NICK WATCHED Samantha’s eyes. He’d wrangled enough tough negotiations to know that her initial reaction would map how he proceeded. Yet he almost felt like a novice going one-on-one with Samantha. She was tough, confident and sassy. And sexy. Oh, yeah. Sexy as sweet, silky oysters served with the finest Italian wine. Yet an elusive vulnerability lingered, teasing him like a secret. He didn’t fool himself into thinking that recognizing her allure would counteract the mind-numbing effects. Women like her always had a trick up their sleeve.
Her thick-lashed lids narrowed. The irises he’d considered exotic, blue like a tropical liqueur, darkened to a fascinating, faceted sapphire, clear of any anger or insult from his purposefully bold, charged-by-design suggestion. In fact, he couldn’t read her reaction at all. But, just in case, he held her hand tightly, prepared to deflect a slap.
When she glanced down, he realized that Samantha Deveaux didn’t have to use her hands to punish his presumptuous proposition. She shifted her knee ever so casually.
Fortunately for his family jewels, she had a sense of humor to go with her proclaimed black belt. Her expression turned from cool to amused, forcing him to replay the words in his head one more time. He’d been trying to disarm her with an outrageous idea, but his words rang a little too cocky and arrogant, even for him.
She obviously didn’t seem to mind. By the time he released her hands with a groan, she was laughing out loud. Which knocked his naturally bred arrogance down a substantial peg.
“I didn’t mean that exactly the way it sounded,” he said, grumbling.
“I should hope not. I mean, do I look like Julia Roberts in this get up?” She took a deep breath to tamp down her laughter. “’Cause you, pal—” she pointed for emphasis “—ain’t Richard Gere.”
Nick met her smirk with a reluctant, albeit agreeing grin. No, he wasn’t Richard Gere. He never wanted to be Richard Gere or any other celebrity for that matter. He just wanted to run the family business and turn their healthy profits into steady millions. He wanted to expand the product line. Make LaRocca a household word for pasta sauce like Kleenex was for facial tissue. Ensure that everyone who shared his blood had a chance at a prosperous future.
Since his appointment as CEO, he’d schemed and planned and jockeyed to put his company, relatively small and still privately operated, into the leagues where only conglomerates dared to tread. Big dreams, but he was so close to achieving them. He just needed more time—more single, unattached, undistracted-by-a-wife time.
Samantha could buy him his needed reprieve. And maybe a little excitement, too. Excitement that had been sorely lacking in his life for way too long, a reality this sexy security guard effortlessly proved.
“If I’m going to get any business done, I need a bodyguard,” he said, determined to clarify his point. “You’ve convinced me of that. If we lead everyone to believe that we are an item, that would give you a reason to be with me all the time, which would…”
She nodded as she took over his sentence, her laughter dying as business encroached. “…save your big male ego from admitting you need protection.”
“Yes, well,” he admitted, wondering how this stranger knew him so well in less than an hour’s time, “my big male ego does sometimes need saving, but I have a higher payoff in mind. If the public believes that I’m no longer available…that half of my net worth will soon be spoken for…”
Sam applauded. “Nice twist. You convince all those single women that you’ve made your choice, and they set their sights on the next rich bachelor.” After a moment, she wrinkled her nose. “But you know, if I’m going to play your bimbo for the whole world to see, I think I’ll rescind the discount offer. We’ll call it danger pay. I do have a reputation to protect.”
Nick grinned. He’d had no idea that Samantha would be so easy to convince. She either seriously needed the money or she didn’t want to wait to become a bodyguard. Either reason, he respected her lack of self-doubt.
They were two peas in a pod. Which added a layer of protection to his plan. Nick might no longer be entirely clear on the kind of woman he really wanted to marry someday, but he was quite certain he didn’t want a woman who operated exactly the way he did. Career first, money second, reputation third—and in a succession that ran so close, the distinction between each goal was acutely hard to decipher.
“Samantha Deveaux has a reputation?” He hummed his interest, wiggling his eyebrows to make sure he needled her sufficiently. “It’s been a long time since I hung out with a girl who had a rep. One of the DiCarlo sisters, if I remember correctly.” Now wasn’t the time to point out that he never had and still did not date “bimbos.” Even the DiCarlo sisters back in high school had just been looking for a little harmless fun. But he didn’t want Samantha to think that he rarely dated anymore, true or not. And he’d expect such an assumption. Why else would his grandmothers have stirred the wild single masses in the first place?
Unfortunately, Nick couldn’t remember his last date. He’d broken off his engagement to Sophia over two years ago, and hadn’t seen anyone else since, first out of respect for Sophia and then because he didn’t have the time. Dating required way more effort than he was willing to expend, especially since he no longer knew what he wanted.
He’d dated a lot during college, but as soon as his company went public seven years ago, he’d met Blair, the sophisticated daughter of a Chicago entrepreneur who should have understood his devotion to business pursuits, but didn’t. She was too cool, too calculating and required way more attention than he had time to give. Sophia, a friend from the old neighborhood, should have been perfect. She embraced all the traditional values he thought he treasured. She ended up driving him crazy and he doubted he was any picnic for her either.
He suspected Samantha Deveaux would drive him crazy, too, but in an entirely different, entirely desirable way.
“So tell me about this reputation of yours,” he said. “I’m utterly intrigued.”
Samantha stood, her lips pressed tight but her eyes smiling. “I’ll bet you are. But,” she said with a sigh, “this is the unfair part of the protection game. I get to know everything about you and my life is off limits.”
Nick had no idea if she realized that she’d just issued a delicious challenge, but he guarded his expression. He nodded as if he agreed to her terms.
One quick call to his attorneys, who would in turn contact their private investigation division, could garner him each and every detail of Samantha Deveaux’s life within an hour or two. If he gave them a whole day, the high-priced sharks he kept on retainer could write her biography, complete with photographs of her twelfth birthday and an interview with her third-grade boyfriend.
But damn, it would be so much more fun to discover her secrets himself.
A knock at the door gave him pause to wonder what the hell he was doing toying with his new bodyguard when he had work to do. He started to answer the door when Sam placed her hand on his shoulder, popping him with another electric shock.
“Ow!” he said, exaggerating the pain, but not the intensity of her touch.
“Sorry.” She snatched her hand back and shoved it in her pocket. “I don’t know what’s up with me today. I’m not usually this electric.”
Oh, I doubt that. “You should work for a hospital. You’d save them a bundle on defibrillators.”
She merely grinned but she might as well have stuck out her tongue. He swallowed a chuckle.
“It’s too soon for room service,” she said. “Let me answer the door.” She straightened her unwrinkled uniform before she disappeared around the corner.
Nick sank into the chair, wondering what the hell was coming over him. Yeah, his plan had a damn good chance of working. A few high-profile photographs of him and Samantha together, perhaps with her wearing a great big flashy ring, and the novelty of his grandmothers’ scheme might die a quick death. He couldn’t imagine there was a woman alive who’d want to compete with Samantha Deveaux for his attention. At least not a sane woman.
He could only hope that sane or insane, those women who’d been compelled to buy his products because of the Playgirl label would actually taste some of his grandmothers’ secret recipe and be won over. The last thing any of them intended was to lose business because he was getting married.
Which he wasn’t. Getting married. Not really.
He clapped his hand on his forehead. The stereotypical Italian phrase Mama mia! rang loud and clear, even if he’d never actually heard any Italians he knew say it. Fact was, the sentiment fit.
He could at least take comfort in knowing that Samantha Deveaux would provide ample protection from any more crazed single women intent on capturing his attention and ripping off his clothes. It wasn’t so easy to concentrate on business with women baring their breasts in his face and snatching at his crotch. He entertained no fantasies that Samantha would bare or snatch. At least not without a lot of encouragement on his part, which he most certainly couldn’t afford to give. Maybe he’d finally be able to forget about this mess and concentrate on the European distribution deal.
Too bad all he seemed able to concentrate on was Samantha.
That baffled him. She was so not his type. She was neither reserved and icy, like Blair had been, nor quiet and demure like Sophia. He’d once had high hopes for both relationships—if he’d only had time to pursue them. But Blair ended up being way too high maintenance and Sophia too clingy. He couldn’t concentrate on business with them around.
And unlike today, he hadn’t been distracted from a stack of contracts or a pile of phone messages by thoughts of hot, sweaty sex with a woman who carried handcuffs on a daily basis.
No, the distraction Samantha offered was entirely different from his issues with his former lovers.
Blair had constantly interrupted him at the office to show him the booty from her latest shopping spree. To share some inane gossip. To fill his calendar with social events more boring than waiting for his grandmothers to play their ritual game of canasta before every board meeting to determine who banged the gavel.
Sophia, on the other hand, had called once a day at precisely the same time to remind him that she was home, waiting to do whatever he wanted her to do, whenever he wanted her to do it. She bought his socks and had his shirts ironed. She attended family gatherings and dutifully sent out all his birthday, anniversary and condolence cards until she’d so endeared herself to the family that their breakup had nearly caused a holy war.
Never again, he’d promised himself. He was better off alone, he’d decided. Until his grandmothers issued their ultimatum.
Until Samantha Deveaux hurtled into his life.
He listened as Samantha argued and denied entrance to whoever was at the door. He stood up and stepped into the hall when he heard a suspicious creak in the adjoining bedroom.
“I told you, we didn’t order filet mignon,” Samantha insisted. “You just wait right here…Jimmy…while I call down to room service and get this cleared up.”
“Oh, no, ma’am. Please. I’m on, like, probation with the hotel. I can’t mess up again.”
He imagined her sapphire eyes narrowing with suspicion. “Then why don’t you sneak back downstairs, get our correct order and come back up?”
“Um-um…”
Samantha seemed to have the stuttering waiter under control, so when he heard the rustle of material from within his bedroom, he decided to investigate himself. Probably just the maid entering through the side door, he thought. The side door he’d instructed the hotel not to use.
He stopped just outside the bedroom door. He didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to realize this was precisely the type of situation where he should alert Samantha and let her investigate. The thought turned his stomach more than he expected, churning up the humiliating memory of being nine years old and spooked by a celebrity who’d brought his entourage to the family restaurant for dinner. He’d hidden behind his mother’s apron. Literally. The sickening swirl of hot embarrassment coursed through him again, as if the incident hadn’t happened twenty-five years ago.
It didn’t help that his cousins, uncles, father and grandfather loved to retell the story at each and every family gathering—or whenever they suspected the power of running the business had gone to his head. It also didn’t help that, yet again, his life was being molded and shaped by a woman. First his mother, then his Nanas, and now, in a sense, by Samantha.
He pushed into his room. The door, a side entrance into a private hallway, was locked and bolted from the inside. He didn’t remember doing that, but guessed Samantha had taken that precaution when she’d searched the room. He glanced at the bed and then to the closet. Nothing seemed amiss. He was going crazy, that was all. Certifiably nuts.
“What’s wrong?”
Samantha appeared behind him and reached forward, then pulled her hand back before she shocked him again. Thank God.
“Nothing,” he answered, berating himself for being so jumpy over what was probably the sound of the air conditioner kicking on. “Who was that at the door?”
Sam shook her head and pursed her lips, a habit she had that he sorely wished she’d break. All that pink softness puckered and primed was the last thing he needed to see every time she had a deep thought. Which was way too often for a woman as beautiful as she was.
“He said he was from room service,” she answered.
“You didn’t believe him?”
“His jacket was too big and he was incredibly nervous. And he got the order completely wrong, as if he’d swiped the cart. This is a Hyatt. They may forget the ketchup every once in a while, but they don’t screw up that royally, especially not on an order for a VIP suite. I got rid of him, but I’ll call down and check it out.”
He expected her to head for the phone, but instead she stepped closer. Her hand lingered near his arm so that he could feel the charged crackle that seemed to emanate from her fingertips.
“You sure you’re okay?”
He cleared his throat. He wasn’t anywhere near okay. He was distracted, disheveled, and now, apparently, paranoid. “Why?”
“Because you look like this.” She mirrored his cranky expression—furrowed brow, narrow eyes and grumpy chin.
He couldn’t help but laugh out loud. “God, I hope not. I’ll never sell another jar of pasta sauce again if that expression’s on the label.”
She backed away, somewhat flustered, if he could believe that anything or anyone could fluster Samantha Deveaux.
“Well,” she said, “there’s always the big fat tomato.”
THERE’S ALWAYS the big fat tomato? Not exactly the most witty response she could have come up with, but with Nick switching from dangerously worried to laughing with a sexy rumble that still reverberated straight to her toes, it was the best she could do.
She hurried to the phone and dialed the restaurant that handled room deliveries. The hotel did employ a waiter named Jimmy, but not only was he off for the day, he was pushing sixty and African-American. Definitely not the barely twenty-year-old Caucasian who’d shown up. She dialed the hotel manager immediately. He insisted on bringing their order up himself and assured her that hotel security would search for the impostor without delay.
She hung up the phone, reeling. This was a real job. A real bodyguard assignment. Mr. Dominick LaRocca, multimillion-dollar CEO, was honestly and truly being stalked. By a twenty-year-old male, no less. She doubted marriage was on the kid’s mind, making her wonder what he’d wanted by trying to weasel into Nick’s room.
The possibilities were endless. And damn exciting.
But not nearly as exciting as watching Nick march around the conference table, tapping the keyboard on his laptop without sitting first, flipping open files, stacking and reorganizing papers as if the survival of the world depended on his next deal.
The thrill took a decidedly cooling turn when she remembered who he reminded her of.
“My father never sits when he works either,” she said, once again saying something aloud that she meant to bemuse privately.
“Your father is an extremely successful man. I’ll take the comparison as a compliment.”
“You would,” she said with a laugh.
He stopped, letting a thick file slap back onto the polished table. “What does that mean?”
Anita’s voice intruded. “She means that you’re an arrogant SOB. Or maybe conceited is a better word.”
Samantha watched Anita pocket her key as she rounded the corner of the long foyer. Sam needed to get her mind back in the game. She should have heard Anita come in, even if the woman was shoeless and had her own key.
“Samantha has only known me for an hour. Takes at least two before my conceit truly shows,” Nick said matter-of-factly, though he winked playfully at Samantha, causing another surge of blood flow from her heart to her outer limbs.
Anita waved her hand at him. “She’d only have to know you for about two minutes to figure out that your head is bigger than the vats we cook our marinara in.”
“She loves me, can’t you tell?” Nick strode to Anita, spun her around for a quick once-over, then kissed her on the cheek and went back to his paperwork. “The barefoot look is interesting. Trying to start a fashion trend?”
Anita swore when she noticed a hole in her panty hose. “Very funny. If you don’t get married soon, I may end up in the hospital after another riot like today’s. Maybe you should do a talk show or something. If those women knew how boring you were, they wouldn’t be so hot to marry you.”
Samantha watched and listened. She’d known Dominick LaRocca for only a brief time, but she’d never describe him as dull. Or predictable. She’d already made the incorrect assumption that he didn’t appreciate women like her who voiced their opinions without hesitation—good, bad or insulting. Apparently, he liked Anita a whole lot. Sam did, too. His cousin apparently practiced less diplomacy than Sam did, which could keep Sam out of trouble for once in her life.
“Crazy to marry me?” Nick asked. “I’d say they’re just crazy. This is Samantha Deveaux, by the way,” he introduced.
Anita accepted Samantha’s offered hand.
“Anita LaRocca. Thanks for jumping in back there. If you hadn’t removed the meat from the feeding frenzy…” Anita glanced over her shoulder to wait for Nick’s objection to her metaphor, but he ignored her. She shrugged. “Anyway, I lost a perfectly matched pair of sling-back Monolos and our supply of presentation folders in the fray, but fortunately—” she patted her long dark curls “—no clumps of hair this time.”
“This time?”
“Didn’t Nick tell you about the airport?”
“Not exactly.”
“Let’s just say that the woman who nearly commandeered our limousine last night mistook me for Nick’s girlfriend and tried to make me look like Sinéad O’Connor.”
“It might have been a good look for you, Anita,” Nick offered, though he’d appeared to be ignoring them while he dialed about twenty-five numbers into the phone.
“Well, you won’t have to worry anymore,” Sam assured her. “Nick’s hired me to provide protection for him.” She tugged on her uniform. “This security-guard gig was temporary. I also work for No Chances Protection, a local bodyguard service.”
Anita blinked, wide-eyed. “Oh, really?”
“You don’t approve?” Sam asked, unable to interpret Anita’s arched eyebrows and slightly agape mouth.
She shook her head. “Approve? I think it’s great. Hell, with you following him around, no one will notice me. Especially if you ditch the uniform. You know…”
Anita’s dark eyes, saucer-shaped and chocolate brown, widened as an idea struck her. She raised her finger to preface her brilliant pronouncement, when Nick hung up the phone.
“We’re one step ahead of you. Samantha has agreed to ditch the uniform and play my girlfriend for the next few days.”
The exchange between the cousins was nearly non-verbal as Anita slapped her hands together triumphantly and beat a path to the phone. They apparently shared the same wavelengths and thought patterns, but Samantha suspected their intentions meshed on the surface only. She distinctly remembered Nick telling her that Anita has been a coconspirator in his grandmothers’ scheme. Notwithstanding her desire to keep all her hair attached to her head and her five-hundred-dollar shoes intact, Anita’s instantaneous excitement over their scheme made Sam incredibly suspicious.
Rude though it might have been, Sam listened intently to each and every word of Anita’s phone call.
“Nana Rose? Hi! How’s everything going?…uh-huh…give her a kiss for me. Okay. Yeah. Listen, did you hear? You did…Rick from Sales called? Yeah, not surprised. No, we’re both fine. This beautiful security…” Anita tossed a glance over her shoulder at Samantha while her grandmother apparently interrupted the rest of the story. “Yeah. Blond, late-twenties, athletic. Very pretty…no, probably not Italian…but…uh-huh…yeah, I’ll let you know what happens…okay. Ciao.”
Anita chuckled as she hung up the phone, but Sam couldn’t contain a frown. She didn’t like to be talked about. She never had. Especially by some scheming Italian grandmother who, despite being hundreds of miles away in Chicago, already knew what had happened at the Dome only an hour ago.
“Let me guess,” Nick said, amused. “They’d already heard a full report.”
“Thanks to Rick, the suck-up,” Anita said with a disbelieving nod. “And here I thought I was their best spy.”
“So, what do they think?” The sheer interest in Nick’s gaze denoted the importance of his cousin’s conversation with their grandmother. Made sense. If the Nanas didn’t buy that Nick was genuinely interested in Samantha, the ruse wouldn’t work. The grandmothers were the first line to the press and the general public, and Samantha surmised that these women weren’t pushovers. Women didn’t found and run multimillion-dollar companies by being easily fooled.
Anita turned back toward Samantha and took a step forward as if she planned to circle and assess Samantha’s suitability before answering. Suitability for what, Sam didn’t care to know. She stopped Anita with a pointed stare, so Nick’s cousin slid into a chair instead.
“She’s not Italian,” Anita said, twisting her mouth as if Sam’s heritage was a stumbling block to success. “Are you?”
“Not according to my mother, no.” Sam shoved her hands into her back pockets. “My heritage is completely Creole, French-Canadian with a touch of Spanish, I believe, though what it has to do with my ability to be Nick’s bodyguard, I don’t understand.”
“But you’re not going to be just his bodyguard, now, are you?”
Samantha squirmed. She hadn’t minded Nick’s plan so much when it was just his idea, presented with his cool logic and clear desire to rid himself of his celebrity-bachelor status. Anita’s gaze was entirely too ripe with unspoken schemes and possibilities. Schemes that went way beyond fooling the public, especially now that the infamous Nanas were involved.
Samantha crossed her arms. “That’s exactly what I’m going to be. A bodyguard. Period. The rest will just be a cover. It’ll help me navigate through his appearances, and if it helps him with his problem, that’s fine, too. But…” Sam felt odd saying more in front of Nick, but she had no choice. “But don’t get any ideas that this is more than an illusion. A ruse to take the heat off your cousin.”
Anita nodded way too complacently. “Oh, of course. It’s all a sham. But it’s brilliant. And could definitely benefit us all.”
A knock on the door once again broke the tension. Nick returned his attention to the laptop; Anita grabbed a pen and paper and started scribbling. Samantha marched to the door to greet the hotel manager, accompanied by a tray that proved to contain their correct lunch order.
Unfortunately, she wasn’t hungry anymore.
She rolled the cart to where Anita and Nick now leaned over a spreadsheet of tiny numbers and graphs.
She cleared her throat. “Lunch is served. Hotel security is parked in front of your door until I get back. Don’t leave this room without an escort.”
“Where are you going?” Nick asked, eyeing the cart that he’d ordered for them. Luckily, Anita was there to enjoy her food for her. Sam knew there was no way in hell she would eat a bite until she stopped her head from spinning and her stomach from churning.
Incredible reactions, both of them. She could jump off a fifteen-story building with barely an accelerated heartbeat. But playing lover to Nick LaRocca? A heart attack was surely imminent.
“To give my notice at the Dome, change clothes and finalize all the arrangements for your appearance at your booth this afternoon. I’m sure Tim will help me work out the details. Then I’ll be back.”
Anita was already lifting the metal lids off the food and making yummy noises over the cheesecake. “You sure you don’t want to stay and eat?”
“No, really. Go ahead. I have work to do.”
Better to act and sound efficient if she wanted to command respect for her protection skills, she decided. Luckily, her drama talents weren’t as rusty as she might have guessed.
Before she’d even left the room, Nick and Anita were muttering about cost projections and shelf space as if she’d never been there. Good. An effective bodyguard had to become invisible when the situation warranted.
Too bad she hadn’t thought about that an hour ago, when Nick LaRocca crowded into her life.