “What are you supposed to do?”

  He gave a half shrug. “Most of the time, I don’t even know.”

  I felt a surge of sympathy and reached out instinctively to touch his arm.

  He put his big hand over mine on his arm. “You know, when you look at me like that, nothing seems all that bad.”

  I darted a quick look up at his face, checking to see if he was teasing or serious. He still had that soft amusement in his expression, but his eyes held mine. Like he meant it. Like he really thought I made things better for him.

  My heart started to pound again—not from fear this time.

  “I bet you’d never give a present with strings,” he murmured, sliding his hand up my arm and even higher until he rubbed his knuckles gently across my cheekbones.

  “I’m terrible about picking out presents.” Yeah, that was a pretty silly comment, but it was the only thing I could think of.

  “I can think of a few things you might—” His words cut off when his phone beeped with a text. He lowered his hand and pulled the phone out of his pocket to check it.

  Obviously, it wasn’t important because he slid the phone back into his pocket.

  But the moment was gone, and he looked like his normal, laid-back self again. “It is a nice view from up here,” he said idly.

  “Yeah.” I turned around to face the railing and the view. “Except those picketers kind of break the scenery. Cheryl is going to want to know if you can’t do anything about them.”

  “They’re in the public park, so they’re legally allowed to stay there. Obnoxious but not breaking any laws.”

  “That’s what I thought. But Cheryl doesn’t like obnoxious things to get in the way of her events.”

  “Duly noted.” His mouth turned up slightly in an ironic expression that made me smile.

  “Does Mr. Gentry really think those picketers are a danger to him?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You seem to be here all the time, like there’s a real threat.”

  There was a strange expression on his face that I didn’t understand. “Yeah. I’m hired to do this, whether there’s a real threat or not.”

  “Oh. I guess that makes sense. How long have you and your friends done this security thing?”

  He looked faintly surprised. “Not long. I was a Marine until last year. Didn’t you know that?”

  “Why would I know that?”

  “I don’t know. A lot of people do, and I thought you might....” His expression turned sheepish. “I guess I’m overestimating my own notoriety.”

  I liked that he could still laugh at himself. I liked that he still seemed authentic—not with that fake charisma that oozed off some guys. Like Gentry. Like Sebastian’s father.

  I was starting to really believe I’d been wrong about Sebastian and that he wasn’t anything at all like the rest of them, but I still had to be careful. Even smart women were sometimes fooled by attractive men—and I wasn’t always as smart as I should have been.

  I’d learned that very well back in high school.

  “Why did you get out of the Marines?” I asked.

  “There was an accident. We were... I was injured.” He gestured to his side, which was evidently where the injury was. “It was just the right time.”

  I blinked, surprised by this since he always seemed so strong and powerful. “What happened?”

  He sighed and stared down at the pool. “Who the hell knows what happened? A friend of mine was killed. One of my best friends.”

  Emotion caught in my throat at the bleak feeling radiating off him, and I reached out to put a hand on his forearm again. “Oh, that’s awful. I’m so sorry. I guess that... that changes things. I mean, the way you look at things.”

  “Yeah. It does.” He turned his head and met my eyes.

  We stared at each other for a minute, and it seemed like we really connected again. Like I really knew him. Like he really knew me. Again. Just as well as we had before. Like the years since I’d seen him last were nothing.

  But that was a dangerous thought.

  I broke the gaze and stared down at my hand on his arm. I shouldn’t be touching him. Even if he was the nice guy I’d known before, he still was an obstacle to my mission in this house.

  Exposing information on his father and his family company.

  I straightened up. “I should get back to work.”

  “Yeah. I guess so. Did you get the pictures you need?”

  “Yes. Thanks. I’ve done everything I need to do here for today.”

  “I’ll walk you to your car.”

  Maybe it was just a polite way to make sure I didn’t sneak around into any more private areas, but I didn’t think so. It felt like he was being nice. Almost gentlemanly. He’d always been like that. I really liked it.

  He opened the car door for me and smiled in a way that made me not want to leave. I lingered, trying to think of something to say. All I came up with was, “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. Will you be around next week?”

  “Yeah. Probably. Cheryl always thinks of something else I need to do out here.”

  “Okay. Good. I’m staying at the hotel on the corner of Oak and Brambleton—not far away—since Ken wants me around so much and the commute was killing me. So I’ll be around too. I’ll be the guy in room 421 who is bored out of his skull.”

  He was smiling at me again, and I was smiling back. And I was feeling a kind of giddy excitement that was clouding my thinking capacities. “Oh. Okay. Well, maybe I’ll see you next week.”

  “Definitely.”

  I got in my car and shut my door. Then I waved at him as he headed back into the house.

  I tried to talk myself back into sense by saying he might have turned into a player and flirt with anyone available woman he happened to meet. He hadn’t been like that when he was younger, but he could have changed over the years. And why did he give me his room number? Did he think I’d stop by his room for old time’s sake?

  I was so flustered by the conversation and my responses to it that I pulled out my phone and did a quick internet search on his name. If he’d become a player or something, then there might be something about it online.

  His name came up a lot. Some links were about his military service. A lot were about his family—where he was just listed as the only son of John Maxwell. It was clear that he was still supposed to take the reins of the family business after his father died or retired, and that idea gave me a queasy feeling.

  Maybe he was just playing at this security business for fun, knowing he’d eventually go back to big business and run the corporate empire just like his father did.

  I kept loo
king and found quite a few mentions of him in the company of rich, beautiful socialites. He’d evidently dated a lot of them.

  Of course he had. He’d dumped me all those years ago because his father hadn’t wanted him to hook up with someone like me.

  I put my phone away, feeling kind of depressed, and I was about to drive away when I realized I’d left my notepad in the ballroom.

  With a sigh, I got back out of the car and walked inside. I grabbed my notes from where I’d left them and was going to get outside before anyone noticed when I heard a voice speaking from around the corner.

  Since I recognized the unseen voice, I stopped to listen without thinking.

  It was Sebastian, and he must be on the phone again since there wasn’t another voice in the conversation.

  “What the hell do I care about that?” he said, sounding nothing like the warm, funny man I’d interacted with just a few minutes ago. “Just do it.”

  The little thrill I’d been feeling earlier dropped into a weight in my gut. He sounded cold, hard, without emotion.

  “I don’t care if he’s angry,” he continued, gritting out the words in a way that made me cringe. “That’s not my problem. If it were up to me, I’d leave him there to rot.” There was another pause. “Don’t bother me with this kind of bullshit again. I’m done.”

  I felt a wave of near nausea sweep over me. I’d been right to ask questions earlier and not take the way he was acting at face value.

  This wasn’t a sweet man who’d been born into the wrong family. It wasn’t even the boy I’d known before. He was a Maxwell. A real Maxwell. And Maxwells would do anything they wanted to do, regardless of the consequences, regardless of the way it hurt other people.

  And I was the biggest fool in the history of the world for hoping for something else.

  I felt an irrational sense of betrayal as I hurried quietly out of the house and back to my car.

  The mask was off now. I wouldn’t be fooled or charmed or seduced again.

  I had my mission, and that was what was most important.

  And a date with an old boyfriend would never be more important to me than my family.

  Four