Seducing the Bodyguard (10 page)

She slid the knife in the waistband of the back of her pants and then stepped back so that she would be ready for attack should she need to.

“I’m sorry about that. My girlfriend is a little paranoid of strangers.”

“I get it,” the blondish brown haired kid said as he entered the room. He was probably working this job to pay for college. At least he looked like one of those college kid types. “But this resort is very secure. There’s no need to worry miss.” He smiled at Valencia, but she hadn’t returned the smile.

“Oh hell,” Harrison mumbled under his breath. He knew he was in trouble now. The second the kid left she would probably kick his behind from here into his bedroom. She didn’t drink, but maybe he could get her to have just one glass of the Champaign that was sent. He didn’t like Champaign—couldn’t stand the stuff, but if having a glass would distract Valencia from the rage she was about to unleash on him then he would suffer through the fizzy, bubbly stuff that he couldn’t stand. Who would send him Champaign anyway? Everybody who knew him knew he liked beer or a nice red wine.

“Could you open the bottle for us before you go?” Harrison reached in his pocket and pulled out a twenty.

“Oh no, sir. This has already been taken care of for you. I have strict instructions to not ask for another tip. Oh, and this is for the misses,” he smiled as he handed Valencia a note.

She walked over, took the note and then came closer to Harrison. He could feel the anger radiating off her body. She read the note; her eyes registering acute awareness and something in that look made the hairs on his forearm stand up in full attention. Something was wrong.

She looked at the bottle of Champaign, “No!” But it was too late; the kid had already started to pop the cork. He heard a loud pop and felt his own body being knocked to the floor and covered with hers. His face was nestled in her bosom as she tried to cover his head from possible debris.

It wasn’t until she pulled herself off of him that he was able to see what happened. The cart was knocked over, food on the floor, and worse yet, there was a growing puddle of blood coming from behind the turned over cart. Valencia avoided stepping in the blood as she knelt beside the kid. She sighed and shook her head. “He’s dead. I have to call this in.”

“I don’t think it was meant to kill, just to warn. The note had a simple statement inscribed. “Next time he’ll find out if you’d like him without his fingers and toes. It was meant to warn you.”

“Warn me?”

“She would have known the person who delivered the cart would be the person to open the bottle for you. That’s generally what happens. They open, they pour the first glass and then they go.”

“But he died.”

“A piece of glass logged in his carotid artery. That’s the thing about pressure bombs—they’re not one hundred percent controllable. The blast radius and damage depends on far too many factors to adequately calculate the end result.”

“Jealousy,” she said simply. “You’ve billed me as your girlfriend; you’ve made her angry. And right now she’s trying to warn you, maybe even scare me. It won’t happen again, Harrison. You have to take this more seriously. You have to let me do my job without question.”

He nodded. “We’ll talk about it later. You have to call this in.” He wouldn’t promise her anything. Right now it just all still seemed so unreal. There had to be another explanation. A few sexually laced letters didn’t turn into something like this. No way does something like this happen, he just couldn’t believe it. But as he looked down to the dead young man on the floor he knew, whether he wanted to admit it or not, it was possible that what Valencia thought was reality really was reality. Whatever the case, he wouldn’t be afraid of his own shadow. He wouldn’t let anybody make him afraid. “Business as usual,” he mumbled to himself. He wasn’t going to run scared. He was going to keep living his life. More importantly, he was going to keep pursuing Valencia until he had her where he wanted her, right there in his bed.

Chapter Seven

V
alencia listened to the detective as he recounted to Harrison what she had been telling him all week. The investigation hadn’t turned up much, but it had proved that there was a bomb within the Champaign bottle. They were still processing the evidence, and wouldn’t release any information—especially not to a guy who created operas and his “girlfriend.” Detective Perry Hillcrest had told them even though he couldn’t say much he wanted Harrison to be sure he was doing everything he could to solve the mystery.

Valencia had done her part by providing the note she received that night, as well as copies of the letters Harrison had received from his highly obsessed fan. She didn’t have the originals because Drake was still working with those on his end, but she did have two copies of each of the letters that Harrison hadn’t tossed out with the trash and she could provide at least one set to the detective. Harrison was still very much content with keeping her cover, and she didn’t see a reason to argue with him. Playing the girlfriend bought her time. She came across as intelligent, but harmless. Nobody would ever know that she was protecting Harrison, or even that she was conducting her own investigation to solve this mystery. The sooner she figured out who this woman was, the sooner she stopped her, the sooner she could go home. She liked Harrison; she really did, and that’s where the problem was. She couldn’t afford to get involved with this man. She couldn’t afford to let him into her heart. But he was determined to break her down. He was determined to find his way in. The man was so infuriating sometimes. After everything that had happened he still didn’t believe he was in serious danger. Either he truly didn’t realize, or he was in denial because he carried on as if nothing happened at all; as if there wasn’t a bomb sent to him, and there was no dead young man as a result.

Kissing Harrison that one time had been a mistake. She liked it—a lot, but physically letting him know how much he turned her on was like giving him permission to try to distract her with romance when she really needed to be concentrating on the assignment, not the man. He had continued to parade her around on his arm, keeping her almost attached to his hip, and now he was taking greater liberties with his hands. He had touched her in public before, an arm around the waist, a hand on her low back, and even hand holding as they walked into the theater house, but now he was different. Now he was taking whatever opportunity he could to kiss her on the lips, to run his fingers along the nape of her neck, slowly enticing her and silently telling her, promising her, what could come if she would just surrender.

The death of the young man, David Jennings, a pre-med student at Arizona State University, had only garnered limited attention. The police hadn’t released any information as to why the bottle had exploded, just that it had and that glass had lodged in an artery and the young man bled out. They were still investigating, but to the press, for now, this was just an unfortunate accident that the police had walked away from a week ago. The news made the paper and then quickly vanished from the line of sight. She was thankful because she didn’t need to tack on reporters and want-to-be reporters to her list of people to watch while they were out. She had her hands full with the woman after Harrison with a vengeance—both of them.

Latricia clearly thought Harrison would be returning to Scottsdale alone, and that he would be returning not only for his show, but to start something more than business related with her. It would appear Valencia had been the wrench in the engine of her plan because Harrison had no intention of starting a romantic relationship with Latricia. He was too busy trying to seduce her on to her back to entertain the thought of getting any other woman into his bed.

He was by far her toughest case yet. She had guarded many powerful men and women, but Harrison Sinclair was pushing all of her buttons. Normally she was good at controlling her emotions, but this man was dangerously close to making her break. Sometimes she just wanted to scream some sense into him and other times she just wanted more of his delicious kisses. Ten years; that’s how long it had been, and now one man had come close to making her want to change her mind about avoiding the entanglements of romantic relationships. It wasn’t just that her first real love had been the one who betrayed her, had been the one who broke her trust in romantic love. It was her job. She was always in jobs that were dangerous, that could bring danger home. When she operated as the assassin there was always a possibility that somebody would find out who she was and go after the people in her life. With her father, mother and brother she didn’t worry as much because anybody who knew anything about the Mishoto family knew the background enough to know that things were not always on the legal up and up with the family. Her father came from a line of men and women who protected their own. Hurt a Mishoto and die. There was no question about it, no hesitation, retaliation was a given. And with her family’s skills death could either be quick and painless, or torturous and drawn out. The method of death depended on the crime committed against the Mishoto family. She knew anybody in her family could take care of themselves, but somebody outside of that; somebody like Harrison, that would be a problem. With Darryl she didn’t worry because he had training and connections and he knew the risks of his job going in so the risks of entering a relationship with her wasn’t a deterrent. But with Harrison, he was so headstrong that he would probably never fully realize the danger he was in just by being with her. She was a bodyguard now, but that didn’t mean that the bodies she guarded didn’t have serious enemies who might try to get to the target by getting to her first. The first line of attack could be her family, or the man she loved. Of course if Harrison were family he would have the protection of the Mishoto family, but being family would mean being married and she doubted Harrison’s plans of seduction went anywhere past the bedroom.

She looked in the mirror at her reflection. Her hair pushed up into the perfect braided bun, held in place by her secret weapons. Her yellow pants suit was fitted, but allowed room to move if she needed to go on the attack, and the white high heeled boots were the perfect ending to the outfit. Those boots were killer—literally. The blades that could easily push out and retract at will were small, but could kill a person with one swift sweep of her heel across their neck. She was prepared for war—almost. She would have loved to have a few more of her prized possessions, but there were some weapons she just couldn’t get past airport security.

She looked down at the necklace she often wore around her neck. It was a necklace that she also used when she needed to kill. She hesitated. Overkill wasn’t exactly in her vocabulary when it came to being armed. “One can never be too safe,” she mumbled as she took the beaded jewelry and wrapped it around her left wrist instead of around her neck.

“Are you ready…wow,” Harrison stopped in his tracks the moment he saw Valencia standing there. Even in something as basic as a pants suit she looked drop dead stunning. “You look amazing. You do know I’m just going to sit through rehearsals right?”

“I know.”

She was the first person in a long time not to try to tell him that he didn’t need to sit through every rehearsal. Latricia had tried to tell him that, mostly because she wanted him to be elsewhere with her, but he had quickly told her this show was his baby and he planned to be sure it operated smoothly. He rarely stayed the entire day. He did have other opera related business to attend to after all, but he went every day and he stayed for as long as his schedule permitted. Most often it was just a couple hours, at best, but lately he found himself needed on set for much longer.

He had seen the kinks worked out from the start, and for some of those kinks he was glad he was there because otherwise he might have had their temperamental bratty star walk off set. He wished, now more than ever, that Geneva had returned to the show, but she hadn’t. She had chosen to continue with her plans for her solo album instead. His loss for sure, but he couldn’t dwell on it. Their new singer was talented, beautiful, great for the show in talent but lousy in character. She, Alexia Mitchell had started off as a radiantly charming black beauty alto singer and quickly grown into a moody, spoiled diva—one he wished he could have fired.

As the show progressed she grew worse, and now they were so close to the end of this run that it didn’t make sense to drop her and replace her with the understudy.

“I feel underdressed now,” he smiled. He was wearing dark blue jeans that fit his body as if they had been made just for him; a white pullover sweater with a pale blue button down beneath and the pair of black cowboy boots Geneva had bought him and made him promise to wear. When he first saw the gift he thought he would begrudgingly dawn the boots for one event and then be done with them. What he hadn’t realized is that he kind of liked cowboy boots.