Seducing the Bodyguard by Capri Montgomery Page B

her this show was his baby and he planned to be sure it operated smoothly. He rarely stayed the entire day. He did have other opera related business to attend to after all, but he went every day and he stayed for as long as his schedule permitted. Most often it was just a couple hours, at best, but lately he found himself needed on set for much longer.
    He had seen the kinks worked out from the start, and for some of those kinks he was glad he was there because otherwise he might have had their temperamental bratty star walk off set. He wished, now more than ever, that Geneva had returned to the show, but she hadn’t. She had chosen to continue with her plans for her solo album instead. His loss for sure, but he couldn’t dwell on it. Their new singer was talented, beautiful, great for the show in talent but lousy in character. She, Alexia Mitchell had started off as a radiantly charming black beauty alto singer and quickly grown into a moody, spoiled diva—one he wished he could have fired.
    As the show progressed she grew worse, and now they were so close to the end of this run that it didn’t make sense to drop her and replace her with the understudy.
    “I feel underdressed now,” he smiled. He was wearing dark blue jeans that fit his body as if they had been made just for him; a white pullover sweater with a pale blue button down beneath and the pair of black cowboy boots Geneva had bought him and made him promise to wear. When he first saw the gift he thought he would begrudgingly dawn the boots for one event and then be done with them. What he hadn’t realized is that he kind of liked cowboy boots.
    “You look fine,” she grabbed her room key and tucked it into a secure pocket on her pants.
    “On second thought,” he grinned. “I think I’ll play hooky today.”
    “You have something else you need or want to do?”
    “Both,” his voice was low and seductive.
    She shook her head. “Focus, Harrison. We both need to focus—me especially.”
    “You can focus from my bed,” he assured her. “In fact, it will be better because if my body needs guarding you’ll be right on top of it…or maybe I’d want you under it.” God knows it would be the only time he’d be the victor in any tussle they had. The look on her face was neutral, betrayed only by the slight increase in her breathing. He had learned over their time together to watch her breathing when he said arousing things because that was the only place he would ever notice a change.
    “Let’s go.”
    “To bed?”
    “To work,” the tightness in her voice told him he just might be breaking down this tough as steel bodyguard. Either he was breaking her down or he was pushing all the wrong buttons. Button pushing was only good if it got him what he wanted, which didn’t involve getting a beat down from a pint sized woman.
    “Do you ever take a day off?”
    “When I’m finished with a job.”
    “So in a few months I can take you some place nice,” he resisted the urge to grin knowing it would probably be as devious as his thoughts.
    “When this is over I’m going back to Hawaii and you’re going back to planning your next opera.”
    “I could come to Hawaii.”
    “You won’t,” she assured him. “I’ll go to my home; you’ll go to yours, and we’ll never see each other again.”
    The finality of her words had him thinking about more than just the missed opportunity of potentially great sex. She was talking about walking out of his life forever and he wasn’t sure he liked the thought of that at all. Although why should he care? He was Harrison Sinclair and there were plenty of women out there just waiting to step up and be the warm body in his bed. But he didn’t want just a warm body. He wanted her body. He wanted this woman who was smart, beautiful and lethal all at the same time. The more he tried to convince himself he could work her out of his system, the more he realized he was wrong.
    “It doesn’t have to be that way,”