All He Wants (3 page)

After day one had played out like a
Bourne
movie, Robbins requested that Billy remain on his detail day and night, even escorting him on his flight to Washington D.C. this morning. Which he had. Once the Senator was safely at the Capitol building, Billy had turned around and got right back on a plane. He’d landed back at O’Hare an hour and a half ago and had driven straight to the office after receiving a voicemail from his boss, the owner of Elite Protection, Seth Sloan, telling him to come see him as soon as he got back to Harper’s Crossing.

So here he was.

If he hadn’t respected the man that signed his paychecks as much as he did, Billy probably would’ve told the former Marine that he could take his request and shove it up his ass. He’d passed exhausted twenty-four hours ago and was now running entirely on fumes.

A second startling ding sounded and Billy lifted his phone from the console beside him. A quick glance revealed that he’d received two messages from Elissa; one with a photo of her in lacy lingerie attached.

Hey Stranger! I went shopping, do you like?

I miss you! Call me. XO

He could add these to his growing list of what he’d named P.B.C. (Preemptive Booty Call) texts. What used to only show up on his phone at two a.m. on the weekends, were now coming in the middle of the afternoon on weekdays. The change in pattern had begun about six months ago when Billy had started spending his weekends alone. After a few weekends of unavailability, women started to hit him up earlier in the week trying to schedule hookups in advance. Little did they know, the problem wasn’t overbooking; it was total and complete disinterest. His lack of interest wasn’t only confusing his rotating roster of female companions; it was also bothering the hell out of him.

Casual sex. That’s what he did best. In relationships, it was the only thing he did. And he was up front about his commitment to
not
being committed. He only
dated
—and he used that term loosely—women that wanted what he did. Fun. They wanted a good time, and if there was one thing he could provide, it was a good time. The only problem was, lately, one night of fun with a random chick wasn’t that much fun at all. It’d been almost three months since he’d put his bread into anyone’s oven and he was starting to think he’d never bake again.

His phone lit up, and when he saw who the call was from, he wanted to throw the device out of the window. Three letters were on his screen: Mom. He did the same thing he’d done for the past three days; sent her to voicemail. He already knew what she wanted. Money, which wasn’t new. What
was
new was that she said it was for rehab. Since he’d paid for her almost a dozen attempts, all of which had been court ordered, he wasn’t exactly holding his breath that this time would be different just because it was her idea and not mandated by a judge.

Irritation and frustration crowded his shoulders, but like he did every time any real emotion crept its way into his consciousness, he pushed it down and ignored it. After typing back a quick response to Elissa saying that he wasn’t going to be around this weekend, he opened his door and the sweltering summer temperature surrounded him in smothering heat. The short walk into the air conditioned offices was miserable. He knew he was being particularly cranky thanks to sleep deprivation, but it had to be over a hundred degrees.

Darla, who was nearly eighty, looked up when he walked in. She was on a stool retrieving paper, which she insisted they keep above the top shelf. In a gravelly voice—one that sounded exactly how you would expect someone who’d smoked for the better part of their life to sound—she announced in her straight-to-the-point tone, “Seth’s been waiting for you.”

“I’ll get that, beautiful.” He easily reached above her head and grabbed a ream.

Darla snapped her fingers after she gingerly stepped off the stool. “Oh, I got a few messages for you. One from a Trina, one from a Georgia, and one from a Nora. Let me grab them.”

“You can toss them.” He had no interest in hearing what any of them had to say.

When he handed the paper to her, genuine concern clouded her wrinkled face. “Are you okay, hon? You seem…off.”

“I’m great. Just a little tired.” He winked as he headed back to Seth’s office.

His dried-up sex life wasn’t the only thing that was making him feel off these days. Since the moment he was born, he’d been a flirt. Literally. His mom, in one of her sober moments—which were few and far between—had told him that even as a newborn he’d winked at the nurses. Not one nurse. Every nurse that had taken care of him.

Sure, it had probably just been gas or an involuntary movement. But either way, Billy had lived up to the reputation that he’d come out of the womb with. Women loved him and he loved them back. He never lied. Never told a woman that she was beautiful if he didn’t think she was. But that was the thing, he could find something beautiful in any woman.

Over the past eighteen months, he’d felt like everything around him had lost its beauty. His life had gone from Technicolor to black and white. A year and a half ago he’d walked away from boxing after getting the identical prognosis from not one, not two, but three specialists that one more blow to his head had a ninety percent chance of causing permanent brain damage.

At the time, he’d thought he was ready to lay down the gloves. It wasn’t like boxing had ever really been his
passion
. As a teen it had been the thing that had kept a roof over his and his mom’s head. It had kept him off the streets and most likely out of jail. As an adult it had been what paid the bills and the only thing he’d ever known. But it wasn’t like he’d grown up dreaming of being the next Marciano, Ali, or Tyson. He hadn’t.

So when he’d made the decision to put his career in the rear view, he’d been excited for the next chapter in his life. Now, all these months later, he felt like something was missing, and not just in his personal life.

When he reached his boss’ office, he lifted his hand and rapped his knuckles on the door twice.

“Come in.” Seth’s voice sounded through the wood.

Before he’d even made it one step inside, he knew that he wasn’t going to like whatever his boss had to say. The same alarms that had gone off when he’d looked into the armed man’s eyes at the luncheon were going off again.

Something’s wrong
.

After clicking the door shut Seth nodded towards the chair across from his desk as he handed Billy an iPad. “I have something for you and you’re gonna want to sit down for this.”

Really wrong.

The tiny hairs on the back of his neck stood on end, which only ever happened when there was a disturbance in the force—or at least that’s how he’d described it when he was eight and obsessed with
Star Wars.
He took the seat that Seth had indicated.

Billy was trying to brace himself for impact as he half-listened to Seth breakdown his next assignment, which sounded like a fairly straight-forward stalker situation. Needing to do something, Billy began flipping through the PowerPoint on the iPad that held all of the pertinent information on the case. He was just starting to think that his Spidey senses were on the fritz when he got to the third page and read the name of the target.

His world stopped spinning as his stomach twisted into knots.

Maxine Rizzo.

The only daughter of Charlie Rizzo, his boxing trainer for twelve years and the closest thing that Billy had ever had to a father figure. The man that had taken him off the streets,
literally
, and led him to winning two world championships in boxing. Charlie hadn’t just mentored Billy in the ring, he’d opened his home to him more times than he could count. Billy had spent more holidays with the Rizzos than he ever had with his own mom. Not that she noticed when he was around or not, unless she needed money, that is.

There was no question that Charlie was a paternal figure to Billy, but Maxi was the farthest thing from a sister that you could get. No matter how badly Billy wished like hell that was how he felt about her, he didn’t. His feelings for her were nothing close to familial. He’d tried to deny his feelings. Ignore his feelings. And hell, even act on his feelings, but Maxi shut him down. None of that mattered to his heart though. She was the only woman he’d ever trusted. Ever cared about.

And she was in trouble…

T
wo hours later, as Billy sat in the high rise offices of SPC Advertising, he still hadn’t been able to slow his racing heartbeat. He was so amped with fear and stress that it was taking all of his focus to maintain an outwardly calm demeanor. Especially considering adrenaline was racing through his veins like a drug that he was overdosing on. The only upshot to his heightened emotional and physical state was that he was no longer tired. He could run a 10K and have energy to spare.

“No. Absolutely not.” Maxi’s head spun Linda-Blair-Exorcist style. Her possessed eyes were now pointed at Billy.

He did his damnedest to ignore the sweet floral scent that filled the air when her hair fanned out beside him, but he couldn’t help inhaling a little deeper and savoring the aroma. It was just one more piece of evidence that Maxi was
here
. She was
okay.

Frustration and anger rolled off of her in waves as she whipped her head back towards her boss. “I did not agree to
this
.”

Pissed…but okay.

“He doesn’t need to be here.” The flowery fragrance invaded his senses again as she pointed her stare back at him. Through clenched teeth she spoke in a controlled tone, “You don’t need to be here.”

What was that saying about protesting too much?

Billy couldn’t remember the exact quote but he was pretty sure it applied here. He stared straight ahead and did what he did best in life: he brushed off Maxi’s statement. Although, he had to admit her adamant insistence was a little harder not to take personally than most things he let slide.

Jessie Sloan-Courtland, his best friend Zach’s wife and Maxi’s boss at SPC, lifted her left brow slightly, but her expression remained unreadable. “I can put in a call to Seth and ask if he has anyone else available. I know he’s stretched tight, but I will see what I can do. Until then, the arrangement stands as is.”

Heat crawled up the side of Billy’s neck and over his left cheek from Maxi’s piercing stare still boring into the side of his face, but his gaze remained locked straight ahead. He hadn’t made eye contact with the brunette beauty since he’d stepped into the spacious high rise office about ten minutes ago. He couldn’t. Not until he got himself under—or at least in the ballpark of—control.

That was proving to be an extremely difficult task since the incidents that he’d been briefed on were running through his head on a constant loop. His jaw tensed as his chest tightened painfully. He still couldn’t believe that all of this had been going on and she hadn’t said one word to him about it. He’d read the report, the first incident had been six weeks ago.
Six weeks
. Over that time he’d seen her a half dozen times at Sunday night at “family dinner,” plus a few times when he’d stopped by the gym to visit Charlie and she’d been on her way out.

Yes, she was independent. Yes, she was headstrong. Yes, she didn’t trust easily. But he’d never pegged her for being
stupid
. Even though they rarely spent any time together away from Charlie or the gym, up until today, until this morning, Billy had truly believed that if she’d ever been in trouble she would call
him
. She had in the past and he’d shown up, no questions asked.

So what was different now?

“There’s no need to bother Seth.” Maxi’s voice was strained. “This entire thing is totally unnecessary. No one needs to be assigned to me.”

“Like I said,” Jessie reiterated calmly. “I can see what Seth can do, but until then, you will not be alone and Billy is on your detail.”

Seth, who happened to be Jessie’s cousin, had started Elite Protection, a small division of Titan Security, a few years ago after receiving a medical discharge from the Marines. As word of mouth about the company spread the business had taken off faster than Seth could keep up with the demand. The small division had grown exponentially.

Billy had joined the Elite team a year and a half ago after walking away from the sport that had given him everything—before it took away his ability to walk, speak and function normally. In the time since he’d been with them they’d hired a dozen guys and were still overloaded. Truth be told, they needed more bodies but Seth only hired the best of the best, men he trusted implicitly. Billy couldn’t blame him for that.

Not that it mattered in this case. Even if Seth could shuffle things around and put someone else on Maxi, there was no way in hell that was going to happen. Billy was going to be the point person on this.

“I don’t need a babysitter.” Maxi’s tone was professional but curt. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed her fingers curl around the arms of the chair she was sitting in and her knuckles turn white.

He almost felt sorry for her.
Almost.
Billy knew that she was working overtime to maintain her composure on the outside, but inside she was fuming. Maxine Rizzo’s personal anthem was “Independent Woman.” In the ten-plus years that he’d known her, he’d never witnessed her ask
anyone
for
anything,
and saying that she kept things close to the vest was as big of an understatement as describing New York City traffic as slightly congested. The running joke at the gym was that her private life was part of the witness protection program. No one ever knew who she was dating, how long she was dating them, or if it was serious.