What You Can't See by Allison Brennan & Karin Tabke & Roxanne St. Claire

Author:Allison Brennan & Karin Tabke & Roxanne St. Claire [Brennan, Allison & Karin Tabke & Roxanne St. Claire]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781416542292
Publisher: Pocket
Published: 2007-12-26T08:00:00+00:00

“Brace yourself,” Arianna said as she pushed open the six-foot-high wooden gate that led to the steep stairs along the side of her house. “It’s eighty years old, tiny as a shoe box, but it’s—”

“A bodyguard’s nightmare.”

“Home,” she finished.

He reached the edge of her pine deck, looking at the surrounding brush and the direct drop down the hillside that overlooked Chateau Marmont and the never-ending stream of car lights that snaked along Sunset Boulevard.

“It was good enough for Judy Garland,” she said defensively, sliding her fingers into her front jeans pockets. “She lived here when she was starting out.”

He didn’t look impressed. In fact, he shrugged as if only an idiot would take up residence somewhere so precarious. “There’s no railing and a direct drop down a steep hill. One drink and somebody could topple right over.”

“I keep my drunken guests inside,” she said. “And avoid the edges.”

“The brush should be cut back. It’s a fire hazard.”

“It gives me privacy.”

He pulled her keys from his jacket pocket. “Alarm code?”

Oh, boy. “It’s, um…I keep meaning to get it changed. It kept going off in the middle of the night, and it’s disabled right now.” Stupid for a woman getting nasty e-mails, but she had hired a bodyguard. She wasn’t a total fool.

“We need to get it a new code ASAP.”

When he unlocked the sliding glass door she waited for a moment, letting him enter, imagining her three-room hideaway through his eyes. What she saw as an inviting and warm sanctuary, all celery silk and cream velvet, a precious collection of crystals and candles, Mr. Look at the Bright Side probably thought was a tinderbox.

When she followed him in, she flipped on a single uplight over the fireplace. He prowled through the tiny living room, set his duffel bag on an end table, and continued past the kitchenette, following the narrow hall to the only other room in the house. Had she made her bed?

Once, last year.

Maybe she didn’t finish anything.

When he returned, she’d already started water for tea and leaned against the counter, picking dirt from her jacket and jeans.

“Cute house,” he said.

“But fraught with danger,” she added.

He stepped into the kitchen, his expression more relaxed as he slipped out of his sports jacket, revealing the holster and gun, and that muscular chest that had flattened her so efficiently from behind. She could only imagine what it could do from the front.

Awareness curled through her and mixed with that spark of hero worship he’d lit under her trailer. “Would you like some tea?”

He shook his head. “Never touch the stuff.”

“You sure? It’s African rooibos.”

He laughed softly, a low, sexy sound that tingled her already raw nerve endings. “Like I have a clue what that is.”

“It’s tea with an attitude and no caffeine. Try it. It’s all vanilla and spice. I promise you’ll never go back.”

“I prefer no attitude and plenty of caffeine, but all right—you sold me.” He turned to peer through the wall of plate glass to the world of West Hollywood below.

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