Chapter Sixteen
The next morning I drove north on highway 101 toward Montecito with the top down and the music blasting.
Anyone who said a convertible on a sunny California day couldn’t cure a host of life’s problems was a fucking liar. The second I was on the open road, clear skies above and ocean to left of me, I started to feel like the Graham before hitting Newport Beach.
High demand.
High value.
Feeling in control of my life again.
Everything in perfect order the way I preferred it to be.
I reached over to the passenger seat and picked up my cell phone. Shifting my gaze to the road in between tapping the screen, I at last made it to my mailbox. Fuck, there still wasn’t an e-mail from Jared. Worthless, lazy jerk. He’d sent a text message with the address of where to report today no later than 10:00 a.m., but somehow had forgotten to send the client file so I’d know who I was meeting with.
Going in to my new job blind.
Great, fucking great.
Exhaling, I tossed down my phone. It didn’t matter. Nothing was going to dampen my spirits today. I was back to work. Soon with my nights to prowl. Hooah. Three weeks in Montecito to sample the luscious cock there before off to Mexico. California coast cities always had the best gay men for the taking. I’d had more than a few favorable hookups in Mexico as well. Yep, even Jared wasn’t going to ruin my mood.
Shortly before ten o’clock, I was whizzing through Carpinteria, a handful of miles south of Montecito, and I hit the volume for the GPS since I was closing in fast on my destination.
The navigation system prompted me to exit, and I turned down a tree-shaded road into the village. The deeper I got toward the foothills, everything was large, more exclusive, and richer. Money didn’t look the same everywhere. It didn’t surprise me that a client referred by Alan lived like this.
I’d just entered the world of the uber-wealthy again. It didn’t matter if it was for work; it unlocked doors with unlimited possibilities.
I felt my dick do a nice little jig in my pants. I’d had some great cock my seven years traveling the globe with Alan. I’d get some great cock during my off-hours this contract, too.
Fuck Leland.
He wasn’t the only incredible lover, dick-hardeningly perfect man in the world. There were plenty of them walking around here on the street. Superhot men, that is. The incredible lover to be determined. But yeah, I was going to make it a priority to find out.
That irritating digital voice—why the hell couldn’t it be husky male instead of an uptight British bitch?—directed me to turn again and I slowed down as the road narrowed with a sharper incline toward the plateau of the foothills.
The view was fucking unbelievable. I could see clear across old Montecito village and the freeway, to the beach, ocean and islands beyond.
Not a bad place to hole up for a while.
I pulled into a long, curving driveway and the heavy iron gates were open which surprised me. I parked by the front entrance, remaining in the car to stare at the house.
An enormous, luxurious modern structure that I was sure had been designed by some famous fucker—architecture really wasn’t in my wheelhouse of knowledge—but some things you just know because they are.
Not too shabby.
I could get used to living like this.
I climbed from the car and grabbed my gear from the backseat. As I made my way to the door, I was rethinking my wardrobe selection for today—jeans, a Tommy Bahama silk shirt, and loafers. It was a casual workday look and didn’t feel like it fit here, but then this was only my first day which pretty much would be settling in since I’d already been hired.
Bypassing the bell, I knocked once on the heavy double front doors and was startled when it was promptly answered.
A young woman stared up at me—blond and bodacious. The client’s wife, maybe. She had that rich man’s arm candy look about her. I had no idea what to expect inside since Jared still hadn’t sent me the file on my new gig, but it did surprise me that she was staring at me without welcome or a look of comprehension of why I was here.
“Can I help you?” she asked, her manner standoffish.
I let my full dimple grin surface, hoping to thaw some of her frigidness. “I hope so. Mr. Jensen is expecting me. I’m Graham Carson.”
Her eyes widened before they did a quick once-over of me. “The bodyguard for Ella, right?”
I nodded, though I hadn’t known the child’s name before she said it.
“I was told to report this morning. Do you know who I should speak to?”
She laughed, a tad flustered. “I’m the person you should speak to. I’m Lauren Black, Mr. Jensen’s housekeeper. And, as always, he forgot to tell me he finally hired someone or to expect you today. I’m afraid Mr. Jensen isn’t here right now. Double-booked all morning. That’s pretty much the way things are always around here.”
I laughed politely, but inwardly I groaned since I’d been here only two minutes and things weren’t as promising as I’d hoped. There was nothing worse than working for a disorganized, thoughtless client.
“You can just park me somewhere and I’ll wait.”
“No. We don’t need to do that.” She opened the door wider and gestured. “Come on in. I’ll give you the tour and get you settled where you’ll be staying.”
I took off my sunglasses and hooked them to my shirt. Inside the foyer I made to set down my bags.
“No, keep those,” she instructed. “We’ll start downstairs. It’s where your quarters will be. You’re living here, right?”
“Right. The assignment specified full-time 24/7 security. Which brings up your front gate. Is it nonoperational? It was open when I got here.”
Her brows hitched up. “Nonoperational? No, but it might as well be. Mr. Jensen hates those gates. Always leaves them open. He never allows them to be closed when we’re in residence.”
Interesting man, interesting comment. “So you live here, too?” I carefully probed.
Her cheeks flushed. “God, no. I couldn’t stand living here 24/7. When the workday is over I like work to go away.”
I laughed in concert with her, and wondered what was up with that. She hurried ahead of me so quickly through the house that I barely got a chance to fully take in my new surroundings. Giant, open-space rooms decorated to the nines—our Mr. Jensen had impeccable taste to go with his money—and a dramatic view of the city from the ocean-facing wall of glass.
“What line of work is Mr. Jensen in?” I asked.
She shrugged. “He seems to dabble in everything. I don’t really know.”
“Well, whatever it is I’m pretty sure it pays well.”
She laughed and started down the steps to a lower level. “The upstairs is the family living space,” she explained. “Downstairs is the guest suite. Well, your suite now. It has everything you need to be comfortable. A sitting room, bedroom with bath, kitchen, dining, and private patio. Your own space.”
The rooms ran the full length of the house and it was very impressive. Another wall of tinted glass on the ocean side gave me the same incredible view as upstairs to complement the trendy retro mid-century furnishings and high tech everything wall to wall.
I nodded. “Very nice.”
She exhaled, then smiled. “Mr. Jensen prides himself on everything always being everything.” A joke. Not the greatest, but a sign she was at last unbending. “You can put your bags in there, Mr. Carson.”
I held her in one of my flirty stares since instinct warned it might not be a bad idea to have an ally here. “Call me Graham. Please.”
A flash of surprise on her face before it was replaced by a cute pink mist. “Graham, then. I’m Lauren.”
I went into the bedroom to drop my bags and returned to the living area to find Lauren waiting.
She pointed toward the kitchen. “It’s fully stocked with a wide variety of food and drinks, but if you want something, just shoot me an e-mail and I’ll make sure it’s on the grocer’s delivery.” She held out a file to me. “Here’s a full briefing of the job requirements and the project in Mexico. A small overview on Ella, or perhaps I should say the challenges of Ella. I would definitely read that one thoroughly.” She moved to a table with a model on it. “Mr. Jensen thought this might be useful to identify any security issues that may need improving before the move into the new house. It’s an exact replica of the floor plan of this house and the one he just built in Mexico. Aesthetically they are different. Floor plans identical.”
I leaned in to make a closer inspection. I gestured. “Are those what I think they are?”
She nodded. “There are three safe rooms in each house. One directly off Ella’s bedroom. One directly off Mr. Jensen’s. And one off yours. Your bedroom is below his so the secured area could be a single space in the deepest interior of the house. See that tunnel there. It’s a corridor that connects all three pods.”
I tried not to let my reaction surface, but this one blew me away. “I definitely didn’t expect this.”
That was a gross understatement since these were secured rooms that resembled something I’d find in a US outpost in the Middle East. What the hell were they doing on an estate in Montecito? You couldn’t find a much safer place in the world than this part of the coast in California. For a respected businessman who refused to close his front gates to have houses equipped with bunkers was a very disconcerting discovery.
“I’ll leave you alone now to settle in,” she announced, pulling me from my reverie.
I watched her move toward the stairs.
“Do you have any idea when I should expect Mr. Jensen?”
She paused on the steps. “Early afternoon would be my best guess.” Then she raced up to disappear on the main floor.
I sank down on the couch, client file in hand, but I couldn’t drag my eyes from the model.
What had I gotten myself into?
****
Something caused me to jerk awake on the couch and I sat up rapidly surveilling the room then remembered where I was.
“Graham?”
I turned in the direction of the voice to find Lauren on the staircase.
She smiled. “Mr. Jensen is ready for you upstairs.”
“I’ll be right there,” I replied, taking the file lying on my chest, closing it, and tossing it on the coffee table. It had been pretty scant of useful information and Lauren had been right about one thing. From what it contained I wasn’t looking forward to meeting Ella. The report on the daughter was the only document in the file containing enough detail to be informative—and bothersome.
“It’s after five and I’m cutting out for the night,” she added. “He’s is in the kitchen making cocktails. He thought that would be a nice place for the two of you to talk. He likes the kitchen. Expect a lot of meetings there.” She paused for a moment to give that statement comic effect, eyes twinkling as if she expected a laugh, so I gave her one. “You can find it yourself, right?”
I nodded, trying to work free of the remnants of my grogginess. “Tell him I’ll be right up, Lauren. And good night.”
“Good night,” she said and quickly went up the stairs.
I went to the bathroom to take a leak, did a fast tidy of my hair with my fingers, debated tucking in my shirt but didn’t. A guy who likes to hold meetings in the kitchen over cocktails didn’t strike me as the business formal type. He probably didn’t even wear a watch. Christ, he’d scheduled our meeting for 10:00 a.m. sharp and showed up seven hours late.
Great, fucking great.
It wasn’t until I was halfway across the main floor of the house that I heard any sound on the main floor. I reached the edge of the kitchen, barely getting out, “You wanted to see me, Mr. Jensen,” before I froze mid-step on the travertine.
Mother. Fucking. Hell.
A man stood at the counter, busy preparing drinks. Even without seeing his face my entire body was zapped by a white hot current because, oh, I knew that back.
Golden hair.
Muscled shoulders.
Narrow waist.
Delectable ass—
“You drink Jameson, as I recall, right?”
Oh, no fucking way.
“You miserable, cock-sucking prick,” I growled. I was across the room before my brain caught up, seizing him from behind so abruptly the bottle slipped from his hand and crashed on the tile. I whirled him to face me. “What the fuck is this?”
Those tiger eyes fixed on my face. “Not the reaction I’d hoped for. I’m your new client.”
I lifted him up by his collar. “No fucking way. I wouldn’t work for you if you were the last man on the planet.”
“I take it you’re not happy with your unexpected change of circumstance.”
He laughed—the man had nerve, I’d give him that—and my body became a tight-knit coil from having his amusement tossed in my face. There was something about how he’d said unexpected that made the hairs on my arms stand up.
“Unexpected, my ass,” I countered heatedly and he sucked in just enough air that my dick got hard. I struggled to maintain my focus, but it was near impossible with him dangling from my fingers and his face only a hair from mine. “You’ve been running some kind of game on me since we met, haven’t you? What I want to know is why.”
I watched every emotion imaginable cross his face before his amber eyes looked directly into mine. “It’s not what you think.”
“No?”
“No,” Leland said firmly.
I tossed him back against the counter because having him close up against me was scattering my senses as well as my brain.
I stepped a safe distance back from him, putting the center island between us. “You’ve got five minutes to convince me whether or not I kick your ass before I leave here.”
He raked his tumbled locks from his face. “Kick, not my choice. But ass is always a winner.”
He lifted the drinks off the counter, stepped over the broken bottle, and set them between us. He sat there with his glass against his lips, staring at me over the rim.
“At least sit and be comfortable while we clear this up,” he suggested in a manner that made me seem ridiculous. “It’s not as bad as you think it is.”
“No, Leland, without a doubt it’s worse than I first thought it was. You’re out of your fucking mind.”
He shrugged. “OK, I’ll give you that. That’s exactly the way I’ve felt since I first saw you at the restaurant. Out of my mind. You know, this is really all Jared’s fault. He didn’t tell me that you were gay. Or gorgeous. Or charming. Gave me no warning to mentally brace myself against you.”
I sank down on the barstool across the counter from him. “Bullshit. Is there a point to this or should I just start punching you now?”
He calmly sipped his drink for a few moments. I felt like I was pushed near to snapping before his posture changed into one I recognized conveyed he was finally going to attempt to explain this.
He set down his glass.
“I like to get to know people before I hire them,” he said calmly. “But it’s never been more important for me to get a read on a man than in this case, trying to select someone to trust my daughter’s safety to. The bar, me approaching you precipitously, that was all I intended. Meet with you without you knowing to get a feel for the kind of man you were before you knew who I was because then you wouldn’t have been so open”—he had the audacity to smirk with that one—“with me.”
I pinned him with my eyes. “If that’s true, why didn’t you say something at the restaurant? We talked for two hours. Wasn’t that sufficient to get a feel for me?”
He arched a brow, looking not the least bit contrite. “Like I said, I didn’t know you were gay, gorgeous, and charming.”
“So what was the rest of it? You and me at the hotel? Your version of deep investigative background check?”
“Oh, nice one,” he replied with one of his dick-hardening grins. Then his amber eyes faded into something opaque and intense. “It was nothing like that. Unanticipated and unplanned. But I’m a guy who, when he sees something he wants, he goes for it. And, baby, you were definitely something I wanted.”
That taunt. Was he fucking kidding me? Clearly, he had no idea how hard I was fighting against pinning him to the cabinet and letting my fist wipe that smirk off his face.
“I’m out of here,” I stated firmly into the acutely quiet room. “A nice story, Lee, but like I said, you are the last man on earth I’d work for.”
He studied me for a moment in a way that made me feel all kinds of uncomfortable—angry, aroused, frustrated, and lusting—and then I realized I hadn’t moved and the smugness of his gaze told me he wasn’t worried about a single thing I’d said thus far.
“I don’t know why you’re so angry or why what happened pisses you off so much that you think it should interfere with us having a professional relationship. I’m just a man who met an incredible man and took a chance to get to know him better. Was that so wrong?”
I raked him with a gaze of disdain. “You’re like a fucking gay Tokyo Rose, rewriting history and full of propaganda. You think it’s all right to do anything you want to people. Lie. Seduce. Drop them and leave them. Then say, hey boy, come eat more shit by working for me. It’s all good for you. It doesn’t matter as long as you get what you want, right, Leland?”
“In my mind, the question of who seduced who is debatable. You staring at me unwaveringly for three hours pretty much sealed the deal for me that night.” Those amber eyes grew opaque. “As for the rest of your accusations, I never lied to you. Not once. I omitted. But why does that matter? Jesus Christ, I haven’t touched another man since you. That should tell you our time together meant something to me. You’re all I’ve thought about since we parted. You being here, Graham, is a good thing for both of us. We both get something we want and more.”
He made what he’d done sound like nothing, but as I stared at him, my pride was in tatters and my desire ran my skin like scalding fire.
I squared my shoulders and lifted my chin. “You were the best contract-signing bonus I ever got, Lee. Since I’m not taking the job, I should probably return it. Unfortunately, I can’t, but that’s not my fault—that’s yours.”
He stared back at me calmly.
“That comment was beneath you,” he said in quiet forcefulness. “And the blustering isn’t going to work, Graham. You’re not the least bit unhappy with how things turned out. In fact, I’m pretty damn sure you’re elated you found me again. As for the job, you’re taking it. The other parts of us need work, but we’ll get there. I’m certain.”
“There is no us, Lee. There’s only me going out the front door.”
Leland calmly shook his head, eyes brightening. “No. You’re staying. Because I want you to. And that tattoo across your heart won’t let you leave. Even if you despised me—which I don’t believe you do—after reading the file I had Lauren give to you, you wouldn’t blow off the job because of Ella.”