“I should have taken him out,” Nash said, looking at his feet and shaking his head, talking more to himself than Welkins.
“You should not have taken him out. You’re no longer in the mountains of Afghanistan. You are in the protection business. Do you understand that?” Welkins watched him as if he weren’t sure whether Nash really did, as if Nash might not be a good fit for the team after all.
And maybe he wasn’t. He was trained as a killing machine. Maybe he wasn’t good for anything else.
“You need to learn to pull back.” Welkins’s tone was more subdued as he said that.
A moment of silence passed between them while Nash thought over the incident. “I can’t regret anything I did on that assignment, sir. But I do regret if my actions caused any difficulties for the company and the team,” he said at last.
“Then take one for the team.” Welkins’s sharp gaze cut to him.
And Nash knew he was sunk. Loyalty was the one thing he would never go around, the trait he appreciated most in others, the one value he would never compromise on.
His lungs deflated. He hung his head and rubbed his hand over his face for a second.
Four cursed days at the Vegas Dog Show, guarding celebrity heiress and media darling Kayla Landon’s puff poodle, Tsini. If the boss wanted to unman him, it would have been easier to castrate him and be done with it.
The one ray of hope in the deal was that Kayla Landon had a host of assistants. She probably had a professional team showing off her dog for her, so he wouldn’t actually have to come face-to-face with her and the hordes of paparazzi that usually followed.
What kind of dog received death threats anyway? He couldn’t see something like that happening to a real dog like a rottweiler or a German shepherd.
“All right.” He pushed the words past his teeth with effort. “I don’t think a consultation with Miss Landon will be necessary.” Please. If there was a God.
“No, indeed. I have already consulted with her.”
For the first time since he’d walked into the office, Nash relaxed. Then Welkins smiled.
Terrible suspicion raised its ugly head.
The heavy smell of doom hung in the air.
“There’s more to this, isn’t there?”
“Because of the threats, Miss Landon will be traveling with her dog-show team to Vegas. You’ll be working with her 24/7.”
He closed his eyes for a minute. Her nickname was Popcorn Princess. Seriously. And he was going to have to take orders from her. Oh, hell. Was it too late to go back to the military and sign up for active duty in some combat zone instead?
“Let me spell this out. Don’t try to fix the client’s life. Don’t make this personal. Go in, get the job done, get out and collect the payment.” Welkins looked at Nash with something akin to regret. “You can’t afford to tick off anyone else.”
Meaning if he didn’t please Miss Landon, he would probably not have a job when he came back.
And the demand for washed-up commando soldiers wasn’t exactly great in the current job market. Especially for those with a near-blank résumé, since one hundred percent of his missions for the government had been top secret.
He was no longer fit for that job, or most others. But he had to keep working. Because if he stood still long enough without anything to do and occupy his mind, the darkness tended to catch up with him.
He thanked Welkins and walked out, knowing one thing for sure. Empty-headed socialites and puffy-haired poodles notwithstanding, no matter what happened, he couldn’t mess up this assignment. If he lost Welkins and WSS, he’d have nothing left.
“SO CLOSE to perfect it’s scary. I’m definitely a genius.” Elvis, her makeup artist, focused critically on her left eyebrow and did a last-minute touch-up with the spoolie. “Ay mios dio. You’re so fabulous, no one will pay any attention to the food.”
Her penthouse condo, in the most exclusive part of Philadelphia, was buzzing with activity. Kayla Landon worked on blocking out all the distractions. And kept failing.
“Let’s hope I don’t mess up any ingredients.” Not that she thought she would. She was feeling decidedly optimistic today, or rather had been. She normally used makeup time to relax, but now found herself watching the new bodyguard from the corners of her eyes instead.
Her uncle had insisted on him. She half regretted already that she’d caved. She didn’t want to have to deal with him, with the adjustment of a new man on her team.
He was gorgeous, in a scary sort of way. Six feet two inches of sinew and hard muscle, and a don’t-mess-with-me look in his amazing gold eyes. That and a strong dislike for her.
She wasn’t surprised.
Most men she met either hated her or wanted to screw her on sight. For the moment, she didn’t know whether to feel relieved or disappointed that Nash Wilder seemed unequivocally in the first camp.
He was taking stock of her, her home and her people.
She made him wait, mostly because she could tell that it annoyed him, and also because she needed a few moments to gather herself before she faced all that raw, masculine power.
“Hey.” Her younger brother, Greg, ambled by. He gave her a sweet smile and dropped a kiss on her hair, careful not to mess up her makeup.
In a couple of hours, The Cooking Channel would be recording a show in her kitchen as part of their Celebrity Cooks at Home series. They were setting up already, making a royal mess. People she’d never seen before traipsed all over everything.
She wasn’t thrilled about opening her home to the public once again, but the show was doing a special for a charity that stood close to her heart, one that funded Asperger’s research. Greg had that mild form of autism, among a host of other issues.
He was looking at all the people, his arms crossed. He hated crowds. Not that he would act out as he used to. Now that he was a grown man, he’d learned to control his impulses. For the most part. He’d definitely gotten worse since they’d lost their parents and their older brother. Maybe tonight, after everyone was gone, she’d try to talk to him about that again.
But for now, all she did was slip the white envelope off her dressing table and hand it to him. He stuffed it into his back pocket. She wanted to ask what he wanted the money for this time, but didn’t want to humiliate him the way their father had done so often in the past. Money was a touchy issue for Greg.
Someone dropped a cookie sheet in the kitchen. The metal clanging on tiles drew her attention for a moment.
“Wish they’d let me cook what I wanted. Frilly finger food is not really my thing.” She stifled her discontent. “I suppose that’s what everyone expects from me. Easy and fancy.”
“You do what you want to do.” Greg was as supportive and protective of her as she was of him.
“I have to trust them to know what’s best for the show. We want to raise serious money.”
“Don’t trust anyone but yourself.”
He sounded so much like their father as he said that. Don’t trust anyone but yourself had been one of Will Landon’s favorite sayings.
Kayla was beginning to make it hers these days. She wondered what brought it to Greg’s mind. She’d been careful to keep all her worries and doubts from him. Still, Greg must have picked up on the increasing tension in the air.
She forced a smile. “Don’t worry about any of this. They’ll be done in a couple of hours and then they’ll