The keys to the flimsiest piece-of-shit lock he’d ever seen. When he’d signed the lease on his office, he’d been happy with the space and the location and—though he ordinarily didn’t give a shit about his surroundings—the classiness of the building. It was the kind of building that made clients relax, which was crazy to him. What the fuck difference did mellow earth tones and fancy designer junk make?
But to most people it made a difference. A huge one. He’d noticed that. Noticed tense clients start unwinding after entering the building, with its liveried doorman, elegant brass and teak fittings, slate floors, expensive floral arrangements scattered around.
The building supervisor had given him the name of some office designer, who’d come in, taken measurements of the huge space he’d rented and come back a week later and outfitted the office so it looked like a spaceship. A designer spaceship, sleek and comfortable. It all cost a fortune but it was worth it, to see his clients’ faces as they walked in.
Anyone who came to Reston Security by definition needed relaxing, and it was good that his office did the trick because Sam wasn’t good at putting people at ease. He had no charm and no small talk in him.
When Sam came across a problem, he wanted it solved yesterday. He became an arrow shooting straight at a solution.
That attitude had worked real well for him in the Teams, where problems and possible solutions were clearly stated and no one’s goddamned feelings ever came into anything.
Civilian life had been a bitch, as Sam found himself tussling with clients who were afraid to say what they wanted, who kept intel from him, who had hidden agendas. Christ.
So the upscale, soothing premises had come in real handy.
Not to mention Nicole Pearce, right across the hallway from him, right now scrabbling for keys that weren’t there.
Well, he could do something about that. For a price.
“Need some help?” he asked, and suppressed a smile when she nearly jumped right out of that gorgeous skin of hers.
“Need some help?”the scary lowlife who worked for the security company across the hallway asked.
Nicole Pearce’s head whipped around, heart kicking up into a hard panicky beat in her chest. Oh God, there he was, long and broad and dark and grim. And frightening as hell.
He hadn’t been there a minute ago. Everyone on her floor came in well before her company’s opening time of 9 A.M., so she had been sure she was alone as she scrabbled in her purse, quietly freaking out.
How could such a large man move so quietly? Granted, her head was completely taken up with the tragedy ofno key, but still. He was huge. Surely he’d have to have made some noise?
Come to think of it, the times she’d seen him coming and going from what she assumed was his workplace across the hall, he’d been utterly silent. Frightening.
She looked at him warily, hands still in her large purse that often doubled as a briefcase.
He was standing with arms crossed, leaning back against the wall, looking completely out of place in the elegant hallway. Tall, immensely broad-shouldered, grim and unsmiling. Just perfect if Central Casting had sent out an urgent call.One thug. Huge. Intimidating. Report to set.
But it hadn’t. Central Casting populated the Morrison Building in downtown San Diego with perfectly nice, perfectly tame office workers, some a little flamboyant if they were in the advertising business, but otherwise harmless.
Lowlife had absolutely no business here, staring at her out of dark, steady eyes, gaze still and unwavering, completely out of place in the context of the cream and slate accents, the expensive Murano wall sconces and the faux Louis XV Philippe Starck Plexiglas console with the very real calla lilies in the Steuben vase.
She’d chosen to pay premium rent for a tiny office in the upscale building near Petco precisely because its classy, elegant design had appealed to her and because, well, it shrieked success so loudly she hoped no one could hear the crackling sound of financial distress underlying her new company.
Everyone in the building bustled in and out in morning and evening waves, well dressed, well groomed and busy busy busy. Even after the stock market crash, they all made an effort to look sleek and prosperous and successful, which was why Lowlife was so out of place.
The rent took a big chunk out of the earnings of her brand-new company, and her office was the size of a thimble, but she loved it. She’d signed the lease half an hour after the realtor had shown it to her.
That was, of course, before Lowlife started haunting the halls. Every time she turned around, it seemed, he was there. Enormous, dressed like a biker. Or how she imagined a biker would dress—what would she know? Bikers had been scarce growing up in consulates and embassies around the world.
He had a uniform of torn, filthy jeans, a formerly black tee shirt washed so many times it was a dirty gray, and at times a black leather bomber jacket.
Overlong black hair and a heavy, scruffy black beard, nothing at all like the chic designer stubble sported by the guys working at the ad agency two doors down. No, this was a man with a heavy beard who didn’t shave for weeks at a time.
But beyond not following the yuppie dress and grooming code, Lowlife was different in other ways from all the other people in the building.
She would never forget her first sight of him in the elevator, leaning one-armed against the wall, head down, looking like a warrior who had just come in from battle.
Only there was no war going on in downtown San Diego that she knew of. He’d disappeared into the office across the hall, passing some pretty fancy security, so she’d imagined he worked there.
As an enforcer?
