Kitabı oku: «Romance In Paradise: Flirting with the Forbidden / Hot Island Nights / From Fling to Forever»

ONE

Noah Fraser dodged past a couple kissing and ran his hand across his prickly jaw. His eyes flicked over the waiting crowds, mentally processing faces against his internal data bank, and nobody blipped on his radar until he saw a tall, thin man with his hands in the pockets of his expensive trousers.

He frowned and wondered what was so important that Chris had to meet him here.

Twenty hours ago he’d boarded a plane at the Ministro Pistarini International Airport just south of Buenos Aires, after a week spent doing a full-spectrum security analysis for a museum. He’d identified threats and risks and then provided them with solutions to plug the holes. It was a part of the business they were trying to grow and it was lucrative.

Because he was a frugal Scot, he still felt guilty that he’d upgraded his seat to business class, but he just hadn’t been able to face the thought of wedging his six-foot-three frame into a minuscule economy class seat to spend thirteen hours in cramped misery. As Chris kept reminding him, business class also allowed him to review his files in privacy, to catch a couple of twenty-minute power naps, to drink good whisky. He’d worked hard for a long time, he told himself, and he—the business—could afford it.

Noah rolled his shoulders as he made his way through Customs, looking forward to a decent shower, a beer and to sleeping for a week.

Of course sleeping for a week was a pipedream; he was working all hours of the day to build his company, and sleep was a luxury he just couldn’t afford. Self-sufficiency and financial independence were a lot higher up on Noah’s list of priorities than sleep.

Who knew why he was being met by Chris, his oldest friend, partner and second-in-command at Auterlochie Consulting? Something must be up. He swallowed as dread settled over him. The last time Chris had met him at the airport it had been because Kade, one of their best employees, had committed suicide. God, he didn’t want to deal with something like that again...

‘No one has died,’ Chris said quickly and Noah wasn’t surprised that he’d read his mind.

They’d learnt to read each other’s faces—sometimes their thoughts—in dusty, unfriendly situations and it was a trait they’d never lost.

Noah did a minor eye-roll as Chris shook his hand and pulled him into that one-armed hug he did so well. Only Chris could get away with that kind of PDA; when you’d saved a guy’s life you had to overlook his occasional sappiness.

Noah adjusted the rucksack on his shoulder as they made their way across the terminal. ‘What’s up?’

Chris jammed his hands in his pockets and gestured towards the nearest coffee shop. ‘I’ll explain. You look like hell.’

Noah grinned wryly. ‘Nice to see you too.’

Ten minutes later Noah was slumped into a plastic seat at one of the many generic restaurants scattered throughout the hall. He sent his friend a sour look and took another sip of his strong black coffee. By his estimation he’d been awake for more than thirty hours and he was feeling punchy.

‘How did the assessment go?’ Chris asked.

‘Brilliant. They took all my suggestions on board and paid the account via bank transfer before I left the office. The money should be through already.’

‘It is. I checked. It’s easy money, Noah.’

‘And we can do it with our eyes closed. If we start getting a reputation for providing solid advice at a good price, I think we could double our turnover—and soon too.’

‘We’ve already exceeded our initial projections for the business. In fact, we’re doing really well.’

‘We can do better. I want to build us into being the premier provider of VIP protection and risk assessment in the UK.’

‘Not the world?’ Chris quipped, gently mocking his ambition as he always did.

Chris was less driven than he was, and had his feet firmly placed on the ground. It wasn’t a bad thing. Noah had enough ambition for both of them. They were great partners. Chris was better with people: he had an easy way about him that drew people in. Their clients and staff talked to Chris; he was their best friend, the elder brother, a mate. Chris was the touchy-feely half of their partnership.

Noah was tough, decisive and goal-orientated; the partner who kicked butt. He called it being disciplined, reasonable, responsible and dedicated in everything he did. Chris called it being a control freak perfectionist. And emotionally stunted. Yeah, yeah...

Well, that was what happened when you grew up far too fast... Noah ran a hand over his face as if to wipe away the memories of his childhood, of picking up the pieces when his mother died, the wrench of losing his brothers. He pulled in a breath and along with it control.

He was in control, he reminded himself. It was a long time ago that he was sixteen and had felt the earth shaking under his feet.

He saw Chris’s insightful look and summoned up a smile. ‘I’ve scheduled world domination for next year,’ he quipped. ‘What was the response when you told our employees that we wanted them to do a mandatory session with a psychologist every six months?’

‘They grumbled, but they understood. Kade’s death has rocked them all. You do know that we’ll have to do it too.’

Noah blanched. ‘Hell, no.’

‘Hell, yes. Kade was our responsibility and we didn’t pick up the signs. What if we’re working too hard, trying to keep too many balls in the air, and we miss the signs in someone else? We have to be as mentally healthy as—more mentally healthy than—any of our employees, Noah. That’s non-negotiable.’

Since Chris was the healthiest, most balanced person he knew, Noah didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to know that Chris was talking about him. Chris thought he was too stressed—working like a demon, juggling far too many balls. He knew that Chris was worried about him burning out, but he also knew that that he was nowhere near the edge...

Working hard never killed anyone—and besides, he’d been to the edge before and he knew what it looked like. He was still miles away.

Chris slapped the folder he’d been holding onto the table and pushed it towards him. Flipping open the cover, Noah looked down into the laughing face of a green-eyed blonde. She was standing between her famous mother and father, her brother behind them. The most successful family on planet earth, he thought. Rich, successful, close. A unit.

He felt a pang of jealousy and told himself that despite the fact that he had not been part of his brothers’ lives for most of their formative years he was now, and they weren’t doing so badly.

Noah concentrated on the photo below him. Morgan...she’d grown up. She was wearing a tight, slinky cream dress that stopped inches below her butt and revealed her giraffe-long legs. Her blonde hair was pulled back into a smooth ponytail and her naturally made-up face was alight with joy. She looked fantastic. Happy, charismatic.

Hot.

Doing a stint as her bodyguard had nearly killed him. Apart from that one incident he’d never before or since needed the same amount of control and determination as he’d summoned the night he’d walked away from the gloriously naked Morgan Claire Morrisey Moreau.

Noah flipped through the papers in the file. ‘Floor plans of the Forrester-Grantham hotel in New York. Photos of the Moreau jewellery collection... I thought the Moreaus were Amanda’s clients—have always been CFT’s clients?’

Amanda. Their ex-boss and his ex-lover. As petite and as dangerous as a black widow spider, she looked like every other ball-breaker businesswoman in the city.

Except that Amanda actually broke balls. She’d certainly tried to go for his when she’d found out that he was leaving the CFT Corporation to start a company that was in direct competition with hers.

That hadn’t been a day full of fun and giggles.

‘Well, as you know, James Moreau and I went to school together,’ Chris said.

Noah shrugged off his tiredness to connect the dots. James Moreau: CEO of Moreau International, brother to Morgan and son to Hannah ‘Queen of Diamonds’ Moreau and Jedd Moreau, one of the world’s best known geologists.

Moreau International owned diamond and gemstone mines, dealt in the trading of said gems—especially diamonds—and had exclusive jewellery stores in all the major cities around the world. Hannah, as the face of the company, had always been a target, and CFT routinely provided her and Jedd with additional bodyguards when they needed more protection than their long-term driver/guards. That protection was only extended to James and Morgan and other high-ranking executives within MI when MI’s security division or CFT received a particular threat, or were monitoring a situation where extra protection was needed.

Eight years ago, just after he’d left the SAS, Noah had been unlucky enough to end up guarding the nineteen-year-old Morgan for a week because a well-funded but stupid militant environmental group had been protesting MI’s involvement with mines in a nature reserve in Uganda. Huge threats had been issued until it had been pointed out that it was an oil company mining for natural gas and not MI looking for gems.

Morgan had never been in any real danger, but no one had been prepared to take the chance. As the rookie, he’d got the so-called ‘creampuff’ assignment to guard the teenager. He’d never told anyone that it had probably been one of the best weeks of his life. Sure, he’d vacillated between wanting to wring her neck and fantasising about her, which had been off-the-scale inappropriate since she’d been his principal and he’d been six years older than her—and a million years in experience. But he’d laughed—internally—been relaxed in her company and had enjoyed her scalpel-sharp mind.

Noah felt heat creep up his neck and he stared at the fingers that gripped his coffee cup. He’d lost his mind that night...well, almost. He’d nearly risked everything he had—his sole source of income at that time—to make love to her. The consequences of his actions still made his blood run cold. If CFT had found out he would have been canned and would never have been able to get another job in security again. And security was what he did—what he’d trained for—the only skill he’d had at that time.

He’d left the army, his first and only love, to find a better-paying job so that he could put his two younger brothers through college. CFT had offered him a fantastic salary which he’d nearly thrown away to sleep with Morgan Moreau.

Who’d just wanted him to break her duck!

Chris’s voice pulled him back to the here and now. ‘I’ve been working on James to send some business our way, told him we’ve expanded into security analysis, and he’s thrown us a bone.’

‘Oh, yay,’ Noah deadpanned.

‘If we pull it off it gives us an in at Moreau and we want them as clients.’ Chris reminded him. ‘World domination, remember? Moreau’s is a good place to start.’

‘I know, I know... Okay, what is it?’ He tapped Morgan’s picture. ‘Does she need a bodyguard again? Who has her family upset this time?’

‘She doesn’t need protection.’

‘Good.’ Noah lifted an eyebrow at Chris. ‘What’s the job?’

‘Every five years the Moreaus host a grand ball for charity, and they combine the ball with an exhibition of the family collection of jewels—which is practically priceless. Some of the biggest and the best diamonds and jewels collected over generations of wealthy Moreaus,’ Chris explained. ‘There has been a massive increase in armed robberies at such jewellery exhibitions, and James wants a complete, intensive threat analysis. I know it’s a puffball assignment, but you just need to head to New York for a meeting, have a look at their current security arrangements, check out the hotel—do what you do best. With luck we’ll get the contract to oversee the security, based on your report. But for now, it’s just a couple of days in New York and we have an in with Moreau.’

‘When is this meeting?’

‘In the morning. I have you booked on a flight leaving in an hour.’

‘Why can’t you go? You’re James’s mate, not me.’ Noah groaned. ‘I’m beat.’

‘I’ve got a meeting scheduled with another client, and you are far better at security assessments than I am. You’re brilliant at planning operations, getting in and out of places and situations you shouldn’t be, and you can see stuff from a criminal perspective.’

‘Thanks,’ Noah said dryly.

Noah pushed his chair out and stretched his long legs. He linked his hands behind his head in his favourite thinking posture, his eyes on Morgan’s photograph which lay between them on the grubby table. Gorgeous eyes and slanting cheekbones, and she had a wide, mobile mouth with a smile that could power the national electrical grid.

Noah licked his lips and forced his thoughts away from that dangerously sexy mouth. Slowly he raised his eyes to Chris’s face. He leaned forward and rested his arms on the table. ‘Why don’t you just shoot me now?’

‘It’s an option, but then I’d be out of a partner. It’s a few days, Noah, in an exciting city that you love.’

‘Clothes?’

‘Bag in the car. I went to your flat and picked out some threads.’

Noah swore and flipped the cover of the folder closed. ‘Guess I’m going to New York.’

‘Atta boy.’

Noah narrowed his eyes at his partner. ‘You’re a manipulative git.’

Chris just grinned.

* * *

Sapphires, rubies, pearls. Diamonds. The usual suspects. And then there were the less common gems that sparked her imagination. Alexandrite that changed from green in daylight to red under incandescent light. Maw Sit-Sit, the same green as her eyes. Almandine Garnet, purplish red and the neon blue of Paraiba tourmaline.

Having access to the gemstone vaults of Moreau International was a very big perk as a jewellery designer, and it allowed Morgan the chance to offer her very high-end clients one-of-a-kind pieces containing gemstones of exceptional quality.

Morgan looked up at Derek, their Head of Inventory, and the security guard who’d accompanied the jewels to her airy, light-filled design studio on the top floor of the Moreau Building on Fifth Avenue from the super-secure fourth floor that housed the jewellery vaults. Morgan knew that there was another vault somewhere in the city, and others in other places of the world, which housed more gemstones. Her mother didn’t believe in keeping all their precious eggs in one basket.

‘I’ll take the Alexandrite, the tourmaline and both garnets.’ Morgan scanned the cloth holding the jewels again. ‘The fifteen-carat F marquise-cut yellow diamond and I’ll let you know about the emeralds. Thanks, Derek.’