CHAPTER TEN

NICK

“Would you like a drink?” Graystone asked me, once he was done with dinner.

I’d been surprised by Alicia’s invitation, but not by his reaction to it. I wondered why he wanted to have a drink with me when he’d been so vehemently opposed to me eating with them. The invitation made me curious to hear what he had to say.

Even so… “I don’t drink on the job, sir. Thank you for offering.”

“Take a break then,” he said, his tone insistent. He’d called me in his office ,although I had no idea why yet.

Graystone didn’t wait for an answer. He went to a side table that held several crystal decanters with amber-colored liquor. Reaching for one of the larger decanters, he poured a finger of whiskey into two tumblers and handed one to me forcefully. “Drink.”

I nodded. “Fine, one drink. But only because your security team is here, too.”

If he wanted me to drink on his dime, so be it. He was the boss, after all.

“Sit down,” he said. Again, I did as he asked, lowering myself into a wingback chair that was covered in dark leather.

Graystone’s home office was decorated like he’d hired the interior decorator from a gentleman’s club to do it. It was all dark leather and wood. The walls were painted a deep red that matched the plush carpet that my feet were sinking into. There was the lounge area, where we were seated. A huge desk with three different computer screens sat off to one end of the office, and a conference table with seating for at least ten people was off to the other.

The space was both undeniably masculine, and sophisticated. I liked it. It reminded me of my own office.

“What can I do for you this evening, Mr. Graystone?”

He didn’t answer at first, looking down at me with slightly narrowed eyes before he sank into the seat opposite me. “I take it you’ve been apprised of the incidents in New York?”

“The break in to your office? Yes, sir. I’ve been in constant contact with your security team.”

Graystone nodded, a faraway look in his eyes. “Did they inform you that there were listening devices found in Alicia’s apartment this afternoon?”

“They did. I take it they weren’t the FBI’s after all. They were still checking that out earlier.” I raised my tumbler to my lips while I waited for his response, relishing the smooth whiskey by swirling it around on my tongue before I swallowed. Not surprisingly, this was the good stuff.

“I was only informed several minutes ago that they were, in fact, not the FBI’s.” Graystone confirmed what I’d already suspected. “That’s why I called you in here, to talk to you about these developments.”

“Have they caught the people responsible for the break in?” I asked.

“Not yet, but they suspect we were betrayed by someone on the inside.” Graystone sighed, his mouth set in a grim line. “Ironic that I’m now being betrayed, when betraying these people was what got me into this situation in the first place.”

I didn’t point out that greed was what got him into this situation, not betrayal. The man had plenty of money. He could’ve easily made more through legitimate channels. “Those kinds of people generally have a way of convincing someone to flip on their target. They’re ruthless in their pursuit once they’ve set their sights on someone. Extortion, bribery, threats. They’ll do whatever it takes to find a way in.”

“I have no doubt that you’re correct with that statement. I just wish we knew who it was that was betraying us. I would be able to help them break whatever hold those mobsters have on them.”

Yeah, sure Warren. That’s why you want to know who they are. I knew men like Warren Graystone. He was likely to put whoever the mole was in the ground himself if he thought that was what it would take to keep his daughter safe.

I knew it, because I was the same way.

If anyone fucked with the people I loved, there would be hell to pay. I’d set the world on fire and raze it all to the ground to protect them.

“Whatever I can do to help,” I offered.

Graystone nodded, his features serious and set. “Thank you, Mr. Harden. I’ll keep that in mind, but the Bureau is looking into it for now. Besides, the best way that you can help is by keeping my Alicia safe. These men that we’re dealing with, I’m sure I don’t have to tell you how dangerous they are.”

“I know exactly what they’re capable of,” I assured him.

He looked at me for a long moment. “I’m sure. That’s one of the reasons I hired you. I know some of the things you’ve seen. Now that I don’t know who I can trust anymore, I’m more concerned for Alicia’s safety than ever.”

“You can trust me, Mr. Graystone. I would never betray you. It goes against everything that being a SEAL stands for, and as you pointed out when you interviewed me for this position, I was a great damn SEAL.”

“That you were, if your resume is to be believed. I need to know that Alicia is safe with you, Mr. Harden. You know what men are like when a covenant is broken, and these are no ordinary men. Turning on them was the ultimate act of betrayal. They will stop at nothing to get their revenge. They’re going to come after me with everything they’ve got in their considerable arsenal.”

“No doubt.” I said. “Things will only get worse as the trial gets closer. You need to be prepared for that.” I believed in preparing my clients fully for the danger they faced, even if they didn’t need to know the details. That was why they had me, to know and prepare for every eventuality.

“So I’ve been told,” he said. “And Alicia?”

When I answered him, I wasn’t even simply saying what he needed to hear, or what my job required of me. I was completely, one hundred percent honest. “I’ll protect her like she’s my own.”

Because I wished that she fucking was. Not my daughter, of course. Just mine.

“Thank you, Mr. Harden. I’ll be needed in the city more frequently in the coming weeks. The Bureau is working on this almost around the clock now, and with the possibility of a leak, the break in, and Alicia’s attack last month, things are escalating faster that I’d anticipated at first.”

“That tends to happen. Like I said, their efforts will only increase from here on out. They can feel the FBI is closing in fast, which means that they’re likely to dedicate every resource that they have to finding and eliminating you.”

“And Alicia,” he said.

I nodded. “And Alicia, yes. But you can rest assured that they won’t get to her, because they won’t get through me.”

He stayed silent as he mulled over my words, taking a long pull of his drink. “Have you been in a situation like this before? How can you be sure that they won’t get through you?”

“I have, and they didn’t. You’ve said it before, Mr. Graystone. I’ve never lost a client, and I don’t intend to start now.” I hadn’t even been as attached to those clients as I was to Alicia. In fact, I’d felt nothing for them at all, other than having a duty to protect them and that I honored my duties.

What I felt for Alicia was beyond that. My dick still got hard if I let myself think about her for too long. Not to mention what it did when I was around her perky tits or caught a whiff of her strawberry body lotion.

“Good to know,” Graystone said.

I’d never been more grateful that I was capable of keeping my features schooled and impassive. It would be a disaster for Graystone to know that I couldn’t control my cock around his precious daughter.

We both took a sip of our drinks. I was eager to get mine done and get out of there. I wanted to get the latest from his team, and I didn’t want to spend more time than was professionally necessary talking to the man. If I wasn’t around him, there was no chance that he could figure out my growing lust for Alicia from a misplaced word or some other random occurrence.

“She told me about the fireworks, you know,” he said.

My entire body tensed.

Fuck.

I knew that holding her hand was going to come back to bite me in the ass. How much did he know? Surely, she wouldn’t have told him about that.

“Oh yeah?”

“At dinner. She said that you heard a racket and thought that you might be under attack again. She told me how fast you moved. She was impressed by your skills.” He gave me an approving nod. That must mean that she didn’t tell him about the hand holding, but I wasn’t counting my chickens before they hatched.

“She’s good under pressure, Alicia,” I said. “She followed my orders efficiently and didn’t question them. That bodes well for the future, should she come under attack again. It makes my job that much easier if a client is willing to let me do it.”

Graystone smiled. “That’s good to know. She does scare quite easily, though, and her imagination tends to go a little wild. It’s the artist inside of her, I think. It’s comforting that she handled herself well.”

“Yes, it is,” I agreed. After that first night when she’d come after me with a book, I’d been a little worried about what would happen if we ever encountered a real threat, but I couldn’t be more pleased about her actions and reactions the night of the fireworks.

“I must admit that I’m very impressed by your professionalism, Mr. Harden. The way Alicia tells it, you did everything by the book and didn’t hesitate to put her safety first.”

Professionalism. Thank god. She definitely hadn’t told him about my spectacular lapse of professionalism later that night, then.

My shoulders unlocked, and I breathed out a heavy sigh of relief. “Just doing my job.”

“Even so, words and action are two entirely different things. It sets my mind ever so slightly at ease that you’re a man of action to back up your words. Cheers.” He raised his tumbler in my direction.

“Cheers.”

We clinked glasses.

For the first time since I’d entered his office, I could completely relax. Safe in the knowledge that he wasn’t about to drop a bomb on me for knowing that I’d touched his daughter. Even if the touches weren’t anything compared to the way that I really wanted to touch her.