Kat had seen Zac Edwards act on the big screen, and she’d seen him act on set. Now he was acting his socks off right in front of her. The smile he’d given her in the car had been a little off, a little wobbly, but as soon as he’d stepped out and onto the pavement, the dazzle was in full force. To look at him now, smiling and laughing with the crowds, nobody would guess he’d just been wiping his sweaty hands all over his designer trousers.
He was, quite simply, magnificent.
She on the other hand, felt like a wreck. Everything she saw made her twitchy. An arm movement, a telephoto lens. A guy at the back of the crowd, who seemed to be just watching.
Watching.
The hairs on the back of her neck started to twitch and she spoke into her microphone. ‘Not sure if I’m being paranoid, but there’s a guy four rows deep in the crowd. Average height, short dark hair, grey lightweight jacket.’
Mark’s voice came through her earpiece. ‘On it.’
Glued to Zac’s side as he posed for photos and scribbled autographs, she scanned the rest of the crowd. When she glanced back at where the guy had been standing, he was gone.
‘Damn. I can’t see him anymore,’ she said into her mic. ‘Have you got eyes on him?’
‘Negative.’
Heart racing, she whispered to Zac. ‘We need to move this along.’
He flashed her a quick look of alarm before nodding and giving the woman whose scarf he’d just autographed a practised smile.
They were now only a few yards from the hotel entrance. Kat knew Mark was in the crowd, checking everyone out. Knew too, that the police were watching surveillance footage from a van parked just up from them. None of it helped.
In the end, she felt she was almost pushing Zac towards the entrance and into the foyer which was decked with balloons and banners in the charity colours.
‘Are we good?’ His eyes looked very slightly wild as he gazed down at her.
‘Of course.’ She mustered her bright, bullshitter smile. ‘You’re with the best, Edwards. Never forget that.’
‘I don’t.’ He cursed quietly on an exhale. ‘What happened out there? Why the manhandling?’
Kat only had time to whisper, ‘In your dreams,’ to Zac because the organiser she and Mark had met earlier came rushing over to them all of a fluster.
‘Oh, Mr Edwards, Zac, I hope you don’t mind if I call you Zac? I’m Sally. It’s such a thrill to have you here this evening. We’ve never had so many people queuing outside before. And as for the ticket sales. They’ve gone through the roof.’
Back to full-on charm mode, Zac reached for her hand, then leant in for a quick kiss on her cheek. ‘I’m honoured to be here and please, call me Zac.’ He gave Kat a sidelong glance. ‘Is there somewhere we can regroup before we head into the function room?’
‘Oh, yes, of course, of course.’ Sally, who had to be sixty plus but was acting like a sixteen-year-old on prom night, led them past the reception desk and into a small anteroom. ‘Please, take your time. There’s a bathroom just behind you. Someone will be outside to escort you to the main ballroom when you’re ready.’
The moment she shut the door behind her, Zac collapsed onto the small sofa. ‘Shit.’ He squeezed the bridge of his nose. ‘Maybe this was a bad idea.’
‘You can’t let Sally down now. I bet she’s been saving for months to have that dance with you.’
He let out a strangled laugh. ‘The way my legs are trembling right now, she’ll be the one propping me up.’ Once again he found her eyes, and once again he asked the question. ‘What did you see out there?’
‘It could be nothing.’ It was honest, but she owed him more than a slick, professional answer. ‘But there was a guy watching you. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure you appeal to both sexes, but he didn’t fit in. He wasn’t hoping for an autograph, wasn’t holding a phone to take a photo. He was just staring.’
‘Okay.’ He ran a hand down his face. ‘Do we know where he went?’
‘No.’ She wished she’d not taken her eyes off the bastard. That’s if he was one, and not just a shy fan of The Good Guy? Dear God, this was hard. ‘The police are looking through the surveillance footage so we’ll know more later. For now, he wasn’t dressed in a tux so we can assume he won’t be in the ballroom.’
‘Assume? That seems a little imprecise.’ He rubbed the heel of his hand over his eyes and then rose swiftly to his feet and headed for the bathroom. A minute later he returned with his shoulders back and what she liked to call his game face on. ‘Okay, I’m ready.’
She took a moment to walk up to him. To clasp his face and to kiss the lips she dreamt about when she closed her eyes. ‘I’ll be there, Zac. I won’t let anyone harm you.’
His expression turned fierce. ‘Look after yourself first.’
She rolled her eyes. ‘That’s not how this works.’
He gripped her left hand. ‘It’s how we work, Kat. Promise me you’ll look after you, first.’
She could sense he wasn’t going anywhere until she made the promise, so she did. With the fingers of her other hand crossed behind her back.
***
He’d done what he came to do. Zac couldn’t promise the five ladies who’d paid a ridiculous sum of money to waltz with him had actually had their money’s worth, but the dances were over, the champagne drunk and the attendees graciously thanked.
Now, as he sat at the table he’d occupied in between the dancing, he was finally starting to relax.
Kat, sitting to the left of him, was talking through some fancy wireless comms device. She caught his eye and nodded. ‘Ready to leave? I’m going to take you out by the rear exit.’
He thought there was possibly a joke in there somewhere, but he was too exhausted to make it. Apparently dancing while wondering if there was a sniper targeting your back, was tiring work. ‘You can take me wherever you want.’ Perhaps he wasn’t too tired, after all.
She held out her hand. ‘Come on then Ginger Rogers. Let’s get you out of here and into bed.’ She gave him a wicked smile. ‘See, you’re not the only one who can do innuendo.’
‘I’d rather you did me,’ he countered, earning him a slightly disbelieving, but gratifyingly spontaneous, laugh.
Kat was all business again as they made their way through the still busy ballroom and stepped into the foyer.
And that’s when it happened.
His world seemed to go into slow motion as Kat grabbed his arm and pushed him back into the ballroom. ‘Stay behind me and walk quickly to the room on the left.’
He knew better than to ask questions when she was in full-on protector mode. Trying not to draw attention to them, he walked smartly towards the door used by the staff, acutely aware of Kat behind him, walking backwards as she monitored the main door and talked on the comms.
‘He’s been seen in the hotel,’ she whispered as they hot-footed it through the staff area and into a small office used by the catering manager.
‘Who has?’ he asked, perhaps stupidly, as she did a quick search under the desk and behind the door, which she then kicked closed.
‘The guy I spotted in the crowd when we first arrived. Police have been monitoring the hotel CCTV. They saw him walk into the foyer a few minutes ago.’
‘Okay.’ He tried to inhale properly rather than give in to the short, panicked breaths his racing heart was trying to dictate. ‘What do we do now?’
‘We keep you safe while we search the building.’
His mind was taking longer to process information than usual. ‘The we in that statement. That’s you and me in a locked room, yes?’
‘No. I’m the only one who’s had eyes on the guy, so I need to get out there. Mark’s coming to replace me.’
There were so many things he didn’t like in that statement. Kat tracking down a potential killer was the most glaring, though feeling like a fraud while others, including the woman he loved, risked themselves to save his backside was also up there. ‘I don’t like it.’
‘You don’t like the idea of being locked up in a small room with Mark? He’ll be gutted.’
He fought to keep his calm, when what he wanted to do was shake some sense into her. ‘I don’t want you out there while there’s a killer on the loose.’
‘Are you seriously forcing me to remind you once again that it’s my job? Besides, if there is a killer out there hired by your father, he sure as hell isn’t interested in me.’
Their staring match – who could glare the hardest – was interrupted by a knock on the door. Mark’s voice came through the woodwork. ‘It’s me.’
Some of the anger left her face. ‘You’ll be safe here, and that’s important to me.’
Important because she had deep feelings for him?, he wondered as she walked out. Or important because she needed to expel the ghost of Wes, the man she’d really loved?
Mark stepped inside and as he locked the door behind him, the room descended into silence. ‘You and me, locked in a small room together. How delightful.’
‘Don’t get your hopes up, it won’t be for long,’ Mark responded in his usual gruff tone.
‘Oh?’
‘I told Kat the guy’s vanished, but she won’t have it. Wants to check for herself.’ He gave Zac a cutting glance. ‘Make doubly certain to protect your pretty arse.’
Zac gave him a tight smile. ‘My arse thanks you for the compliment.’
After that, and Mark’s answering grunt, they waited in silence, only interrupted by Mark’s occasional mutterings into his comms.
It was twenty minutes before Kat returned, frustration etched across her face. ‘I can’t believe we didn’t find him.’
Unbelievably relieved to see her back, Zac ached to kiss the annoyance right out of her, yet he wasn’t sure how well that display of affection would go down while she was on duty. Even though he was the duty.
‘My guess, for what it’s worth, is he took a look into the ballroom, saw you were still with Zac, and decided it was too risky,’ Mark stated matter of factly.
‘What about the theory that he was a fan, looking for an autograph?’ Zac pointed out. ‘Or hey, maybe he worked here?’
Mark’s lip actually curled. ‘You don’t believe the first, and if you really think we haven’t shown his photo to the hotel staff, what are you doing continuing to trust your safety to the care of such numpties?’
While Zac wracked his frazzled brain for a suitably cutting response, Kat cut in. ‘Gee, enough testosterone, the pair of you. At least now we have a photo of a suspect. It’s one step closer than we were four hours ago.’ She gave them both a sharp teacher-to-unruly-pupil look and nodded to the door. ‘Now let’s get out of here.’
As Mark marched out ahead, Zac took a moment to capture Kat’s hand, and pull her towards him. ‘I believe we were discussing you getting me into bed.’ He touched his lips to hers for one too-short kiss. ‘Are we still on?’
He’d hoped for a smile, but instead he got a weary sigh, her intense disappointment at not catching the guy still blindingly clear. ‘If we can keep you alive long enough to get you into bed then yes, sure.’
He didn’t care that Mark was no doubt pacing outside. He didn’t care that Kat was itching to get her ‘job’ finished tonight. He took his time giving her another kiss, hoping she would feel his love for her in the tender press of his mouth on hers. ‘Have faith,’ he whispered as he drew back. ‘My bodyguard is Kat Parker. No way am I getting shot.’
She raised her eyes to the ceiling, but when she looked back at him there was a slight flush to her cheeks, and when he smiled at her, she smiled back.