Czytaj książkę: «Her 24-Hour Protector»

To the wonderful crew at my publisher who pulled this series together – it’s been a real pleasure working with you all.

And to my fellow authors: Marie Ferrarella, Gail Barrett, Cindy Dees, Nina Bruhns and Carla Cassidy – you guys are the best.

Prologue

The Nevada night was hot—no air-conditioning.

Lex clutched his teddy against his tummy even though it made him hotter, but he liked to hold his bear close when this particular TV program was on because sometimes the show made him scared. He was perched on the edge of his mom’s bed wearing only his jammie shorts while he watched. His mother sat farther up, by the pillows, emptying the fat brown envelope that the man brought once a month.

Lex glanced at her during the commercial. She was counting out the cash onto the bed cover. His mom was always happy when the money came. She said it helped boost her croupier’s income from the casino. Tomorrow she’d take him to the burger place for a special kids meal with a toy. It was their routine the day after the envelope arrived. Lex hoped that maybe when he turned six she’d take him to the steak house instead, where the chef cooked over big orange flames. He didn’t need toys in his meal anymore, but he didn’t want to tell her and hurt her feelings. He loved his mom. She was the prettiest woman he’d ever seen, too.

She caught him watching and smiled. He grinned back, getting that silly squeeze in his chest. But before he could turn back to his TV show, there was a crash downstairs in the hall. His mother tensed.

That made Lex scared.

A man’s voice reached up the stairs. “Where’s the kid, Sara!”

His mother’s face went sheet-white. She pressed her index finger over her lips, telling Lex to stay quiet. Then she quickly gathered the money, reached for her purse and removed a small gun. Lex stared at it. His heart started to beat really fast. He clutched Mr. Teddy tighter.

“Where’s the damn kid, Sara?” The voice—rough and raspy like Velcro tearing—was coming up the stairs. “He wants the boy!”

Lex’s mother took his arm, dragged him to the closet. She got down to his eye level, grasped his shoulders tight. “Lexington, ” she whispered. She only called him Lexington when something was very serious, or he’d done something very wrong. “You get in that closet, d’you hear? Get in right behind the clothes. No matter what, do not move. Do not come out—”

“Sara!”

She shoved him quickly into the dark closet, shut the door, locked it. Lex peered through the louvered slats, but he could only see the bottom half of the room because of the way the slats were angled. He saw his mother’s hand grabbing the telephone next to her bed.

The bedroom door crashed back against the wall. His mother screamed, aimed her gun at the man with one hand, holding the phone in her other. “Stay back! I’m calling the cops.” She started to dial. That’s when he heard the man hit his mother. A horrible sort of wet, crunching sound.

His mother gasped, dropping the receiver as she crumpled to the floor. Lex heard the gun skitter under the bed.

The man’s hand—tanned with lots of dark hair on it—reached down and jerked the phone cord out of the wall. “Where is the damn kid, Sara?” he growled. Lex saw a knife glinting in his hand but couldn’t see his top half, just his checkered pants.

“He…he’s not here…” His mom was sobbing on the floor behind the bed. “I swear he’s not.”

“Lying bitch. I’ll find him.” He started to come toward the closet. Lex’s little limbs began to shake. He wanted to smash out of the closet and kick the balls off that man, but he couldn’t move.

“No! Please! He’s not here!” He saw his mother had her gun again. She was on her knees by the bed. Her face was wet from tears. She aimed at the man, her hands shaking, and Lex heard a gunshot.

The man jerked, stumbled, swore something awful. “You…shot me.” He lunged forward, grabbed his mother by her hair and he cut his mother’s throat. Blood went everywhere. Lex dropped Mr. Teddy and scooted right to the back, pulling his mother’s dresses over him. He squeezed his eyes very tight, trying to shut out what he’d seen.

He heard the man’s footsteps coming back to the closet. The door rattled, and Lex peed his pants. Then he heard police sirens—his mother’s 911 call must have gone though. The man swore, staggered wildly out of the room. Lex heard tires screeching.

It fell silent in the room for a while before Lex heard the sirens growing really loud and stopping outside. There was noise again, lots of noise, all muddled up and not making sense—footsteps, yelling for paramedics. The girl from upstairs was sobbing, saying she’d heard fighting, a gunshot, someone running, a car fleeing. Then a male voice, deep like a drum, said an ambulance was no use. His mother was dead.

Lex’s whole body went cold, like ice. He couldn’t think anymore. A big shadow came toward the closet door. And a little squeak of terror escaped Lex’s chest as the door was rattled again. Someone said something about a key on the body. The door was unlocked, pulled open and the dresses covering him were yanked aside.

He blinked up into the sudden white glare of lights, saw the policeman’s badge.

And that’s how the cops found him. Stuffed into the back of the closet behind his mother’s clothes. Mute with shock.

It took a full year before Lex could speak again. But his mother never came back.

And the police never found the man who’d cut his mother’s throat.

Lex, however, would never, ever forget his voice. And he swore that one day he’d find that man. He would make him pay for what he’d done to his beautiful mother.

Chapter 1

FBI Special Agent Lex Duncan was due on stage right after the Vegas investment banker who was strutting down the runway with a long-stemmed rose clenched between his straight white teeth.

“Now this, ladies—” crooned the Bachelor Auction for Orphans emcee, a popular Las Vegas television host with dulcet tones of honey over gravel and butter-gold hair to match “—is an investment banker with mutual interest in mind. What redblooded woman wouldn’t want this macho money man to manage her assets for the night? Who knows, ladies—” the emcee lowered her voice conspiratorially. “There might just be some long-term profit for the right bidder…”

Shrieks and hoots erupted from the invitation-only crowd of almost one thousand very well-heeled Las Vegas women as Mr. Investment Banker shucked his pin-striped jacket, peeled off his crisply ironed shirt and got busy showing off some serious sweat equity of his own, obviously earned by heavy capital investment in the gym. The bids started, kettle drums rolling softly in the background heightening the tension.

Lex swore and shot a desperate glance toward the glowing red Exit sign backstage. He felt edgier now than he had during his first FBI takedown of a violent felon. Somehow he’d ended up being slated as the last bachelor up for grabs tonight, and he was feeling the pressure. The men ahead of him had already driven bids all the way up to a whopping $50,000, which went to a rugged foreign correspondent whose “sword” was apparently mightier than his pen—a comment that had brought the house down as the evening eased into night, laughter oiled by the complimentary cocktails that were loosening the ladies’ designer purse strings and heating libidos.

Whoever had staged this event in Las Vegas’s legendary Ruby Room with its massive art deco clock, shimmering chandeliers, red tones and old black-and-white photos that alluded to the thrilling mystique of Vegas’s dark mob past, knew exactly what she was doing.

For more than an hour before the auction had started, women clad in sleek barely there dresses with plunging necklines had sipped free drinks as they mingled with men, sizing up the “merchandise, ” whose duty it was to make small—and seductive—talk.

Lex had failed abysmally.

He was not one for platitudes, let alone parties. And volunteering for a bachelor auction rated way down there along with…God knows what. He couldn’t think of anything worse right at this moment. Those sixty-three minutes of schmingling, and yes, he’d counted every one of those minutes, had been pure torture. Lex was not one for high-maintenance women, either. Been there, done that, had the scars and divorce papers to show for it. If he ever married again, he swore it was going to be to a Stepford wife who understood his devotion to his job and charity work with at-risk kids.

The bidding out in the hall suddenly hit the $60,000 mark. The crowd of ladies exploded into raucous cheers, and the live band picked up the pace, ratcheting tension with a soft boom, boom, boom of drums. Lex tugged irritably to loosen his red tie.

His partner, Special Agent Rita Perez, had suggested red—to get the blood pumping, she’d chuckled. She told him the color was a good foil to the classic dark FBI suit and white shirt. He was going to kill Perez for this. She was the one who’d coerced him into it in the first place.

It’s for a good cause, Duncan. All proceeds will go to the Nevada Orphans Fund. Think of how it will help your boys.

He adjusted his holster, his body heating under his jacket as the crowd thunderously applauded the top bidder who’d nabbed Mr. Investment Banker for an insane $62,500. Lex was up next, after the Clark County skydiving instructor standing beside him backstage.

Think of the Orphans Fund…

“You ever see so much cleavage in one place?” said Mr. Skydiver, eyes fixed on the shimmering crowd of women as he peered around the curtain. “Mostly pumas, I figure.”

“Excuse me?”

“They’re not all cougars over the age 45, check it out—” Mr. Skydiver edged the heavy curtain back. “See? Hot pumas, single or divorced females between the ages of 30 to 40, all with serious cash to blow. Best way to meet a prospective date if you ask me.” He jutted his chin toward the audience. “Each one of those women out there has had her bank balance vetted—a marriage made in pure heaven.”

Lex stared at him blankly. This guy thought he was going to find commitment here? “This is Vegas, buddy. Place of transience, slight of hand, trickery and sin.”

“Ah, but magic happens in Vegas.” Mr. Skydiver grinned, took a sharp swig from a small silver hip flask and offered the flask to Lex. “Dutch courage, in the name of Johnnie Walker?”

Lex shook his head.

Mr. Skydiver capped his flask. “Just ask any tourist,” he said as he slipped the flask back into his pants pocket. “When that plane touches down at McCarran International, all rational thought goes clean out the window, and suddenly anything is possible. Yeah, Vegas will do that to you.”

The guy had clearly gotten a little too intimate with Johnnie Walker. Lex made a mental note never to book a skydiving lesson with this dude, but he vaguely wished he had taken him up on the offer of a nip from the flask. The man looked enviably happy, and this was one time in his life Lex sure wouldn’t mind numbing himself with a bit of false bravado. But before he could finish his thought, or change his mind and take up the flask, Mr. Skydiver was nudged abruptly forward by the bustling backstage coordinator taking his Johnnie Walker down the runway with him. And the next thing Lex knew, it was his turn.

“You’re on, agent!” He was forced out from the protection of the curtain by the backstage boss.

His throat dried instantly.

Larger-than-life images of himself in various poses played out on a massive screen behind the emcee and the auctioneer. “Meet FBI Special Agent Lexington Duncan, girls!” Blinding stage spotlights swung his way.

Lex blinked into the glare. All he could see of the crowd was a dark blot stabbed by the occasional glitter of jewels and flash of sequins as women moved. He reached for his breast pocket and put on the sunglasses that Perez had insisted he bring.

“For the record,” intoned the emcee. “Agent Duncan’s weapon is disarmed. But who knows, he just might load his gun later for the right bidder.” A murmur of excitement rippled through the women. Not quite the shrieks generated by Mr. Skydiver. Worry wormed into Lex as he took his first tentative steps down the runway. Maybe he was going to get lowballed. But the bids started instantly, flying fast and furious. Oh geez.

Heat prickled over his brow as he forced his legs toward the end of the ramp that jutted out into the sea of tables, a 007 theme tune mocking him. When he reached the end of the ramp, the music segued into a thumping sexy beast of a beat that thrummed up through his body from the soles of shined-up shoes making his heart constrict in time to the rhythm. His body grew hot. He yanked at his collar.

Oh, boy, was he ever going to kill Perez for getting him into this. He was going to get her right alongside with the mystery woman who’d organized this circus.

You don’t have to do anything other than volunteer your time…yeah, well there was his pride on the line now.

He could just imagine the guys in the field office tomorrow morning. He shoved his shades higher onto his face with a scowl he made no attempt to hide. Patience he had in buckets—on a job. Not now. Now he’d lost every last ounce and wanted to get this the hell over.

Irritability powered his body movements as he strutted forward with the classic command presence of a cop. He got to the end of the ramp, flipped open his jacket, showing his holster and weapon.

The ladies went wild.

“Want to see Special Agent Lexington Duncan load that pistol, ladies? You’ve got to make those numbers real arresting in order to be taken down to the station, girls. Maybe he’ll pat you down, or frisk you…”

Bids rose—higher, hotter, faster.

Lex stalked back up to the top of the runway, getting more and more steamed. He took off his jacket, draped it over the emcee’s podium. It was his little intrusion into her space, a psychological ploy. Another wave of hoots and hollers burst from the crowd at this apparent audacity. Women began to leave their tables and line the runway, cheeks flushed, eyes bright, music loud. Their hands were waving with cash, trying to reach up to stuff it into his pants.

A strange sort of energy caught him. This was what crowd hysteria did to one, he thought, loosening his red tie, unbuttoning his white shirt, knowing his muscles were getting amped from the adrenaline and…well, yeah, the attention. He was male after all. Every man had his pride. And libido. Be damned if Lex’s competitive edge didn’t stab suddenly into his chest. Hell, if he was on the stage now, he might as well win, right? Why not get the top bid from that teeming excited mass of over a thousand women with more cash to burn than they knew what to do with.

For the orphans, Lex. Think of your boys. A small grin of satisfaction settled over his mouth. If “his boys” could see him now. He’d better do them proud. Yeah, he’d get his money’s worth out of these pumas.

He slowed his swagger, put some muscle into it as he stripped off his shirt, tossed it to the crowd. His body was ripped and tanned—honed to peak perfection from daily training workouts, his twice-weekly coaching sessions with his kids under the hot desert sun, his eyes and reflexes keen from hours at the range. Under that conservative buttoned-up FBI exterior lurked a very different Lex Duncan, and it showed—in the exuberant reaction from the crowd.

“Take it all off! Take it all off! Take it all off!”

The chant rose in crescendo, and the live musicians, adept at playing to their audience, worked the energy. Lex thrust even more swagger into his walk, tightening his jaw, squaring his shoulders aggressively. Under the glaring spotlights his tanned skin began to glisten. Paddles continued to shoot up around the hall, bids going alarmingly high with one suddenly hitting an all-time record.

“Ninety thousand dollars! We have ninety thousand from the bidder in silver at the back of the hall. Going once…” The gavel was raised dramatically, poised to slam down with flourish. Lex squinted into the far recesses of the vast Ruby Room, trying to see who was prepared to plunk down such a serious chunk of change for a date with him, but the chandeliers had been dimmed and the spotlights blinded him.

“Wait! We now have…ninety-five thousand from the lady in red at the table in front!”

His heart beat faster, he strutted harder. The music went louder. Yeah. He was going to nail it—a top bid. Walk away from this with ego intact.

“Going once…going twice…” Called the auctioneer. “Oh, we have one hundred thousand! Again from the bidder in silver at the rear.”

The atmosphere shifted suddenly, and a hot hush of tension pressed down over the crowd. The music all but stopped, just whispering kettle drums.

The auctioneer’s voice took a quiet edge. “We have a bid of one hundred thousand dollars, ladies. Going once. Going twice…”

Adrenaline quickened through Lex as he tried again to squint beyond the glare of the spotlights. This was insane. Then again, this was Vegas. Where people believed that everything had a price, any dream could be bought. Anything could happen. Maybe Mr. Skydiver was right after all. A small ripple of hot pleasure coursed through him. Someone wanted him bad, and that was good, because this entire event, this bidding war over him right now was going to buy some real programs for his “kids.” Besides, how bad could one date get anyway?

It was Jenna Jayne Rothchild’s turn to get steamed. Someone at the back of the room was giving her one hell of a run for her money, and she had zero intention of losing Special Agent Lex Duncan to anyone. This whole damn extravagant event had been created solely so she could nab him.

“Who the hell is that back there?” she whispered angrily through her teeth, eyes remaining fixed on the auctioneer.

“Mercedes Epstein,” said Cassie Mills excitedly. “And…oh, my God, Jenna, she’s wearing Balduccio. A full-length silver Balduccio gown. It’s like…oh God, it’s stunning. Even at her age.”

Jenna, Vegas event planner extraordinaire and organizer of the Bachelor Auction for Orphans, shot a hard, fast look to the back of the massive ballroom. The chandeliers had been dimmed over the crowd of over a thousand women—each one of them vetted and personally invited by Jenna because they had the wherewithal to plunk down substantial amounts of cash. But even in the darkness, Jenna could make out the shimmering silver-white chignon belonging to the gracious head of 62-year-old Mercedes Epstein. Diamonds glittered around the neck of the Vegas matriarch, and her gown was a silvery-lilac, like platinum. Like moonlight. The woman seemed to glow spectrally in the dark as if she possessed a mysterious inner phosphorescence.

“Crap,” Jenna hissed, getting hot in her own low-cut designer gown. “What in hell does she want?”

“Your FBI agent, obviously,” Cassie said with her dimpled grin.

“I didn’t send her an invite!”

“Is there any lady out there prepared to up the ante to one hundred five thousand dollars for a night of her design with Special Agent Lexington Duncan at her side, for her protection?”

Jenna shot her paddle up aggressively.

She didn’t like to lose. Not ever. Especially not to Mercedes Epstein. It was a female pride thing. Vegas may be chocked to the gills with transients and tourists, but Sin City still had it’s hierarchy among the high-end Strip “locals.” Mercedes, known for her charity largesse, especially when it came to child-related charities, was married to Frank Epstein, one of the most powerful men in Vegas—no, make that Nevada. No make that one of the most influential men in the United States. He was worth billions on Wall Street and had funded the campaigns of many a senator, local sheriff and Vegas city councilor.

A small fist of cold tension curled through Jenna’s stomach as she clutched her paddle. Frank Epstein also had a longstanding rivalry with her dad, Harold Rothchild. Mercedes could outbid her anyday—and might just do it to annoy one of the Rothchild clan. But for whatever reason the matriarch was here, Jenna was so not losing to the woman.

This was her show.

“I don’t give a damn what she’s wearing,” Jenna ground out through her teeth. “Or how much she has in her bank account. She can’t have him. He’s mine. He’s the whole bloody point I organized this auction.”

“One hundred ten thousand, going once to the lady in silver at the back…”

Again Jenna shot her paddle up, her heart beating faster.

“We now have one hundred twenty thousand from the young lady in red at the front…and oh, wait, was that a slight twitch of the paddle from the mystery bidder’s assistant at the back of the room? Yes…yes…a twitch from the bidder in silver’s assistant at the back. We now have a new bid of one hundred twenty-five thousand big cool ones, people. From our mystery lady at the rear.”

There was a collective intake of breath. A kinetic energy began to pulse through the hall. The antique Egyptian fans turned slowly overhead, and the kettle drums started rolling softly. The FBI agent on stage inhaled deeply, and it expanded his chest.

A hot rush of adrenaline coursed through Jenna at the sight of him, and suddenly she wanted more than just to win him for Daddy’s sake. She wanted him for her own sake. Getting close to Lex Duncan had, however, been her father’s idea—his request, in fact.

Harold Rothchild had asked Jenna to try and seduce information out of the agent after he’d gotten wind that Lex Duncan was now the lead investigator in his daughter Candace’s homicide case. The FBI had also seized an infamous Rothchild family heirloom—the legendary Tears of the Quetzal—a chameleon diamond worth millions that had been taken from Candace’s finger the night of her murder—a rock Candace herself had appropriated from Daddy’s safe and waved around inappropriately and, apparently, at the expense of her life.

A rock rumored to be cursed with an old Mayan legend.

Supposedly, in the right hands, The Tears of the Quetzal would bring great love to whoever held the ring, even momentarily. But in the wrong hands, grave misfortune would be sure to follow.

Jenna thought the legend was a bunch of hooey. Then again, Candace had died because of it. And after Jenna’s attorney cousin, Conner, had failed to retrieve the infamous diamond, her father, clearly obsessed with the stone, now wanted it back at any cost. He’d asked Jenna to help find a way. He’d asked her to try and seduce the FBI agent into telling her where The Tears of the Quetzal was now being kept. And her casino mogul father had been uncharacteristically edgy and insistent in doing so. He hadn’t even mentioned the plan to Conner for fear Conner might tip the agent who’d become something of a friend. Whatever—Jenna was happy to oblige her dad. She liked to make him happy.

Besides, she could pretty much seduce a monk. She didn’t think twisting the buttoned-up, übercool FBI agent around her pinky finger would pose much problem at all.

She’d started by staging a little covert investigation of her own, and she’d learned that Lex Duncan was a keen supporter of the Nevada Orphans Fund. He volunteered for the organization twice a week, coaching at-risk teenage boys. It was clearly a charity Lex Duncan held close to his heart, so she’d come up with the idea a Bachelor Auction for Orphans as the best way to get her hands on him.

Her best friend, Cassie Mills, had then been co-opted into coercing Lex’s partner, Special Agent Rita Perez, into twisting the reticent agent’s considerably muscled arm. It was the perfect plan—Cassie was a student at Rita’s martial arts class at the club, so she already had an in with Lex’s partner.

Besides, organizing the event was fun. Parties, each with more bling and glitz than the next, were Jenna’s forte, her way of escaping reality, her way of running from the dark questions surrounding her sister’s murder.

She wasn’t good at the dark stuff—she was good at escaping. Survival, Vegas-style.

Jenna inhaled deeply and got to her feet. Whispers rustled through the crowd like wind bending the tips of dry grass.

The 25-year-old Vegas casino princess—heiress to considerable Rothchild fortune, and daddy’s girl—was making it clear she intended to lock horns with the grande doyenne of the casino empire. Despite the fact Mercedes was married to Frank Epstein, the grizzled old lion king of the Strip, Jenna wasn’t going to be intimidated by the Vegas matriarch’s pedigree. And the battle lines were drawn over the federal agent standing on the stage, his half naked, bronzed and ripped body gleaming under the spotlights.

Camera flashes popped everywhere, reporters smelling tomorrow’s headlines. The kettle drums rolled softly, winding tension tighter.

“One hundred fifty thousand,” Jenna called out coolly. The Ruby Room fell so silent one could hear a pin drop.

Mercedes tipped her coiffed head almost imperceptibly to the man seated beside her—a massive personal assistantcum-bodyguard in a designer suit who then flipped her paddle silently for her, his pockmarked features unmoving.

“We have one hundred seventy-five thousand dollars for the Nevada Orphans Fund!” The auctioneer pointed to the back. “Going to our mystery lady in silver and her assistant at the rear.”

Heads swiveled again, eyes blinking into the darkness.

The lighting technicians scrambled to spin a spotlight toward the back of the room in an effort to illuminate the holder of the big purse. But the beam didn’t reach. One of the techs hurriedly began to remount the light.

Jenna swallowed. Daddy was just going to have to foot the bill on this one. “One eighty,” she called out, squaring her shoulders, smiling seductively, telegraphing outward calm and control—fully aware of the camera lenses on her and her photogenic quality.

“We now have one eighty,” echoed the auctioneer.

Camera flashes popped, making the shimmering zircon crystal beads on her dress glitter like an electric waterfall. Silence pushed down heavier onto the room. The fans circled slowly overhead. Jenna swallowed past the tension in her throat, waiting.

“And…yes, yes, we have one ninety! From the back!”

Jenna cursed violently under her breath, flicked her paddle, smiling sweetly. She didn’t look around, wouldn’t give her rival the pleasure. She was posing now, for the cameras, out to win. On all counts.

But her opponent remained steadfast and countered instantly.

“One ninety-five, to the back.”

Her mind raced, doing the math, second-guessing her father’s reaction. He was already on the hook for the organization of the event, never mind her personal bid.

“Going once. Going…” The auctioneer raised the gavel theatrically. Everyone seemed to lean forward in collective anticipation.

“Two hundred fifty thousand,” Jenna said, voice clear as a bell.

Silence expanded, stretched, vibrated and shimmered like a taut invisible thing in the room.

“We have two hundred fifty thousand dollars, going once…going twice…”

The tech finally managed to remount the spotlight, and he swung it abruptly around, forcing white light into the dim back reaches of the Ruby Room, illuminating the Vegas matriarch in her full glory. She rose majestically to her feet. Tall and elegant.

Then with a gracious tip of her head, Mercedes deferred to Jenna and touched her assistant’s broad shoulder. At the matriarch’s signal her bodyguard rose and escorted his charge toward the grand gilt-engraved doors. He held them open for Mercedes, and she seemed to float from the room. The doors swung slowly, silently shut.

“Sold! To the lady in red.” The gavel hit the block, and the crowd erupted, music exploded and Jenna’s heart thudded wildly. “Special Agent Lexington Duncan fetches a record winning bid for the night, ladies. Please come up and claim your man, 159,” the auctioneer said, referring to the number on Jenna’s paddle.

“Damn, that was close,” she whispered into Cassie’s ear as she bent down and took a deep gulp of champagne from her glass. She then pressed her palms down on her hips, trying to remove the dampness and straighten out her nerves as she walked up to the stage. Agent Duncan stood shirtless, waiting to see the lady in the red dress who’d bought his pleasure. He removed his shades as she neared.