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My body tingles with awareness at the thought of his sheer physical prowess. But instead of fearing that hulking specimen of manliness, I’m unbelievably turned on. I’ll need a cold shower before preparing for this party.
It’s under that freezing water that an idea dawns. He thinks he’ll be picking me up at seven to begin this fake boyfriend bodyguard bullshit.
Joke’s on him. I can get ready in half an hour and be on my way long before his arrival.
She kept it. After all these years, the Viper lives on to flaunt my stupidity, a reminder of ill-formed plans and bad intentions.
The night I got arrested, I was running late for her graduation party. Instead of joining the celebration when I arrived, I had an idea born of desperation: I would take her keys to the Viper.
Reordering keys for a rare car could take weeks, I told myself. Maybe enough time would pass that Ana would be forced to take another car on the road trip. A normal vehicle, with some damn door handles and a five-star safety rating.
The second I opened the side door to the detached garage, a woman’s wails had hit me like a mallet to the chest. Panic competed with rage at the sound of Ana’s screams. I lunged toward the sound, but it was too late. When that fucker backhanded Ana, my world tunneled into a single mission.
Finish him.
I would have killed Philip Glasser with my bare hands if Ana hadn’t stopped me.
Is it any wonder that the sight of that Viper, looking down at me from the perch of horrors past, makes me shudder?
No reason to succumb to memories, though. That night might as well be eons past for how much has happened since.
At the moment, I’m in Ana’s custom-built garage. That’s an inadequate word for this enormous steel-reinforced storage building. From outside, the structure looks like a sprawling extension, because it continues the main house’s board and batten details and natural stone accents. The garage doors are at the back in order not to ruin the pristine curb appeal.
Inside, it is a state-of-the-art shelter for her car collection. Against one wall are four car lifts, allowing Ana to store four on top of four. She normally uses the electric-fueled Mustang for daily drives, but she works on all of these cars. Collector plates are proudly displayed.
The Viper remains in its restored glory except for… wait a minute. I back up and jump on a storage bin to get a better look at the hood. Unaltered dings and the unmistakable discoloration of ruined paint deface the hood where I had attacked Philip Glasser. Why? Why would she keep the car with those awful reminders intact?
As I lower myself from my elevated height, I hear bustling from inside the house. It must be Ana, since Kina is still conducting her periphery check.
Ana rushes through the door connecting the garage to the kitchen, pulling her coat over a tailored satin pantsuit. It’s the evening version of her work outfit, the black chemise underneath exposing a hint of lace. She’s accessorized with classy diamond studs on her ears and a diamond necklace. The pendant, shaped like a reverse teardrop, might as well be an arrow pointing down to the teasing cleavage of flawless skin. Strappy black heels bare her bright-red toenails. It’s a stark reminder that underneath the suits and the bravado, there is a womanly body to be pampered and adored.
It doesn’t take a genius to know that she intends to dodge me. I conveyed my arrival time for a reason, knowing seven o’clock would be a target she’d try to avoid. Ana still thinks she can elude me. It’s a futile, foolish notion that makes me snicker.
The noise alerts her before she gets to the Mustang. For the second time today, I’ve surprised the unflappable Anastasia Petrov.
“You scared me, Bryce!” she says with her hand over her heart.
“Where do you think you’re going, Ana?” I drone, eliminating the distance between us.
“Why are you, um, dressed like that?” She’s referring to my tuxedo, a two-thousand-dollar penguin suit I wear to blend in with certain circles.
“What else would a man dating Anastasia Petrov be wearing at a classy reception?”
She rolls her eyes. “You can drop this whole dating scheme. I might be able to live with the extra security in my house. Kina seems great, after all. Maybe having her around makes sense, at least until we get to the bottom of—”
“That’s the problem, isn’t it? How do you get to the bottom of anything without thoroughly delving into the details? Someone in your social or professional orbit is a danger to you. It isn’t the kind of problem you can solve reading employee profiles or conducting formal interviews. Someone has targeted you, Ana. That person or persons could be there tonight.”
“So go,” she states with a single shoulder shrug. “I’ll put your name at the front door so you can sniff around to your heart’s content. We don’t have to be there together.”
“Why? Worried you’ll forget it’s a fake date?”
She blurts “ha!” with gusto. “That would be like forgetting I’m having a dental root canal while the extractor is shoved in my mouth.”
I grin at the comparison. Leave it to this woman to be as brutal as she is funny.
“Being compared to something shoved in your mouth is not the insult you think it is, Ana.”
She glowers at me, open-mouthed. Naturally, I stare at her red-tinted, sinfully lush lips.
