Out of Town Bride. Kara Lennox

      “Marvin’s the one who should be with you.”

      She glanced away, a sure sign she was about to tell a lie. “I told you, he’s somewhere in China right now. I can’t get hold of him.”

      “Can’t you call his company?” John-Michael said as they walked toward the elevator. “Surely they know how to reach him. And there are satellite phones, you know.”

      “He’s working on an important deal, and I don’t want to worry him unnecessarily. He calls me every few days. I’ll let him know the situation next time he calls.”

      John-Michael sure wished he knew what was going on with her. He’d never known Sonya to be so secretive—or to tell so many lies. He and Sonya had had their differences, sure, but she’d always been able to trust him. He’d never told Muffy about those frat parties she used to attend that were little more than drunken orgies. Or about the time he’d had to rush Sonya’s best friend, Cissy Trask, to the hospital when she’d had a miscarriage. No one but he and Sonya had known she was pregnant, and no one ever would.

      Why now had Sonya decided he couldn’t be trusted?

      Once they reached the Patterson estate, Sonya disappeared without a word up the curved staircase, her delicate heels noiseless on the Chinese silk carpeting.

      John-Michael retreated to his own quarters, a small apartment above the five-car garage. But he was too keyed up to sleep. Instead, he pulled on a pair of gym shorts.

      The Patterson estate had its own mini health club, with state-of-the-art exercise equipment, an indoor lap pool, wet and dry saunas and whirlpool.

      Foregoing the fancier equipment, John-Michael went a few rounds with a punching bag.

      As he moved through a series of jabs and kicks, he thought about the easy friendship he and Sonya had enjoyed when they were kids. Though he was only the gardener’s son and Sonya was five years his junior, she’d been his sidekick, his little pest, always trailing after him, wanting to hang out with him and his friends. And sometimes he’d let her slum with him. He’d shown her how to work on his motorcycle and, at Muffy’s insistence, how to handle the gun Sonya now kept in her nightstand.

      When Muffy decided Sonya needed a bodyguard. John-Michael was the logical choice. He’d just graduated from the police academy, planning a career in law enforcement. Muffy offered him a higher salary than any of the local police departments paid, and she’d promised to send him to an elite bodyguard-training school. He’d cheerfully accepted, never realizing he was putting a noose around his own neck.

      Muffy had a secondary motive for hiring John-Michael. She’d needed him close at hand to handle any “difficulties” that came up with Jock, her gardener—who happened to be John-Michael’s father.

      The job had gone okay until one night when Sonya attended her first sorority party. John-Michael had gone with her, lurking in the shadows like always, watching as she tried to assert her independence by getting drunk on margaritas. He’d pulled her away from the party before things had gone too far.

      She’d been spitting angry with him at first, spouting off about how she was an adult, it was a free world, she would have her mother fire him. Then, when they’d reached the car, she’d surprised the hell out of him by throwing her arms around his neck and pressing her lush body up against his. “I really am a bad girl, aren’t I?” Before he could answer, before he’d been able to think, she’d clamped her sweet little mouth over his.

      His body had sprung to life, and for the first time he’d realized that his charge was no longer a child. She had a woman’s body, a woman’s moves….

      After thirty seconds of hot kisses and body rubbing, he’d pulled himself together and gently pushed her away.

      “What?” she’d objected, loudly enough to wake the whole neighborhood. “Don’t tell me you don’t want me. You do. I could feel it.”

      Dear God. At that moment he’d seen the utter folly of what he’d done, what he’d been about to do. Having sex with his charge, the girl he was supposed to be protecting, would be the grossest sort of irresponsibility he could imagine, not to mention a very short path to losing his job.

      The only way to deal with this situation, he’d decided, was to end it in a way that was harsh and final, so it would never happen again. So he would never be tempted again.

      He gave his punching bag a series of savage jabs as he remembered how difficult it had been to be cruel to her.

      He’d forced himself to laugh at her. “You don’t actually imagine I would be interested in a spoiled little brat like you,” he’d said, deliberately filling his voice with derision.

      The insult had cut, as it was meant to do. Her eyes filled with tears. “You kissed me back,” she accused.

      “I’m a man,” he said harshly. “I have hormones. But I also have a brain, thank God, and I’m not stupid enough to get it on with Muffy Patterson’s daughter.”

      “She would never know,” Sonya said in a last-ditch effort to salvage the situation. And it almost worked. Seeing her standing there, more sober now than drunk, her blond hair mussed, her lips full from kissing, he’d almost grabbed her and kissed her again. And he wouldn’t have stopped with kissing.

      Savagely he turned his back on her and opened the passenger door of her BMW—her high school graduation present from Muffy. “Get in the car. You’re embarrassing yourself.”

      “Do you have a girlfriend?” she asked, sounding devastated at the thought.

      “That’s none of your business.” He hoped she would think that meant yes.

      “I’ve never seen you with a girl.”

      “No girlfriend of mine is going to watch while a child orders me around.”

      He hadn’t had a girlfriend. When would he have had time to find one? He’d spent every hour either watching over Sonya or dealing with the disasters his father created. But his ploy had worked. Sonya didn’t say another word. And she never again tested her feminine wiles on him.

      Back in the present, he took one final swing at the bag. He was out of breath and dripping with sweat, more so than the easy workout should have caused. Time hadn’t lessened the intensity of his memories one bit.

      Unfortunately, his formerly easygoing friendship with Sonya had been a casualty of that ill-begotten evening. She’d never forgotten, or forgiven, his rejection. For almost ten years, he’d had to endure her coldness and hide the desire he felt for her, a desire that had only grown fiercer as she’d matured into an intriguing woman.

      He’d tried to resign, and Sonya had tried to fire him—numerous times. But gradually, John-Michael had come to understand the complex dynamics of his job. If he wasn’t employed in a position that kept him constantly on hand to handle Jock, then Jock would have to go.

      And to send Jock away from the Patterson estate, the only home he’d ever known, would kill him.

      SONYA HADN’T REALIZED how tired she was. When next she woke, it was dark outside. She checked her clock and was horrified to discover it was after two in the morning.

      Her first thought was that they’d been protecting her from bad news—“they” being John-Michael; Tim, the chauffeur; June, the secretary; and possibly Matilda, the housekeeper. Muffy’s staff had always sheltered Sonya from all unpleasantries.

      She sat up, rubbed the sleep from her eyes and switched on a lamp. Her cell phone was right there next to her, with no messages. Grateful that she’d had the foresight to put the ICU’s phone number into her cell’s memory, she dialed.

      “Your mother is actually doing much better,” the night nurse told her. “The new antibiotic therapy is working. She’s been drifting in and out of sleep, but she did wake up long enough to drink some water. She asked about you.”

      Sonya