Her Tycoon Protector Read online

  ‘You can’t think so badly of me when you’re attracted to me yourself. Let’s not forget you even made a play for me once.’

  Her heart twisted at the painful reminder, but she managed to hide behind a curl of her lip. ‘Yes, well, I was less discriminating when I was young.’ She had been twenty and heartsick and, bolstered by liquid courage, she had made her only attempt to seduce him. Her failure had bruised her pride, but her feelings hadn’t changed. Then, of course, there was that other time… ‘Your actions later had nothing so reasonable to commend them. Merely a slavish devotion to duty,’ she returned scornfully.

  A nerve ticked in Gray’s jaw as he shook his head wryly. ‘You certainly know how to hold a grudge, don’t you, Red?’

  Shelby smiled at him frostily. ‘Did you think I wouldn’t? You were a first-class rat, and that’s the way I shall always think of you,’ she hissed back. Oh, what a whopper of a lie that was.

  ‘All because I did nothing?’

  ‘It isn’t what you did or didn’t do, it was why you did it. My God, you made me think you wanted me, when all you were doing was following orders. It was crass and unworthy of you, Gray. How could you have stooped so low, even for my father? Don’t expect me to ever forgive you.’ Shelby declared bitingly, her green eyes icy with scorn.

  Gray’s eyes glittered. ‘You know, Red, you have to be one of the few redheads I know who actually live up to their billing. Makes a man wonder.’

  It was a leading remark, and she knew she shouldn’t go there, but she just couldn’t help herself. It was always like that with Gray.

  ‘Makes you wonder what?’ she asked, and his wicked grin was fair warning that she wouldn’t like what he was about to say.

  ‘If you’re as passionate in bed as out of it,’ Gray responded, with the kind of glint in his eye that made her heart turn over.

  She looked at him haughtily. ‘Too late. You had your chance and you blew it. Trust me, Gray, that is the one thing you will never, ever find out now.’ As she would never find out what it would be like to be made love to by him. But that was a mental path better not travelled.

  He tutted. ‘You’re just put out because I discovered you were attracted to me,’ he riposted, taking her breath away at his gall.

  Sadly, she couldn’t deny it. She had given herself away in the unexpected joy of what she had believed the moment was. ‘All that does is make me human, even if my taste is doubtful. What does it say of you, when you merely pretended to want me?’ she countered thickly.

  ‘Who said it was all pretence? You’re an attractive woman, despite your faults,’ Gray argued, momentarily knocking Shelby off balance, but she rallied swiftly.

  ‘I do. I was there, remember? You turned the heat on and off as easily as flicking a switch! It was disgusting. You didn’t want me. You were just doing your job. I hope your conscience doesn’t let you sleep nights.’

  Something flickered in and out of his eyes before she could catch it, and his jaw set. ‘If my conscience bothers me, it wouldn’t be because of you. Anyway, I’m curious. What irks you more, Red? That I might have pretended to want you, or that I stopped before things went too far?’

  Oh, that took the biscuit. She felt like scratching his eyes out. ‘You have no idea how glad I am you stopped. I would never have felt clean again if you hadn’t. No wonder my father likes you so much. Your commitment to your work is unparalleled. But I don’t like you, and if you imagine for one second I’m going to sit still for this—’ she began, only to end on a gasp as his hand snaked out and fastened on her wrist.

  Gray’s lips remained curved in a smile in case Oscar should turn and see them, but his eyes were coldly angry. ‘Listen to me, you’re going to do exactly what’s expected of you. I have a great deal of respect and affection for your father, and I won’t have you worrying him so much he ends up in hospital. For some reason that escapes me, he loves you, and if you have any feelings for him at all you’ll put his mind at rest. Do you hear me?’ he hissed through gritted teeth.

  She stared at him, throat tight with emotion. ‘Despite what you think, I love my father very much!’ she exclaimed, cut to the quick that he could think her so selfish. Yet, even as she thought it, she knew she had been behaving selfishly. Her father was seriously worried, and all she could think about was not wanting to have her life disrupted! She was ashamed of herself.

  ‘Then do the right thing for once in your life,’ he growled in a powerful undertone.

  Shelby quivered with emotion, eyes flashing stormily. Oh, how she hated that it was Gray who made her see sense. ‘I hate you!’

  He smiled mockingly. ‘I know. Hell, isn’t it? Hating me and yet wanting me?’

  Her stomach lurched at the arrogance in his tone. ‘I don’t want you,’ she denied through gritted teeth, but he merely laughed softly.

  ‘I could prove otherwise, but at the moment we have more pressing things to sort out. So, what’s it to be?’

  As if there was a choice. Shelby loved her father, and would never do anything to hurt him. OK, she didn’t take the threat seriously, but all she really needed to know was that he did. That was what she had to think about. ‘All right, I’ll agree to the bodyguard. Now let me go!’

  Having secured her agreement, he released her hand, trailing his fingers over her palm as he did so. The small action made her catch her breath and he smiled knowingly as he straightened up. ‘Wise choice. Like it or not, you’re stuck with me now,’ he added and, much to her chagrin, laughed softly. ‘So, tell me, what have you been doing with yourself lately? Still running amok through the local male population?’

  Before she could come back with a pithy retort, her father returned with their drinks. ‘Here you are, Gray.’ He handed over a glass of golden liquid, which the younger man took but didn’t immediately touch. ‘What are you two talking about? Old times?’

  Blue eyes glinted roguishly. ‘Actually, I was just asking Shelby about her love life,’ Gray remarked goadingly, and Shelby’s heart sank. Her father strongly disapproved of her dating habits.

  Oscar Greer snorted. ‘Love life? I wouldn’t call it that! She’s like a butterfly, flitting from man to man, never stopping long enough to find out if there could be a relationship. Whatever she’s looking for, she’ll never find it going on the way she does.’

  ‘Dad!’ Shelby exclaimed in protest, although there was far too much truth in what her father had said. Of course she didn’t linger, but there was a reason for that. She wouldn’t give false hope to any man. She had already found what she was looking for, and it was a closed door. So she wasn’t so much searching as marking time. Catching Gray’s mocking glance, she rushed to change the subject. ‘Gray doesn’t want to hear about my love life.’

  Gray quirked an eyebrow at her. ‘If you want to keep secrets, try being more circumspect. I learn all I need to from the gossip columns.’

  Colour stormed into her cheeks, for those columns were a constant source of misery for her. Unfortunately it was the price of fame. ‘You shouldn’t believe all you read.’ They made her out to be some sort of maneater, which she most certainly wasn’t. Far from it, in fact.

  ‘You’re just as bad, Gray. You have no staying power either,’ Oscar told his right-hand man, and Shelby laughed.

  ‘You tell him, Dad. It’s shocking the way he goes on,’ she sniped whilst blue eyes threatened retribution.

  Her father tsked, though there was a reluctant gleam of humour in the twitch of his lips. ‘Sometimes I want to knock both your heads together. When are you going to settle down? The way you’re going on, you’re both going to end up with nobody.’

  Her throat closed over at her father’s obvious concern. ‘I’ll settle down one day, Dad. When I find the right man.’

  ‘He could be under your nose and you wouldn’t see him!’

  Shelby bit her lip at the unwitting accuracy of his words. Except she had seen him. How could she tell her father the man she wanted hadn’t wanted her? ‘I
’ll have my eyes tested, I promise,’ she said, attempting to tease him out of his mood. She succeeded, for Oscar Greer patted her hand and smiled at her.

  ‘I’m nagging, I know, but it’s a father’s prerogative to worry about his daughter.’

  ‘Speaking of which,’ Gray inserted swiftly, ‘Shelby has something she wants to tell you,’ he declared, shooting her a pointed look.

  Having been put on the spot, Shelby cleared her throat and looked at her father. ‘I’ve, er, been talking to Gray, and we…that is, I realise I’ve been behaving stupidly. So…’ She took a deep breath and dived in. ‘I’ll agree to the bodyguard,’ she ended on a rush. Glancing at Gray, she set her jaw. ‘Happy now?’

  Fortunately her father chose not to question the how of it, but sent her a broad smile of relief. ‘Thank you, darling. That’s a weight off my mind. I didn’t know how I was going to get through this if you kept on refusing to see sense.’

  Which made her feel even more guilty than she had been. ‘Yes, well, Gray made me see things more clearly,’ she enlarged uncomfortably, and Oscar looked past her to the younger man.

  ‘Thank you, Gray.’

  ‘My pleasure.’

  ‘We should sit down and talk about tactics,’ her father said, urging them towards the comfortable chairs and couches ranged around the fireplace. Shelby took a seat at the other end of the couch from Gray and waited to hear her fate.

  ‘It goes without saying that we put ourselves entirely in your hands,’ Oscar told the younger man the moment they were all seated.

  Shelby immediately saw a flaw. ‘Hang on a second. I know I’ve agreed in principle, but I’d like to know what qualifies Gray for the job before I hand myself over to him on a plate.’

  One eyebrow quirked lazily. ‘Don’t you trust me, Red? I’m hurt. I thought you knew better.’

  She knew what he was referring to, and it was just like him to throw that in her face. Of course, he had no idea of the real blow he had dealt her, for she had licked her wounds in private, and still did. Her palm itched to slap him, but all she did was send him a narrow look. ‘I was wondering what qualifications you could possibly have for this job,’ she shot back. It was, after all, a reasonable question.

  ‘I wear many hats, Red. Amongst other things, I am a security expert. If you want my credentials, all I can tell you is that I learnt my trade in the forces.’

  ‘You were in the army?’ That came as a total surprise. She immediately had visions of him doing the daring sort of things she had seen done in numerous Hollywood movies.

  He shrugged lightly. ‘You know how it is with boys; we never get over playing with our toy soldiers.’

  ‘I never saw you playing with soldiers,’ Shelby pointed out. ‘And what you’re talking about is hi-tech stuff. That’s not just ordinary soldiering. It sounds more…covert.’ The notion intrigued her. ‘What sort of things did you do?’

  Gray suddenly looked amused. ‘As they say in all the best movies, I could tell you but then I’d have to kill you,’ he said with a wry grin.

  Her father laughed. ‘Suffice it to say he is eminently qualified for the job, Shelby.’

  In her heart of hearts she knew it. Gray had always been the kind of man who did well at whatever he chose to take on. It was time to give in as gracefully as possible. ‘OK, OK, point taken. So what happens next?’

  All laughter vanished as Gray’s expression grew serious. ‘We become joined at the hip, for however long it takes.’

  That sounded awfully intimate—something that didn’t sit well with her at all. She frowned at him. ‘I understood you would be watching me from a distance.’

  To her dismay he shook his head. ‘Then you understood wrongly. If I’m to be of any use, then I have to be on hand twenty-four-seven.’

  Shelby had a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. ‘By ‘on hand’ you mean…?’

  Gray’s smile reappeared, laden with mockery. ‘Just what you think I mean, Red. I’ll be moving into your spare room for the duration.’

  At that point Shelby closed her eyes. It was her worst nightmare. She could handle her feelings for Gray at a distance, but having him in her own home would mean that after this was all over he would be imprinted in her rooms. She would be able to imagine him there, and her sanctuary would no longer exist. Yet what could she do? Creating a scene was out of the question now that she had agreed to have the bodyguard. She was doomed.

  Or was she? There was, of course, one other possibility. Perhaps she was just dreaming all this, and when she woke it would all fade away. When she really opened her eyes, Gray would be gone and her life would be back to normal again.

  Her despairing thoughts were interrupted by the ringing of the telephone and she opened her eyes to see her father crossing the room to answer it. Gray, meanwhile, sat watching her from the opposite end of the couch. It wasn’t a dream. It was for real.

  ‘Sorry to disappoint you, but I’m still here,’ he told her, clearly knowing exactly what she had been thinking.

  Deeply rattled, Shelby crossed one silk-clad leg over the other and crossed her arms to match. ‘You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?’ she challenged with a basilisk glare.

  Gray didn’t laugh. ‘I see nothing amusing in protecting you from being seriously hurt…or worse.’

  Shelby tapped out a tattoo on her arm with her fingers. ‘You can’t possibly take it all seriously.’

  That, if anything, made him look grimmer. ‘Better that than to do nothing and live with the consequences. I’ve been down that road, and I’ll tell you this for nothing—it isn’t going to happen again!’

  Shelby’s lips parted on a tiny gasp of surprise. This was an unexpected revelation. ‘What do you mean? What happened?’

  Now his mouth twisted into a bitter smile as he shook his head. ‘You don’t want to know. The important thing is that I’m going to be doing everything in my power to prevent anything like it happening to you!’

  She pressed a hand to a suddenly queasy stomach. His message got through loud and clear. ‘Why? I mean, what do you care what happens to me?’

  ‘I care because your father is a good man.’

  ‘It’s…all for him, then?’ For a fleeting moment she had harboured the idea that he might just care about her a little. Her heart suffered another bruise as she realised she ought to have known better.

  Gray’s eyes looked piercingly into hers for an instant. ‘Did you think it would be for you?’

  Shelby swallowed her hurt and shrugged. ‘Of course not. I know better than that.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it. After all, why should I care anything for a woman who has done all the things you have?’ Gray observed sardonically.

  Which, as it happened, was very much what she thought too. She had done nothing to endear herself to him. Why would he fall in love with her, or care anything about her? She had no answer, only wished that, despite everything, he could somehow do both. Flying pigs, though, were in short supply these days. So she rallied her spirit and responded swiftly.

  ‘Leave my past out of this, Gray!’ she commanded sharply, making him shake his head again.

  ‘I can see why you would want to. It’s not very flattering.’

  No, it wasn’t, but she had worked hard to live it down. A fact he chose to overlook. ‘I’m trying to put all that behind me,’ she insisted, and he gave her a measuring look.

  ‘Well, now. Let’s hope you live long enough to do it. Which brings us back to why I’m here.’

  Before Shelby could say anything more, her father rejoined them.

  ‘Sorry about that. Now, where were we?’ he asked as he made himself comfortable in his chair once more.

  ‘I’d just told Shelby that I would be moving into her spare room.’

  Oscar shot her a quick glance. ‘How did she take it?’

  Gray’s lips twitched. ‘About as well as we expected.’

  Shelby rolled her eyes. ‘Will you please stop talking about me as if
I’m not here?’ she commanded in exasperation. ‘I have the right to make the important decisions about my life.’

  ‘That’s good, because you’ve already made the most important one. You agreed with your father’s decision to ask for my help,’ Gray put in swiftly. ‘And, as I told you, I’m not going to let anything happen to you, Red,’ he added in the quietly confident way of his that had the uncanny knack of calming the nerves in her stomach immediately.

  She stared at him hard, trying to penetrate those devilish blue eyes. ‘That’s a promise, is it?’

  ‘Cross my heart,’ he retorted, making the gesture to confirm it.

  However much she trusted him when it came to his work, Shelby wasn’t going to appear to be won over too quickly. ‘Do you really have to move in to do it? Couldn’t you…oh, I don’t know…surveille—is that a word?—the house from a plain vehicle or something?’ she suggested rather wildly in a last-ditch attempt to retrieve her privacy.

  Not surprisingly, Gray’s brows had risen as she meandered on and by the end he was frowning. ‘You’ve been watching far too many movies. Trust me, I know what’s needed.’

  ‘And you need to be in my home.’ It was a flat statement rather than a question. Gray answered it anyway.

  ‘Following your every step like Peter Pan’s shadow.’

  That was hardly designed to improve her mood, and she knew it was a deliberate goad. She was going to have to resign herself to his being there for some time, and the worst of it was that she was still convinced the whole thing was a waste of time. However, her father feared the worst, and she wasn’t about to add to his worries. She could do this for him.

  ‘How long will it take you to get your things together?’ Shelby enquired with a heavy heart.

  ‘I have everything I need in the boot of my car, so I’ll be ready to leave whenever you are,’ he informed her, and her hope that he would delay his arrival until the next day was dashed.

  Her father was all smiles. ‘You’ll be staying to dinner, I hope, now that everything’s decided?’