Lisa Childs - His Christmas Assignment

He cursed. “That’s not it at all. You know I love your brothers.” Which hadn’t always been the case. But they’d helped save his and his brothers’ lives.

Then he’d gotten to know them and had learned how hard they’d worked to build new lives for themselves. They’d also brought him a ton of business—better business than Chekov. But because Garek had brought him so many clients, he hadn’t been able to refuse to take on Chekov when his brother-in-law had asked—especially once he’d explained to him why—which was also why Logan hoped that Candace hadn’t come back for Garek.

“She’s the only one who will be able to get through to him,” Stacy insisted, “to get him away from Viktor Chekov.” She shuddered—with revulsion and fear—as she uttered the mobster’s name.

“What makes you think that?”

“Because she’s the reason he went back to that life,” Stacy said. “When she quit Payne Protection and left town, he was devastated.”

Logan snorted. “He’s Garek. Nothing devastates Garek.” He’d never known a more resilient human being. The guy had been through hell and back and never lost his sense of humor.

“She did.”

He shook his head. “You’re wrong.”

“He was crazy about her,” Stacy insisted.

“Garek flirts with every female,” Logan said. “He’s even flirted with my mom.”

“Penny’s a hottie,” Stacy said with a giggle. “But Candace was different. He tried to be a better man for her. For the past year he hadn’t even dated another woman. That’s why, when she took off, he was devastated—so devastated he went back to his former life.”

Logan needed to find a way for her to make up with her brothers. She was so estranged from them that she didn’t even know them anymore.

“No,” he told her. “That’s not why he went back to his old life.”

“It’s not?” She furrowed her brow and studied him as if he had been holding out on her. “What do you know?”

“Only what Garek told me,” he said. “He had a reason for asking for this assignment with the Chekovs.” One that had convinced Logan to take on a mobster as a client. “He wanted this assignment so he could protect Tori Chekov.”

Stacy shrugged. “Why?”

“Because he’s in love with her.”

He heard a gasp, but it hadn’t slipped through his wife’s lips. He turned to the open door of his office. Had they forgotten to shut it? He’d wanted his wife so badly he hadn’t even noticed. His desire for her only seemed to intensify the longer they were together.

Candace Baker stood in the doorway, and all the color drained from her face, leaving it stark with shock. And he realized his wife had been at least half right. Candace had come back for Garek.

Now, having overheard what she had, would she quit again? The news had obviously affected her.

While he didn’t want to lose her as a team member again, he didn’t want to lose her as a friend either. They had been friends for years. So he was worried about her—worried about her safety if she were to stay. It would probably be the wisest and the safest thing for her to leave again.

If Tori Chekov thought Candace could potentially be a threat to her relationship with Garek, she might have her father take care of the female bodyguard.

Permanently...

Chapter 4

At that ski cabin in Northern Michigan, Candace had gotten her quota of quiet. She might have needed it then—the boring to outweigh the excitement she’d had and left. Now she needed noise, and it had to be loud enough to drown out the voice in her head that kept calling her an idiot.

She had found it at the downtown club. The music was so loud that it wasn’t heard; it was felt. It throbbed low in her body, beating as hard as her heart. But her heart hadn’t started beating that hard—that frantically—until she’d seen him .

On some level, she’d probably known Garek would be here—since Viktor Chekov owned the club. It was probably why she’d gone home and changed after she’d awkwardly stumbled into the middle of that conversation at the Payne Protection Agency. She’d told herself that she’d just wanted to look her best to make herself feel better.

But she’d wanted to make him feel bad.

As if Garek would care...

He hadn’t sought her out. And now she knew why. He’d reunited with the girl he’d loved since they’d been teenagers. Or so Logan thought. Stacy had denied her husband’s claim even though it was apparently what Garek had confided in him.

Logan had broken that confidence because he hadn’t wanted her wasting her time or her heart again—like she’d wasted it on him.

Yet here she was, wasting her time some more—coming down to a club to torture herself with the sight of Garek and his girlfriend. At least her martini was good. Over the rim of the glass, Candace studied them. They were a distance away since they sat at some raised-up, roped-off table near the dance floor and she sat at the crowded bar.

She’d been lucky someone had given up his seat to her. He’d even bought her martini. He stood near her now, his mouth near her ear as he tried talking to her. She couldn’t hear anything, and it had nothing to do with the music. It had everything to do with that voice in her head—the one that continued calling her names.

Tori Chekov was as beautiful as Candace had suspected she’d be. Petite. Curvy. With long curly blond hair. No one would treat this woman like one of the guys—or a buddy.

But Garek...

He wasn’t flirting and joking as he usually did. Instead he seemed tense, on edge—more cognizant of his surroundings than of the woman who sat beside him. He acted as if he was on a job—not a date.

But he looked like he could be dressed for a date. In a black shirt and pants, he looked dangerously sexy. His blond hair gleamed like gold under the strobe lights from the dance floor.

In Candace’s mind flashed the image of how she’d seen him last, lying naked in her bed, moonlight gleaming off his bare skin. He was almost too beautiful to be a man, but he was masculine, too—all toned muscle and chiseled edges.

How had she left him lying there alone? How had she just walked away?

But she hadn’t just walked. She’d grabbed her half-packed suitcase, and she’d run.

Garek continued his visual surveillance of the club—his attention on everything but the woman beside him. She knew he was assessing the entire building for possible threats like the vigilant bodyguard he was. In that assessment, he turned and his gaze met hers.

The air between them vibrated like the bass of the music. There was an electricity—a connection so overwhelming that she had that urge to run again.

And this time she needed to keep running.

* * *

“Damn it!” the words slipped involuntarily through Garek’s lips as he leaped to his feet.

One of Chekov’s goons reached beneath his jacket for his weapon. “Is there a problem? A threat?”

Tori reached out and grasped his arm. “What’s wrong, Garek?”

He shook his head and lied, “No problem...”

But he had a problem. She sat at the bar, her legs endlessly long and sexy beneath the short hem of her strapless dress. It was red and tight and so damn sexy that it was drawing every man in the club to her.

One of those men placed his hand on her bare shoulder, and Garek ground his teeth together as jealousy and rage coursed through him. He wanted to break every finger in that man’s hand for having the audacity to touch his woman.

Candace was his .

But he couldn’t stake his claim—not without risking her life when Garek put Viktor Chekov behind bars. Because even from behind bars Viktor would be dangerous—maybe even more dangerous because he would be out for vengeance.