“Now, let’s have some tea and biscuits,” she said pulling Lila through the front door of her house.
“It wasn’t your fault,” she said, her voice small and her spirit ragged around the edges. She wasn’t sure if she would ever recover. She definitely wouldn’t be the same person as before her family was murdered.
“I should have insisted on better security. Your parents were just analysts for the CIA, but I knew I had enemies.” She led Lila into the sitting room. “So, one thing we need to do is get you prepared.”
“Prepared?”
She nodded as she led Lila to the small table sitting in front of the bay window. The scene of rolling hills dotted with sheep usually made Lila happy. They didn’t spend a lot of time in England, but she had always loved this view. She would sit there for hours thinking about codes. Did her grandmother realize that?
“You need to know how to deal with what could come after you. Your mother was trained, but in the end it wasn’t enough. I will not let that happen to you.”
She turned back to her grandmother. “And find the person who killed our family?”
Judith Eddington, former MI-6 spymaster, smiled at Lila. Her eyes lit with a fire that spoke of her need for revenge. It was the type of smile that probably scared most people, but Lila found it comforting. “If it takes me the rest of my life to find the bastards, I will do it.”
With a nod, Lila looked out the window once again. Another thing she had in common with her grandmother: the need to avenge her family’s murder burned inside of her and would until the day she died.
One
Present Day
* * *
Ian Smith had stared down some of the worst monsters in the world. He had been trained by one of the best MI-6 agents to ever work the spy game. While he had been in MI-6 himself, he had been part of a team of assassins most of the world didn’t know existed. So, the idea that this pop girlie with her bad temper and even worse personality was pushing his buttons was embarrassing.
“I’m not in the mood for a meet and greet,” their client said.
He called on every bit of his tact and found that he had none. He was at his wits’ end and had nothing left to give her. No grace. No coddling.
“It’s. Time. To. Go.” Each word spoken from behind clenched teeth.
“I think that maybe you should be happy that I lowered my standards and hired Dillon Security,” Rachel Richards, aka Raquel to her thousands of fans, said as she tossed her bleached blonde hair over her shoulder.
“Excuse me?”
He felt rather than saw his partner Eden Carlyle’s glance. His partner probably recognized his tone. It’s the one his sister called his “Don’t Fuck with Ian” tone. Autumn wasn’t known for her tact, but she was correct. This little dictator wannabe was about to learn a very real lesson. There was a long beat of silence where he tried to grab onto his legendary calm. His nickname had been Ice when he’d worked for MI-6. He was known as being so detached that people thought there was something wrong with him.
Spoiler alert: there was.
He was definitely a sociopath, but he didn’t know many in the spy business that didn’t exhibit at least a few of those tendencies.
With all of that in mind, this pain in the ass’s blue eyes blazed with pure hatred. She settled her hands on her hips. “I don’t think I stuttered.”
Why was he even on this assignment? He had been a member of the Elite Eight. He slipped into countries, killed the bad person, and disappeared without anyone knowing. People feared him at one time. Now he was guarding a woman who was a terror. From the moment they’d met her private jet, she had driven everyone at Dillon Security insane. Correction, she had been a terror since he’d told her that there would be no way he would play into her bodyguard fantasies. He would rather be back on the set of Task Force Honolulu.
He opened his mouth to blast her, but thankfully, his parter was keeping her cool.
“Raquel, we need to get going because you have a meet and greet with your fans before you leave Oahu,” Eden said, her voice softer than it normally was. Definitely playing to the client. And, yes, he could usually do that. Not with this client. As Americans liked to say, he was sick of her bullshit.
“I said that I wanted to go to the beach.”
They had spent hours at the beach. Granted, they were in Hawai’i and that’s what most people who came to visit wanted to do. But she had a private appearance, one they had suggested she cancel. There had been credible threats against her. After spending three days in her presence, Ian understood those threats. She was a nightmare to everyone.
They had five hours and thirty-two more minutes to deal with her. Normally, she had a regular security team, but that had changed when an email had threatened her with insider knowledge of her private meeting schedule along with her reservation information. A brief investigation found that one team member had been selling her information. Of course, they had no idea to whom, and with only ten days before her trip to Hawai’i, the record label had been desperate.
“We’re not going to the beach. You’re going to meet with these fans who paid a fortune to meet with you.”
Her eyes narrowed as her face flushed with anger. Most people would say the woman was pretty. And yes, she was physically attractive, but she seemed shallow and demanding. Besides, he liked a woman who helped other people, even if she did have a smart mouth.
