Beauty and the Bodyguard. Merline Lovelace

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СКАЧАТЬ of this enigmatic stranger’s eyes on her breasts, Allie’s fingers scrunched on the torn chiffon. For the second time that night, an unfamiliar sensation rippled through her. Not quite attraction. Not exactly curiosity. More an awareness that crept through her at some subconscious level and left her feeling off balance.

      With some effort, she controlled an instinctive feminine impulse to cross her arms over her breasts. She hadn’t felt this self-conscious about her body since she’d posed for the college classmate who’d begged her for some test shots to add to his portfolio. Those shots had launched both Dominic’s career and her own, and Allie had shed her prudish modesty under the unforgiving eye of the camera. Or so she’d thought.

      When his gaze finally made it back to her face, his eyes held a predatory male gleam that Allie recognized instantly. A slow, liquid disappointment spilled through her.

      Earlier, this man’s cool detachment had intrigued her almost as much as his tie. For a few moments, she’d imagined he was different. That he didn’t care about appearances. She’d actually let herself believe he was trying to see past the image she projected to the person within when he pinned her with that cool look.

      He wasn’t detached now, if that brief flare of masculine interest was any indication. Telling herself she was crazy to be disappointed because a man appreciated the exterior packaging she worked so hard to perfect, Allie lifted her chin.

      “I don’t think we’ve met before.”

      “No, we haven’t.”

      When he didn’t appear inclined to elaborate, she extended her free hand. “I’m—”

      “I know who you are, Miss Fortune.”

      Her hand dropped slowly. The fact that this stranger knew her name didn’t particularly surprise her. Mass marketing and the explosion of media interest in the lives of top models had made them into the superstars of the nineties. As a result, Allie’s face usually garnered instant recognition whenever she walked into a room.

      Lately, it had garnered something else, as well. Something dark and frightening.

      An echo of the call that had dragged Allie from sleep only last night whispered through her mind. She bit her lip as her inexplicable preoccupation with the man standing before her slipped, like a car skidding on a patch of ice, then skidded into unease. Silently she stared up at him.

      Etched by moonlight, his face showed no softness, only sharp, uncompromising angles. A square chin, darkened by late-night shadow. A nose that had collided with some solid object once or twice in its past. Lean cheeks. And those scars on the left side of his chin and neck…

      Swallowing to clear a suddenly dry throat, Allie broke the little silence. “Well, you may know me, but I don’t know you. Who are you, and what are you doing here?”

      “My name’s Rafe Stone. I’m your bodyguard, Miss Fortune.”

      Stunned, Allie stared up at him. “My what?”

      “Your prospective bodyguard,” he corrected. “I’ve been asked to take on the job of guarding your person.”

      “By…by whom?”

      “By your father.”

      For several long moments, Allie could only gape at him. Then anger washed through her. Swift, hot anger that she refused to let this stranger see.

      Jake Fortune couldn’t stop trying to control her, any more than he could his other children or his wife or his thousands of employees. On the heels of that bitter thought came the cynical realization that her father was just trying to protect the “face” that he’d staked his company’s future on.

      “When did my father hire you?”

      “We haven’t closed the deal, but the understanding was I’d start tonight, if I decided to accept the job.”

      “Tonight?” She lifted a scornful brow. “Then why didn’t you intercede a little earlier, Mr. Stone? You must have seen me struggling with Hansen.”

      “I haven’t negotiated the terms of my contract with your father yet. Besides,” he added, his gaze drifting to the wet fabric bunched in her hand, “for a while there, I wasn’t any surer than your over-muscled Viking friend just what kind of game you were playing.”

      Allie stiffened. “Then I’d say you’re not very perceptive, for a man who makes his living watching people.”

      One dark brow lifted sardonically. “Perceptive enough to see who invited whom for a stroll in the dark.”

      “You know, Mr. Stone,” Allie replied, spacing each word carefully, “I don’t think I particularly want you guarding my person.”

      “Maybe you should talk to your father about it.”

      “I will.”

      She tried for a dignified exit, which wasn’t easy, with her French twist scraggling down her neck and her dress clinging to her thighs with every step. The walk up to the house seemed to take several lifetimes longer than the walk down to the lake.

      Rafe followed at a more leisurely pace, his eyes on the slender figure ahead of him. He wondered if she had any idea of the way that wet handkerchief of a dress clung to her body, or what it did to his lungs. Rafe grimaced at the thought. Of course she did. Women like Allison Fortune were probably born knowing their impact on men.

      All right, so her wide-spaced eyes, full mouth and endless limbs were the stuff of late-night fantasies. So he’d felt an immediate, gut-level urge to stroke his thumb across those impossible cheekbones when he first spotted her across the noisy room. Rafe possessed what he assumed was a normal testosterone level. Any man’s hands would itch to touch her skin, just to see if it was smooth and creamy as it looked.

      Unfortunately, his initial reaction to Allison Fortune had been mild compared to the one Rafe experienced now. Watching her stride up the sloping lawn with an easy, long-legged grace detonated small implosions of heat, one right after another, just below his belt line. For all her almost boyish slenderness, the woman had a figure that would stop traffic on any street, in any city, on any continent.

      Good thing she didn’t want him guarding that body, Rafe thought cynically, any more than he wanted the job. He didn’t need the staggering sum Jake Fortune had offered, nor did he need the kind of complications his involuntary reaction to Allison Fortune could cause. The reputation he’d earned in certain circles for his ability to penetrate seemingly impossible locations and extract hostages brought him more business than he could handle. He’d succeeded in that dark and dangerous world because of his ruthless ability to focus on his target. If he let himself get involved with the person behind that target, he’d lose the razor edge of concentration his work demanded.

      Besides, Rafe had survived one disastrous experience with a beautiful woman, and he was a man who learned from his mistakes. His ex-wife wasn’t anywhere near Allie Fortune’s class in looks, of course, but her breathless baby-doll beauty had turned more than a few heads.

      Phyllis had left him three years ago, when it became clear that no amount of surgery would erase the scars left by the bomb that had almost killed him and his client. Rafe had made it a point to steer clear of any entanglements ever since…which made him all the more wary of his instant animal attraction to the woman СКАЧАТЬ