Protecting His Assets (8 page)

“The perpetrator is smarter than the average criminal, and it’s also likely that this is someone who has a grudge against you personally.”

He shook his head. “No. It’s not personal. It can’t be.”

Surprise sharpened her features. “What? You can’t still believe…that much has become very obvious.”

“Too obvious maybe,” he maintained. “Optimus Inc. is negotiating next week for more capital investment, and it’s important that both Harrison and I prove that we’re solid and dependable, that we have what it takes to bring the company to the next level. It wouldn’t take much for a competitor to figure out that our expansion plans could be compromised if the reputation or stability of either one of us was brought into question. It’s very possible that all this is being made to
look
personal.”

“And you’re certain that’s the only motivation a person could have to target you?” She paused. “What about your family’s past? Could there be any unresolved—”

“No.” He didn’t want to know what she’d read about his family.

The tabloids had had years to paint the picture of him as a self-indulgent playboy, and most of the time, he was more than happy to go along with it, because it served his purposes to let people underestimate him. But it might be refreshing to one day meet someone who didn’t know all about him within moments, and about his family’s fatal mistakes.

It was bad enough that the news rags were digging that shit up again because the anniversary of his father’s suicide was just a few days away. His mother and sister would be devastated if the media had new fodder for the old scandal.

Grace was almost finished with school and would be moving home to New York in a few months. Mother had finally come out of hiding after letting shame and embarrassment chase her away for years. She’d even started hinting that Steve should marry soon, and from the society women she’d been throwing his way, he didn’t have to guess what she hoped to accomplish by such a union. If she could match both of her children with strong, important families, she would have repaired the family reputation in her own way.

They glared at each other until Ms. Porter gave in and nodded. He bent over to pick through a messy pile of papers and tried to determine if anything was actually missing. He thought it was all still there, which wasn’t actually good news. It meant that the person responsible hadn’t been interested in stealing from him, only messing with him.

He could be wrong about the motivating factor, too. What if it was, in fact, a personal attack? But who the hell could he have outraged so completely?

He looked up and found Ms. Porter gently placing books back on his shelves. She paged through one with a bemused look on her face.

“What?”

She glanced up and showed him the faded brown cover with gold lettering. “
A Treatise of Algebra
?”

“It’s rare. 1820s or something. My mother and sister gave it to me for my birthday, the year I graduated high school.” The day before the world as they’d all known it had gone up in flames.

The internet made it impossible to leave the past behind. For the most part, he was resigned to the fact that no matter how successful he became, he would never climb out of the shadow of his father’s mistakes, but the idea that Ms. Porter had pored over all that online garbage about his family was surprisingly irritating.

“What kind of guy collects rare
math
books?” she teased, another of those bewitching smiles playing across her lips.

“A
math
geek.” He laughed. “But I know what you’re thinking.”

“You do?” Her slim eyebrow lifted in a perfect arch, and her eyes glittered with humor before she seemed to realize that she’d actually started enjoying talking to him. She looked down and cleared her throat, and he edged a step closer. She was loosening up with him despite herself, and he didn’t want her to take it back.

“You’re thinking that a guy with my reputation and success already knows everything there is to know about math, and the book is just for show.”

She laughed. “Perhaps you should start getting some books on humility then.”

He grinned. “I’ll keep it in mind.”

After a few minutes of an oddly comfortable silence, he recalled her earlier words and said, “So what makes you think the guy who did this is smarter than average?”

“There weren’t any prints anywhere, and nobody saw the individual come in or go out.” She cocked her head. “Television has made it seem like all violence is committed by criminal masterminds who can only be caught by the most advanced CSI teams in the country, but the reality is that most perps are caught almost before they’ve even left the scene of the crime.”

This was a subject his intrepid bodyguard was obviously very interested in. A simple thing, but her enthusiasm changed her entire face, immediately making her more approachable.

“How does that happen?”

“Mostly, they leave fingerprints. Everyone always thinks they’ll never be stupid enough to commit a crime without at least putting on a pair of gloves, but crime is often impulsive and unplanned, and nobody keeps a pair of rubber gloves in their back pocket, just in case. It happens sometimes, but then the perpetrator leaves the scene of the crime and forgets that the trail doesn’t end there. They’ll drop their name and address at the pawn shop where they’re trying to hock stolen merchandise, or they brag about their exploits to their friends in the middle of a crowded bar.”

“Next time I think I might break the law, I’m coming to you for planning advice.”

She quirked an eyebrow, another one of those fleeting smiles playing about her lips. “Next time?”

He grinned and zipped his lips. She shook her head. “That would definitely involve an additional fee to my regular bodyguard services.”

She smiled freely and
didn’t
drop her gaze, and his chest swelled in response.
Damn
. Just like he’d thought. He could get used to seeing her smile and listening to her sultry voice. Maybe too used to it, though. And she was most definitely not the right person for him. Prickly and professional, and…and…none of the other reasons were coming to him at the moment.

Wanting to extend the moment despite himself, he asked, “How long have you worked as a bodyguard?”

She paused, and he stilled, waiting to see if she was going to get all stiff on him again, but after a moment she only shrugged. “I guess that means you didn’t bother to read my file after your partner hired me?”

“I’m just the numbers guy.” He shrugged. “Harrison’s a tech genius, and he knows how to bring the investors in. As much as it sometimes pains me to admit it, I trust his judgment.”

She winced. “You may not think so once I tell you I’ve only been doing this for six months.”

“How many assignments have you completed?”

“A few. But I guess since I’m admitting things, you should probably know that none of those jobs involved the possibility of corporate sabotage or personal threats.”

“Don’t worry,” he said with a chuckle. “I don’t think there’s a bodyguard out there more professional or capable, no matter the experience level.”

She crossed her arms. “I didn’t tell you that because I wanted your approval, but in the interest of fair disclosure. I’ll have you know that I’ve been trained by the best, and as long as I have your cooperation, I
can
help catch this guy for you.”

“I have no doubt about it,” he assured her, surprising himself because it was true. “But if you haven’t been doing this for long, where did you get your FBI contact, and how do you happen to know Investigator Don back there so well?” He was purposely poking just a little deeper into personal territory with every question, hoping to draw out the real April Porter. Every piece of herself that she showed him was more irresistible than the last.

He shouldn’t care to know his bodyguard on a personal level. But he did. He wanted it in the worst way. He wanted her to talk to him all through the night and trust him enough to smile without reservation. The feel of her mouth against his in that elevator had been impressed on him, and the taste of her wouldn’t be banished until he’d sampled all of her.

“Come on,” he said. “You know all there is to know about me. My shit is out there for the whole world’s entertainment. Isn’t it only fair that I get to know a little something about you?”

She didn’t want to share. It was plain on her face.

“If you tell me, I promise to be the perfect body for you to guard.” Given the fact that he had absolutely no intention of opening up himself, the hypocrisy of what he was asking struck him, but not enough that he considered backing off.

But she only snorted and turned away. He swallowed his disappointment, but then she said in a low voice, “I was at the Academy in Quantico, which is how I know a few people in the local FBI office. Don was the police investigator who recommended me for the program. He taught criminology at Berkeley before moving to New York last year. We had a chance to catch up when I came back a few months ago.”

“If you went to Berkeley and were in training for the FBI, what the hell are you doing working as a bodyguard now?”

She turned to face him. Her shoulders stiffened. “I didn’t flunk out, if that’s what you mean.”

That’s exactly what he’d been thinking at first, but it didn’t fit with his impression of her and almost as soon as the assumption entered his mind, he’d already discarded it. “So what happened?”

He could see in her face that she didn’t want to talk about it. “Never mind,” he said, deciding to lay off. It was surprisingly nice talking to her like this, and he didn’t want her to pull away into her impersonal shell again. Normally, he would have kept poking until he’d gotten what he wanted, but she wasn’t one of his competitors to be pushed around for profit, and she wasn’t one of the selfish social snobs he dealt with to appease his mother. He actually sort of
liked
her.

But to his surprise she said, “I had to withdraw from the program at Quantico because my father’s very ill, and he needs me to be here.”

“Your mother?”

She pursed her lips. “Died when I was thirteen. Cancer.”

He winced. “I’m sorry. But—and don’t get me wrong, I’m learning to appreciate having you around—but why are you here with me instead of home with your dad?”

Her eyes glimmered, and he was sorry that he’d brought it up because it obviously made her so sad, she couldn’t hold on to her normal cool composure. “He’s going through a round of chemo and radiation therapy for the next few days. He’s staying at the hospital, and he doesn’t want me around.”

Steve almost felt guilty for the way he’d been acting. The last thing she needed was to babysit an unappreciative jerk who’d been actively trying to make her life more difficult when all of that was waiting for her at home.

“Don’t get me wrong. I like the work, and I could use the extra money to cover some of the bills,” she said quickly. Her gaze narrowed as if daring him to pity her. Lucky for her, he wasn’t the pitying type.

He pointed to the messy room. “So what kind of evidence should we be looking for to figure out who did this?”

Her shoulders relaxed, and he was glad he’d changed the subject. “Crimes like this are usually domestically connected.”

And
…she was already back to assuming the attacks were personal. “What are you getting at?”

Her gaze narrowed until he felt as if she might be considering whether or not he’d trashed his own apartment. “I’d like a list of the women you’ve been seeing recently.”

Bitterness stung his throat. “You think I would date someone capable of this kind of violence?”

“Maybe you don’t know your women as well as you think you do.”

He rounded the desk and closed the distance between them. “I’ll let that go because you don’t know
me
. But in the future, you might want to refrain from relying on the internet for information about your employers,” he said in a tight voice that surprised even him. He prided himself on never letting anyone or anything get to him, but this woman had driven him close to losing his temper more times in just one day than anyone else had in a year.

“I think I have more than enough
personal
evidence to consider that you might be just a little fickle when it comes to women.” Her nose tilted stubbornly upward, and her eyes blazed. She was getting him back for that kiss in the elevator. “I still want that list.”

“And I’m telling you—for the last time—to leave my personal life out of your investigation.” His jaw clenched. He absolutely refused to drag his family through another media hellstorm. His father had put them all through enough of that to last a lifetime.

A
pril didn’t know whether to be suspicious or relieved by Nolan’s conviction that the attacks against him were not personally motivated.

She agreed that if the anonymous notes were as vague as he’d implied, they could be a strategic ploy by his business competitors to try and discredit him in the eyes of Optimus Inc.’s investors during a crucial phase of the company’s development; she’d heard of such things happening. But it also seemed a bit far-fetched. The notes and the vandalism had the earmarks of a temper tantrum, or even a full-blown hissy fit, and in her experience, the old adage was true: the simplest explanation was typically the right one. This felt like an open and shut case of hatred. Pure and simple.

But she supposed it was easy to be philosophical when she wasn’t the one who’d been targeted.

She impatiently smoothed away the hair that had fallen across her forehead and tried rolling her shoulders, but the constricting suit jacket wasn’t very helpful. She’d been out of the ring for too long if a tiny little sparring match could make her stiffen up so quickly. Maybe she could take her jacket off and—

She shook her head. Taking off that layer of clothing, however decent her shirt was, would be like inviting a more relaxed relationship between them, and she’d already gotten too comfortable too quickly.

“Why don’t you take off your jacket?” He was much too observant. “It would probably be more comfortable, especially if we’re going to be at this for a while.”