Protecting His Assets (6 page)

“Good evening, miss.” The doorman was a beefy guy without a neck who looked uncomfortable in his uniform jacket, but he had a wide smile and super bright teeth that had seen one too many whitening strips. “Who are you visiting, please?”

A door opened across the hall. It was Nolan, coming in from the garage. She was relieved but surprised. She’d expected him to forget about her altogether, or at least take the elevator right to his apartment and force her to get the doorman to call up for permission to let her follow.

“Good evening, Mr. Nolan.”

“Hi Doug, how’s it going?” he said with a friendly smile before coming over and sliding his arm around April’s waist to pull her close. “The lady’s with me tonight, okay?”

It was barely a real touch, but her belly clenched, and her heart started to race. She edged back as unobtrusively as she could manage even as the scent of him beckoned her closer.

He was evil, and they were going to have a discussion about just how far he was allowed to go to maintain his dictate that her true reason for being with him stay a secret.

Doug nodded without pause and turned back to her. “Do you want to give me your keys, ma’am? I can bring your car into the garage for the night. If you leave it out there on the street, you’ll have a ticket in the morning.”

She quickly shook her head. “I’m only staying a short time, Doug. But thank you.” His eyes widened as she realized what that might have sounded like. “Oh Lord,” she stammered, feeling her cheeks heat. Beside her, Nolan chuckled out loud without an ounce of shame.

“I only meant that I’m here to pick up some, um, paperwork from Mr. Nolan and won’t be long. We’re business acquaintances, nothing more.”

At this time of night?
Could she have come up with a worse excuse? Now he thought she was a prostitute
for sure
. It didn’t help that Nolan was grinning from ear to ear, having way too much fun making April uncomfortable, or that his little display of fake affection just a minute ago had already put ideas into the doorman’s head.

But to his credit, Doug kept his cool. “My apologies, ma’am. Of course. I’ll keep an eye on your vehicle until you’re ready to leave.”

“Ah, nothing to apologize for. Thank you,” she said, pinning Nolan with a glare. He only smiled back at her evilly. “I’m sure Mr. Nolan appreciates that you take such good care of his guests.”

Nolan stuffed his hands in his pockets, completely casual. “Doug’s the best. Nobody gets past him.”

They said good night, and Nolan turned back around to the elevator.
Another elevator
. “What floor do you live on?” she asked.

He looked sideways at her as the door started to slide open. “The twentieth.” He moved to step inside.

She reached for his arm to hold him back until she’d had a chance to make sure the elevator car was empty and had to bite her lip to keep from letting out a surprised hiss at the unexpected shock of touching him. Even through the suit jacket he was warm, thick, hard.

He looked down at her hand on his arm. She yanked it back quickly. “Sorry.”

She started to tug the front of her suit jacket before stopping herself. Fiddling with clothing was a classic indicator of nervousness. She should know, she’d been trained to read all the signs. Even if Steve Nolan did make her nervous…hot and breathless and nervous…she was determined to at least
look
professional.

She nodded and stepped in after him. At least it was empty but for the two of them. Before the door closed, she took a deep breath. There were germs everywhere, yes. But ever since her dad had gotten sick, she’d become more aware of enclosed public places like this as concentrated pockets of disease. It was irrational, but she couldn’t seem to help it.

When he reached out to press the button for the twentieth floor, she couldn’t look away. How many other people had touched that button today? Yesterday? The day before? How could he be sure that the cleaning service had disinfected the keypad? Or
when
they’d last disinfected the keypad. Or that they even cleaned any part of the elevators at all? How could he be sure that the last couple to come in together after a romantic dinner hadn’t decided to get the private part of their evening started early? Leaving the issue of cleanliness aside, it was amazing how many people didn’t even care that there were almost always cameras in elevators.

She looked up and realized she’d been watching the elevator buttons with too much intensity, and now he was watching her curiously. “I’m sorry, did you say something?”

His expression hadn’t changed, so maybe she wasn’t being as obvious in her freak-out as she thought she was.

“Thank you for what you did back at the restaurant.”

She shrugged, relieved. “I didn’t do anything.” Only her job.

“You handled that photographer”—he said the word with the kind of derision that came from more than just a cursory experience with the breed—“much better than I would have. If he’d tried to take one more picture, I would have decked him, and that would only have gotten me in more hot water with our investors when the news hit the Net.”

“You wouldn’t have hit him.” She was pretty sure about that. “You’ve never hit any of them in all the years they’ve been hounding you.”

His gaze narrowed. “And you know this, how?”

“It was a long afternoon. I did some research and called a friend at the FBI.”

“And do bodyguards usually have connections with the FBI?”

She didn’t answer, but she thought a lot of them probably did, or at least they had connections with the police. She knew from experience that personal protection was the fallback for cops and agents when that career path became closed to them, for whatever reason.

“What else did they tell you?”

“Nothing.” She didn’t want to mention what she’d learned about Justin Fielding’s Colombian accounts just yet. It might not be related to her assignment at all, and she didn’t want to overstep the bounds of her contract by admitting she’d dug up dirt she had no business digging up. Since the FBI seemed to be keeping an eye on the embezzlement case, if there were any developments, the agents should be the ones to approach Nolan about them, not her.

“So, your father is a boxer?” he asked, changing the subject again.

The question made her frown. Where had that come from? What did it matter? “Was,” she clarified. “He
was
a boxer. Now he’s retired.”
And dying of cancer.
She swallowed hard.

“That sounds like it could have been an interesting childhood.” When his lips twisted up like that, she just wanted to take one between her teeth and—

“Not really.” She shouldn’t talk to her client about her personal life. Even if Nolan wasn’t technically asking about
her
.

“And how long were
you
a professional boxer?”

Okay, scratch that. She glanced at him sharply. “Me? What makes you think I was a boxer?”

“You certainly seem to know your way around the ring.”

She shrugged. “I grew up in that world, so yeah, I learned a few things along the way, I guess. It’s good exercise, too. But that doesn’t make me a professional.”

Would Nolan analyze her words and realize that she hadn’t actually come right out and denied anything? Not that it was a big deal. She’d boxed for the IFBA for three years to make enough cash to get through college. She’d been good at it and could have stuck with it, but her father had practically forced her out the first—and only—time she’d come home with a fractured cheekbone. He’d always wanted her to have a career that would last her a lifetime, one that wouldn’t break her spirit along with her bones. He’d been so proud when she graduated with honors and made it into the FBI training program.

She shook off thoughts of her father that would only make her melancholy. Nolan looked contemplative. She’d tried to remain focused and impersonal with him, but it seemed she lost a little more of that resolve every time he spoke to her. Was he taking all the small pieces of information that she’d dropped throughout the day and working out where they fit in the puzzle that was April Porter?

She wanted to tell him to stop it. There wasn’t really anything interesting about her anyway. She shouldn’t rate high enough on the social scale for him to bother trying to figure her out. There were way more interesting women out there. Women who belonged in his world. Women who didn’t work for him.

“Well, you looked good up there,” he finally said, “like you were enjoying yourself.” His voice lowered in appreciation, insinuating that he’d noticed more than just her boxing stance or her smile.

Damn it. There were undercurrents in that deep drawl that she couldn’t possibly afford to acknowledge, and it was more than the filterless, inappropriate teasing she figured was his standard operating procedure.

She looked down at her feet, marking the floors by the musical
ding
and counting down until they would be out of the elevator, and she could put more distance between them. Her thick-soled, utilitarian boots looked ridiculous next to his shiny black leather designer shoes. He needed to look down at them, too, and be reminded of how ridiculous the two of them would be together.

“Your girlfriend is very pretty.” As a change of subject, it was pretty lame and decidedly obvious. She winced and rushed to add, “I’ll have to get her name. What does she do?”

“Jennifer isn’t… We’ve been out a few times, but it’s not serious.”

Really? After the way they’d acted together outside the restaurant, his idea of serious must be different than hers. On the other hand, the woman had been the bolder of the two of them. Surprisingly, he hadn’t taken advantage of her blatant invitations and had even managed to send her home alone without seeming to cause any disappointment or hurt feelings.

“And you are
not
running a check on her,” he finished.

April said nothing. She didn’t need his permission to do her job. And her job was protecting him, even when he thought it was a joke. She’d get the information she required one way or another.

“Don’t think you can go behind my back, either.” His voice was suddenly sharp and cold as ice. “Or you’ll be out on your ass so fast, you won’t know what hit you.”

She snapped her gaze up to his with a gasp, surprised that he’d figured out exactly what she was thinking. “You can’t do that.”

“Watch me.” His tense jaw seemed carved from stone, and she was startled to realize that she’d mostly bought into that laid-back, playboy act he’d been trotting out all day.

For a second, she had peeked behind his easy-going, approachable CEO face. Just for a second, but it was long enough to confirm that there was definitely more to Steve Nolan than the public got to see. She suspected there was more to him than even most of his friends got to see.

Her shoulders stiffened. At one time, she might have been intrigued and drawn in by those sharp glimpses of intensity, by the hint of danger. But that was a more naive April from a different time. She was no longer interested in guys like that…she wasn’t. Besides, with her father’s illness, she didn’t have time for intense romantic entanglements anyway.

She curbed her tone. “I am diligently trying to do my job here, Mr. Nolan. But if you insist on curtailing this investigation and putting unreasonable limits on my duties, it’s only going to take longer to get to the bottom of this.” She shrugged as if it was no skin off her back. “That’s fine because I get paid by the hour no matter how long it takes, but I was under the impression that time was not on
your
side.”

He ignored her and pressed forward, crowding her backward until the handrail along the wall of the elevator bisected her spine. She schooled her features. His face was inches from hers, so close she could see the brilliant flecks of gold in his deep brown eyes.

She realized it was one thing to tell herself she wasn’t interested, quite another to mean it. Especially when Nolan was looking right at her—
into
her
—as if he could see and feel the pounding of her pulse. Especially when he still smelled of a fresh shower, which reminded her of the sweat that had poured down his chest back at the gym. Especially when she hadn’t had sex in
so long,
and his exact brand of strength, confidence, and magnetism was her drug of choice—notwithstanding that it was a drug that would only add complications to her life that she wasn’t equipped to handle
.

“Whoever’s playing these sick games is a stranger,” he murmured darkly. “It isn’t anyone close to me, so you do not need to interrogate my friends.”

“How can you be so certain?”

“Because no one who knows me at all would dare fuck with me like this.” He smiled, but this time he didn’t try to hide the dangerous predator lurking behind the perfectly cut suit and stiff silk tie. He was a sleek, powerful shark whipping silently through the dark water. And as his gaze flicked to her mouth, she knew he’d set his sights on
her
as an appetizer.

It wasn’t hard to imagine what he would do to someone who betrayed him, but she also knew from personal experience that no matter how safe you thought you were, the pain of betrayal could come from anywhere. The people closest to you were often the ones who ended up hurting you the most…whether they meant to or not.

She gritted her teeth. The air between them thickened as they stared one another down. “The reality is that in cases like this, nine times out of ten the perpetrator
is
someone who—”

“No.”

The finality in his voice dared her to contradict him again, but she wasn’t about to start that kind of argument in an elevator. If he wanted to wear blinders when it came to this investigation, then she wouldn’t push it for now. There were plenty of other rabbit holes to explore. She hoped for his sake that he was right, but if the time came when all the other leads turned up empty, and the only ones left were the ones Nolan didn’t want to acknowledge, then they’d have to do things her way.

Suddenly, his fingers touched her cheek. She gasped and leaned back, but there was nowhere for her to go unless she bolted to the other side of the elevator, and showing fear to a predator was always a bad idea.