ROMANCE: MENAGE ROMANCE: Tapped and Taken by Two (Pregnancy Sports MMA UFC Fighter Romance) (Alpha Male Romance) (36 page)

His question took her off guard and she laughed. “Umm, well yes, but no. No way.”

“Bummer. But now just think about how it’s going to look if you throw him out. We saw the cameras when we pulled in, they’re out there tonight and they want pictures. You told me when you hired me that I’m here not just to protect you physically, but also make sure you are able to maintain your image. Right? How about I’ll see her out to her car, they won’t think anything is up except that your security guard maybe has a skanky girlfriend. As far as Ricky goes. I know what I would do if someone was this disrespectful to me, but that’s me. I don't have a multi-million dollar tour to promote right now. So I need to suggest that if you’re going to throw him out, be strategic about it. I don’t think tonight’s the night.”

She had noticed a few paparazzi hanging around by her gates. While the idea of dumping him out there in his underwear was appealing…she didn’t need the press. She prided herself in her good-girl image, married to her childhood sweetheart for almost ten years. No drug charges, she was never spotted staggering out of a club flashing her panties. She never cheated. She never got drunk in the public eye. She’d been a teen pop idol for most of her life until her career stagnated a bit. Now, though, as she closed in on thirty, people were starting to take her seriously. Her career had found new legs and she was more popular than ever, and she was doing it herself this time. She was writing her own music, mostly, and people loved it. Bristol couldn’t let herself do anything that could possibly throw a wrench into the momentum she’d been riding into this world tour.

Her good life was part of her brand.

Lucas was right.

“Thank you,” she said. “Get bimbo out of here, I’ll deal with him.”

He shook his head, and went back in for the girl, who seemed to wear a tube of mostly translucent cellophane as a dress. It creaked as she moved, and she wobbled in her red heels.

*              *              *

Lucas walked the girl out to her car without a word, his arm around her waist. As she got in, he leaned in to look at her. Someone flew a drone overhead with a camera on it so he leaned farther into the car. “Don’t come back here. I don’t care if he calls you. It’s not worth it. He’s not worth it.”

Terrified, the girl nodded, and drove out. Cameras flashed as she pulled away, but Lucas suspected they didn’t get anything usable. He waved to her as she sped away making sure the cameras caught him doing it. They didn’t know who the chick was. If they believed what they say she was just some girl a random bodyguard was probably sleeping with.

He heard shouting from inside the house.

She needed to ditch that guy. All he did was spend her money and bring her down.
When’s the last time you made love to me?
Lucas knew things weren’t good in the marriage, but damn. No wonder poor Bristol had that stick up her ass.

At first Lucas decided it wasn’t his business when Ricky cheated. Always a different girl, before tonight he’d always kept them in his “man cave” or out by the pool. Bristol would be devastated to know he defiled her special place out there.

She’d gotten pissed at him—at Lucas—when he told her after one of his guys reported three girls here at the house while Bristol was away. Something about her anger made it clear she already knew.

So how did Miss Bristol Maitland get her rocks off, he wondered. He’d never seen her look at another man but her husband, and they did a passable job of seeming to enjoy one another on the red carpet.

Not his business, Lucas had to remind himself.

Lucas lived in the guest house, which overlooked the pool and the patio. They’d talked about alternate arrangements, and he kept an apartment on the other side of town, but this was easier for all of them, at least in the meantime while Kyle Reed was Bristol’s latest stalker. A few nights a week he went back to his place, and let one of his crew handle the Bristol detail. Tonight he’d already planned to stay on site. There couldn’t be any more slip ups.

It didn’t take too long before Lucas didn’t hear any more yelling from inside the house. There probably wasn’t too much more to fight about. Ultimately, what could a guy like Ricky say as an argument for himself. He was an asshole that was taking advantage of Bristol. Anyone who had the chance to see behind the sparkling veneer of Bristol’s pop star image immediately knew it. It was getting harder and harder for Lucas to not just say screw her public image and toss Ricky over the gate. He wouldn’t even let him pack a bag since Bristol paid for everything he had anyway. That wasn’t the job though, and every time he caught himself thinking like that he started to realize that this Bristol detail was becoming something more than a job.

Last time he’d seen them fight, Ricky wound up crying and Lucas caught a glimpse of Bristol soothing him. Apologizing to
him
. She had too much of a soft spot for Ricky. It’s true they grew up together, and Ricky probably knows more about who she was than anyone else in the world, but does that mean he has any clue about who she is? For some reason, it seemed like Bristol had long ago changed, grew up, her new music was a reflection of that, and Ricky just stayed a spoiled child. Lucas understood that when someone played a big part in your life you needed to cut them some slack, but enough was enough. Bristol needed to lose this baggage now and move on. Lucas tried to remember what that last fight was about. Right—that was after he got wasted and crashed the Lamborghini. Nobody was hurt, but Ricky lost his license, which is probably why that girl drove her run down Camry to Bristol’s house. Bristol apologizing to her piece of shit husband after he wrecked her $200,000 car.

Lucas had to shake his mind off of this situation though. Shower, TV, bed. None of this was his business. He didn’t like that the guy at the venue gotten so close to her tonight. He’d not been doing a good job. Pete was garbage, Lucas would never do on the job training like that again. Pete’s uncle said he had experience. Pete’s uncle was full of shit. What if the guy had a knife? What if the guy was Kyle Reed who most likely would have had a knife or maybe something even worse? Lucas let himself into the tidy little guest house. He took a shower, threw on a clean pair of boxers, and headed to the bedroom. He paused as he crossed the living room. All his lights were out, but Bristol had the pool lights on, bathing the area in a greenish blue glow. He caught sight of her emerging from her pool, illuminated from below by the underwater lights. Her bathing suit wasn’t much, three strategically placed triangles.

She spent a lot of time, energy and money keeping her body fit and toned, and damn did it show. He caught a few extra glances whenever she was by the pool, which was usually in the day time, but here at night, with all the lights out in the guest house, he was able to look at here without her possibly catching him staring. She rang the water out of her long, red hair. She colored it, a fire-engine red he and most of her male fans thought was smoking hot.

It was his job to watch her, but he shouldn’t be watching like this, yet he didn’t move from his dark window. She settled herself on a cushy chaise lounge, and pulled out a paperback. She loved to read. She played that side of herself down in the media mostly, didn’t want to come across as nerdy, especially because she mostly loved sci-fi, fantasy, and horror, but Lucas also caught her reading more than a few trashy romances on her kindle. After all, if it had been that long since anyone’s made love to her she probably needed the release. He thought it was super-hot. Other than the trashy romances Lucas knew he read the same books as her. He didn’t talk about what he liked to read because for some reason it seemed like it would be intrusive. When he served overseas, it seemed he always had his nose buried in a book. All the bases had graveyards of abandoned novels, and he read them all. The one she was reading now? He’d read it last year when it first came out, had ploughed through the sequel, and was anxiously awaiting the third. He wanted to ask her what she thought…but he was here to keep her safe and keep her fans adoring her. She didn’t need one more asshole doting on her. He watched a moment longer, gazing at the wet curve of her thigh and the slender dip of her stomach, then closed his curtains and went to bed. He felt like he needed his own release now.

2

“Hey, wake up.”

Bristol didn’t know where she was. She was cold, started shivering. Ricky?

No. She couldn’t imagine Ricky gently shaking her and speaking so softly after the fight they’d had.

“Bris. It’s after three. Go inside.”

“Lucas?” Her eyes cleared and she realized she’d fallen asleep on the chaise lounge by the pool, book flopped on her chest. He crouched next to her head, his warm hand resting on her shoulder. She started to shiver.

“Yeah. Good idea.”

“I got up to take a piss and saw the lights were still on out here. Then I saw you. Figured you didn’t want to spend the night out here. Jeez, you’re shaking.”

“I’m okay.”

Her teeth were chattering now. “Just need to get some clothes on.” She realized she was almost naked and very, very close to Lucas. Her nipples were like bullets against the thin cloth of her bathing suit.

He didn’t care. What was she thinking? His face, as usual, presented as a flat mask. She was pretty sure he didn’t notice that she was even female.

“You need a hand?”

What did he think she was, an invalid? He already looked like he thought she was an idiot for falling asleep out here? “I’m fine.”

She stood up, but her right foot had fallen asleep, and pins and needles shot through her. She stumbled and he caught her, the back of his hand brushing the exposed side of her breast.

Nothing?
The guy was a rock on the outside, but in Lucas’ mind he was working overtime praying that the thin fabric of his boxers would be enough to mask the surge of excitement he just felt.

Whatever
, Bristol thought to herself. She had her own problems. Didn’t need to get flirty with her ex-marine bodyguard.

“Thanks for waking me.”

“Ricky still here?”

“Yeah. I’m going to one of the guest rooms.”

“Is everything alright in there for you?”

“All right?”

“Are you good to go in there?”

“He’s not going to hurt me Lucas, at least not anymore than he already has, and there’s no feelings left in me now for him to hurt.” Lucas had the right to ask though. Ricky had to be pretty drunk and pretty pissed to hit her, and it had only happened once, but it did happen. Ricky was just lucky Lucas wasn’t around then. Bristol was pretty sure that would’ve been the last thing he ever did. It didn’t matter that much though to Bristol, a bruise was probably the least damaging thing he had done to her over the course of their relationship. She had all the power now that all her feelings for Ricky had been used up or burnt away.

“He’s probably passed back out.” She mouthed the words dryly. “I won’t see him until we have lawyers next to us if I’m lucky. Tomorrow if I’m not.”

*              *              *

The next day she tried to focus on work. Exercise, songwriting, rehearsing in her home studio. Had to get ready for the tour. The idea of being totally away from Ricky for eight weeks felt like a godsend. In the beginning he’d come with her. Then he’d just fly to meet her in a few cities. For the past few years, starting sometime when her fame started to dip, he stayed home with his other women.

She needed to divorce him. Actually catching him in bed was the final straw. Now she had more than just a reason to end the marriage she had the proof to back it up. But how would that look for wholesome Bristol Maitland? Her face would be all over the tabloids. Bristol couldn’t worry about that now though. The only thing she could do was contain this drama until her manager and his team worked out a way to release the information to the media. Bristol knew she was going to go through this divorce in the public eye, but she was determined to do so with as much control as possible.

She knew Ricky was in the house, but at least she knew that if she stuck to the workout rooms, the recording studio, and the rehearsal space she built in the house, she was probably not going to come across him. As dusk was falling, she came in from the gym dripping with sweat. She needed to grab a bite to eat before she hit the pool having run out of the snacks stocked in the recording studio early in the afternoon.

Ricky met her there, looking like shit with dark circles under his eyes. He wasn’t very tall, and they stood very nearly at eye level. When she wore heels, she was taller than him, which was why she only wore flats on the red carpet when he was with her. “I want a divorce.”

She gaped at him. “You want to divorce me? I thought it was the other way around. How will you feed yourself?”

“I fell in love.”

“With the bimbo who was here last night?”

“Her name is Samantha.”

“Well at least you still know her name this morning so I guess it must be love.

“I put in the request with my lawyer yesterday.”

“You’ll get nothing. There’s no prenup.”

“My lawyer doesn’t seem to think so. It’s Samantha’s cousin, and it seems that what you saw last night can’t really be used since I had already put the request for divorce in motion.”

“That’s bullshit. Are you really telling me that after leeching off me for all these years you’re going to try and prove you deserve to take my money with you when you leave.”