“Who knows?Maybe I’ll hire you,” he offered with a smirk before clearing his plate.“I might not mind attending meetings so much if I knew you’d be there.”
There was something sweet and simple in the way he said it, which meant I had no reason to flush all over with pleasure.This absolutely couldn’t last much longer without my boundaries crumbling.All it took was his arm brushing against mine while taking my empty plate to make my breath catch, for Christ’s sake.
He released a long, shaky breath on his way to the sink.“Thank you for putting dinner together.We’ll have to go out to dinner some night soon.You need a change of pace.”
How pitiful was my life that the idea of dinner in a restaurant made my pulse race?“I would love it,” I told him with a smile as I took my empty glass to the sink, placing me beside him.
“Good.”He held my gaze a beat too long, and I swayed closer before pulling back again.Fucking boundaries.It mattered to me that I not give him the wrong idea, only I was starting to forget what the wrong idea was.The lines had blurred to the point of being nonexistent.
Blowing out a sigh, he scrubbed a hand over his dirty blond locks.“I’m getting in the shower and might get a little work done.”The room might as well have been on fire, he left so fast.I closed my eyes, leaning against the counter.Wouldn’t it be nice to join him?
Instead, I dampened a dishcloth under the cold tap and touched it to the back of my neck.Why didn’t I just go for it?It wasn’t like he would turn me down.Some things a girl knew.My damn stubbornness was going to be the death of me.
A knock at the front door brought my heart leaping into my throat until I remembered there was a guy on guard duty in the courtyard.It was either him or somebody he knew.Still, I looked out the front window to confirm the guard’s presence in his truck before opening the door to a tall, muscular man who brushed slightly-too-long brown hair away from equally dark eyes.“Hi there,” he offered, his voice deep and rich.
“Hi.”I paused, lost.“Can I help you?”
“My name is Grayson Daniels.”He extended a hand, which I shook firmly, still a little apprehensive.He could’ve been a model, but the scar running down the side of his face, almost tracing his jaw, was a little jarring like a flaw in an otherwise perfect piece of art.“And you are the girl my guys have been watching over.Let me guess.Nova Mancini.”
Only slightly unnerving.“That’s right.”
A wry smile tipped the corners of his mouth.“I knew there was something fishy about all of this.Can I come in?”
Could he?He caught the glance I threw toward the guard on duty, chuckling.“I can wait out here if you want.”
“No, it’s okay.Sorry.I’m a little jumpy.”Stepping aside, I chided myself for being so easily freaked.
“Vaughn thinks he’s being slick, which is why he didn’t tell me the name of the person he’s been paying my guys extra money to look after.”He walked straight to the bar cart on the far side of the airy living room and pulled the stopper from a whisky decanter before withdrawing a glass from the shelf underneath, clearly familiar with the place.
I followed him, puzzled.“Oh.They work for your security company?”
“Not quite.These guys are freelancers,” he explained.“I vet them personally and take my cut off the top of their fee if arrangements are made through me, which they were not in this case.I started getting a little suspicious when more and more of them were available when I called to assign them to a job.I finally got it out of one of them, but they wouldn’t give me the name of their charge.”
Chuckling, he added, “I had a feeling.I should congratulate you on your nuptials.”He lifted his glass in a salute, even winking at me before sampling the whisky.So much for thinking our wedding was a complete secret.
Now, I remembered him, at least vaguely.Vaughn had chatted with him a few times during the reception in between drinks.“You two are friends,” I said, earning a nod in response.“Have you known each other for long?”
He tipped his head back in a reflective gesture.“How long has it been?I think we were both around twenty, maybe?That was after Vaughn’s second stint at college ended.”
Pump the brakes.“His second stint at college?”I asked, even more interested than before.The guy was pretty much a closed book, only giving me tiny bits of information at a time.I knew his mother was out of the picture and his father was dead.He hated meetings, didn’t get along with the Board because they were his father’s cronies, and he had a real hard-on for protecting me.
Oh, and he was incredible in bed.
This was an opportunity to learn more.Grayson lifted a shoulder covered in a dark gray T-shirt stretched over his thick muscles.“That’s twice more than I bothered trying.It didn’t suit him.The schedule, the rules.He’s grown up a lot since then.Honestly…” he concluded while lifting his glass to his lips, “… when you think about it, it’s kind of bullshit that teenagers are forced to decide what they want to do with the rest of their lives when they barely have the first clue how to function.Just my opinion.Although that was only part of the problem.”
A ripple of curiosity ran through me, lifting the hair on my arms.“What was the other part?”And where was Vaughn?He was bound to get out of the shower soon.
“The second time around…” Grayson murmured.“He was kicked out after beating the shit out of some frat boy douchebag.They were at a party, and Vaughn walked in on this asshole raping an unconscious girl.”
My breath caught as revulsion stirred in my gut.
“Dude ended up in the hospital for a month,” he concluded.“It was all a matter of Vaughn’s word against his.The parents pressed charges, Vaughn ended up in jail that night.It’s where we met.I, uh, had a little trouble of my own, but I was no hero,” he assured me.“It so happens that after that night, I cleaned up my act.And Vaughn’s dad cleared things up with the other guy’s parents.”He rubbed his thumb against two fingers, meaning money had changed hands.
“Oh my God,” I whispered.Vaughn did that?A month in the hospital?
His phone buzzed, and he scowled when he checked the message.“Shit.I have to go.It was nice meeting you,” he said with a smile.“Let him know I stopped in, will you?Tell him I don’t appreciate him poaching my guys behind my back.”But he was chuckling like it was all in fun.
I liked him.
