The Alpha Bodyguards Books #4-6

Chapter Thirty

H er eyes wide, she stared at the front of my house like she couldn’t believe what she was seeing.

“This is yours?” she asked, incredulous.

“Yes.” I scanned the yard on either side and then looked at the front facade as if seeing it for the first time. White stucco, two stories, modern, twenty-two two-story windows in front, eight steps, nine-foot-tall front doors—it was large, expensive and ostentatious.

Maybe I’d made a mistake.

I pulled the key out of the ignition, handed it to her and got out. I opened the rear door, and the boy blinked three times.

Looking as though he’d woken from a deep sleep, he yawned, then signed. We’re here? This is your house?

I nodded and unbuckled his seat belt.

He held his arms up.

Warmth filled my chest, and I forgot about my anger at Ty for telling Mercy what he had.

I picked the boy up.

His clean scent mixed with sleep, and he put his arm around my neck and simply stared at the house while I shut the car door.

He moved his hands to his front as his mother got out of the car. You live in a mansion.

I was holding him so I couldn’t sign back, but he was already staring at me, waiting for a response. “It’s not a mansion.”

It looks like one. Do you have a hundred bedrooms?

The corner of my mouth twitched. “No. Five.”

“What the hell do you need five bedrooms for?” Mercy muttered under her breath.

I frowned and headed for the front entrance even though I usually entered the property through the garage. Pulling my key out, I unlocked the front door and pushed it open.

Mercy glanced around uncomfortably. “What? No fancy keypad entry?”

“It disarmed when I entered the code on the outside gate.” I set the boy down, and he ran inside.

She didn’t reply. She didn’t move.

“What’s wrong?” Maybe I shouldn’t have brought her here. Maybe I should’ve waited.

She glanced at me as if she couldn’t believe I’d asked the question. “Is this really your house?”

“Yes.”

“You sleep in a warehouse on skid row with an industrial refrigeration company as a neighbor when you own a….” She swept her arms wide. “When you own this house , on one of the most expensive pieces of real estate in Miami Beach?”

I didn’t have an opportunity to answer. She kept talking.

“Why the hell don’t you live here? Or better yet, why did you buy this place in the first place? You did buy it, right? We’re not trespassing, are we? Because the last thing I need right now is to be arrested and my kid taken away from me.”

I frowned. “Come inside.”

“Sure, I’ll come inside your million-dollar house.”

Sixteen-point-five million. I’d made enough to buy it the first time I went to Monte Carlo. Trips two and three were merely insurance.

Out of breath, his hands flying, Nash ran up to us. Mommy, Mommy, there’s windows everywhere and a pool with no edge and a dock and a boat and two stories, and the refrigerator doesn’t even look like a refrigerator!

What does it look like? Mercy signed back.

A giant white cupboard door! Nash held his arms as wide as he could as he stood on tiptoe.

Stop snooping in people’s cupboards, she admonished.

“He can look.”

“Terrific.” Inhaling as if for patience, she walked past me through the entry and stopped in the middle of the open-plan concept to stare out the wall of nine-foot glass slider doors that opened the entire length of the living room. “Wow,” she murmured.

Nash danced around her. Can I go upstairs? Can I go upstairs?

I smiled at him and nodded.

He shot up the stairs and ran toward the master.

She spun to look at me. “It’s furnished.”

The final pieces arrived last week. “Yes.”

“ Custom furnished.”

It was. I nodded.

She threw her hands up. “And you just… bought all this?”

“Yes.”

“Why don’t you live here?”

I was waiting. “It’s a recent acquisition.”

Her eyes narrowed. “How recent?”

The end of last year. When her roof started to leak. “Not long.”

Her voice dropped to a distrustful whisper. “What are you doing?”

Planning my future. “Do you like it?”

She scoffed, but the distrust erased from her expression. “You’re kidding, right?” Her eyes went wide, and for a moment she looked young and innocent like her son. “This is like the house they buy on the home and garden TV channel when they win the lottery.”

Air filled my lungs. I fought a smile. “I’m glad you like it.”

“That.” She pointed at me. “What was that?”

“What was what?”

“That look?”

“What look?” I knew what look.

She shook her head, but her shoulders released the tension they were holding and she smiled. “Jesus fucking Christ, Preston.” She turned back to the windows and stared a long moment. “A person could get used to this view.”

I smiled. “Thirsty?”

“Let me guess, a stocked fridge came with the place too?” She turned and raised an eyebrow at me.

Silhouetted in the early morning sun coming through the windows, she was beautiful. Complex and determined, she didn’t take life lying down, but she was also so vulnerable, it made me want to protect her and her son. “No. I had the housekeeper run a couple errands early this morning.”

Rolling her eyes, she shook her head again. “Of course you did. Anything else I should know about? A butler? A personal chef?” she joked.

I more than liked the fact that she was the only woman who had ever challenged me. “Housekeeper, gardener and a pool cleaner.” Curvier, older, a mother, she was even more mesmerizing now than she’d been seven years ago. “A company comes and washes the windows once a month,” I added.

Bright and unguarded, she laughed. “I gotta hand it to you, Preston Vos. You shocked the shit out of me today.” She turned back around. “How do you afford all of this? Or can I not ask that?”

“I can afford it, and you can ask anything you want.” Except why I brought her here. I wasn’t ready to answer that yet.

She bit her lip. “Okay.” Slowly nodding, she looked around before she brought her golden-brown eyes back to me. “I do have one more question.”

Her jeans were tight, her tank top tighter, and her bra was lace under the thin material of her shirt as she stood near the dining room table that seated ten.

“Ask.” Remembering her scent from last night, the response her body gave me, I thought about laying her out on that table and tasting her again.

She raised an eyebrow and lifted her chin. “Does that fancy kitchen behind you have a coffee maker?”

I had an espresso maker built in to the custom cabinetry. “Yes.” And I had her favorite vanilla syrup she always asked for at the coffee shop. “Iced or hot?”

Her smile was teasing. “You have to ask that?”

“No.” I smiled, turning toward the kitchen.