Courting Trouble (Reality Romance Book 5) (8 page)

Chapter Eleven

He’d worried about her all day.

Adam was good at his job. He’d flawlessly executed all his duties on the afternoon protection detail watching over a pair of kids with overprotective celebrity parents, but he couldn’t seem to stop wondering how Elena was faring.

As soon as he dropped off the celebrities’ precious darlings, he headed back to the Elite Protection offices, using his Bluetooth to call the detective working Elena’s case. He knew better than to think they would have already had any breaks in the case, but he’d needed to hear it all the same.

There had been DNA on the envelope. It was being analyzed. That sort of thing took time. The fingerprints were being run. Which also took time—despite what cop shows would have people believe.

And no matter how high a priority it was to Adam, the threat against Elena wasn’t urgent enough to merit special treatment—which meant she would get the results when she got the results and there was nothing he could do about it.

The one positive thing that came from the conversation was the tidbit that their linguists had analyzed the note and suspected the threat might have come from a woman. It wasn’t much, but it was something.

Adam pulled into the employee lot behind Elite Protection, squeezing his Jeep into the space between Candy’s Tesla and Tank’s Escalade. On the surface, the Beverly Hills offices of Elite Protection were all understated class. A client entering through the street entrance might think they had wandered into a high end Rodeo Drive boutique, if not for the complete lack of anything resembling clothing. The public areas were designed to create an atmosphere of luxury, giving the impression that the clients weren’t just hiring bodyguards, they were purchasing status.

The staff areas were a different story. Everything was still top of the line—Max Dewitt didn’t cut corners—but the offices on the floor above and the training rooms in the basement below had been designed to spoil the guards not the clients. There were even rooms for them to crash overnight if they needed it. Which he might if he couldn’t pay his freaking property taxes.

Adam let himself in through the side door and jogged down the stairs to the lower level. Traffic had put him behind schedule, so he was a few minutes late to meet Tank in the gym. He was supposed to lift weights today with the former NFL lineman. Every EP employee needed to remain in peak physical condition—and standing around babysitting celebrities didn’t usually satisfy the cardio requirements.

He stowed his gear in the equipment room, relocking it behind him, changed in the locker room and moved quickly past the gun range to the gym, not wanting to keep Tank waiting. He needn’t have hurried.

As soon as he stepped into the gym’s main room, he saw two figures grappling on the training mat spread over the center of the space. Tank and Pretty Boy stood to one side of the mat, watching the show with arms folded.

On the mat, Cross and Candy were locked in combat—and Cross was getting his ass handed to him. He might have been a professional athlete, but Candy danced around him, moving with a fluid, confident economy of motion that made him look like a toddler learning to walk in comparison.

Adam moved to stand next to Tank, nodding toward the mat. “What’s this?”

“Candy’s giving Cross his weekly badass lesson,” Tank commented, never taking his eyes from the action.

Cross’s body flew through the air to land hard, flat on his back on the mat.

“Ooh!” Tank and Pretty Boy chorused—half sympathy, half cheering section for the slender ninja schooling Cross on the mat.

“They do this every week?”

“When schedules allow. Usually in the mornings before the rest of us get in.”

Cross was back on his feet without hesitation, charging at Candy. She ducked under his arm and in a move so fast Adam could barely follow it she was on his back, her legs locked around his waist, her arms in a choke hold around his neck. Cross twisted, trying to get a grip on her or shake her loose, but Candy was on him like a burr. He tucked his chin against the curve of her elbow, gaining himself a little breathing room, but Candy adjusted her grip, taking it away again.

Tank grinned. “I love this part.”

Pretty Boy just glowered, like the entire scene annoyed him.

Cross threw himself down on the mat, clearly meaning to shake Candy’s grip by slamming his weight down on top of her, but she anticipated the tactic, moving mongoose-fast so Cross only managed to knock the wind out of himself and wind up with a slim woman in bright blue lycra perched with a knee across his throat.

His hand smacked the mat at his side, tapping out.

Candy climbed off him. “You’re still telegraphing everything you do. Think of it more like a football play. You have to fake out your blocker.”

Cross took the hand she offered to help him up. “I was a defensive back. My job was to make sure no one could fake
me
out. Not the other way around.”

“Okay, so don’t think of it like that. Just try to be less obvious.”

Cross grunted something vaguely affirmative and headed toward the showers, moving stiffly as Candy strolled over to where her audience waited. She snagged a towel from the bench beside Pretty Boy and patted at the light sheen of sweat on her skin.

“He almost had you with that leg sweep,” Pretty Boy commented.

“He’s improving.” She batted her eyelashes. “You sure you don’t want to try to take me? I promise to go easy on you.”

Pretty Boy just glared.

Adam had a feeling he was missing something there, but he had something else he was dying to ask. “Why aren’t you ever in the field? You’re incredible.”

She stopped eyeing Pretty Boy like a cat with a mouse and turned to Adam with a smile. “Thank you. But, as you know, being a bodyguard is partially about image. You boys are excellent at intimidating people into backing the fuck off because you
look
like big hunks of badass. There’s a reason why most Secret Service protective details are comprised of dudes, even if there is the occasional nod toward gender equality. Most men don’t want to challenge Tank, but men underestimate me. Which is kinda awesome in its own way, but it makes me less effective as a deterrent. So I hang around here, play with my toys and rule the world from my digital lair while you guys get to play with the celebrities. But fair warning, if we ever get hired to guard Ryan Reynolds, I am taking each one of you out if that’s what it takes to get that contract.”

Pretty Boy—usually the most easy-going of them—snorted and Candy turned her attention back to him with a purr.

“Don’t be jealous, Pretty Boy. I’ll still let you join my man harem.”

The door at the far end of the gym opened and Max stepped through. “Dylan. Got a minute?”

Adam looked questioningly at Tank who waved him toward their boss. “Go on. I’ll get the weights set up.”

Adam followed Max out of the room, expecting his boss to lead the way upstairs to his office, but instead Max stepped into the long, narrow room that served as their gun range. He stopped beside one of the shooting stations and picked up a piece of the dismantled gun waiting there, keeping his hands busy cleaning it as he turned to Adam.

“Sandy Newton is still pushing me to find a space in your schedule for her. I’m not asking you to work for them, but it would make my life easier if I could give her an excuse besides you being booked for the rest of your life. I can make something up if that’s what you want, but I’d rather tell her the truth. I try to have a policy of not lying to megastars unless absolutely necessary. It’s your call, but I think she’ll understand why you’re uncomfortable. She’s not unreasonable. Or I can keep it vague. Tell her it’s for personal reasons.”

“She’ll think I have a problem with them. I don’t want her to think I’m ungrateful.”

“So I tell her you’re too close. I can say you feel too emotionally attached to her family to be effective as a security guard.”

He couldn’t think of a better excuse since I’m-booked-forever wasn’t holding up. “Yeah. That works.”

“Great.” Max finished polishing the piece in his hands and reached for another. “Did Murkowski work out on Monday?”

Murkowski. The detective Max had recommended for discreetly investigating the threat to Elena. “He was great. They don’t have anything yet, but I know it means a lot that the papers haven’t got anything on it.” Adam shifted from one foot to the other. “Elena’s staying in my guest room. Until we know that her place is safe.”

Max nodded as if he’d expected as much, reassembling the gun. “I’m glad you’re looking out for her. You know she’s friends with my little sister, right?”

The wedding planner Suitorette. “I know.”

“Good.” He chambered a bullet with an ominous click.

His boss was warning him away from Elena. Subtle. “I’d better get back to my workout. Tank’s probably adding another twenty reps for every minute I’m late.”

Max snorted. “Remind him that I need you to be able to lift your arms tomorrow.”

“Will do.”

He made his escape before his boss decided he would make a good target. Message received. He’d keep his hands to himself where Elena was concerned.

But when he walked through his front door that evening and saw her bent over in a yoga pose in the middle of his living room, he knew he was a goner.

Chapter Twelve

“What are you doing?”

Elena straightened, whipping toward the sound of his voice. “Oh, thank God, you’re back. I freaking hate yoga, but I’m trying to be Zen here. You’re lucky I didn’t feng shui your furniture and alphabetize your socks.”

Adam’s eyebrows flew up as he grinned. “My socks?”

She found her lips curving, grinning back at him of their own volition. “I don’t do well when I’m penned in.”

Understatement of the century.

It might have been different if she’d had her car. If she’d known that she
could
leave if she wanted to, perhaps she wouldn’t have felt this crazy itch beneath her skin, the incessant drive to move. She’d tried to read and watch TV, but she couldn’t sit still. Then she’d caught a few minutes of a talk show and heard her hashtag used as a punch line—again. She’d snapped off the television in disgust and prowled his place.

Maybe she wouldn’t have been so restless if it hadn’t been his place. If she hadn’t been so aware that these were his things.

She didn’t want to get too comfortable here, hyper aware that she wouldn’t be able to stay. Last night he’d cooked for her and it had been wonderful, peaceful and calming and everything she needed in that moment. But she couldn’t stay in with him tonight, not with this pulse of restlessness in her blood, not if she wanted to keep the Just Friends illusion going.

And it was an illusion.

That much was obvious by the kick of attraction that hit her the second he walked through the door. He was hotter than she’d remembered. Somehow since that morning she’d managed to forget the way her mouth would go dry just watching him move. Or smile. Or breathe.

Shit.

She didn’t want to be just friends. She wanted impulse and heat and the press of skin against skin. She wanted
him
.

And he wanted to be friends. How long would their “friendship” last before she pushed him and he walked away?

“So I see,” he said, but she’d lost track of the conversation and wasn’t in the mood to even try to figure out what he was responding to. Everything in her was moving forward, not back.

“Can we go out? I will go stir crazy if I have to stay in this house another second.”

“Then I guess we’d better go out. If only to save my socks. Where did you have mind?”

“I need my car. And a drink. Not necessarily in that order.” She was talking too fast, but the speed felt good. She reached up and snagged her hair tie, tugging it loose so her hair fell down around her shoulders. “You’re not on the clock now. Have you been to Seven?”

“The club?”

“I know it’s pretentious as hell, but the music is amazing and the bartender wants to sleep with me so he gives me these spicy pomegranate martinis for practically nothing. Do you like to dance?”

He was starting to look dazed, but he nodded. “Sure.”

“Great. We’ll go there.” She’d said last night that she needed to feel like herself again and she could only think of one way to do that. “I need to dance. Then we can get my car. You hungry? We can hit In N’ Out on the way. Give me ten minutes to get ready.”

“Ten?”

He called the word after her, but she was already bolting up the stairs.

* * * * *

Adam was tempted to check the house for cocaine, but he was reasonably certain Elena’s manic mood was all natural. He wasn’t accustomed to going clubbing—at least not as a partier rather than a guard—so he wasn’t entirely sure what to wear, but Elena’s little purr of approval when she met him back downstairs twenty minutes later told him he’d chosen well with dark slacks and a dark button-down open at the collar.

“Look at you.”

His neck heated. “You look nice too.”

She arched an eyebrow, as if she could hear the ridiculous understatement in his words. “Thank you.”

She looked like twenty-seven different kinds of sin in her skyscraper heels and tight little yellow dress—the bright color contrasting incredibly against her darker skin. Her hair had gotten poofier somehow and she’d added smoky darkness around her eyes and shocking scarlet lipstick that made him want to smear it all to hell.

Which would get him fired. And probably beaten to a bloody pulp by Tank. Or Candy.

So Adam averted his eyes and held the door for her. “Shall we?”

She waited in the vestibule as he reset the security system and locked the door. When he turned, she took his arm to steady herself on the ridiculously high heels as they walked to the car. He opened her door, trying not to look at her legs as she swung them in.

He closed her door and rounded the hood, trying to think chaste thoughts. He climbed in and avoided looking in the passenger seat as he pointed the car south toward Seven and hit the button to close the gate behind them.

He was acutely aware of the sound of fabric rustling as Elena crossed one leg over the other, shifting toward him.

“Do you think men and women can be friends without sex becoming an issue?”

Adam’s neck heated. “Of course.”

“But only when one or both of them are unattractive, right?”

“No.”

“Huh. Maybe it’s just me.”

“You can’t be friends with attractive men?”

She snorted. “I can’t even be friends with women when they have boyfriends or husbands. You would not believe how many of my female friends will cut me off when they get involved with a guy. They don’t want my temptation around them. As if I would ever.”

“No,” he agreed. Elena wasn’t a cheater. She had too strong a sense of fairness. But he wasn’t surprised other women felt threatened by her. It couldn’t be easy to be friends with the woman who would draw the eye of every straight male in the room. But it had to take a toll on Elena too. “Any idiot can see that isn’t your style. You need smarter friends.”

He was rewarded with a low, breathy laugh. “That must be my problem.”

To get her off the topic of sexual attraction between would-be friends, he pretended to be reminded of an anecdote by a building they were passing and launched into a story to distract her, keeping it up through the In N’ Out drive through and all the way until they were pulling up in front of Seven.

The trendy club had its usual line wrapping around the side of the building, as well as a small cluster of bored looking paparazzi lurking in case anyone famous dropped by. Adam stopped directly in front of the door and threw the car into park.

He looked over at Elena in time to see the change as her public face fell into place. The wild, almost frantic look in her eyes faded to indolent ennui. She’d been bursting with emotion only moments before, radiating restless energy, but she reeled it all in until the real Elena was contained, playing her role seamlessly.

“Don’t let the paparazzi shoot up my skirt as I’m getting out,” she said as he reached for the door handle. “I’m not wearing underwear.”

All the blood rushed away from his brain, but he managed not to react. He stepped out, handing the keys to the valet, and rounded the rear of the car to open the door for Elena, blocking the view of the paparazzi who went on high alert at the scent of fame.

She took his arm, sex on four inch heels as she strutted toward the door. Most celebrities traveled with an entourage—the publicist would go first and make sure everyone knew they were coming, smoothing the way to VIP lounges. The rest of the party would arrive with the star, orbiting around her like lesser planets, completely dependent on her light.

It was all but unheard of for a celebrity to arrive alone—or with just a bodyguard as company—but Elena made it look natural. She smiled at the bouncer—the kind of wicked, I-aim-to-misbehave smile Adam had never seen on her face before, but desperately wanted to see again. In bed.

The rope moved out of their way without hesitation and Elena released Adam’s arm, but hooked a finger in his belt loop, tugging him after her through the tall, arched door that was the portal into the throbbing beat of Seven.

Inside, she released him and Adam submitted to a security pat down while Elena waited, examining her nails. The elevator arrived and they stepped inside, the operator pushing the button for the fourth floor without needing to be told.

Seven’s gimmick was that each floor of the seven floor club was more exclusive than the last. In the status-obsessed world of Tinseltown, everyone was trying to level up and the club’s owners had decided to profit from it. Commoners could “level up” by paying increasingly exorbitant cover charges and membership fees—but only as high as level five.

Adam had guarded celebs on every level from three to six, but even he had never been up to seven. Four was an impressive level of fame for a reality television star, considering the heroic Adam Dylan probably couldn’t even have gotten in the door on one without Elena tugging at his belt loop.

Someone must have called up, because by the time the elevator doors opened on the fourth floor, the bartender had a purple martini waiting for Elena. She purred her thanks and took a long drink before turning to Adam with another of those wicked Public Elena smiles.

“What’ll you have, Stud Muffin?”

“I’m not drinking.” Even if he hadn’t been driving, he was looking out for Elena tonight and he didn’t need his senses dulled when he did it.

“You aren’t on duty.” She was shouting to be heard over the pounding bass, but somehow she managed to infuse sultriness into the yelling. “Come on. I insist you loosen up. One drink.” She thrust her glass at him. “Here, try mine. You might like it.”

“One drink and you’ll let it go?”

“Deal.”

He took a large swallow of her purple martini, expecting a fruity drink and nearly choking when the liquid that hit the back of his throat was almost pure vodka. “Christ,” he wheezed.

“Yeah. Eddie makes ‘em strong.”

He tried to hand the glass back to her. “I did it. One drink.”

“That was one swallow.” She tapped the glass with her nail. ”
This
is one drink. You finish it and I’ll get another from Eddie boy.”

He would have protested, but Elena was already moving toward the bar. She was a force of nature, all fire and will, and he was out of his depth with her. Especially here, where she had home field advantage.

He sipped more cautiously at the purple vodka, finding it had a hint of fruity sweetness and a zing of spice that built the more he drank. When Elena returned, cradling a new full glass in both hands, he leaned close to shout, “Is that cayenne?”

“Mm-hmm,” she hummed affirmatively, taking a hefty swallow of her own drink. “Isn’t it divine?”

He met her eyes over the rim of her glass, taking in the wicked glint in them and her wide, inviting smile. The thoughts running through his brain were about as far from divinity as they could get. His fingers itched to touch her smooth skin, glinting copper in the flicking orange lights that added a sense of warmth to this level of the club—or a sense that he was immersing himself in the flames of Hell.

The music was too loud for conversation and he found himself falling into the guard role—even with a drink in his hand. He scanned the crowd for possible threats, using his body to shield Elena when someone would have bumped up against her.

She scanned the crowd as well for reasons of her own as she sipped her martini. “No one’s here,” she leaned toward his ear to comment.

The dance floor was packed and every table around the edges reserved for bottle service was full, but he knew what she meant. No one famous had decided to come out and play this Tuesday night. Elena was probably the most recognizable face in the crowd. But the paying customers were enjoying the thrill of their Level Four status.

He started to suggest that they could get out of here—she’d had her drink, she’d been seen, usually that was all the celebrities wanted when they came out—but then the music shifted to a faster, more recognizable beat and Elena squealed. “I love this song! Come on!”

She downed the rest of her drink and handed the empty glass to him to dispose of as she raised her hands above her head and danced toward the crowded dance floor. Adam cursed under his breath, ditching their empty glasses on the bar and moving quickly to keep her in sight. The dancers made space for her as they recognized her, smiling and waving, welcoming her to their bobbing, grinding world and then whipping out their cell phones to snag a discreet pic as she passed.

Elena made her way to the heart of the dance floor and Adam plowed in her wake. He stopped when he had her at a safe distance—close enough to protect, but far enough that his brain didn’t shut down from lack of blood. She moved with sinuous grace, head thrown back, eyes half-closed, arms above her head as her hips wove patterns in time to the music. He could see her lips moving, singing along, but the pounding music was too loud for him to hear her voice.

Those dance shows didn’t know what they were missing. She would have won for sure. He couldn’t take his eyes off her.

And she wasn’t wearing underwear. Christ.

Her skyscraper heels were no impediment here. She moved on them as gracefully as he’d seen her sashay barefoot across his living room. He’d seen her on the dance floor at the wedding, but she’d been more restrained then—this was pure abandon, and he had a front row seat.