By the time she put him in a headlock, Ren was three-quarters in love with Candy Raines. She moved like a freaking viper, swift and merciless. He’d spent a solid three years of his life doing nothing but studying various styles of martial arts and she was better than he was.
He’d thought she was cute when she was playing sweet and innocent, but damn, he’d had no idea who he was dealing with. Half his size and slippery as hell, the woman who took him to the mat, both physically and verbally, as she ”interviewed” him was the sexiest damn thing he’d ever seen.
Then she said that name—his birth name, his father’s name, his real name—and something hot and panicked streaked through him.
“There’s nothing horrible about the name.” He thrust his hand up suddenly, breaking her hold on his throat, but unable to get free of the boa constrictor hold of her thighs. “It just complicates things.”
Her eyes narrowed, but he stared into them, unflinching. He’d hidden his identity not because he was ashamed of it, but because nothing good ever came of people knowing the truth.
He’d thought that connection to his past was buried. Yes, Max Dewitt had told him there would be background checks. Ren had figured at most they might even find something from his sealed juvie records, but he hadn’t expected them to keep digging until they found his family.
“Your parents’ estate must be worth millions—” She broke off as he dug his elbow into a pressure point on her thigh until she was forced to release the leg lock—countering with a strike to a nerve cluster in his side that made him grunt and allowed her to scramble out of his next attempt to pin her. Once beyond his reach she pivoted, her stance loose and ready for the next attack. “Why bodyguard? Why work at all?”
He didn’t leap to his feet and chase after her. Instead he knelt, catching his breath, and looked up at her, giving her half of the truth. “Because if someone had protected my parents from the paparazzi they might still be alive today.”
* * * * *
Present day…
“You’re going where?”
Ren kept his smile in place in the face of Max’s skepticism. “It’s Candy’s sister’s wedding and she needs someone to run interference,” he explained, strategically leaving out the whole fake husband thing. As his boss, Max didn’t need to know why Candy and Ren needed the same week off, but as his friend it would have felt strange to try to hide where they were going.
A sensation Candy evidently didn’t share since Max’s next comment was, “Candy just said she was going out of town for a few days. She was very vague but I got the impression it was some sort of resort getaway.”
He shouldn’t be surprised. Candy didn’t share the details of her life. Even with Max whom she trusted implicitly on the job. “Could you do me a favor and not tell her I told you? She’s pretty wound up about the whole thing.”
“Of course.” Max eyed him and that speculative gleam didn’t fade. “Going to family weddings together, huh? That’s pretty serious. I started going to weddings with Parvati and next thing you know we were engaged.”
“It isn’t like that.” Somehow he doubted he’d be moved to propose when her entire family thought they were married already. At Max’s skeptical look, he admitted, “We’re pretending to be married.”
Max blinked and a nervous caution slowly suffused his face. “I don’t want to interfere, you know that. Your relationship is your business—I never should have asked you to talk to her about Hank the Hammer—”
“I would have brought it up anyway.” And they’d already been broken up this most recent time when he’d confronted her about the Hammer situation anyway. Though the conversation had certainly been memorable.
He never should have told her he loved her.
“I know you might have,” Max said, “but it seemed like things were tense between you for a while after that and that was my fault. I shouldn’t have put that on you—”
“Max, it’s fine.”
But it hadn’t been fine. The fight over the asshole ex-client who had been harassing Candy had been a tipping point. They’d already been in one of their “off” phases in the on-again-off-again drama that was their pseudo-relationship, but that fight had shifted something. Ren had started dating Jessica the next week.
And look how that had turned out.
“I’m only saying I’m glad you two are back on good terms again. And I hope you know what you’re doing with this wedding business.”
So do I. “I’ve got it covered,” he promised, with more certainty than he felt. “Can you take care of Wicket?”
“Absolutely. Parv adores your dog,” Max said. “I’ll be fiancé of the year when I tell her we get to keep Wicket for a week. And I’ll tweak the schedule to make sure you can both be gone at the same time.”
Elite Protection was a small company that catered to A-list celebrities, providing bodyguard services and security for Hollywood’s elite, but since each member of the EP team had been handpicked by Max and trained to his rigorous standards, the gaps weren’t always easy to cover when they took time off.
“Thanks, Boss. I appreciate it.”
Max nodded, holding up a hand to forestall him when he would have left the office. “There’s one other thing. A couple days ago, we started getting calls from someone claiming to be a representative of the Tate Foundation, saying they’re trying to get in touch with Lorenzo Tate Junior about some discrepancies in the foundation’s finances.”
Ren cursed under his breath. “How did they know to call here?”
“I don’t know. Luckily, Candy took the first call and shooed them off. The new receptionist doesn’t know your real name so she’s been very convincing when she tells them you don’t work here and have never been a client. I assumed it was a reporter who noticed a resemblance to your father and was just fishing for information—”
“I don’t look like him.”
“—but Candy traced the number and it looks like at least one of the calls might have come from a number at your parents’ foundation. Several of the others were from a cell phone of an employee there. It’s possible someone there made the connection and they’re looking for confirmation before they sell the story, but I wanted to warn you. Especially since there is a chance there’s a legitimate issue with the foundation financials.”
“They volunteered that information to the receptionist?” That seemed like the flimsiest part of the whole story.
“Candy talked it out of him. I’m surprised she didn’t mention it to you.”
I’m not. She’d been avoiding him since he agreed to play husband for her, as if afraid he’d change his mind if she gave him the chance. Ren grimaced. “Do you have the phone numbers?”
Max extended a scrap of paper. “If you call, you’re confirming your identity. Do you think there could be a problem with the financials?”
“Unlikely. And if there were, they’d contact my uncle, not me. It’s probably a fishing scheme, but if someone were trying to out you, wouldn’t you want to know who?”
“Candy did a background check on the owner of the cell phone. He’s a recent hire in the accounting department.”
Which made his story more plausible, but also made it more likely that the new “accountant” was really a reporter on the trail of Lorenzo and Lily Xiao Tate’s long lost son. “I’ll take it from here, Boss. Thanks.”
“Anytime. And just let me know if we need to file an injunction or something. My lawyers love that shit.”
“I’m good. But I appreciate the thought.”
He exited Max’s office, the scrap of paper in one hand. Max would go to bat for him if his real identity came out, he knew that. The entire Elite Protection team might rally around him, but his life would never be the same. He’d be harassed until the media got tired of the story. No more working as a bodyguard—he’d probably need one of his own. If he was lucky and he didn’t end up as another statistic, like his parents. He’d seen the dark side of fame at too early an age to ever want that for himself.
Maybe it was a good thing he was running away to DC for a week. Maybe this caller, whoever he was, would figure he was barking up the wrong tree and give it up.
Ha. Right. A paparazzo giving up on a story. And maybe Candy would decide she was madly in love with him too.
Miracles could happen.