Hot Ice (A Hostile Operations Team Novel - Book 7) Page 3

“I’m Garrett, ma’am. Or Spencer if you prefer something more formal.”

  She hesitated, and he wondered if she was considering something like Jeeves instead. “Garrett is fine.”

  She smiled, but it didn’t seem very genuine. It wavered at the corners, as if she were forcing it. His dislike flared.

  I don’t want to be here any more than you do, lady.

  The senator walked over to his desk and picked up an envelope that he then handed to Garrett. “Here’s a key to the town house. And there’s an armored car waiting outside for you.”

  Grace’s smile had faded completely. In fact, her jaw now hung open. “A key to my house?”

  Senator Campbell gave his daughter a stern look, no doubt because she sounded so offended that a lackey like Garrett would dare to have a key. “It’s a Campbell house, princess, and yes, the man needs a key of his own.”

  Grace was having none of it. “I pay rent every month like any other tenant would do—”

  “You pay rent because you wanted to.”

  Her hands clenched into fists at her sides. Her knuckles were white again. “It’s my house. My space. You promised—”

  “Princess.”

  Princess, indeed. But that one word stopped the words from flowing. She still looked upset. Her pale skin was now flushed, the pink glow in her cheeks making her look more alive and less, well, frosty.

  “You agreed to let the man do his job. So let him do it.”

  She’d agreed. Fucking fabulous.

  Her head bowed a fraction. “Of course.”

  “Here’s a copy of her schedule.” Senator Campbell handed him a folder.

  Garrett didn’t open it. There was plenty of time for that—plus he didn’t like the way Grace’s shoulders suddenly sagged. As if she were sinking under the weight of her father’s authority.

  Then he shook himself mentally. Her daddy called her princess and ordered up military security for her—and Garrett felt sorry for her? No, she just didn’t like that she was about to be curtailed in her actions. That she had a keeper to answer to for the foreseeable future.

  Jesus, this job got more and more exciting every damn second.

  The senator went to his daughter and gave her a quick squeeze. “I have a vote on the floor in half an hour. You’ll be safe with this man, princess. Do as he says and all will be well.”

  “Yes, Daddy.”

  “Your mother and I will see you tonight at the benefit.”

  Grace’s eyes were flat, distant. But her smile returned. Her fake, forced smile. “I look forward to it.”

  She looked up and met Garrett’s gaze then, her expression resigned and a touch annoyed. Well, she wasn’t the only one who was annoyed. Not by a long, long shot.

  *

  Grace’s heart beat a little faster than usual as she strode along beside the man who’d been sent to play guard dog for her. He was tall and, my God, broad like a football player. His hair was dark brown or black, and his eyes were a shocking gunmetal gray that had looked upon her with what she was certain was barely disguised disdain.

  He’d drawn the short straw when it came to this assignment, apparently. She could just see the guys at the security firm now—tough, lethal men standing around a table and all declaring there was no way in hell they wanted to squire a pampered senator’s daughter around town.

  Though really, that was ridiculous, because why would they care? It was money and a job, and she didn’t think they stood around and drew straws for assignments. Then again, what did she know about personal security and the kind of people who worked in it?

  When they reached the door, he put a hand out to stop her before she could walk through.

  “I go first from now on,” he said, his gaze serious as it raked over her face.

  Grace tried not to focus on the way his hand spanned her arm or the way little bolts of lightning raced beneath her skin where he touched her. It was a warm day out, and while she was wearing sleeves, they were thin. His warmth seared her.

  “Very well,” she said tightly because she didn’t know what else to say.

  He pushed the door open and stopped, scanning the street as he slipped on a pair of mirrored sunglasses. Then he turned and nodded at her, and she walked out the door to join him.

  A car pulled up to the curb, a big black Cadillac Escalade that she recognized as one of her father’s. A man got out as they approached and spoke with Garrett. They shook hands, and the driver walked away, toward the Senate office building.

  Garrett opened the back door for her. She got inside and took out her phone while he walked around to the driver’s side and got in. Then he hit the locks, and the clack of them startled her a little. It was just like being a kid again in some ways. She’d had no control over what she did then, or who went with her, and she’d hated it.

  She wasn’t an idiot, and she knew why she needed this man with her now. But she didn’t like it because it made her uncomfortable. She didn’t like strangers, didn’t do well with them, and it bothered her that she felt so awkward. She spent more time thinking about what she should say, or could say, when all she wanted was to be left alone.

  The worst kinds of hired help when she’d been a child had been the talkers. Those people who wouldn’t stop talking, even when she had her head buried in a book. She just wanted silence, but they thought they had to occupy her at every turn. She was slightly ashamed of herself for being unable to engage with them back then, but those days were long past. She could talk now when she had to, could fake it for the cameras and the public appearances when necessary.

  Garrett Spencer didn’t say a word as he pressed the gas and the car began to move toward Constitution Avenue. She thought she should be happy he didn’t talk to her, but she found it somewhat disconcerting.

  Grace scrolled through her e-mail, intent on focusing on her job and her life and forgetting that she’d just lost a major portion of the control and independence she’d worked so hard for.

  It’s temporary, she told herself. Only temporary.

  And necessary. She had no desire to meet the man who’d held her at gunpoint ever again. She wanted him found, and then she wanted her life back.

  Until then, she had to deal with this dark, silent distraction of a man in the front seat of her daddy’s armored Escalade. Her stomach sank just a little at that notion.

  She’d intended to go to work after her meeting on the Hill with her father, but her bodyguard appeared to have other ideas. When she realized he wasn’t headed for Bethesda, her heartbeat kicked up and she could feel the flush staining her skin. She thought about that copy of her schedule her father had given him and cursed herself for not demanding to see it then and there.

  “Excuse me, but I think you missed the turn.”

  His mirrored gaze flicked up to the rearview, back down again. “I didn’t miss anything. We’re going to your home. You’ll stay there until the event this evening.”

  Shock filled her that he could so easily override her wishes. And then anger swelled inside her. “I beg your pardon? I didn’t agree to that. Turn around now and take me to the lab.”

  He was silent for a long moment. Then he glanced at her again, a polite smile on his handsome face—though she could see a muscle flexing in his jaw. “Not happening… princess.”

  Grace couldn’t contain her gasp of outrage. Fresh heat flooded her cheeks. “You work for my father, and you will not speak to me with disrespect—or I will have you fired.”

  One eyebrow quirked up as he glanced at her again, and the heat of embarrassment rolled through her. My God, she sounded like a spoiled child. That definitely wasn’t the tone she’d been going for. But she couldn’t help it.

  She could hear her mother in her ear, her cultured tones dressing down anyone who crossed her. Her mother sounded elegant and refined when she did it. Grace sounded like a hoity-toity bitch.

  Still, she was pissed. Red-hot anger pulsed in her veins. In spite of the coolness of the car, sweat
beaded between her breasts, under their curves. Her ears and scalp were hot too.

  “You want to get me fired?” he drawled. “Go for it, cupcake. I don’t think it’ll turn out the way you expect, though. Your father wanted the best—and he got it when my firm got involved. I’m here to stay until the danger is over, whether you like it or not.”

  She sat back and crossed her arms over her breasts. Her heart pounded and her pulse throbbed. She hated confrontation, hated it with a passion—and yet she wanted more than anything to wipe that look off his face.

  She sniffed in disdain. “Cupcake? Really? Don’t they teach you anything about sexual harassment where you work? Or is that a bit too much for your muscle-bound brain to process?”

  He snorted a laugh. “Why don’t you tell me what you really think, Grace?”

  Her name on his lips was even more shocking than when he’d called her princess. She wanted him to say it again so she could see if the same shiver slid along her nerve endings, and that only made her mad.

  “I think you’re a jerk.”

  He yanked his glasses off and met her eyes in the rearview. The effect of those gray eyes in his tanned face made her heart pound for a very different reason.

  “Come on, honey. You can say it. You think I’m an asshole.”

  “Right now, yes. Five minutes ago, I just wished you’d go away and leave me alone.”

  He flipped on the signal and made a turn. Then he glanced at her again. “You don’t want me here, and I don’t particularly want to be here. But this is the job, and if we’re going to get through it, we’re going to do it my way. You might as well get used to that now. I don’t need you to like me. I don’t need you to talk to me, or bake me cookies, or any other damn polite thing you might think you need to do for the hired help. All I need is for you to do what I tell you. And what I’m telling you is that we’re going to your house, and we’re staying there until this benefit tonight. After the benefit, we’re going back to your house, and not leaving again until morning. I don’t fucking care if you have a problem with any of that, but if I have to put my ass on the line for yours, the least you can do is trust my judgment.”

  Grace could feel her jaw slip open as he talked. She closed it with a snap when he finished his little speech. And she felt more than a bit angry and chastened all at once. Because he was putting his butt on the line for her.

  “You believe in laying it all out there, don’t you? Cards on the table?”

  “Yes, I fucking do.”

  She shook her head. “You really have a mouth on you. Does your employer like you talking to clients like that?”

  “My employer probably says worse.”

  She sniffed—and sounded prissy as hell doing it, dammit.

  Garrett snorted, but she lifted her chin and ignored him.

  “The English language is filled with words that would get your point across just as well—and not be so offensive in the process.”

  As if she never swore. As if she’d never said fuck in her life—well, she hadn’t done it often, that’s for sure, but she’d definitely been angry enough from time to time.

  “Yeah, but they’re so hard to remember with this muscle-bound brain of mine. Best to stick to the basics, don’t you think?”

  Grace decided not to answer that. She turned her head and looked out over the Potomac as they crossed into Virginia. She’d had bodyguards before, when she was a kid and her father was running for reelection or introducing a particularly polarizing bill and receiving death threats, but she couldn’t remember any of them acting like this one. Though if they had, they certainly wouldn’t have done it around a teenager.

  “I don’t think you like me much,” she said. “And I’m fairly certain I don’t like you. But I guess we’re stuck together for the foreseeable future. I think this will work best if you don’t talk to me unless you have to.”

  “That’s good with me. Just follow my instructions, Grace, and we’ll get along fine.”

  His eyes sparked as he glanced at her in the rearview, and that same shiver of anticipation as before slid through her when he said her name.

  Somehow, she didn’t think they were going to get along at all.

  CHAPTER THREE

  GRACE CAMPBELL LIVED IN A FEDERAL-STYLE town house in Alexandria, Virginia. In fact, she was one street over from where Sam “Knight Rider” McKnight’s fiancée, Georgie, had her town house. Small fucking world. Also damn helpful because it meant the guys were close by. Georgie had given them enthusiastic permission to set up a headquarters there so they could monitor this mission.

  Not all the guys, because Mendez didn’t think it required the whole team to watch one spoiled rich girl, but Knight Rider, Flash, and Chase “Fiddler” Daniels were there at the moment. Snipers weren’t required yet, so Brandy, Victoria, and Dex were elsewhere, along with team members Matt, Kev, Lucky, and Billy the Kid.

  Garrett made Grace wait in the car with the doors locked while he checked out her place. There were no signs of forced entry, and no one in the interior, so he retrieved a fuming Grace from the car and ushered her inside. She left him standing in her entry and stomped up her stairs without saying another word.

  He almost laughed. But he couldn’t laugh because he was too focused on the roundness of her ass—and then, when she got high enough, he could see up her skirt to the blue lacy panties beneath.

  Shit.

  He did not need a hard-on, and he definitely didn’t need it over this woman. Snotty thing.

  Except a little twinge of guilt pricked him because he’d been a dick first. He was on edge from his last conversation with his ex and the tearful call from Cammie just last night, and he’d snapped when he shouldn’t. None of that was Grace’s fault, but when she’d told him in that prissy tone, after being so icy to him in her father’s office, that she’d get him fired if he didn’t do what she wanted, he’d fucking lost it.

  He shouldn’t have done that. He put a hand on the back of his neck and rubbed as he took out his phone and dialed. Knight Rider answered on the first ring.

  “Hey, man, in position. Location secure, Princess upstairs sulking.”

  Sam laughed. “Princess? Thought we were calling her Camper.”

  They always had code names for the principals, and Camper had fit because of the last name. Except that it didn’t anymore.

  “Trust me, she’s a princess. With a scepter up her ass and everything.”

  “Damn, dude, maybe Mendez should have picked one of us for this assignment.”

  “He should have. Except I’m the only one who knows which fork to use in the event someone serves a fucking trout. Thanks, Mom.”

  Like the guys would ever let him live that one down. It was now common knowledge that his mother was an etiquette expert—and he’d been her star pupil. Well, Richie Rich knew which fork to use too, but his sister and brother-in-law were part of the Washington scene, and there would be too many questions if he showed up with a senator’s daughter when they knew he was engaged to his hometown sweetheart.

  So that left Garrett.

  “Yeah, who knew, Fancy Pants?”

  Garrett rolled his eyes. If the guys had their way, they’d change his team name from Iceman to Fancy Pants in half a second flat. He wasn’t about to let that happen.

  “I’ll fucking rip your balls off and shove them down your throat, McKnight, if you don’t stop calling me that.”

  “Yeah, yeah, all right. Too sensitive, man. And hey, if you can find the time to teach me to waltz when we’re done, Georgie’d be grateful.”

  In the background, he heard a feminine voice sing out. “Stop teasing him, Sam.”

  “You got a delivery for me?” Garrett growled.

  “Yep. Flash is bringing your tux and suitcase over later. I’ll call you first.”

  Garrett finished the call and then loosened his tie and yanked it from his collar. Then he shrugged out of the jacket and tossed it on a chair in the living room. Posh livin
g room with a velvet couch and silk Louis-the-something chairs. His mother had tried to impress fashion and decor on him, but he’d drawn a line. He could tie his own ties—bow or Windsor—and he could pick out a suit and shoes. But furniture was a nonstarter.

  His own came from a local cheapo shop because if it was going to get beat up in military moves, he wasn’t investing in anything nice.

  There was a piano, and fresh flowers in a vase on a library table that was artfully stacked with books. Knowing Grace Campbell’s type, she’d probably read every last one of them.

  He walked through the living room and into the dining room complete with gleaming mahogany table and chairs that were definitely antiques. Fine art graced the walls, but he had no idea what they were beyond landscapes and still lifes.

  The kitchen was big, with stainless steel appliances, white cabinetry, and gray marble countertops. Definitely the latest and greatest for this woman.

  He rolled up his sleeves as he prowled the rest of the downstairs. There was a den with at least a sixty-inch television on the wall and a library lined with leather books. Rich people. His mother would have died to see this place. And she’d have been right at home too, pouring tea and chatting like the fucking queen of England.

  He’d started back toward the front of the house when he heard a scraping sound coming from the rear entry. There was no peephole on this door, and he already knew it was shaded from the windows by a portico lined with vines.

  He slipped his gun from his shoulder holster and went over by the door. It rattled and scraped—and then it flew open and someone stepped inside.

  Garrett lunged.

  *

  Grace was halfway down the stairs when she heard the scream. She’d gone up to change into yoga pants and do her workout, but she’d come back downstairs to get a bottle of water. The scream had her running toward the kitchen. She slid through the door to find her bodyguard with his arm wrapped around her best friend’s neck and his pistol against her temple.

  Brooke looked utterly terrified.

  “Let her go!”

  Garrett glanced at her—and released the woman in his arms. Brooke’s face was pale, her eyes wide as she stood there and gulped for breath. Grace strode over and wrapped her arms around her friend. Brooke’s nose only came to Grace’s boobs, so it was kind of awkward, but she dragged Brooke away from Garrett and made soothing noises.