would you feel—” her blue eyes flashed “—if someone sent you a coat made of human skin with tattoos exactly like yours?”
Point taken. He glanced at Tsini at Kayla’s feet, then back at the blue coat, then at Kayla again.
And got seriously ticked when he saw the lines of concern around her eyes, and the fear behind them. And he knew in that instant what he’d stepped in the middle of here.
This wasn’t about the dog.
The threats were about her. Someone wanted to scare her. And if the bastard was anything like some Nash had had to deal with in the past, harming her would be the next step. Only, her incompetent bodyguards had been too busy brushing lint off their designer suits to realize that. He’d seen them and wasn’t impressed. They’d let him into the penthouse on his word. Nobody had checked that he was who he’d claimed to be. Amateurs, the both of them.
Not my problem, his brand-new resolution smacked him upside the head the next moment. He’d been hired to protect the dog. He wasn’t here to solve all of Kayla Landon’s problems.
That held him back for about thirty seconds. Then his mind crept back to the issue again.
Someone was out there with Kayla in his sights. Nash watched her closely, as analytically as he had ever considered any mission.
There was a vulnerability about her that didn’t come through on the television screen or show in her frequent pictures in the tabloids. Predictably, he found himself responding.
Don’t go there.
He was a sucker for women in jeopardy—his one weakness. Hadn’t he just gotten into trouble over that? Exactly how he’d ended up with the damned “pet-detective” assignment in the first place.
If he sank any lower, he’d be doing cat shows next.
He’d shoot himself first, he decided.
He couldn’t afford to get involved in Kayla Landon’s life chin-deep. Welkins would have his head on a platter. But he could do two things for her, at the very least: the first was to convince her that she was in a lot more danger than her dog, the second was to put the fear of God into her bodyguards so they would step up their vigilance. While protecting the poodle and navigating the Vegas Dog Show. All this in the next four days, which was the duration of his assignment.
And during that time, Kayla would be in an environment that was impossible to control, even discounting the media circus that was bound to follow her around. Best thing would be to convince her not to go to the show, but he had nothing save his instincts to take to her, and she had no reason to trust him.
Hell, it would probably take four days just to convince her that she was in any kind of danger. Mediadarling socialite. She probably thought the whole world loved her.
He watched as she bent to kiss the dog’s head, caught the curve of a breast, dropped his gaze only to land on her mile-long legs.
A target who didn’t know she was in danger. A woman who was definitely tempting him on a raw, primal level, but who came with a “strictly forbidden” sticker.
“I’m a little worried that a new person will throw off the team,” she said.
Great. She didn’t even want him there.
“I wish there were another solution.”
He wished for the simplicity of armed combat. He didn’t think it’d be prudent to tell her that.
SHE HATED that she would feel rattled under his scrutiny. As a businesswoman, Kayla had fought her way through a top-notch MBA, then into a corner office at Landon Enterprises at last. As a public persona, since people seemed fascinated with her, she’d been dragged through the tabloids over and over again. She had her protective shields firmly in place on every level. She didn’t like the fact that Nash Wilder was able to get to her with a glance.
“Don’t worry about anything. I’m going to take care of this,” he said.
“Excellent,” Kayla told him, all snooty like he would expect. Sometimes that was easiest. “That’s what I’m paying you for.” She flashed a saccharine smile.
And watched his Adam’s apple bob up, then down.
She was getting to him, too. And how childish was it to gain pleasure from that? She needed to get away from him, away from his penetrating gaze. She wished they would call her to the kitchen.
“I’d prefer if we took the Landon jet to Vegas,” he said, focusing back on the work at hand. Apparently, he’d read the detailed file her secretary had sent over to Welkins’s office.
“The team is flying commercial. First class. I already have the tickets.” The corporate jet would be too easily set up for another accident if her parents’ and brother’s murderer decided to use the opportunity to take her out.
Whoever the bastard was, she didn’t think he would blow up a passenger jet and kill hundreds of people just to get to her.
Greg’s voice filtered in from the den. She glanced that way. Back already? She wished Nash would finish their question-and-answer session so she could talk to her brother. But Greg seemed to be leaving again with a quick wave to her. He’d probably come back for something he’d forgotten. He was often absentminded.
“The corporate jet would give me a smaller environment to control. It’d make my job easier,” Nash was saying.
Obviously, he expected her to rearrange her life to his specifications. She knew bodyguards like that. Her aunt had fallen prey to a similar man when Kayla had been a teenager. The guy had come in, made Aunt Carmella completely paranoid, got her to where she wouldn’t trust anyone but him. She ended up leaving Uncle Al and marrying that man. He left her after a year, taking half of the family fortune with him.
“Your job is to protect Tsini. My job is to live my life, not to make yours easy,” she spelled it out for Nash.
He considered her with a lazy look that she was pretty sure hid fury. “As you pointed out before, you’re paying me to protect you—” He cleared his throat. “Your dog. Are you going to fight me on everything I recommend?”
He didn’t seem like a guy who was used to taking no for an answer. He probably scared the breath out of the average person. He would have scared the breath out of her, too, if her life hadn’t been in constant jeopardy in the past year.
She flashed her best debutante-millionaire-heiress smile. “Of course not, just when we don’t agree.” Then she thought, shouldn’t have said that.
He looked in control, but she wasn’t sure whether it was the kind of control that would easily snap. For all she knew, he was getting ready to strangle her for standing up to him. Her father had been like that. Bore no opposition from anyone. How quickly she’d forgotten.
But Nash threw his head back and laughed.
The sound was warm and genuine, reached right across the distance between them. The harsh lines of his face crinkled into a look of mirth. Not staring with her jaw hanging open took effort. The man was beyond belief good-looking.
“You’re
