One Night To Forever

Yep, violet, with sparks of silver. “Are you drunk?”

Drunk on... Do not even complete that thought, Jepsen. What the hell is wrong with you? Reame’s thumb found the pulse point on her inside wrist and, yep, there it was, her heart beating as fast as a hummingbird’s wing. His wasn’t far behind. He glanced at Linc, made sure he wasn’t listening before speaking. “I know that you were imagining us naked.”

Reame just managed to stop himself from lifting her hand to kiss the delicate skin under his fingers.

Lachlyn jerked her hand away. “Your illusions are insulting and annoying. And I need a drink.”

He could relate. “Bring me one? A double whiskey on the rocks?” Reame asked, his tone teasing. He wasn’t surprised when she rolled her eyes and flounced away from him, her compact and curvy body radiating annoyance.

Reame sighed. Not the way to make friends with the new Ballantyne...

But, dammit, even before he’d met her, she’d bothered him. Bother was now too small a word to use to describe how she made him feel...

And why—when there were at least thirty women here whom he could hit on, if he excluded the married ones and he so did—was he wanting to get up close, very close and very naked, with her? With his best friend’s new sister?

Screwed, he decided. If he didn’t get a grip he would be so screwed.

Reame lifted his eyebrows when Linc turned back to him having given the Lady of the Big Diamonds sufficient attention. “You were saying...”

Linc pushed a hand through his blond hair. “Someone dug up Lachlyn’s phone number and her phone has been ringing off the hook. She’s being harassed on social media and it doesn’t look to be dying down anytime soon.”

Reame nodded his understanding. “I’ll get my cyber guy to bury her social security number, to take her off the Net as much as possible. He’ll change her address to your box number and get her a new phone number under one of my companies. We’ll put firewalls around her social media accounts. You know the drill.”

Linc should. He and his guys had done the same thing for Connor and all the Ballantynes after him. High-profile families attracted criminals and nutcases, and sometimes the nutcases were criminals, too.

Reame waited, knowing that there was more. Linc scratched his chin, his eyes flat with worry. “Tate has to film in the Rockies this coming week and I was planning on joining her there with the kids.”

Somehow, Linc and Tate managed to combine his hectic and pressurized job as Ballantyne CEO with Tate’s job as a travel presenter without neglecting Shaw or Ellie, their adopted daughter.

“I don’t want to leave Lachlyn in The Den by herself but she adamantly refuses to move in with Sage and Tyce or with Jaeger or Beck.”

Since she’d be the third wheel wherever she went—all the Ballantynes were still in the cooing and billing stage of their relationship—Reame didn’t blame her.

“What’s her apartment like?” Reame asked.

“Small, I imagine,” Linc said.

“Would it be feasible for one of my female personal protection people to move in with her?” Reame asked.

“I don’t think so but what do I know? Lachlyn doesn’t talk!”

Reame knew that Lachlyn still hadn’t accepted their offer to become a full Ballantyne partner but in the eyes of the world she was assumed to be a very wealthy woman. As such, she was a target. Linc was right, she needed a bodyguard and to live in a place with excellent security.

And security was his business. “How does she feel about having security?”

Linc pulled a face. “She thinks I’m overreacting. She has this idea that she’ll be able to go back to work next week, that the furor will have died down by then. She’s dreaming if she thinks a haircut will make her look less recognizable.” Linc lifted his chin in Lachlyn’s direction and Reame finally, finally had an excuse to look at her again.

As he’d noticed earlier, her hair was now short and choppy. Her bangs twisted away from her face, revealing high cheekbones, those incredible sin-with-me-eyes, her made-to-be-kissed (but not by him) lips. Despite her two-inch heels, she still only reached his shoulder, and without her stilts she barely scraped five-two. Her body, despite her being a fairy, was all woman. Full and perky breasts, a waist he could span with his hands, long legs and round hips.

And a truly excellent ass.

“She needs protection, Ree.”

Reame groaned, wondering whom he had to kill to get another drink. He ignored the action in his pants and focused on business, on what Linc was asking him to do. He swallowed his sigh. If it was anyone else but Linc making the request, he’d decline the business. He didn’t have enough staff to meet the demand for personal protection officers as it was. Liam, his head of operations, was going to kill him. And Liam, being ex-military, as well, actually could follow up on his threat.

But this was Linc asking... “Let me call around tomorrow and have a chat with her, and you. What time are you leaving?”

“Midmorning,” Linc replied, briefly grasping Reame’s bicep in a show of his appreciation. “Thanks, bud. Will you please charge me or the firm? God knows we can afford it.”

Reame shook his head and, as he always did, ignored Linc’s request. After he left the military, Connor gave him his first job, had recommended him to his rich friends and clients and he’d lent him the capital to start up his security business. Together with Linc, Connor had been his biggest supporter and his best advertiser, and it was because of their support and loyalty that his company was now regarded to be the best in the city. His business had put his three sisters through college, paid for the fancy apartment he lived in, the repairs on his mom’s house. It employed many of his ex-army buddies and sent ridiculous amounts of money into his personal bank account.

For as long as he owned Jepsen & Associates, he would swallow any costs the Ballantynes’ personal security needs generated.

He owed Linc, his brothers and Connor a debt he couldn’t repay but he’d sure as hell try. Because, unlike his father, he believed in loyalty and responsibility.

He looked at life straight on, readily accepting that it was a series of waves and troughs, shallow waters and depths. All one could do was just keep swimming.

Reame looked across the room at Lachlyn and studied her exquisite profile, the horrible thought occurring to him that she might be the one woman who could make him drown.

* * *

The next morning, Lachlyn glanced down at the screen of her phone, thinking it was another call from a super-pushy reporter, but instead she saw the familiar number of her supervisor at the New York Public Library. Annie was not only her direct boss but the closest person she had to an older sister and best friend.

“Hey, hun, how are you holding up?” Annie asked as Lachlyn placed her flat palm against the cool window of the small upstairs living room of The Den.

“Fair to horrible,” Lachlyn said, pulling the drape aside to look down at the sidewalk. The crowd standing behind the wrought-iron fence was talking amongst themselves, although many cameras were pointed toward the front door. Somebody caught her movement and, almost immediately, a dozen cameras lifted in her direction. Lachlyn abruptly stepped back and ignored the muted roars for a comment, a photo opportunity, an interview. Rubbing her forehead, she slid down the wall until an expensive Persian carpet was all that separated her denim-covered butt from the rich wooden floors. “I can’t wait to come back to work next week.”

There was a long pause and Lachlyn’s stomach jumped. Annie was usually incredibly voluble and she didn’t do silence. “That’s not going to happen anytime soon, Lach.”

Lachlyn felt her headache intensify. “What do you mean?”

“There’s too much attention around you, on you. The phones have been ringing off the hook, people asking anyone and everyone for information on you. It’s mayhem, Lach, and you aren’t even here.”

The monster chomping its way through her stomach took another huge bite. “What exactly are you saying, Annie?”

“My supervisor is suggesting that you take all of your vacation time. It adds up to about two months.” Annie said in a tone that suggested she’d been practicing how to break the news.

“I don’t have a job anymore?” Lachlyn whispered, terrified that what she was hearing was her new reality.

“You don’t have a job for the next few months. After that, we’ll see,” Annie said, trying to sound jaunty. “Since, according to the press, money is no longer an object, you could tour the great libraries of the world, visit the museums you always talk about going to, see the amazing art you look at in books,” Annie said, her voice turning persuasive. “This is an opportunity, Lach, not a punishment.”

But Annie didn’t understand that, while she didn’t mind being alone, she hated not being busy, not having a purpose. Having nothing to do reminded her of her childhood, of long days and nights without company or conversation, with only an old television set for entertainment. Her mother would come home from work, pop some sleeping tabs she bought from the guy on the corner and pass out for the next fourteen or sixteen hours. Tyce was always out, selling his art in the park so that they could pay one of the many bills her mom couldn’t cover. The local library had been her favorite place to hang out and books her constant and unfailing friends. These days she spent most of her time alone but her work kept her busy.

“Lachlyn? Lachlyn?”

Lachlyn forced herself to blink, concentrating on the cool floor beneath her hand, allowing the noise from the photographers to drift up to her. Then she saw that the display screen on her phone still showed that she was connected to Annie.

“I’ve got to go, Annie.”