His Holiday Bride

“I know what I saw, Dashuan. No amount of conversation is going to change that.”

Paul saw the elevator doors open again and a group of burly men step out. They came up behind Dashuan, and Paul took them for the basketball player’s bodyguards.

He looked into the faces of the men, sizing them up and knowing he might have to fight his way out of here. “We’re leaving. If you try to stop us this could get ugly, Kennedy. Just let us go.”

Dashuan was glaring at Amber. “Keep your mouth shut, bitch,” he said under his breath, but he never moved.

Paul felt Amber’s small, fisted hand dig deeper into his shirt. Don’t worry, I won’t let you go. He resisted the urge to kiss the top of her head in reassurance. Taking her hand, he turned and headed toward the door.

Halfway there he felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. With lightning fast reflexes, he pushed Amber to the side. Paul swung around and saw Dashuan charging toward him. He was holding the small gun backward with the butt extended high over his head.

Paul heard someone scream “Look out.” He went in low tackling Dashuan right in his midsection. The ball player let out a whiff of air and collapsed on his side. In a second, Paul was back on his feet in a defensive posture as he watched Dashuan’s boys slowly moving in, determined to finish what he’d started.

He reached in his pocket and tossed Amber the car keys. “Get in the blue Focus parked out front.”

“What about you?”

“Don’t worry about me. Just go!” Paul watched the guys closing in on each side. There were six of them and one of him. He would have to take out the ones standing between him and the door first. Then…

The six men stopped moving. Their attention had been drawn to something over his shoulder.

“Is there a problem here, Paul?”

Paul recognized the voice of his friend, LAPD detective Keith Montfield. He glanced back to see Keith and the four uniformed officers who had quietly come up behind him.

“Nothing I can’t handle, Keith.” He relaxed his stance.

Keith chuckled. “I know, but how about you let us lend a hand anyway?”

Paul stepped back, and gestured in front of him. “Help yourself.”

The officers closed in on the six bodyguards, and one stopped to pick Dashuan up off the floor.

Paul patted Keith on the shoulder before he turned to leave. “Can I give you a call tomorrow to explain?”

Keith nodded and looked his friend over. “Sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah. I’ll fill you in tomorrow.”

As Paul headed toward the exit he heard one of the bodyguards ask, “Why does he get to go?”

He heard Keith’s laughter. “Who, that guy? He’s harmless.”

Paul couldn’t help smiling. He turned and winked at Keith, seeing the humor in the detective’s eyes. Everyone in L.A. knew that statement was the furthest thing from the truth.

Paul hurried out to the car he’d double-parked in the luggage loading area. Try as he may he could not stem the growing excitement he felt remembering the beautiful woman who would be there waiting for him.

Feeling ridiculous even as he did it, he checked to make sure his shirt was tucked neatly in his slacks. He ran his hand over his short, curly hair. What the hell am I doing?

He should be thinking about reassuring the girl. He wasn’t sure what had happened between her and Kennedy, but whatever it was apparently upset her a great deal.

He reached the car and stopped short realizing the passenger seat was empty except for the small key ring lying in plain sight. He looked in both directions but did not see her. His mind quickly calculated the possibilities that one of Dashuan’s guys had gotten by him when he wasn’t looking. But no, he was fairly certain there were only six of them and they were all accounted for inside.

A young valet was standing not far from where he was parked. Paul approached him with a description of Amber and asked if he’d seen her.

“Yeah, she went walking that way.” He gestured toward West Sunset Boulevard. “I offered to get her a cab, but she said no thanks.”

Paul quickly tipped the guy for his help before climbing into his car. Taking the keys from the passenger side, he started the engine. Amber was distraught, Paul thought. In her current state of mind who knew what she might do.

He caught up with her within three blocks. “Amber! Amber!” He rolled along slowly, ignoring the horns blaring behind him and the foul language of those that managed to get by him. “Amber, get in the car!”

She glanced at him. The golden eyes that had pleaded for help in the hotel were now glaring with cold intensity. She was an angry angel, Paul thought, unable to stop himself from making the comparison.

“Where are you going?” he called out the passenger-side window.

“Somewhere away from you and my meddling family!”

Paul forced his way out of traffic and pulled into the parking lot of the grocery store several feet in front of her. He hopped out of the car and came around to wait for her to catch up.

Amber just ignored him and continued to walk right past, as if she didn’t even see him.

Paul fell into step beside her. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but when I asked you if you wanted to leave did you not nod your head?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Of course I did. But that doesn’t mean I wanted to leave with you.” She gave him a sidelong glance. “What is your name anyway?”

Paul closed his eyes and shook his head, realizing in the mist of all the confusion he’d never introduced himself. “Paul Gutierrez.” He extended his hand but she ignored it.

“Look, Amber, I know you’ve been through a lot tonight, but if you would just—”

She stopped dead in her tracks and slowly swiveled around to face him. Her golden eyes were dark with some unidentifiable emotion. “You have no idea what I’ve been through this evening. So don’t even stand there and pretend like you understand!”

Paul frowned, seeing the tears begin to form in her eyes again. What did Kennedy do to you? He knew he could not ask the question no matter how it ate at him. As far as she was concerned he was just a meddlesome friend of a friend.

“Fair enough,” he said softly. “So, where are you heading?”

Amber looked at the endless sidewalk ahead of her and realized she really didn’t know. When she’d left the hotel all she wanted to do was get away from Dashuan, the handsome stranger whose name she now knew was Paul, her family and anyone else who knew her. She wanted to go off by herself and cry into a pillow. She felt like a complete fool and that was not something she wanted to share with anyone.

How could he? It was the question she’d been asking herself repeatedly for the past hour. How could Dashuan betray her like that? He was supposed to be the one. Mr. Right. When, in fact, he was Mr. Incredibly Wrong.

She sighed. “I’m just going to check in to another hotel.” She glanced up into his concerned brown eyes. “Don’t worry. I’ll call my family as soon as I check in and let them know I’m okay.”

“What hotel? I’ll give you a ride.”

She frowned, getting a little irritated by the man’s insistence to help where none was wanted. “Really, it’s okay. I’ll be fine.”

“You’re kidding, right? Two o’clock on a Saturday morning and you’re out walking the streets of downtown L.A. You’re lucky if you don’t get picked up for prostitution.”

“You son of a—” Without a thought of the consequences, Amber took a swing at the man and it felt good. She put into it all the anger and frustration she was feeling and still missed by a mile as he ducked neatly out of the way of her arm.

“I’m sorry. That came out wrong.” He grabbed her arms to hold her still. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”

She struggled for a few moments more, before realizing it was getting her nowhere.

He whispered her name close to her ear and she felt her whole body melt. “Let me help you.”

“You can help me by taking me to a nearby hotel.”

Paul was sure Luther would not appreciate him dumping the girl at some anonymous hotel and abandoning her to her fate. But if she was determined, there was nothing he could do to stop her. “All right.” Reluctantly he released her. “I’m parked right over here.”

He led her back to the car and watched her pretty little nose twitch as if she suddenly smelled something bad.

She studied the modest car as if seeking some secret message. “What exactly do you do for a living?” she asked. Accepting the open door he offered, she climbed into the passenger seat.

Paul quirked an eyebrow, suddenly remembering that this was a girl who chased a wealthy basketball player all the way from Detroit. Just another gold digger.

“I’m in security,” he answered vaguely, having no desire to replace Dashuan Kennedy’s checkbook with his own. She was beautiful, there was no denying that. And probably as shallow as a saucer, he thought, as he pulled away from the curb.

“So, where do you want me to take you?” he asked, pulling back out into traffic.

“I don’t care, just somewhere nice and…reasonably priced.” She yawned, relaxing back into the seat of the small car.

Paul headed in the direction of the airport, thinking to drop her someplace that had shuttle service to the airport terminals, so she wouldn’t have far to go later that morning. He still didn’t like the idea of leaving her alone in a hotel, but he didn’t want to stay in her line of vision too long, either.

He’d met women like Amber Lockhart many times. Women who used their pretty faces to manipulate men. He glanced at her again and wondered what man would be strong enough to resist an angel. Certainly not himself. No, it was best to leave her at an airport hotel and wish her a safe flight home.

He glanced at the shopping bags and purse she’d tossed in the backseat and wondered where her luggage was. She’d probably left it behind at Kennedy’s penthouse. What had upset her so badly that she would leave without her luggage?

“I know it’s not my business, but what exactly happened between you and Kennedy?”

She snuggled into the car seat and yawned again. “I caught him in bed with someone else,” she said drowsily.

Paul knew the confession was a sign of just how exhausted she really was. The woman he’d met earlier would’ve never revealed that embarrassing information. Paul knew she was too tired to edit out what she was saying, and he ruthlessly took advantage of it.

Of course, finding her boyfriend in bed with another woman would be devastating to a woman like Amber, a woman so sure of her appeal. But something about the whole thing just felt more intense than a casual one-night stand. “Did you know her?” he asked.

“Yes.” She yawned and he could tell she was fading away.

“Was she a close friend of yours?” he asked, sure he was on the right track. Nothing hurt worse than a close friend sleeping with your mate.

“No.” She yawned one final time. “It was his personal trainer, Kelvin Landy.”

Kelvin? Paul’s eyes widened, realizing the implications of the statement. Dashuan Kennedy, the famous basketball player, caught in bed with another man! His mind quickly sifted through everything that happened earlier. It explained the fear Paul had seen in Kennedy’s eyes. Something like this would ruin the guy’s reputation and possibly his career.

Keep your mouth shut, bitch. Dashuan’s last words to Amber kept replaying in his head. He glanced over at his passenger, who was now asleep, She was so helpless, alone in an unfamiliar city, and yet her pride refused to accept his help.

With one final glance at the vulnerable form, he made his decision. He pulled all the way over into the right lane and took the next exit. They were no longer headed toward the airport. Plans had changed. He wondered briefly what she would say when she woke up and realized what he’d done. He was not looking forward to it.

Chapter 3

Why, Amber thought, did the greatest revelations in life come too late to be useful?

She sat curled in a ball in the car with her eyes pressed tightly closed. She wanted to continue to appear asleep even though she’d been awake for several minutes now. Soon, she thought, they should arrive at a hotel and she would be free of Paul Gutierrez, the handsome stranger who’d appeared out of nowhere to rescue her.

She made a mental note to thank him when they parted company. Looking back on the situation she wasn’t sure she would’ve been able to get away from Dashuan so easily without his help. And all she’d given him in return was attitude, which was strange considering men like him usually brought out only the best in her.

A flirtatious smile, the wink of an eye—that was how she would typically greet gorgeous men. Not with tear-filled eyes and a flippant tongue. She could still see the concern shining in the depths of those soft brown eyes. As nice as he was to look at, Amber could only hope never to see him again after tonight.

She would check into an anonymous room tonight and be on a flight to…somewhere tomorrow. Not home. The humiliation of returning to her family under these circumstances would just be too great.

No, she needed some time alone, maybe on a tropical beach somewhere far from Opal’s self-righteous “I told you so.” Far away from Ruby’s temper, and Pearl’s sympathetic eyes. In other words, far, far away from her sisters.

The image of what she’d seen earlier that night was not only seared on her brain, it seemed to be on some kind of auto replay that she could not stop.

The look of horrific surprise on Dashuan’s face when she’d thrown open the bedroom door to find his naked body kneeling over another. The look of shock on the face of his lover. And she could only imagine her own frightful expression as her brain tried to reason out exactly what her eyes were seeing. It wasn’t real. It couldn’t be real. It was like a magic trick, she thought. When the mind knows that what it is seeing cannot be and yet there it is…right in front of you.

She felt her whole body stiffening, remembering the vision that had greeted her as she rounded the corner and come to a halt in the entrance to the living room. It was a scene straight out of a graphic porn movie. Clothes were strewn all over the floor as naked bodies twisted and contorted in every imaginable way. Men and women coupled, and in groups having sex all over the large room. Women with men, women with women, men with men—she simply could not believe it. The air was pungent with the smell of sex and Amber felt herself getting sick.

No one seemed to even notice her standing in the doorway too stupefied to move. Or if they did notice they didn’t seem to care. She forced herself to look into each and every face, recognizing many of them as friends of Dashuan’s, but there was no sign of Dashuan in the midst of the orgy. Amber remembered feeling overwhelming relief when she first discovered he was not among the bodies.

Her eyes fell on Skip, Dashuan’s agent, the man he was supposed to be spending the evening with discussing business. But the only business Skip seemed interested in was what the two young female groupies were doing to his genitals.

His eyes met hers over the tops of their heads and there was something dark and sinister in the way he looked at her that told her she had to get out of there in a hurry, or she could become an unwilling part of this whole disaster.

She had to find Dashuan and let him know what was going on. He would put a stop to this. Of that she was certain. She made her feet move in the direction of the bedrooms lining the back hall of the suite, hoping that Dashuan had fallen asleep in one of them and was unaware of what was going on in the other rooms. She threw open the double doors of the master bedroom and surprisingly it was empty, as were the next two bedrooms. She was almost convinced that Dashuan was nowhere in the suite when she came to the fourth bedroom.

She heard the muffled groan too late, because by the time the noise registered she had already thrown open the door and surprised the two men coupling on the bed. Amber knew she would never forget the look of intense pleasure on Dashuan’s face, or the sight of his strong, muscular arms bracing his body over his trainer. She knew she would never forget because he looked exactly as she’d always imagined he would look. Only in her imaginings, she had been the one beneath him.

She felt the car make a turn, and the shifting movement brought her back to the present. Slowly, the car came to a halt. Amber felt her heart pounding as she remembered the man sitting next to her. They had finally reached the hotel. Now all she had to do was get away from him with what was left of her dignity intact.

“I know you’re awake, so you might as well open your eyes.” A gentle voice broke the silence.

So much for dignity. Amber opened her eyes and found herself staring into a pair of soft brown ones again. The man really was beautiful, she thought. Too bad they had not met under different circumstances. Looking out the driver’s side window beyond him, she realized they were in some sort of neighborhood. She sat up and realized they were sitting in the driveway of a large, newly built home. She continued to look all around. A subdivision? she thought. What happened to the hotel?

“Where are we?” Amber felt the first stirring of unease since Paul Gutierrez had appeared, reminding her that she did not know this man.

“I thought you would be more comfortable here than in a hotel.”

She narrowed her eyes and studied his face, trying to see any signs of deceit or ill intentions. “I asked you a question. Where are we? Whose house is this?”

Paul arched an eyebrow, realizing she did not assume it was his. Of course not. He reminded himself of her reaction to his little compact car. What exactly do you do for a living? He could still see the slightly contemptuous expression on her pretty face. Gold digger.

“A friend of mine. I’m house-sitting.”

She scooted back against the door of the car. “I asked you to take me to a hotel. Why did you bring me here?”

“I just told you. I thought you would be more—”

Suddenly she threw open the door and stood. Paul matched her step for step.

“Amber!” he called to her realizing she was now trembling. “Calm down, I should have told you what I—”

“Do you really know Luther?”

“Of course. How else would I have found you?”

“How do you know him?”

“We were in the Navy together. Look, I know you’ve been through a lot tonight but you’re going to have to trust me.”

“I don’t know anything about you! All I asked was that you take me to a hotel and you brought me here. Where are we, anyway?!”

He sighed. “Moreno Valley, about an hour southeast of L.A.”

“We’ve been driving for over an hour?” Her eyes widened, and she glanced at the small gold watch on her wrist for the first time since she’d climbed into the car. It was almost 3:00 a.m. “Oh, my God!” She grabbed her head with both hands. “What was I thinking? Getting in a car with a total stranger?”

“Amber, calm down. You are perfectly safe here.” Realizing she was about to bolt, Paul held up his hand. “Stop and think for a minute. How else would I have known where to find you? Your name? Think about it.”

She did, but she did not draw the conclusions he wanted. “For all I know you could just be some creep who hangs around hotel lobbies trying to pick up women. As for my name, you heard Dashuan call me.”

His mouth twisted in frustration. “You name is Amber Lockhart. You are twenty-one and you grew up in Detroit. From what Luther told me, your family is worried about you right now. So, why don’t we go into the house and give them a call to let them know you’re safe and sound.”

Her heart slowed considerably as he recited information that could’ve only come from someone who knew her. “Okay, I believe Luther sent you.”

“Thank you!” He threw up his hands in relief, believing the battle had been won.

“But that doesn’t change the fact that you took me an hour outside of town without my permission when all I asked is that you drop me off at a hotel.”

“Stop obsessing about the damn hotel. You’ll be much more comfortable here, all the same amenities and more. This is for your own good.”

“How would you know what’s good for me?” She shook her head in defeat. “You know what—Never mind. I’ll find a hotel on my own.” She quickly opened the rear door of the car and grabbed her bags and her purse. Slamming the door shut, she turned and headed down the driveway back toward the street.

“Where are you going?” Paul asked, wondering if his friendship with Luther was really worth this headache.

“I told you. I’ll find my own hotel,” she called over her shoulder.

“You don’t even know where you are!” he shouted and instantly regretted it when he noticed the front room curtains moving on the house across the street. Apparently they had an audience.

Amber did not even bother responding. She just kept walking. The plan was simple. She would hail a cab. Cab drivers always knew hotels and restaurants in their areas. In the morning she would find some way back to L.A., and from there on to…wherever. I’ll worry about that tomorrow. Right now all she wanted was a bed, and sweet, sweet sleep.

Paul stood and watched her leave and was determined not to follow. He knew she would be safe enough inside the large subdivision, but what if she did manage to find her way out onto the main street? What if the dizzy broad got herself run down or mugged? Of course, Luther would hold him responsible.

He rested his head on top of the small car, wondering what crazed compulsion told him to bring her back to his home. The girl was nothing but trouble. Look at the situation he had to bail her out of tonight.

She wasn’t the only one with troubles, he thought, remembering that only a few hours ago he’d been forced to fire a man he had considered a friend.

He shook his head and decided to let her go for now. Maybe she would be more reasonable after she cooled off. A couple of hours on the hard concrete in those heels she was wearing, and she would regard his compact car like the finest of limousines.

Paul opened the front door of the house as quietly as possible, not wanting to awaken Rosalie, the sixty-seven-year-old Hispanic woman who took care of his eight-month-old son, Joachim, during the day. But that proved pointless as he entered the large kitchen and found her sitting at the table.

Rosalie often volunteered to spend the night when Paul needed to do late-night surveillance, such as tonight. Being that all of her children were adults, there was only Rosalie and her elderly husband, Enrique, at home. Paul knew that taking care of Joachim was more than just a job for Rosalie, and he was grateful for whatever intuition had led him to hire her.

The older woman was usually never without a smile or kind word for anyone. But now a worried expression marred her light brown face. Her worn, wrinkled hands were closed around a mug and Paul knew instinctively this night was about to get even worse.

“Paul!” Hearing him enter the room she sprung to her feet with the agility of a woman half her age and ran to wrap her robust arms around his lean form. “I was so worried about you. I know you said you would be late tonight, but it’s almost morning, and I was so afraid. And Enrique, my Enrique has to have emergency surgery—”

“Shhh, shhh.” Paul stroked her back, trying to calm her. “Now, slowly, tell me.”

“My Enrique has to have emergency heart bypass surgery in the morning.” She began wringing her hands in agitation. “Oh, Paul, I am so worried. What am I going to do?”

Paul guided her back to the table. “First, you are going to slow down before you have to join Enrique in the hospital,” he said, in a poor attempt to lighten the mood.

Rosalie smiled, grateful for the effort. “You’re right. He’s always been such a strong, healthy man. I don’t understand how this could’ve happened to him.”