Dance With Me - By Hayden Braeburn Page 0,13

sixteen years, wouldn't have thought she'd have coke planted in your ceiling, so just because I don't think she'd try to kill you doesn't mean I have any idea what she might do.” He pulled her close, dropping a kiss in her hair. “I won't let you take any chances.”

“I'll go read in the bathtub then,” she offered.

The arms around her relaxed a fraction. “Please be careful. I can't lose you now that I've caught you.”

She giggled at his statement. “Caught me? Now I'm a fish?”

“That's exactly what I meant, of course,” he remarked, a smile on his lips.

She pushed on her toes to kiss him. “Of course.”

FOUR

She needed to step up her game. That little ballerina was with her Mason, and she needed to take care of her. Permanently.

She toyed with the letter opener on her desk. A perfect replica of Romeo's dagger, she longed to plunge it into Mason's whore. Priscilla could picture it in her mind, the blood flowing to the floor, the life draining from the dancer's eyes. Instead, she put it down. She couldn't be so close, she couldn't be implicated and she couldn't do it herself, no matter how much she wished she could. She clenched and unclenched her hands, the bite of her nails digging into her palms calming. The pain was welcome, soothing, grounding. She couldn't fantasize about killing—she had to bring the fantasy to life.

She paced her office, mentally running down her contacts. She wasn't calling Brandon again, no matter that he could help her—she didn't want to speak to him again as long as she lived. He was a brute and didn't understand true love. She could call any number of men to do any number of things, but she didn't know an assassin. She stomped her feet. Dammit! The longer she let Mason think he could marry someone else, the further away her children were. Time was running out.

~*~

Carter's office had called a security and protection firm, requesting assistance protecting Kat and securing Mason's home and the surrounding acreage. True to the lawyer's word, shortly after Mason's freakout with Kat in the window, Alec Cartwright and Sean O'Dell from Trent, McKenna and Buchanan arrived. Carter assured him the two men were the best of the best, but Mason wasn't sure what to think about the operatives he'd allowed into his house. One was four or five inches taller than himself, with an obvious military haircut; the other was a couple inches shorter and less overbearing in appearance. Each carried a pistol under his left arm, and Mason was sure there was another somewhere else he couldn't detect. After introductions had been made, the four of them sat down to discuss what he hoped was superfluous—protecting Kat's life.

If she hadn't been completely in love with Mason, she would have been more than impressed with her bodyguards. Both incredibly attractive men, Sean O'Dell had to be nearing six and a half feet tall, his black hair still cut like the Marine he had been for years, his eyes a startling emerald green. Alec Cartwright was a few inches shorter but no less impressive, his sandy hair a bit longer and his eyes a warm moss. Fleetingly, she thought of calling her girlfriends to come over and ogle the hard-bodied men before the reason for their company hit her full force. These men were here to keep someone from killing her.

“So, how does this work, exactly?” Kat asked, a tremble in her voice.

“One of us will be with you at all times,” Sean started to explain, only to be cut off by a growl from Mason.

“Not all times,” Mason stated.

“One of us will be around at all times, most likely both of us.” Sean shot a look at Mason that clearly said, 'I'm not interested in your woman,' as he went on, “We will not only secure the house, but the perimeter, installing cameras and motion detectors. If you feel your life is in danger, Miss Nemecek, we will insure your safety.”

“Do you really think Priscilla will try and kill me?” She knew she'd asked the question before, but before these men set up camp in Mason's home, she wanted to be sure.

“Jamieson filled us in on the details and the set-up,” Alec answered. “If you were my woman, I'd be protecting you from the likes of her.”

Well, shit. If the professionals thought she was in danger, she really couldn't argue with Mason about it. “So, what do we need to do?”

~*~

“Drew,