LITMIR.BIZ

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the alarm firm come out tomorrow, change the pass codes and rekey all the doors.”

      Ethan reeked of professionalism. But as much as she’d decided Ashley needed a bodyguard, Blythe didn’t want it to be this ultracharming one. She couldn’t wait for Max to arrive so she could demand that he ask the bodyguard firm to send a different man. Ethan Ryan and his sexy eyes simply had to go.

      Chapter 3

      “He’s a part owner of his family’s investigations and protection business,” Max explained after Blythe told him that she wanted Ethan replaced. “And the best bodyguard available. Until a few weeks ago he worked for the U.S. Secret Service—the presidential detail. They’re the most elite bodyguards in the nation. We couldn’t ask for a better man to guard Ashley.”

      “But…” Stuck, Blythe couldn’t manufacture a good enough reason to get rid of the guy in view of this information. She’d wanted to say she could take care of guarding Ashley herself. After all, Blythe felt competent at almost everything where Ash was concerned. But not this time. She certainly could not compete with a member of the elite presidential bodyguard detail.

      Max patted her arm as they sat together on Melissa’s huge theater-room sofa. “I’ve known his family for a long time. Since before he was born. His grandfather was an old friend. I’d like to lend my support to the security firm Ethan and his brother and sister are trying to get off the ground. They’re good people. They deserve a shot.

      “Look,” Max continued in his gruff but congenial voice. “Ethan may have had a bit of trouble in his life, but as far as I can tell, none of it has been his fault. Maybe you two just got off to a shaky start and can overcome it. What do you say we give him another chance? Ashley needs the best bodyguard available.”

      Max Slotsmeyer had to be in his mid-seventies, but he was still every bit as sharp as a row of shark’s teeth. At one time everyone in the business had even called him the Shark. He’d been one of the best entertainment attorneys in the world, but today he had cut his client list down to one. He still managed Ashley’s career, but only because he and his wife were like grandparents to Melissa. They’d taken her and Ashley in when Ash was a baby, after Melissa’s husband had been killed in a car accident. Without Max, Blythe didn’t imagine Ashley would’ve ever made it to megastar status.

      Blythe liked and respected Max. In fact, she owed her job to him. When she’d made that hideous mistake about a year ago, Max had interceded on her behalf with Melissa. With that in mind, and especially knowing Max was set on it, Blythe decided to suck up whatever problems she had with Ethan and give the guy a second chance.

      “Okay, Max. I’ll try to be more forgiving. It’s not like I’ve never made a mistake, is it?”

      Max chuckled. “Good girl. I know you want the best for Ash. We all do. Where’s Ethan right now?” he added in a change of thought.

      She shrugged. “I think he’s still out combing the neighborhood with the Beverly Hills police.”

      “That’s fine,” Max said as he stood. “I’m going over to visit with Melissa for a few minutes. Maybe I’ll catch him on my way back. If not, make him comfortable here. Give him whatever he needs to do his job.”

      Max stood and reached into his breast pocket for the ever-present cigar. Blythe had never seen him light up, but he carried one in his fingers at all times. Apparently old-time Hollywood agents and managers considered expensive Cubans to be part of the uniform of the day.

      Blythe murmured her thanks and watched Max lumber toward the patio door on his way to the pool house. Now she had no choice but to find a way of dealing with Ethan.

      

      Ethan worked into the night, setting up the intercom system between Ashley’s bedroom and the guest room located two doors away. With the over-the-phone assistance of the security-alarm firm, he’d reset the alarms on all four zones. Tomorrow at 6:00 a.m. the company was sending a team to rekey the doors and adding an additional security man to guard the front gate.

      Ethan’s job description called for him to stick with Ashley. But he was smart enough to know that even children needed a little space. He remembered from his presidential duty that having ever-present security hovering over your shoulder could be just as stressful as a stalker. So he had come up with the idea of moving the previously unused baby-intercom system from Melissa’s master suite bedroom into the guest room where he would be spending nights.

      When he plugged in the last of the wires, the first thing Ethan heard over the line was Blythe tucking Ashley into bed. He couldn’t make out the girl’s words, but Blythe spoke in soft, soothing tones. It surprised him when her husky, low whispers seemed to wrap around his body like a lover’s thighs. His skin buzzed with physical awareness and he caught the brunt of shocked awakening straight in his groin. Hell. Where did that come from?

      Leaning back in the guest room’s overstuffed chair, he fought his response by closing his eyes and keeping one ear out for any trouble. A few reminders of the job he hadn’t been all that happy to take in the first place ought to do the trick and bring his body back under control.

      Blythe was reassuring Ashley. “We’re safe and your mother is getting the best care,” she told the child. “You have two more days left until shooting ends for the season. You know what your mother expects. Nothing’s happened tonight that should change that.”

      “But, Blythe—”

      “Nuh-uh, honey. It’s not time to goof off yet. We’ll get a few days free while we’re on tour this summer, I promise.”

      “But I want to spend tomorrow with Mama before we have to leave town.”

      Blythe tried to convince the little girl that her mother would rather Ashley do her job and live up to her obligations. But the quiet words bothered Ethan. Obligations at seven years old?

      At Ashley’s continued objections, Blythe’s tone began changing from soothing and sexy to stern. It made Ethan think back to times when his own mother had tried convincing him to keep on working at whatever summer job or afterschool chore his father had forced on him at the time. But it was his father’s words from those long-ago days that still rang over and over in his ears all these years later.

      “You’re a worthless bum,” Brody Ryan used to tell him. “You’ll never amount to a dime.”

      Thinking back on it now, Ethan had seemed determined to prove his old man right. Before his mother died, he would cut school, get drunk and drive his pickup wildly through the countryside shooting up road signs with a rifle. He’d even dabbled in black witchcraft and tried dope. Anything and everything his father might consider trouble.

      But after his mother died in that plane crash, all Ethan could remember being was angry. Mad at his mother for leaving and furious at his father for caring more about the ranch and money than he did for his children.

      The last thread to Ethan’s wild childhood had been cut about six months after his mother’s death when his father packed up their beloved grandmother, Abuela Lupe, and carted her off to his maternal family’s ancestral home in Mexico. Lupe’s mother, his great-grandmother—the black witch of Veracruz—had promptly cursed the entire family in her anger over the mistreatment of her daughter. And the curse had taken hold. Brody Ryan would have no grandchild. Ethan, his brother and sister would all be sterile from that day forward.

      Ethan hadn’t really paid much attention to the family curse. His whole life had felt as though it were cursed anyway. What did it matter to him if he couldn’t have children? Great. One less worry to slow him down on his way to the freedom of adult life.

      When Blythe’s raised voice came irritably through the intercom, Ethan focused back on the present. “Enough now, Ash,” she said. “You are going to work in the morning as usual, and we will be leaving on schedule for the tour. Period. Now go to sleep.”

      Ethan shifted in the chair and kicked off his boots, listening as Blythe could be heard checking the child’s

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