In Bed with the Bodyguard (15 page)

“Something like that.” He bristled, then calmed at the feel of her soft hand on his arm.

“Lance, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to pry. I can tell it's a sore subject. I'll drop it.”

Great, now he'd acted like a total shit who kicked a cheerleader. To make amends, he could get them home, put on a tux, and drive them to the gala as she'd asked.

B
ut when they arrived back at the gallery, tuxedoes were temporarily off their radar.

“I don't believe it.” Ari scrolled the mouse down quickly, scanning an online article that a half dozen so-called friends were only too happy to email or post to their Facebook pages. “That rat bastard.” They'd arrived back at the gallery to the phone ringing like mad and her email in-box beeping every few seconds.

She went back to the beginning of the web page and read it slowly, each word of the conniving article adding fuel to her rage-filled fire. “I'm going to kill him.” As if her day weren't cruddy enough, this latest development heaped the pile of manure to the tipping point.

Without further thought, she stalked barefoot out of her office, out the front door of her gallery, and onto the sidewalk, nearly slamming into an older couple strolling with their hands clasped.

“Ari?” Lance followed at a sprint out the door after her. “What the hell?”

She ignored him and paced up the street toward the direction the bastard usually came from, and then stopped in frustration. Despite Sorenson's frequent visits to her gallery, she'd never been to his home. She knew he lived nearby, but which of the colorful row homes was his, she couldn't say.

Lance caught up to her and yanked her shoulder to hold her in place. “Ari, where are you going?”

She whirled on him filled with fury. “I'm going to find Peter Sorenson, and then I'm going to…” She slowed her speech as she realized her volume and words were creating a scene on the sidewalk.

One person even pulled out a cell phone camera. “Isn't that Stanley Rose's daughter?” came whispers from the gathering crowd.

Lance's anchoring touch calmed her, and she allowed him to guide her back into the privacy of her gallery. “Care to tell me what's going on?” he asked.

She walked back to her office and beckoned him to follow. “There,” she said. She pointed down at her computer monitor. “Read that.”

Lance sank into her desk chair and read the article with a furrowed brow. Her breaths came in deep spurts as if she'd run a mile. She watched as he read through the article, once, twice.

“Well?” she said.

He spun the chair to face her and shrugged. “You're right, he is an ass, but what are you going to do?”

She banged a fist onto her desk. “Kill him.”

Lance made a doubting Thomas face at her and she flattened her hand. “Well, all right, not
kill
him, but I do want to give him a piece of my mind.”

He stood up and came to lean back on the desk in front of her. “You'd only be giving him more ammunition, more fodder with which to run to illegitimate bloggers posing as journalists. I say ignore it.”

She stepped around him to collapse into her desk chair and faced the questionable article on the monitor. “Then what do you suggest I do? I can't let an insult of this magnitude go without a fight.”

The article, entitled “The World through Rose-Colored Lenses,” was a tell-all interview with Peter Sorenson, a supposedly intimate friend of Ms. Arianna Rose, daughter of Stanley Rose. She couldn't even look at her computer monitor without getting angry again. Sorenson had, simply put, told lies about her and skewed details about her life to sound lewd or irresponsible. It had even included something about Lance.

She read aloud,
“On my most recent visit with Arianna, or Anna, as friends call her, she talked of closing her gallery for a few weeks while she took her latest, big-on-muscle, low-on-IQ, lover to an island for some R and R. She refused to disclose which island, even hinting that she may catch a glimpse of a certain missing family member.”
She stopped reading and turned to face Lance, who looked sober.

“Damn, and I thought I'd impressed him with my sharp wit.” He shook his head. “Low on IQ points, huh?”

“He insinuates I know where my father is.” She reached out to pinch his muscled thigh. “Why are you not taking this seriously? Close my gallery for a few weeks. As if. I can only be grateful for small things, like the article not mentioning the FBI seizing the property. That would be the crowning touch to my humiliation.”

Lance stepped over to the desk chair and hoisted her up under her arms long enough to slide under her and perch her on his lap. “I'm taking this seriously, sweetie, but he's a liar, Ari. True friends and real journalists and media outlets will see through this for what it is, a desperate man seeking attention by preying on the misfortune of others.”

She snuggled in closer, allowing herself to be comforted, and prayed he was correct. “So I should do nothing?”

Lance nodded against her scalp. “Ignore him. If you want, I could go prove Sorenson correct and use my strong muscles to beat him to a pulp, but that would require too many IQ points to seek out his address, and we both know I haven't got enough to spare.”

His sarcasm let her see the ridiculousness in the situation and she released a cathartic laugh. “That's how I like my men: great bodies, little minds.”

He scoffed. “You'd grind a lesser man to pieces and have him begging for mercy in minutes.” He pulled her tighter to his chest and murmured into her hair. “So we're staying in tonight, yeah? No need for me to run home for my tuxedo.”

She sat up straight. “What are you talking about?”

Pale red mottled his neck. “I assumed after the article you wouldn't want to go to the party.”

“Huh? Didn't you tell me five seconds ago to ignore it?”

“Well, yeah, but I didn't mean you should go out with a target painted on us.”

“Us? Don't you mean me?” She studied his expression. Why did he look panic stricken? Could he be embarrassed by the article?

“Uh, yes, but I'm kind of mentioned in the article also.”

She patted his firm chest under the worn t-shirt. “Trust me. It's me they're after. You'll be ignored.”

“One can only hope,” he muttered under his breath.

She hopped off his lap. “Go home and grab your tux. I've got a million things to do, if I'm going to be gorgeous by”—she checked her watch—“eight o'clock.” She rushed out of her office and up the stairs to her loft, ignoring Lance's comment about her being gorgeous already. No time for mushy sentiment. She needed her game face on, and that meant an impenetrable social mask ready to beg, plead, and cajole her parents' peers for their money.

“Tell me again why we're here?” Lance tugged at the stiff collar of his white dress shirt. The valet sped Ari's car away from the curb behind him and he grasped her bare arm at the elbow. Averting his head from the flashing bulbs of the local media, he steered Arianna through the wide entrance doors of the elegant hotel.

“We're here to beg, borrow, or steal money from my father's former friends.”

“What?” The acid in his gut churned threateningly.

“You heard me. His former friends, the ones who were only too happy to hand pieces of their financial portfolios to him, chuckle about the high yield, then condemn him publicly when it all fell apart,” she said.

“What were they supposed to do? Go down with him? You father stole from them, Ari.”

She stopped and tugged him over to a more private spot. “Yes, he stole from them, but it doesn't mean his investors are lily white either.”

Lance stared down at her aghast. How had the FBI missed this? “What are you saying? His investors were thieves too?”

She
hmmph
ed in annoyance. “No, of course not, but they were willing to look the other way during the good years. Years when Rose Investments paid ten percent interest when every other firm hovered at four.”

“So?”

“Oh, come on, Lance. If someone came to you and said you'd earn six percent more than everyone else, you wouldn't question it?”

He nodded pensively. “Yeah, I'd wonder how.”

“Exactly,” Arianna said. “My dad's investors must have known something wasn't kosher, but they didn't care. They only looked at the bottom line.” She straightened, thrusting her chest out and chin up. “And now, I'm going to play on their guilt and ask for loans. Only from the ones who didn't lose their shirts to my dad, of course.”

She turned to head into the party in progress, but Lance pulled Ari tight against his chest and inhaled the grapefruit scent of her hair. “Are you sure about this? Won't they be angry seeing you in there? Could you go to the bank for a loan instead?”

She released a huff of sardonic laughter. “Like any bank is going to loan money to a member of the Rose family. Keep dreaming. I think this is the best idea.” She walked ahead and Lance took a tentative step after her. He should've faked an illness or pretended to have a prior engagement.

“Fuck it,” he said to himself and strode after her, bracing himself for the derision.

It wasn't as bad as he'd feared. No one was outright nasty to their faces, but he couldn't pretend he didn't hear the quiet whispers or see the narrowed eyes as they passed small clusters of well-dressed people sipping cocktails. Arianna gave him strength. She'd been facing this kind of scrutiny for the better part of a year. If she could tolerate it that long, he could do it for one night.

“Mr. Zicker.” She broke into one of the tight circles and greeted a robust man approximately in his sixties. Lance hovered on the outside until Ari yanked him forward to introduce him. He released a breath and smiled to the group as soon as he recognized no one. The social small talk flowed easily from his lips despite his years away from this scene.

They stayed and chatted for a few minutes until Ari gracefully exited, looking for the next target. It quickly became the pattern: break into a group, chat them up, then on to the next huddle.

“Lance?” He increased his speed when he heard his name being called from across the room. “Lance Brown?” the voice called again.

“Would you like another drink?” he asked Ari, ignoring his name.

She frowned. “Is someone calling your name?”

“I don't hear anything.”

“Lance. It is you.” An overly tanned, manicured hand latched onto his forearm like a raptor on its prey.

A strong press of foreboding swept through him as he turned and saw his mother's good friend Nancy Melton. He slapped on his social grin. “Nancy. Nice to see you. What are you doing this far into the Beltway?”

“What am I doing?” Her laugh could also pass for a cackle. “I'm on the board of the Literacy Campaign. What are
you
doing here? I thought you gave all this up when you left MarketFresh.”

Moment of truth time. “I'm here with my date.” He looked down to introduce Arianna, but in the eighth of a second since Nancy's arrival, she'd ducked out and now stood several yards away with her back to him chatting to an older tuxedoed man. “She must be getting drinks. How are you doing?” He tried to convey a sense of delight to have run into an old family friend, but mostly it was relief he didn't have to explain his connection with Stanley Rose's daughter.
Yeah, I am an asshole.

“I'm great, although tired. I've only been back in the country a few days. I'm very jet-lagged.” She feigned a yawn as though the burden of traveling the world by private jet were simply too wearying to fathom. Nancy suddenly grabbed his arm again and narrowed her eyes. “Is that Stanley Rose's daughter? What in the world is that thief doing here? I can't believe she has the nerve to show her face after what her family did.”

Lance yanked his arm back. “What makes you call
her
a thief?” He fought to keep his tone mild, but for the first time in a lifetime, he wanted to hit a woman—an AARP candidate. “And she didn't hurt you. Her father did.”

“Easy for you to say. Your family never invested with Rose. We lost almost three percent of our assets.”

“So…what? You had to switch from Beluga to Osetra? I'm sorry for your loss.”

Red flags stained Nancy's otherwise white cheeks. “I can't believe you're defending her. Your mother said you'd changed, but I hadn't believed it.”

“Yep, I've changed.”

Nancy's eyes suddenly widened and the reason for her shock became evident as a smooth, silky arm wrapped around his waist.

“Hi, Ari.” He smiled down at his date.

“I don't believe it, Lance. What would your mother say?” Nancy said in a shocked whisper. “Or…your father?”

He looked Nancy in the eye. “I don't give a damn.” He bent and kissed Ari's soft red curls. “Ready to go, sweetheart?”

She smiled up at him, though concern danced in her eyes at Nancy's words. “Sure. My work here is done.”

They strolled arm in arm out of the ballroom to the front of the hotel to get her car from the valet.

“I'm sorry I dragged you into this. I didn't think how hard it would be for you if your parents' friends saw you with me,” Ari said.

Lance froze as her words struck home. “Honestly, I wasn't looking forward to tonight,” he confessed. “I wanted to help you, but I know I'm going to spend the next few days getting berating phone calls from my parents. I've stopped letting them dictate my life, but it's still not fun dealing with them.”

She squeezed his arm. “I apologize. I was being selfish.”

He gave her a soft smile and shook his head, reassuring her that she was in no way being selfish. He wanted to be here with her. He handed the valet ticket to the young man standing next to the wooden board dotted with dozens of key rings. “I can make a call to my folks when we get home.”

“Why? What call?”

“To my parents to see if they will loan you money. Isn't that what you want? Money from a rich source?”

Ari stared at up at him with an expression he didn't know how to read. “Well, sure, but not from you. You mean more to me than that. Valerie told me weeks ago your family owns MarketFresh. If all I'd wanted from you was money, I would've already asked. I'll find another solution if nothing from tonight pans out.”