“But I like cookies.” Sylvie swiped another from the plate, glad neither father commented on her blush.
“I swear, you two are always like this.” Anton sipped from his mug, his gaze never leaving her face. “So, what didn’t you put in your blog about Pippa? Even if Henry won’t admit it, we’re both dying to know the whole delightfully sordid story.”
As was everyone else, from photographers to fashion designers to behind-the-scenes powerhouses. Chantal was the must-read magazine for the fashion industry. In Chantal’s editor-in-chief Pippa Worthington’s mind that made her god—and she’d been quoted several times saying so.
“Everything I can confirm is on the blog. Webster Holdings has issued an order: Either Pippa increases ad dollars and subscribers by twenty percent by the end of the year, or she’s out.”
“She’s been Chantal’s editor-in-chief for twenty years. I can’t even imagine the magazine without her,” Anton said.
“The woman is a cold-hearted, power-hungry snob who’s ruled over the fashion press and blackballed designers she hated—like us, Anton—for more than long enough. I can’t wait to see her thrown out on her ass—and I know I’m not the o
nly one. I’ve already ordered a case of champagne in hopes it happens sooner rather than later.”
Ever since her fathers had ignored Pippa’s advice a decade ago about changing their resort collection—they were quoted in Fashion Times Daily as saying magazine editors needed to stay out of the design room—the arrogant editor had washed Chantal’s pages clean of them. Oh, they were nice to each other in public, all air kisses and fake good intentions, but the three couldn’t stand each other.
A tall shadow fell on the cookies. “Sorry I’m late. Traffic was snarled up on West Fifty-Seventh.”
Sylvie’s heart stuttered against her rib cage. That warm, caramel voice. The sudden static of awareness in the air. An inexplicable heat warming her skin.
Please God, don’t let the potential bodyguard be the man she’d ranted and raved to—and then almost kissed—at the wedding.
She held her breath and turned to see the man the voice belonged to. Sure enough, Tony Falcon stood next to her in jeans and a smirk, both of which made her wish she’d bothered to put on lipstick and eyeliner.
His thick, black hair, combed only by his fingers no doubt, touched the collar of his vintage motorcycle jacket. It didn’t just look old; it was old. The black leather had faded creases on the inside of the elbows and the sunburned outline of a badge that probably hadn’t been attached to the jacket for decades. Underneath he wore a gray, ribbed henley pulled taut across his muscular chest and tucked into a pair of worn jeans, soft from wear. A few days’ growth highlighted his square jaw and shadowed the chin dimple that Sylvie had first noticed in the Grand Hibiscus Hotel garden.
Her pulse kicked up a notch or three gazillion. She didn’t know what she’d been thinking opening up to him, but standing next to him, staring at the way his tuxedo fit as though it had been made for his broad shoulders, and seeing the warmth in his brown eyes, she’d needed to feel wanted. To remember, at least for a few moments, what it was like to be the center of someone’s world. To be desired as a woman. An embarrassed flush crept up her throat, remembering that moment of emotional vulnerability. Thank God Pippa Worthington, of all people, had broken the spell before Sylvie had made an even bigger fool of herself.
Still, when she hadn’t been on her knees with an old toothbrush and grout cleaner scrubbing away her frustrations in the bathroom this week, she’d been dreaming about Tony Falcon’s lips—especially the full lower lip that had been made to be nibbled. And in her midnight fantasies she’d done a lot more to this man than just suck on his bottom lip.
Oh. Crap.
For a second she wondered if having a bodyguard wouldn’t really be that bad, but quickly pushed the idea aside. She would not return to acting like that scared little girl in foster care who read two levels below her grade and raised her fists at every hint of a threat.
“Crazy traffic today, isn’t it?” Anton looked at her with a dangerous sparkle in his eyes. “Why don’t you take a seat next to our darling—and single—Sylvie. She’s a successful fashion blogger, graduated at the top of her class at Brown, and has a brilliant sense of humor.”
Just when she thought she’d die of embarrassment, her father took a deep breath and continued the introduction. “Sylvie, darling, this handsome man is Tony Falcon. He is a former police detective who now owns Maltese Security. Obviously, he has a sense of humor, considering that pun. He spent last summer restoring a nineteen sixty-nine Harley Davidson motorcycle—which I hereby order you never to come within an inch of—and makes the best lasagna I’ve ever had the pleasure of eating.”
Anton beamed at them, his hands folded in his lap, as Tony sat down beside her. Henry shook his head and sipped more green tea, unfazed as usual by his partner’s actions.
Awkward didn’t begin to cover the moment. Of course, after the past few weeks, she should be totally used to that. Still, there was nothing quite like her father trying to match her up with a guy who’d witnessed her emotional meltdown, and at whom she’d pathetically thrown herself. Thank God for Pippa Worthington. She chuckled to herself. Whoever would have thought?
“Nice to see you again.” Tony’s voice alone curled her toes.
Henry perked up. “You know each other?”
Sylvie kept her gaze firmly locked on the plate of cookies as her cheeks burned. “We met at Anya’s wedding.”
“Really.” Henry’s voice had gone so cold his tea could have frozen. “I thought we’d made it perfectly clear Sylvie wasn’t to know you were acting as her bodyguard at the wedding.”
“She didn’t.” Tony cleared his throat. “Until about two seconds ago.”
A thrum started behind her eyes, vibrating her brain against her skull. “What do you mean, guarding me?”
Anton made a mewling sound. “Darling, I know you don’t think it’s a big deal but—”
“You went behind my back and hired security, knowing full well that I don’t want or need it?” Drawing on years of fending off her father’s overprotective instincts, she fought to remain calm. She’d accepted a long time ago that her fathers would never change. She’d learned to maneuver around them. It saved her from going to jail for patricide. Orange was so not her color.
Anton flapped his hands in the air and his lips moved, but nothing came out.