Tracy Wolff - Unguarded

“Oh, my God, this is unbelievable. When you said you had two acres up here, I figured most of it would be wild and unusable. But this—” She held her arms out wide. “This is perfect. You could have twice as many people as we planned out here and still not be crowded.”

“You want to go explore?” He nodded toward the well-lit path that curved from the deck through the entire yard.

“Try and stop me.”

RHIANNON FELT A LITTLE like Alice in Wonderland as she combed through Shawn’s yard. Everywhere she looked there was something else to see—a tall, intricately carved gazebo that would comfortably seat twelve. An abundant rose garden with benches scattered throughout. Hidden alcove after hidden alcove, each perfect for a food station or intimate seating arrangement. And then there was the gigantic pool, hot tub and basketball court that took up a significant portion of the backyard near the wrought-iron fence, not to mention the view of the lake, which, even at night, was breathtaking.

When Logan had talked about Shawn having money, she’d assumed he meant normal money. Reasonable money. Not holy-cow-he-lives-like-a-pasha-on-his-own-estate money. All this before the movies for his superhero had even come out? Obviously, she’d severely underestimated the graphic-novel market.

It was disconcerting on a personal level, especially considering the fact that he’d called this their second date and had made her dinner. After talking to him at the restaurant and finding out what he did for a living, she’d managed to convince herself that he was just a little boy in a man’s body. She’d actually been happy about that—her unwitting attraction would die quickly under such circumstances.

She looked around the grounds. While all the toys and other things he’d had built made it obvious he liked to play, it was also becoming very clear that there was a lot more to Shawn than she’d originally thought. He had a beautiful, thoughtfully designed house, a career that he was obviously brilliant at and, despite it all, he was completely un-self-absorbed.

Most of the men she knew would have spent the whole time showing off the house, bragging about every little thing. But Shawn seemed more interested in learning about her than he did about impressing her. It was a little frightening, particularly since she found herself intrigued by his restraint.

It had been a long time since she’d been this interested in a man, and she didn’t know what to make of it, didn’t know how to act. Didn’t know, even, if she wanted to be interested. It was an odd conundrum to be in.

He wasn’t the first man to show interest in her since the attack, and he probably wouldn’t be the last. Normally she was overwhelmed by panic at the thought of a man’s attention and did her best to ignore them until they went away. She didn’t like the way they made her feel—afraid, helpless, hopeless and overwhelmed by doubts that she would ever be normal again.

She didn’t want to ignore Shawn. She didn’t have a clue what she did want to do with him, but she knew that she didn’t want to do that. Which was a problem in and of itself. Her old therapist would probably tell her that she’d chosen to be interested in him because he was safe. Unattainable.

Besides being way too young for her, he was also a client—at least, for the next six weeks. And the last thing she wanted was to get involved with a client. If she froze up, turned down his advances because she couldn’t handle them, it would be awful to still have to show up and do his party. Of course, it would be even more awful if he took his business somewhere else.

No, it was better if she kept these odd little twinges of interest to herself. The thought of disappointing Logan by screwing this up was bad enough, but she really couldn’t stand the idea of disappointing herself yet again.

Shoving her weird response to Shawn down deep inside of herself where she could forget it ever existed, Rhiannon did her best to focus on doing her job. Looking around the backyard, her ideas for the party exploded as she doubled—okay, tripled—the budget she’d had in mind. With a space like this, she practically had carte blanche as to what she could do. The challenge now would be to convince Shawn to let her run with her ideas—and his wallet.

The way the backyard was set up precluded one of her original ideas for a huge outdoor buffet—the seating was so sprawling it would be a huge trek to get back to the buffet table. But she could set up a bunch of small food stations, one in each of the alcoves… She began jotting a long list of notes as she wandered the grounds.

She stayed outside as long as she could, imagining one scenario after another. At one point Shawn murmured something about checking the pasta, but she didn’t notice him leave. She was too engrossed in planning the event of the year.

Standing where she was, with the lawn spread out in front of her and the lake in the distance, she could almost see the party. The lawn crowded with people in jeans and sundresses as they threw beanbags into a big clown’s mouth. Or—excitement thrummed through her as ideas flashed through her brain almost too quick for her to process—they could base the games on famous films that everyone knew and loved. Instead of pelting a clown with beanbags, it could be a giant shark’s mouth instead.

She had begun to scribble a note about Hollywoodizing the games when a hand fell on her shoulder. Her heart went into instant overdrive as her stomach tightened, painfully. Whirling around, hands clenched into fists, it took her a second to realize Shawn was standing there, staring at her like she’d lost her mind.

“Hey, I’m sorry.” To his credit, he backed up instantly, both hands in the air. “I didn’t mean to startle you, Rhiannon. You were off in your own little world.”

The fear that had slammed through her at his unexpected touch slowly dissipated, but she was left feeling awkward and embarrassed. What kind of event coordinator whipped around, looking for blood, the second her client tried to get her attention?

“Hey. You’re going back into your head again—stop it.”

Shawn’s voice was kind but firm, and this time when he placed a hand on her she didn’t flinch away. She just stood there, looking at him, and wondering what she could possibly say to make up for her idiotic behavior. Besides the truth—and the truth was the last thing she wanted to get into right now.

But Shawn was more of a gentleman than he looked. Instead of pushing her for some explanation, he just waited for her to figure out what she wanted to say.

Determined to get her head back in the game, she said, “Sorry. I was deep in thought about your party. I’ve come up with a bunch of different ideas.”

“Oh, yeah? Did you come up with any keepers?” He moved a little closer, surveyed the yard much as she had been doing before he’d interrupted her.

“Actually, I think I might have.” Though the fear was gone, her heart was still beating a little too fast and his proximity wasn’t making things any better. She took a few casual steps away from him.

“As I mentioned before, I’m not sure a huge, formal party is going to make the impression on these people that you’re hoping for. If they’re from Hollywood, they’ve probably been to a million of those. So what about if we do what we talked about the other day? We don’t try to compete with what they’re used to, but instead give them something else entirely? Maybe something more along the lines of a carnival?”

She spread her arms wide, gestured to all the different attractions he already had in place. “Your backyard is perfect for it. We can set up some big, brightly colored tents on the lawn, have people compete at games of chance for movie-themed prizes. You know, like carnival games—try to get three rings around a bottle, beanbag tosses, that kind of thing.