The Accidental Bodyguard Read online

  “Lucas—”

  He turned, his face harshly intense. “You got what you wanted.”

  “But did you?” she asked in a concerned voice.

  She really did sound as if she cared about his happiness more than her own.

  He contemplated her beautiful upturned face, and despised himself for the ridiculous, crazy, youthful elation be felt at the mere sight of her. The bitterness and the anger that were always in his heart had all but vanished.

  “Yes and no.”

  “I want to thank you,” she said very softly.

  When she reached out and put a hand on his sleeve, he jerked convulsively from even that slight touch, mostly because it pleased him almost beyond bearing.

  “Don’t,” he growled as his hands began to shake.

  “Don’t what?”

  “You can stay, but I want you to leave me alone.”

  “Why? I-I thought—”

  “Because I don’t understand this thing between you and me. Because I don’t like feeling compelled every time I look at you or hear your voice. Because I don’t like feeling like a teenager—driven, not myself. Because… just because this whole crazy thing is happening too damn fast. I’m not myself when you’re around. Nothing like this has ever happened to me before. I don’t trust it. I feel like we’re getting in too deep.”

  “Okay. I guess it isn’t fair to expect—I mean, I’ve had eleven days to get used to you,” she said simply, reasonably. “To get used to the idea of loving you.”

  “Don’t even say that stupid word. Love doesn’t happen this fast.”

  “I didn’t know there were rules.”

  “Well, there damn well should be.”

  “I think I’ve felt this way forever.”

  “Do you know how ridiculous you sound?” He whirled on her, hating himself when the color drained from her face. “How do you know what you feel when you don’t even know who you are?”

  “Because I know what I feel in my heart,” she said brokenly.

  “Damn it. No—”

  “Lucas, I do. I had a dream about us last night. I had to leave you, and you were terrified I was abandoning you. You didn’t believe me when I said I’d come back.”

  Odd, her dreaming that. His big fear about love always had to do with the fear of losing it. He felt that way now about her.

  Silently, moodily, he mixed another martini, disbelieving her. Disbelieving this whole damn situation.

  “Haven’t you had enough to drink for one night?” she asked in a wifely tone, which he didn’t like.

  “Way too much,” he agreed pleasantly as he downed the martini. “And way too much of this impossible conversation.”

  “I’m sorry—”

  “This is a big place. You keep to your part of the house. I’ll keep to mine.” With that he stormed outside.

  After he talked to the bodyguards, he went down the narrow path on the bluff to the beach. He stomped mindlessly across the wet sand, not caring that his good Italian dress shoes sank deeply into the stuff. He hurled a few flat shells, sending them skimming across the dark water before he felt her watching him and glanced at the house.

  Every window was ablaze. She was standing in one, staring out at him as he’d known she’d be. Her voluptuous beauty drew him like a beacon. More than anything, he wanted to quit fighting her and go to her.

  He began to walk fast, his long strides carrying him away from the tall white house and the woman with the golden hair, but not from the confusion burning in his heart.

  Impossible relationships were his special talent. It had been love at first sight with Joan, he remembered bitterly.

  But he hadn’t ever felt like this, a tiny voice that he didn’t care to listen to said. He hadn’t even slept with this girl, but she had an intuitive grip on his heart and soul that Joan had never achieved even after years of marriage.

  An hour later, when he returned, his dark hair ruffled from the wind, his mood only marginally lighter, Chandra was listening to a musical and singing about raindrops on roses while she washed dishes. Her golden hair was tousled, loose tendrils falling around her rosy, flushed cheeks. The sight of her at his sink and the sound of her happy, lilting voice filled him with more of that strange, intense emotion.

  Shakily he forced himself to stay safely on the opposite side of the kitchen from her.

  She made easy idle conversation, telling him what was on television that he might like, telling him that his kids were upstairs doing their homework.

  “Amazing,” he muttered, opening the refrigerator and taking out a cola. “I—I think I’ll go check on them.”

  Anything to avoid her.

  “Lucas—” Her husky voice and luminous eyes begged him to stay just a little while longer.

  He tore his briefcase from the counter and dashed upstairs.

  The kids’ computer was off. Monty really was rechecking Peppin’s math. They were working together—productively, happily.

  Another first.

  “She’s a good cook, isn’t she, Dad?” Peppin asked.

  “The best,” Monty concurred, glancing up slyly from the math textbook.

  Lucas had come upstairs to forget her. In a hard voice, he said, “Guys, you won.”

  “But you’re being mean to her, Dad. She was crying in the kitchen a while ago.”

  Lucas winced, remembering the haunted vagueness in her eyes when he’d told her he was leaving her to go upstairs.

  Unsteadily he said good-night to the boys. Then he forced himself to walk past the guest bedroom he’d assigned Chandra and down the hall to his own bedroom. He changed his mind and went to her room and opened the door. The trailing silk and lace nightgown and bed jacket he had picked up at a fancy shop on the way home lay across her empty bed, which was gilded by moonlight. He had hung several dresses in her closet and placed a shirt and a pair of jeans in her drawers, which she would no doubt discover in the morning.

  He had made another stop before he’d come home—the drugstore, where he’d bought a package of condoms. Just in case he weakened and wasn’t strong enough to resist her.

  The drugstore cashier had recognized him and had given him an odd look as he’d rung up the purchase. Lucas had felt so hot under the collar he’d yanked his tie loose. The teenage cashier had chuckled and said, “Have a good one, Mr. Broderick.”

  Lucas went to his room. Slamming his briefcase on top of his desk beside his computer, he picked up the phone and hurriedly dialed his brother.

  For once Pete answered on the first ring. Lucas could hear Sweet P. yelling in the background.

  “Pete! Finally. I’ve been trying to get you all day. I’ve talked to your service, receptionists, machines—”

  “Sorry. Two of my partners are on vacation, and the office and surgery schedule are jammed. How’re the boys? They over their bout of flu yet?”

  “You’d never guess they’d been sick.”

  “For a while there they really had me going with all those strange symptoms.”

  “You and me, brother.”

  “I couldn’t figure out whether they were a pair of hypochondriacs or budding doctors,” Pete said.

  Lucas hesitated, not wanting to admit the truth. “I—I was wondering about that overdose patient with the head injuries who ran out on you at the ER.”

  Pete’s voice tensed. “Now that’s a strange situation.”

  “How?”

  “Well, for one thing, we never found her. Then her records disappeared that same night. Everything, her chart, her medical history—it’s even out of the computer. Which you, as a lawyer, would probably say is a lucky break for me because there’s no record she was ever here. Which means I’m not liable. You know, even the red T-shirt we cut off her vanished.” Pete hesitated. “Then yesterday, this guy called me about her and got really nasty.”

  “What?”

  “He demanded to know the exact nature of her head injuries—how lucid she was, what she’d said, who s
he’d talked to. I told him several times that the doctor-patient relationship was privileged. He asked me if she’d talked to the police.”

  “So who was he?”

  “The creep hung up before I could ask him. But you want to know something else really strange? His last question was about you. He asked me if you and I were related.”

  “And?”

  “I told him it wasn’t any of his business.”

  Worriedly, Lucas changed the subject and hung up a few minutes later. He opened his briefcase and took out the Moran will. A billion dollars was a hell of a motive.

  But killing Chandra wouldn’t change anything. The money would still go to the foundation.

  Maybe somebody just wanted revenge.

  Lucas found it difficult to concentrate as he read through the complicated document. He kept feeling alarmed that the caller had connected him to Pete.

  Chandra was vulnerable and alone, perhaps running for her life. If some killer really was after her, Lucas should be comforting her and protecting her. Instead he had pulled that macho, I-have-to-have-myspace crap on her. Now he wanted her in this room where he could see her and know she was safe. He wanted to apologize. And yet he was afraid if he got near her again, he wouldn’t be able to keep his hands off her.

  No, this lonely hell was smarter than getting more deeply involved. He had to keep his distance—at least till he got some answers.

  Still, it got harder and harder for Lucas to concentrate on the will. He couldn’t stop wondering where she was or what she was doing or when she’d come upstairs to bed.

  He thought of a dozen excuses to go downstairs—he was hungry for leftovers, he was thirsty for a soft drink, he needed to put the garbage out.

  She’d already gotten the boys to put the garbage out.

  He wanted only one thing—to be near her, to watch her, to listen to her. To get high on the buzz she gave him.

  A dozen times he prowled across the room to the door and a dozen times he forced himself to return to his desk.

  Finally he heard a faint sound on the bottom stair. A light switch was flicked off. Next he heard hushed footsteps in the hall and her soft voice as she said good-night to the boys. Last of all came the sound of her door easing open and softly closing.

  She was next door—stripping, getting ready to shower and go to bed.

  The memory of her in his shower that had teased and tortured him all day hit him again full force. He remembered her breasts, the way the soapsuds had clung to their hardened pink tips. He remembered her bare skin had felt as soft as warm, living silk beneath his hands. He remembered the hot taste of her sweet mouth and the wondrous glory of her curved lips. She’d been as light as a hummingbird when he’d molded her to his body. He wanted to hold her again. To kiss her again.

  No. He wanted way more. He wanted her naked, their bodies glued together, her legs and arms wrapped around him, her mouth opening endlessly to his.

  The mere memory of her coupled with his fantasy made his blood run so hot, he felt drenched with desire. Finally he burst from his chair and paced restlessly to the door.

  When he touched the doorknob, he felt it move ever so slightly.

  She was there.

  He felt exactly as he had in the Moran foyer when all the bitterness had left him and her gentler soul had commingled with his.

  Sensing her nearness, he stood stock-still, his heart drumming. Had she felt his need for her and come to him?

  Desperately he swallowed and wiped his sweating brow with the back of his hand. She must not come in and find him lurking at the door ready to pounce on her like some sex-starved maniac. Then the doorknob turned, and he realized it was already too late.

  When the door opened, he shoved it closed, leaning against it heavily to keep her and the desire he didn’t want to feel for her at bay.

  But she knocked gently.

  He closed his eyes and clenched his fists as the rhythm of her knocks thudded inside him at the same mad pace as his heart.

  He thought of the long, celibate months since Joan, when he’d buried himself in his work to avoid women. Was it any wonder that ever since that tantalizing episode in the shower, he couldn’t stop thinking about Chandra? About her slender pale body or her dazzling sapphire eyes or her silken hair? He caught the scent from the roses on his bedside table. Even her scent was all around him. The entire house reeked of the damned flowers. The gardens outside brimmed with them. He had worn a rose she had given him to work.

  Damn her! What was she trying to do to him?

  Suddenly he couldn’t stand knowing she was out there a second longer. Flinging the door open, he blocked her way into his bedroom like a hostile giant. With his legs thrust widely apart, his heart pounding faster, his whole body taut and perspiring, he demanded, “What do you want?”

  He saw his own stark longing mirrored in her eyes. He saw her fear and sad confusion, too.

  “I can’t live like this. I want us to be friends,” she whispered. “I want to make you happy.”

  Friends? Why did women always say crazy things like that? But the sound of her velvet-soft voice made his blood run like fire in his veins. “Impossible,” he growled.

  “Lucas,” she began softly, “if my presence in your home is making things difficult for you, I’ll leave.”

  “No!” God, no.

  “But—”

  Her face was deathly pale. Anxiety and exhaustion had darkened the bluish smudges beneath her eyes. She was barely out of the hospital. She didn’t know who she was. She was fragile. What if the bastard who was trying to kill her got her?

  She was wanted for murder. The cops would eat him alive. So would the media.

  “And just where in the hell do you think you’d go?” he demanded roughly.

  “I don’t know.”

  “There. You see. You’re safe here. That is the top priority. You have no choice but to stay.”

  “But if you don’t want me here—”

  “Did I say that?” he rasped. His heart thundered in agony.

  “Then what is it? Talk to me.”

  He ran a shaky hand through his hair. “I can’t. Not yet. This whole thing is—” He shrugged. “Hopeless. Just go back to bed.”

  She peered at him. “I’m begging you—talk to me. Why is that so hard?”

  He caught the dizzying smell of her. He longed to touch the luscious skin of her bare arms again, and her throat, her cheek—knowing that every part of her would be as soft as roses. He longed to drag her into his arms and pull her close.

  “Damn it, it just is.”

  Her sad eyes grew huge. “Lucas, I want to thank you for the clothes.”

  “You’re welcome—so go,” he ordered gruffly. The way she kept looking at him with her very soul lighting up her eyes got to him. “Look, you don’t know who you are, and ever since I met you, I don’t know who I am, either. This whole damn thing has me pretty rattled.”

  “Then you don’t hate me?” she whispered, sounding pitiful and lost.

  He fought the urge to grab her and comfort her and caress her. “Hate you?” He laughed mirthlessly even as her desperate eyes clung to his. “Good Lord, no. You want the truth, girl? I wish to hell I did hate you.”

  She kept her eyes fastened on the wall. Her voice was quiet. “I’m so sorry for causing you all this trouble.”

  “Just go to bed,” he whispered raggedly. “Before I—”

  Before I do something we might both regret in the morning.

  “Okay.” But her voice was unsteady, and she lingered a dangerous moment longer.

  “What the hell are you waiting for?”

  “For this.” Impulsively she stretched onto her tiptoes and kissed his cheek. He shuddered at the unexpected fire of her lips. With her mouth on his and her breasts accidentally grazing his bare arms, his need for her racked through him.

  Without thinking, his arms went around her and he dragged her to him and kissed her long and deeply, his lips playin
g greedily across hers, opening them.

  Oh, God. She tasted like honey. Her sweetness invaded every pore of his body. She felt so good. His arms tightened around her.

  Suddenly he pushed her away, his heart pounding. “Damn it. Go to bed, girl!”

  Her eyes pleaded with him, invited him.

  He felt almost a physical pain deep in his belly. He was about to seize her when she turned away shyly and ran.

  The minute she was gone, he wanted her back.

  He knotted his hands, scared he’d lose control again.

  She wanted him, too, and turned, her blue eyes molten as she hesitated at her door.

  She smiled and then grew very still.

  He stared at her grimly, feeling awkward, unsure, as conflicting emotions surged inside him.

  More than anything, he wanted to go after her.

  “Good night,” he croaked.

  When her door shut behind her, he strode onto his balcony. His hands gripped the railing like talons as he leaned forward, staring sightlessly at the glistening bay and the waxing moon. Navy helicopters pulsed against the black sky as they buzzed across the bay on training missions. The waves sucked against wet sand. A bodyguard ambled lazily near the pool.

  But all Lucas heard was her voice. All he saw was her face. Her body. All he tasted was her mouth. The memory of her shy smile haunted him, as did the wanton invitation in her eyes.

  He wanted her badly.

  He let the salt-scented breeze caress his perspiring body till it cooled him, and he gradually calmed down.

  With iron control he undressed and crawled between the icy sheets of his bed.

  But he couldn’t sleep.

  He lay in the dark as tense as a cat, wondering what he’d do if she screamed, as she’d done every night since she’d lived in his house. If he went to her room— If he so much as touched her velvet cheek, if he held her, he would have to taste her. Then he’d be lost for sure.

  Lying in the dark, he thought of her lips and hair and breasts. He remembered her nipples growing hard when he’d stroked them.