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Henry, Anton, and Anya all looked skeptical, but acceded without an argument. After twenty years as a family, they knew each other too well by now to waste time beating their heads against a wall. Anya would always be the life of the party and the eternal optimist. Her fathers would forever worry about their little girls and try to fix their problems like they would a torn seam. And as for her, well, she’d ever be Sylvie the Bulldog—and she had the hand-painted coffee mug to prove it.
Anton smoothed her bright yellow chiffon bridesmaid’s dress, his long fingers warming the material. “Honey, if this is about that weirdo who keeps e-mailing, you really should know that Henry and I—”
“Are worried, I know.” She took several cleansing breaths. She’d been practicing yoga breathing a lot the last few months, what with all of Daniel’s late nights at the office. “But the guy is just some Internet troll who gets his kicks from frightening people. Even the cops agreed. They said to be cautious, but that most of the time these creeps needed the anonymity of the Internet and never take action offline.”
“But he sounds so unhinged.” Her father twisted the filmy chiffon of her dress in his hands.
After worshiping at the altar of Dior for decades, Anton would never torment fabric unless he was practically beside
himself with worry.
She grasped his nervous fingers and squeezed. “Don’t get caught up in this nut job’s whole ‘shut down your blog or face the consequences’ shtick. He’s probably some guy living in his mom’s basement, eating cereal in his stained underwear.”
“How can you be so sure?”
Her stomach gurgled. “No one knows who the High-Heeled Wonder is. I’ve used countermeasures to hide my identity and protect myself—and you and Henry—from any backlash from people unhappy with the site. We’re all completely safe.”
“But we still worry.”
“I know, and you wouldn’t be you if you weren’t in a tizzy about something, but I changed the locks, got some mace, and promise never to walk down dark alleys alone.” She wrapped her arms around Anton’s narrow shoulders and pulled him close. “The troll will get bored eventually and leave me alone.”
“Still, I think we should talk—”
A sharp rap on the door cut off Anton. “The minister is here,” a muffled voice came through the thick oak. “We can get started whenever you’re ready.”
“Thank God,” Anya huffed. “I’m so nervous, I was ready to start downing champagne.”
Fifteen minutes later, Sylvie stood at the front of St. Basil’s and watched her little sister prepare to glide down the aisle to her groom. Henry linked his arm through one of Anya’s and Anton did the same on the other side. Anya’s olive skin glowed. Her blond hair had been swept into a complicated knot, highlighting the tiny emerald pins woven into her golden tresses. Her fashionable fathers were decked out to perfection, right down to the perma-grin on each of their faces. The three of them were the picture of happiness.
Sylvie hoped with all her heart that Anya’s fairy tale would turn out a whole lot better than hers had been. And if it didn’t, she’d be the first in line to crack her soon-to-be brother-in-law upside the head.
From his post by the French doors leading to the Grand Hibiscus Hotel’s rooftop garden, Tony Falcon kept an eye on the silent battle being fought on the dance floor. The pocket-sized sun-streaked brunette in a canary-yellow dress stood at least a foot shorter than the blond guy she was dancing with, but if this was Fight Club, he’d put his money on the firebrand.
“You watchin’ this, T?” Cam Hardy’s voice crackled through Tony’s earpiece. “So I guess what everyone is saying about the boyfriend is true.”
“Yep.” Tony spotted his second-in-command across the room at his post on the edge of the dance floor. Cam was wearing a tux, just like Tony, so they could better blend in with the fashionistas and their hedge-fund husbands. It wouldn’t do for security to stand out. By blending in, Tony and his team could gather intel about Sylvie Bissette’s stalker…and track down his partner’s killer. One case he had been hired for; the other he was honor-bound to solve. That his new clients were the most viable suspects in his partner’s murder just added another layer to the mystery.
“Man, if she’s looking for a night of nasty rebound sex, I sure would be willing to sacrifice myself.”
As would anyone who wasn’t blind or dead. “Can it, Cam.”
“Just sayin’.”
“Maybe instead of saying it, you should be keeping a watch out for threats.”
“Roger that.”
Anton Bissette and Henry Collins, known in the fashion world as BC Designs, hired Maltese Security two weeks ago to look into some Internet crank threatening their adopted daughter, Sylvie. Or, to be more precise, threatening to harm the High-Heeled Wonder. Who, according to her fathers, were one and the same.
So he’d spent the past fourteen days learning everything he could about Sylvie, the five-foot-three-inch lemon drop who’d just fumbled a dance step, her stiletto grinding into her partner’s toes. After reading her High-Heeled Wonder fashion blog on a daily basis since taking the case, intercepting her e-mail, and acting as her secret protector, Tony knew three important things about Sylvie. One, she had a biting sense of humor. Two, she wasn’t afraid to use a bazooka on the fashion industry’s sacred cows. Three, there was no way her misstep on the dance floor was any kind of accident. Nope, the sexy dynamo wrapped in a filmy yellow dress that hugged every one of her luscious curves wasn’t the kind to back down from trouble. An admirable trait, but one that made his job of keeping her safe while sticking to the shadows that much harder.
Complicating things even further, he couldn’t let anyone beyond his team know he was working the case—especially not the spitfire at the eye of the shit storm. Anton and Henry had been explicit on that point. It seemed their eldest daughter was dead set against a formal investigation. She figured the shithead behind the e-mails was all bark and no bite. The cops her fathers had insisted she talk to had agreed with her assessment. Rather than beat their heads against a wall, her fathers had turned to him behind her back.
The sneaking around was something he hated, but he couldn’t turn down the opportunity to find out more about BC Design’s inner workings and locate the drug source who’d put a hit out on the partner who’d practically been his brother. Tony would lie to the Pope himself to avenge Keith’s death.
Tony scanned the crowd for signs of trouble, but the only danger he saw was the distinct possibility of Sylvie clocking her dance partner. Hell, he’d met rabid pit bulls with more love in their eyes than she had at that moment.
No one around the couple even pretended to watch the bride or the other bridal party members during the first dance. Gossip about Sylvie catching her boyfriend on his knees had run like wildfire through the who’s who of fashion royalty at the wedding. Clacking fingers texting on cell phones had nearly drowned out the minister when he’d said, “I now pronounce you man and wife.”
