Chapter Eight
L una was convinced she wasn’t the target.
I’d listened to every word he’d said—foreign diplomat who couldn’t keep it in his pants, rich vindictive wife, suspicious person loitering by the vehicles just out of camera range. But there’d been accelerant in that bomb. I reeked of it. There’d also been little shrapnel. That didn’t seem like a vindictive wife. It seemed like a warning.
The princess took a deep breath and looked out the window. “So my car wasn’t the intended target.”
It wasn’t a question, and I didn’t confirm nor deny it. “Luna called your insurance company. You should have a rental by the end of the day.”
She looked back at me. “How did he know which insurance company I use?”
How did he know half the shit he did? “He’s good at his job.”
All her earlier panic gone, she slowly nodded. “I don’t need a rental. I’ll arrange for a replacement.” She reached for her purse and took out her cell. “I just need to make a couple of phone calls.”
Eyeing her as she gracefully perched on the edge of my couch, two things struck me. One, she was poised as hell. And two, it was in direct contrast to a couple minutes ago. Now she was acting as if this was nothing more than an inconvenience.
I wanted to see her relieved. Hell, I was man enough to admit I liked being the one to give her that. But this was a woman who wanted to dress me up like her fucking show dog for a party, and who almost broke down when her heel got stuck in an elevator. This wasn’t a woman who took traumatic events in stride, which was why I’d pulled her into my arms in the first place. I knew she needed to get that shit out. But now I didn’t know if I could take her one-eighty at face value, or if I needed to be looking for signs that she was shoving all of that shit so deep, it was gonna come out later.
She brushed her hand down her thigh, over the now wrinkled material as she made a call. “Hello, this is Sophia Paradis. May I please speak with my salesman, Jonathan?… Yes, I’ll hold.” She looked up at me and raised an eyebrow when she realized I was staring at her.
I decided for now to take it at face value. “I’m going to change, then I’ll take you home.”
She tipped her chin at me before her gaze drifted. “Hello, Jonathan.” She smiled slightly. “Yes, I am calling because I need a new vehicle…”
Ignoring the crazy shit in my head that had me thinking about every second I had her in my arms, I walked into my bedroom and grabbed new clothes as I called Luna back.
He answered on the first ring. “Luna.”
“You can’t talk.” He knew it was me calling.
“No.”
“Then just listen.” I closed my bedroom door before laying out the shit nagging at the back of my mind. “I don’t buy it. I’m not convinced she wasn’t the intended target. The bomber would’ve checked the license plate. And if it was a paid hit, the bomber would’ve double-checked. Also, there was no shrapnel. I don’t know if you’ve had time to review the footage yet, but I’m betting it was only the hood that blew. The car wasn’t obliterated like the ones we saw downrange that left a fucking crater in their wake and nothing else. Her SUV was still mostly intact when we took off. Burning like hell, but intact. And I smell like a fucking refinery.” I dragged my shirt over my head. “I think she was the intended target, and I think the explosion was a warning.”
Luna was silent.
“You there?”
“I copy. ”
“This wasn’t a coincidence.” The more I thought about it, the more I was convinced of it.
Luna exhaled. “They usually aren’t.”
Which meant he either agreed with me or he was at least giving it some thought. “I’m taking her back to her house, and I’ll proceed as planned, but let me know if you find out anything more on the bomb, or if it has a signature.”
“Copy that.”
“Thanks.”
“Watch your six.” Luna hung up.
I stripped down then glanced at the bruise forming on my back that pissed me off more than it hurt. Taking a quick shower, I washed off the overpowering scent of the explosion before throwing clean clothes on. By the time I walked back out to the living room, she was off the phone. “You ready?”
Standing, she put her phone back into her purse, but not before a quick frown flashed across her features. “Yes.”
I palmed the keys to the Escalade and stared at her. She looked guilty of something. “You get a new car?”
Tucking her purse under her arm, looking significantly more rumpled than an hour ago, she met my gaze. “Yes. They’re bringing it over this afternoon.”
I tipped my chin toward the door and refrained from commenting on how nothing eased a new car purchase like money. “Let’s go.”
She glanced at my hair and my clothes. “You showered.”
“I smelled like accelerant.” And despite the shower, I still smelled that shit. Too many experiences with IEDs downrange taught me that I’d still be smelling it tomorrow, no matter how many times I showered. That shit got into your system and lingered.
She glanced down at her own clothes. “I suppose I’m not much better.”
“You’re fine.” She hadn’t been front and center when the car blew. “But you can change when we get you home. ”
Her only response was a nod.
As I led her to the elevator, I thought about the time my mother dragged me and my four brothers to a shady-as-fuck used car lot. The bus trip alone, with two transfers in the middle of summer, had sucked ass. But then we’d sat under a hot-as-hell tent on an old, cracked asphalt lot while my mom had been raked over the coals by a dirty salesman and an even dirtier loan processor.
Lost in thought, I hit the elevator call button and silently ushered the woman who’d bought a car over the phone inside.
When the doors closed, she glanced at me. “You’re quiet.”
“Just thinking about the time my mother bought a car.” And wondering why a woman would fall apart over a stuck shoe, but not over having to replace her car that’d been blown to hell.
She turned toward me, and her brown-eyed gaze studied me with intelligence. “I realize not everyone has the means to purchase a vehicle outright.”
I didn’t know if she’d pegged me as coming from a poor background, or thought I was judging her, or what the fuck she thought. I half smiled. “Or expensive shoes.”
“Yes, well.” Color tinted her cheeks. “I’m lucky in that regard.” She turned back toward the front of the elevator. “Were you with your mother when she bought her car?”
“Yeah.” I smirked. “By hour six of the negotiations with a loan shark posing as a used car financer, she’d lost her patience. Me and my brothers were sitting at her feet on the dirty asphalt under a makeshift tent on the used car lot when she abruptly stood. To this day, I don’t know if she purposely kicked the chair back, or it fell, but she leaned over that loan officer’s desk and jammed her finger in his face. She told him he had two choices—take her youngest son as collateral, or give her the goddamn car.”
The princess looked up at me with surprise. “She said that?”
“Yep.” I smiled at the memory. “Ten minutes later, with a victory smile and all us boys fighting over front seat rights for the next month, she drove off that lot in a dented, rusted-out Hyundai that backfired every twenty feet.”
The elevator doors opened, and I scanned the parking garage before quickly ushering her to the Escalade. Once she was in the passenger seat, I checked the undercarriage of the vehicle. When I didn’t find anything, I got behind the wheel.
She waited until I turned the engine over, then she drew in a breath and absently spoke. “That’s quite a story.”
“It was quite a day. That was the first car she’d ever owned.” I threw the SUV in reverse. “She kept that piece of shit until three years ago.”
“She didn’t have a problem with the vehicle breaking down?”
I couldn’t help it, I laughed. “Yeah, she had a laundry list of problems with it since day one, but me and my brothers took turns working on whatever came up. Between the five of us, we managed to keep it running until the transmission cracked.” I glanced up and down the street before I pulled into traffic. “That’s when I bought her a new car.”
“That was very caring of you,” the princess murmured.
“No it wasn’t. A caring son would’ve forced her out of that car years before. But no one tells my mom what to do.” Half smiling, I shook my head. “She’s crazy as fuck, but raising five rowdy boys, I’ve got nothing but respect for her.”
“You love her,” she observed.
I scanned the rearview mirrors. “She wouldn’t have it any other way.” My mother had more balls than all five of her kids combined.
She turned toward the window, but she didn’t comment.
I felt a shift. “You tight with your mother?”
“I was. She passed when I was young.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” I waited to see if she’d elaborate. When she didn’t, I asked. “How’d she die?” Maybe it tied in to whatever the fuck was going on now.
She exhaled before answering. Then she let loose with a stream of well-practiced words. “My mother met my father when he was still the prince of Naximos. They fell in love, and I was an unplanned surprise. My father asked my mother to marry him, but she had taken ill during pregnancy. The doctors attributed it to morning sickness, but my mother told me she knew it was something more. After I was born, they realized she had bone cancer. My father was adamant that she marry him, but she refused. She said he needed to save himself for a healthy wife. Treatments prolonged her life until I was almost seven, then she passed. I lived with my father, but the next year his father passed and my father became king. He met another woman, married and she conceived a son. I lived with them in the royal palace until I was eighteen. Then I came to the States. My father has never dishonored me by making any kind of fuss over my illegitimacy, but I am just that, illegitimate. I am a princess in name only because he claims me as such. But his son is the rightful heir to the crown, not me.”
Shit, no wonder she was reserved. “Hell of an upbringing.” I drove over the bridge leading to the barrier island that was her zip code.
“I could say the same as you.”
I glanced at her and tried to lighten the mood with a grin. “You don’t know the half of it.”
She didn’t even crack a smile.
Knowing I needed her comfortable and talking if I was going to get any more information out of her, I asked an unrelated question. “You like Miami?”
She glanced out the window at the beach. “It’s congested.”
“True.” Traffic sucked. “But the ocean views make up for it.” I grew up inland where there wasn’t a constant ocean breeze, or hot chicks walking around in bikinis, let alone gorgeous princesses.
She didn’t comment.
“Have you been here since you left home?”
“Yes.” She exhaled slowly. “Seven years.”
Engaging a client in conversation was never protocol. But her car had exploded, she’d seen my place and this was so fucking far past any assignment I’d ever had with Luna, I didn’t give a shit about protocol anymore. And fishing for info might finally net me a real reason why she’d hired me, beyond the obvious. “Long time to be away from the country you grew up in.”
“Florida is my home now.”
I pulled onto the barrier island and checked street names against the address I remembered her rattling off earlier. “Permanent home?” I had no business asking, but if I was being fucking honest, beyond the information I was sure she was withholding from me, there was something about her.
Half the time she seemed more worldly than anyone I’d ever met. But the other half, the woman who’d fallen apart in my arms, she was innocent and vulnerable and so damn gorgeous, the urge to protect her wasn’t just consuming, it was driving at me like the need to breathe.
Her hands clutched and unclutched her purse as she looked out the window. “I purchased an aging estate when I first moved here and have spent years renovating it to my liking. I enjoy all of my free time there when I am not at work. And since I do not have a personal residence on Naximos, and have no intention of returning, Florida is my permanent home.”
Damn, I liked hearing her voice, but more, I liked the fact that she was entrenched in the States. “You work at the gallery?” Luna hadn’t mentioned her connection to the art opening.
“I own it.”
I should’ve guessed. Her outfit, while sexy as hell, was unique. Like it was a one-off. I’d never seen a chick dress in anything quite like it. Classy, but also kinda edgy. “I can see you in a gallery.” It fit.
She frowned as if I’d insulted her. “Excuse me?”
I grinned, liking it more each time she used those two words on me. “Your outfit, it fits.”
She picked at an invisible piece of lint on her lap and murmured, “Well, it is in my size.”
“I meant the style.” God’s honest truth, I never had a conversation with a woman before about clothes. I didn’t stick around long enough to have those conversations. And clients? I kept to protocol. “Not that I know women’s clothes from Adam,” I explained. “But your dress has an edge to it. Not something you see women wearing around Miami.”
Purposely, absently, her hand smoothed down the uneven hem of her skirt. “It’s one of a kind.”
“Suits you. Tell me your house number again.”
She gave me her address, but she didn’t comment on my compliment about her dress.
I nodded once, counting off numbers as I drove down a street full of mansions sitting on the edge of the intracoastal. “We close?”
“The house at the end.”
The street ended at a walled-off estate with an impressive security gate over ten feet tall. I pulled up to the small kiosk that housed an intercom and keypad. “What’s the gate code?”
Reaching in her purse, she pulled out her cell phone. “I will open it.” She swept her finger across her screen a few times and the gate opened. “Smart security,” she explained.
“Smart homeowner,” I countered with a smile.
She didn’t comment, and I pulled around a curved driveway until we reached the house.
Except it wasn’t a house.
It was a fucking mansion to end all mansions. It was a damn mini palace. Huge, white, pillars and arches, a front fountain complete with Greek-looking statues spitting out water, the place looked like it had twenty bedrooms.
I pulled to a stop, and she reached for her door handle.
Throwing it in park, I caught her arm. “Hold up, wait for me to come get you.”
She turned to face me, but pulled out of my grasp. “This is my home. And you said the….” She swallowed. “You said that wasn’t about me earlier. You said that was for a diplomat.” A look of fear crossed her features before she quickly hid it. “Was that a lie? Was there really a diplomat with a mistress?”
“Yes there was a diplomat’s car parked in front of yours, and for the record, I wouldn’t lie to you. Not my style.” Personally, or professionally, I didn’t have time for that.
“You said it was safe for me to come home,” she accused.
“I didn’t tell you it was safe,” I corrected. “I said I was taking you home.”
Her expression was incredulous, but her eyes were filled with fear as she bit out her next words. “You said there was no threat.”
I held her gaze. “One, I never said that. Two, close protection is what you’re paying me for, and that’s what you’re gonna get. And three…” The biggest issue. “There’re half a dozen vehicles in the driveway. Which means there’re people in your home or on the grounds, and since I’m still not buying the jewelry excuse, I have no idea what kind of threat I’m actually supposed to be protecting you from.” Especially after the car bomb. “So just like elevators and buildings, or anywhere else we go, you’re not getting out of the vehicle first.” I didn’t wait for her to protest or argue.
I got out of the SUV and rounded the front, scanning the grounds and noting the six vehicle’s makes and models, because it was always in the details. Threats materialized out of shit you discounted. Bad guys rarely drove up to the front gate and announced themselves. And if someone could plant a car bomb in broad daylight on a busy road with no one seeing it happen, anything was fucking possible.
Opening her door, I held my hand out. “Besides the catering truck, do you know who the other five vehicles belong to?”
Ignoring my hand, she gracefully stepped down out of the Escalade. Her feet hit the ground, and even in high heels, she was still a half a foot shorter than me.
Looking up, the sun landed on her face and her eyes turned golden-brown. “One belongs to the tailor, and the others are my security, my assistant, my housekeeper and my chef.”
Jesus, she was beautiful. Putting my hand on my gun to remember why the hell I was here, I tipped my chin toward her house. “You use the front door, I’m assuming? ”
“Yes.” She glanced at my 9mm at my waist. “Do you plan on walking into the house with your gun… exposed like that?”
I fought a smile at hearing her say exposed . “Yes.”
Her chest rose with a soft inhale. “I think the staff will get the wrong idea.”
“Let them.” Whoever or whatever was fucking with her that she still hadn’t fessed up to might get a clue if they saw me.
She frowned, but at the same time, her hands clutched nervously around her purse. “I don’t think it’s necessary.”
“You thought it was necessary to hire a bodyguard,” I pointed out.
“I told you, I hired you—”
“I know what you said. I also know what my instincts and your body language are telling me.” Both of which were screaming this was a hell of a lot more than some jewelry babysitting gig.
Her lips drew together in a tight line like she was holding shit in as she glanced at my 9mm again. “Maybe you can leave your gun in the vehicle.”
Hell no. “Your life in imminent danger?”
She paled. “Excuse me?”
“It’s a simple question, Princess. You slip your security detail. You stalk the owner of the best security firm in the country and wake him up. You ask for one of his men by name, give a bullshit story that could’ve waited for regular business hours, then you want me to lose my gun.” I barely refrained from throwing the fucking car bomb onto the list, because the more I thought about it, the more I smelled bullshit. “None of that adds up, and I’m not losing my gun around you. Ever.”
Color rushed back into her cheeks, and she got mad. Princess mad. “My house is not a John Wayne movie where you can walk around with a gun on your hip like some cowboy.”
“John Wayne?” Shit . I smiled. “For real?”
“I did not grow up with American cable television,” she snapped. “You get the point. No one needs to know you’re a security guard.”
“Personal protection,” I corrected, not even offended because seeing her riled was not only better than seeing her nervous as hell, it was fucking funny. And sexy.
She waved her hand dismissively. “Bodyguard, personal protection, whichever, this is between you and me.”
I raised an eyebrow. “You don’t want anyone at the opening to know I’m hired protection, but you found me on the Internet because of a viral video from my last assignment with a high-as-a-kite Hollywood actress?”
Her eyebrows drew together like she hadn’t even considered this. “No one will know about that.”
I laughed. “The video has half a million hits, Princess.”
She squared her shoulders. “I asked you not to call me that, and you’re here as my guest if anyone asks.”
“I’m wearing a company shirt,” I pointed out, ignoring the princess comment.
Her frown deepened. “I can see that.”
Jesus, she was sexy when she was frustrated. I didn’t even know why the fuck it was turning me on, but it was. “Word of advice?” I didn’t wait for her answer. “You want to hire personal protection and pretend he’s someone else, you need to plan better.”
“Just put your gun away,” she clipped, frustrated. “We’ll improvise if anyone asks who you are.”
“Roger that, sweetheart.” Looking forward to it. I unholstered my gun, shoved it in my back waistband and untucked my shirt. Then I took her arm and put her on my left side before leading her up the steps to her fucking palace.