Okay, so that wasn’t embarrassing or anything. But Wyntir couldn’t help smiling because it didn’t matter how old you were, being kissed by a cute boy always made a girl feel good. At least for a few seconds.
“There’s not much to tell,” she finally admitted. “We’d been putting on a show for the tabloids at dinner, and then we went on a walk and he spotted a pap lurking nearby. I guess he wanted to continue the show, so…he kissed me. That’s it, no big deal. Just a PR stunt.”
Her heart ached a little too fiercely over the truth of the statement.
“Riiiiiight. So, you don’t find Stark Bradford the least bit attractive, huh?”
“No! I mean, you know, he’s, um… I mean…” Wyntir shook her head and found some words that didn’t make her sound like a complete idiot. “Whether I find him hot isn’t pertinent. We have a purely professional relationship.”
Rylan smirked. “I didn’t say anything about hot. But since you find him hot, I have to tell you that I’ve had a few hot co-workers in my day, and I’ve seen how easily the line between professional and decidedly unprofessional can get blurred.”
Wyntir so badly wanted to shout, “Right?” but instead adopted a blank expression. “It was just part of a PR stunt. I can assure you, it was only an act.”
“Uh huh,” Rylan said, entirely unconvinced. “If that’s the case, you might want to set up some boundaries for your, um, fake PDA. Don’t want Stark’s heart to get broken down the line.”
Wyntir thought she caught a flash of pity in Rylan’s expression, but she ignored it, playing along. “Good idea.”
To her eternal relief, Blaise bounced into the kitchen, a big, bright smile on his face, and flung his arms around her waist with all the familiarity of a real family. Wyntir was taken aback for a moment but then leaned in and tousled the kid’s soft, rusty hair.
“You ready to head home?” she asked.
“Sure!” He took her hand and a twinge of maternal affection washed over her. Oh god. What about the Bradford Boys made her so weak?
After twenty more minutes of the boys saying goodbye to each other, they finally headed out. Blaise’s eyes lit up as he clocked Wyntir’s light blue Porsche sitting pretty at the mouth of the driveway.
“Damn!” he swore, the word sounding foreign in his sweet little boy voice.
Wyntir whipped around, mouth agape, to look at him in surprised amusement. He clasped both hands over his mouth and blushed furiously, his fair skin turning almost as red as his hair. The repentance was immediate.
“Don’t tell my dad I cussed. Please? It’s just a really cool car.”
Wyntir could hardly hold back a laugh as she patted him on the head.
“He doesn’t have to know,” she assured him. “This time. And thanks. Hop in.”
On the ride over, Blaise seemed much more relaxed. It occurred to Wyntir she had probably earned his trust, and that made her heart swell with affection for the little guy. He was even goofy enough to show her his one-quarter-fox ability to turn his nose black and softly whiskery. She praised him for the skillful trick, and they sang along to “oldies”—mostly the music of her youth—on the radio. By the time they made it back to his home overlooking the Pacific Ocean, they were both grinning from ear to ear.
A car she didn’t recognize—other than it cost twice as much as hers—sat on the cobbled driveway, causing the light and fun mood to evaporate. She managed to fake it well enough for Blaise, but even he must have sensed her tension because he quickly quieted down and obeyed when she instructed him to follow behind her instead of running into his own home as he normally would.
Creaking open the front door, she listened for any sign of a problem, but all she heard was a mellow conversation between Stark and his guest. No rancor, no fear, no anger. That was a relief, but she still wasn’t taking chances. Moving quietly down the hallway, she edged around the corner and caught sight of Stark lounging on his couch in a pair of swim trunks and nothing else. A very distinguished older man sat opposite him.
Having lived in LA for so long, Wyntir had become quite adept at sniffing out who was truly wealthy and who was posing. And this guy reeked of money. That wasn’t all she could smell either. As he turned toward the sound of Blaise running past her to greet Stark, she froze and stared at the man.
No, not a man—a dragon.
Stark hadn’t mentioned anything about having a dragon friend, and though she didn’t know every dragon in Los Angeles, she was surprised she didn’t recognize this one. Nearly all of the dragon elite in the area contracted with Wildridge for various reasons.
“That’s my cue,” the man said with a forced smile and then hurried past her with a perfunctory nod and was gone.
Wyntir watched the front door long after the smooth rumbling of the fancy car had droned away into the distance. She turned to find Stark lightly swatting a giggling Blaise on the rump.
“Now scoot!”
Wyntir poured herself a cup of coffee as she waited to hear Blaise’s bedroom door slam, and then she sat in the spot the strange dragon had vacated.
“Who was that?”
Stark leaned back and gave her a panty-melting smile, his gaze wandering down the length of her before answering. “Xavier Manchester.”
Willing herself not to blush at his appraisal, she fixed him with a hard look. “Not helpful. As your bodyguard, I need to know who is coming and going from your home so I can effectively protect you and your son.”
He rolled his eyes. “Xavier has been my financial advisor for going on a decade now. He’s basically family at this point.”
“You know he’s a dragon. Right?”
Stark looked nonplussed. “So?”
So indeed. He’d been mated to a fox shifter so clearly shifters didn’t freak him out. In fact, it might be natural for him to trust them more than the average human.
“I dunno,” she said, glancing at the front door again, as if a ghost image of Xavier might have lingered. “I just got a weird vibe, and when I get vibes, I listen to them.”
“Are your vibes ever wrong?”
She hesitated and then admitted the truth. “Sometimes.”
“Well, your Vibe-O-Meter must need new batteries. Or maybe you just sensed that he likes to keep his shifter status on the down-low, even around other shifters.”
“Why would he do that?” Around humans, she could understand, but why be shy around other shifters?
“He worries that if word gets out it could destroy his career. Most of his clients are rich and famous humans—even richer and more famous than me.”
She snorted, despite not wanting to fall for his charms again. “Humble too.”
Stark grinned. “Humility is my biggest strength. Anyway, Xavier just wants to protect his business, so the fewer people who know his secret, the better.”
The security specialist in her wanted to pepper him with more questions about the strange dragon, but the guy wasn’t a stranger to Stark or Blaise. He’d been in their lives for longer than the kid had even been alive. Time to put her training and relentless curiosity aside. Besides, said training was in personal security, not finances. That was Dyrk’s department at Wildridge.