Wilde Nights in Paradise (Wilde Security #1)

Chapter Twelve

“I told you, Noah. I’m not supposed to talk about it. For my own safety.”

Jude stopped short as he stepped into the house from the patio with a towel raised halfway to his dripping hair. He’d been feeling pretty damn good this morning after his swim, had worked out the tension that kept winding tighter in him as each day passed. But as soon as he heard Libby’s oh-so-practical voice chatting away in the living room, every knot returned to the exercise-loosened muscles of his back and shoulders.

Noah? As in Matchstick, her skinny, flame-haired assistant? Son of a bitch. She couldn’t possibly be stupid enough to call him.

“I wish I could,” she continued with resignation tingeing her voice, “but I have a Neanderthal of a bodyguard and—yes, that’s the one. I know. I’m not particularly fond of him, myself, but you can rest easy. He’s not going to stop me from working.”

Cursing, Jude threw aside the towel and stalked across the kitchen, leaving wet footprints on the tile behind him. He found her seated at the computer desk in the office off the living room. As she started speaking legalese into the cell phone clamped to her ear, she clicked her way through a pdf file on screen.

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

She jumped and spun around in her seat.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” he repeated through his teeth and snatched the phone out of her hand. At the other end of the line, he heard Noah squawking with outrage, but ignored it and powered down the iPhone. He pulled it out of its protective case, strode to the patio doors, and fast-balled it into the pool before returning to the living room. He handed the case back and Libby stared down at it, shock widening her eyes behind her glasses.

“Jude, you son of a—”

He held up a finger to silence her. “No phones. I thought I made that clear.”

“Bullshit. You said no such thing.”

“I told you our first night here. No phones. No computer. No contact with anyone in D.C. as long as we’re here. Those were my only fucking rules, and you went and broke them the first time I turned my back.”

“You want to talk about breaking rules?” she retorted. “I seem to remember someone trying to make an escape the other day.”

Fuck. Should’ve known that would come back to bite him in the ass. “Key difference, I didn’t leave. As much as I wanted to, as much as I needed to get out, get some air, I stopped myself. As you should’ve when you picked up that phone to call your office.”

“Dammit, I have to work.”

Frustration, worry, and anger brewed into an explosive combination in his chest, and he grabbed her by the shoulders, hauling her out of her chair. He couldn’t figure out which he wanted to do more: kiss her sassy mouth shut or shake some goddamn sense into her hard head. “You’re on vacation!”

With a jerk of her shoulders, she dislodged his hands and dropped back into her seat like she had every intention of returning to the legal brief on screen. “I don’t take vacations.”

Jude yanked the computer’s plug out of the wall. “Explains why you’re such an uptight hard-ass.”

She whirled in the chair to face him again. “I’m the hard-ass? Excuse me, but I didn’t just toss your four-hundred-dollar phone into a pool for breaking the so-called rules.”

“Those so-called rules are in place to keep you in one piece.”

“For godsakes, I was talking to Noah.”

“Who could be your stalker.”

“What about K-Bar?”

“I’m not ruling anybody out. Didn’t Noah start working for you around the same time you got the first doll?”

Her mouth opened. Closed after a heartbeat without uttering a sound. For a moment, genuine fear shone on her face, and his anger drained away.

“I’m sorry about the phone,” he said as gently as he could manage and ran a hand down the silken length of her ponytail. “But I couldn’t risk someone—like Noah—tracking you with it.”

“No.” She squeezed her eyes shut, shook her head. When her lids lifted, she was all fire and outrage again. “You’re wrong. Noah’s as harmless as a bunny.”

Jude snorted in disbelief. “Yeah, sure. I’ve never met a lawyer who doesn’t have teeth.”

“That’s just it. Noah’s a smart kid, but you need more than brains to get anywhere in big city law, and he’s not cut out for it. After he finishes school, he’s probably going to end up as a small-town lawyer, handling wills and civil cases. He doesn’t have the fortitude for criminal trials.”

Christ, she had a counter-response for every point he made. He supposed that was a sign she was good at her job, but it also made it frustrating as hell to carry on a conversation with her. “Libs, think about it. Paper dolls? Is that really something a hardcore gangbanger like K-Bar is going to mess around with? No. It’s more like something a kid with no backbone would do.”

Libby brightened. “Exactly! That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you all along. K-Bar’s not involved, and the notes and dolls are just some nutso’s ridiculous idea of a joke.” She made a move like she was going to stand. “So now that you finally get it, why don’t we just end this nightmare of a vacation and go home? We’ll never have to see each other again.”

He kept her in the chair with a hand on her shoulder. “Yeah, nice try, babe. Even if it’s not K-Bar, there’s still a very real threat that we need to take seriously.”

Her lower lip trembled into something damn close to a pout, though he bet she’d kick him in the balls if he pointed it out. Still, he couldn’t resist the urge to drag his thumb over the inviting jut of her lip.

“Someone tried to run you over, remember?”

She turned away, and damn it all to hell, even though it was just one more rejection in a very long line of many, it stung. Way more than it should have.

“I’m still convinced it was you they were aiming for,” she said, all prim and haughty like a princess addressing a servant so far beneath her that he barely rated her notice.

All right. If she wouldn’t accept tender words or gestures from him, he could go back to being the hard-ass. He crossed his arms over his chest and stared down at her. “We’re staying until your father or my brothers give me the all clear to take you back.”

With a groan, she banged her forehead on the desk. Once. Twice. Damn woman was going to give herself a concussion.

Jude winced. Squatting beside her, he caught her chin in his hand to stop her from doing it again. “C’mon, it’s not that bad. If your father had it his way, we’d be shacked up in some cabin on a dead-end mountain road, trying not to freeze to death. At least here you can enjoy some sun, the pool—”

“And your shining presence?” she said, heavy on the sarcasm.

“I can tell ya my presence is a lot more shiny here than it woulda been in that mountain cabin.”

“Small consolation.” She sighed and lifted her head. “Do we have any wine? I have a headache.”

“You bang your head on a desk and expected not to have a—” Jude wisely sealed his lips when her eyes narrowed in warning. He hitched a thumb toward the kitchen. “I stuck a bottle in the fridge to chill for you.”

“Look at that.” She patted his cheek in the same indulgent way his mother had when he was five and had drawn himself a report card to go with his brothers’ already pinned to the fridge. “You can be tamed after all.”

Jude stayed where he was for a moment after she got up and walked toward the kitchen.

Tamed? Him?

Nah, he decided and stood. He hadn’t been tame a day in his life and didn’t plan to be. Someone out of the five Wilde boys had to live up to the name, after all.