Defender chimera protect.., p.1
Defender Chimera (Protection, Inc: Defenders Book 4), page 1
Defender Chimera
Protection, Inc.: Defenders 4
Zoe Chant
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Epilogue
A Note from Zoe Chant
Also by Zoe Chant
BODYGUARD BEAR: SNEAK PREVIEW
Chapter 1
Fen lay handcuffed and seething on the floor, face to face with her business rival and enemy, the brilliant and arrogant Carter Howe.
When she’d been ambushed, given some knockout drug, and tossed into the cargo bay of an airplane bound for who knows where, she’d been frightened but not panicked. It had been obvious what was going on, given that she owned one of the three top tech companies in America: she was being held for ransom. It was horrible and scary and she could lose a whole lot of money if the cops weren’t on their game, but it wasn’t as if her life was in danger. The criminals would get nothing if they killed her.
Then a handcuffed man had been tossed in with her. When he’d woken up and she’d seen his face, her fear had transmuted into incandescent rage.
“You!” Carter Howe exclaimed, like he was genuinely surprised. The nerve of him!
“You!” Fen snarled. She would have liked to add some choice insults, but she was so furious that it rendered her speechless.
“Fenella Kim!” Carter spoke if he was uttering the name of some famous villainess, like Cruella De Vil or Maleficent.
“Carter Howe!” Fen was thinking of Voldemort and Darth Vader.
It was the first time she’d encountered him in person, but he’d been a thorn in her side for years. It wasn’t just that he owned one of the other three top tech companies in America, and so was her natural rival; it was him, specifically.
Her mind skipped and skittered over flashes of the Carter Howe Experience, like the world’s most annoying highlights (or rather lowlights) video. Carter’s arrogant emails when he’d attempted a hostile takeover of her company. Carter’s famous face smirking from the cover of Wired magazine. Carter’s famous face smirking all over the news when he’d mysteriously disappeared. Carter’s famous face smirking all over the news again when he’d mysteriously reappeared a year later. Carter’s hypocritically outraged emails when she’d attempted a hostile takeover of his company in revenge.
And here was Carter’s famous face, in the actual flesh, mere inches away from her after he’d had her kidnapped!
“You!” Fen repeated, summing it all up. “I might’ve known it would be you!”
“Me?” Carter protested. “What did I do?”
“Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about when I’m lying here handcuffed. This is some plot of yours!”
“Not unless I’m plotting against myself too,” Carter pointed out. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m also handcuffed. Not to mention footcuffed. And lying on a cold hard floor with a splitting headache and my coat getting all creased.”
“I noticed,” Fen snarled. “You do look a mess.”
She’d been so shocked and furious at the sight of him that she hadn’t processed the implications. She needed to take a step back—a metaphorical step, given that she was tied up on the floor—and get her brain into gear.
Focus, she told herself.
It was so annoying that after all these years and all her practice, she still hadn’t focused on the relevant details automatically, or even automatically reminded herself to do it. That was probably why she’d gotten kidnapped in the first place. If she’d been paying attention when she’d run out to grab a quick coffee—
She was losing track of things again.
Focus.
She took a deep breath, concentrating on her lungs and chest expanding. Though her chest couldn’t fully expand in the cramped position she was in, and the cold floor was so uncomfortable and the footcuffs (was that a real word?) were especially cold and—
Focus, she reminded herself. What can you touch?
That was unusually difficult. She could only touch her own hands, and it was weird to try to focus on touching when she was also being touched.
Good enough, she decided. Now, observe.
She’d already observed her surroundings to death. She was in a big empty cargo space with glaring white lights, she felt a vibration and heard a low thrum that meant she was on an airplane, and she smelled harsh chemicals and metal. Now it was time to observe the thorn in her side, the pebble in her shoe, the oh so famous and brilliant Carter Howe.
She’d seen him so often in photos and video, it was strange to observe him in person. And even if she’d seen him in person before, it would presumably have been standing up or sitting down, not lying on the floor with his ankles cuffed together and his hands cuffed behind his back and his black hair mussed and dusty.
He was taller than she’d realized. Her practiced eye, used to measuring lengths and widths, estimated that he’d be 6’2” straightened out and without shoes, give or take a half inch or so. Broad shoulders. His white shirt was pulled tight by the handcuffs, showing a more muscular chest than she’d noticed in pictures. He must have a personal trainer and high-tech workout gear, which also explained his shoulders. And his forearms. And (his pants were pulled very tight too, that had to be uncomfortable) his thighs and a distinctly impressive—
Fen yanked her observation away from that. She did not want to be thinking about her enemy’s dick. Gross. At least, it ought to be gross.
Ugh, she told herself firmly. Gross.
Desperately trying to drag her attention away from his body, she decided to focus on his clothes. Carter was always immaculately dressed, which was something Fen noticed because she was too. She’d spent some time before he’d arrived seething over the wreck the kidnappers had made of her suit and shoes by dumping her on a dirty floor. His clothes and shoes were as expensive and well-chosen as hers, and in just as much of a mess. His shoes, of fine Italian leather, were scuffed. His white linen shirt was rumpled and stained with engine oil. His signature long black coat was dusty and scrunched beneath him.
He was a mess. The kidnappers must have hit him over the head rather than drugging him. Dried blood was smeared over one side of his face and had glued some of his hair together. A bruise spread across his temple. None of that looked fake.
Fen ruthlessly crushed the sympathy that had flickered up at the sight of his injuries. Instead, she focused on his face. His features were more rugged than really worked with his image: his chin too strong, his mouth too wide, his eyes too deep-set. He was supposed to be a billionaire genius playboy, but his face suggested something tough and strong beneath the glamour.
She kept coming back to his eyes. She’d never been able to identify their color in photos and video. Close up and in real life, she could see that they were hazel, which never photographs well. His were a particularly attractive shade, a blend of deep green and rich brown, like a pool of clear water in an ancient forest. His lashes were thick and black, as were his eyebrows. She’d always suspected him of wearing very subtle mascara and eyeliner based on how amazing his eyes looked in photos and video, but now she realized with annoyance that he just had the world’s greatest eyelashes.
He definitely manicured his eyebrows, though. No one’s were that perfect without help.
She took a deep breath, and that one wasn’t to force herself to focus. Her arrogant enemy Carter Howe was the best-smelling thing on the plane. Of course he was, he could afford the absolute best cologne and soap, but he also seemed to naturally smell good, or else he’d invented an incredibly realistic cologne named something like Eau de Sexy…
Focus.
He had the strangest expression on his face. He’d looked annoyed before, but now he looked like he too was deeply focused, intent, almost enraptured…
With a start, she realized that he was observing her right back. She wondered what information he’d gleaned from her.
“Well?” Carter demanded. “Satisfied that I didn’t kidnap myself?”
Reluctantly, she came to the conclusion that he hadn’t. She couldn’t imagine him deliberately damaging his carefully maintained body, let alone his expensive clothes. Nor did she think he’d allow himself to appear in such an unflattering position next to her. Or that he was a good enough actor to fake that level of irritation.
But she couldn’t resist saying, “Maybe you set it up so I’d trauma-bond with you and tell you business secrets.”
He gave a disgusted snort. “If I wanted your business secrets, I’d take over your company, not kidnap us both and cross my fingers y
“You already tried to take over Little Bit,” she retorted. “And you failed. Maybe this is your desperate last resort to destroy me.”
“Why would I do something as ridiculous as stage a kidnapping when I could destroy you the traditional way, by making sure Howe Enterprises has better products?”
“Because you can’t. I make sure Little Bit has better products,” she retorted. “Maybe you wanted me to disappear for a while and then return with a wild story, so my company looks unstable and our stock prices plunge and our investors drop us and invest with you.”
“Right.” He sounded almost… hurt. “A disappearance followed by a wild story followed by people investing elsewhere. Definitely sounds like something I’d do to you. Oh wait, I was the one who disappeared and returned a year later with a wild story, and your company was the one that benefited. Maybe I should suspect you of staging that. God knows everyone thought I faked it for publicity.”
She felt abashed, though there was no reason for her to. It was true that she and her company Little Bit, along with the third big tech company, TicTech and its CEO Eldon McManus, had profited from Howe Enterprises nearly imploding in chaos and legal trouble after Carter had vanished. But she’d had nothing to do with Howe Enterprises’ misfortunes.
And Carter’s explanation of what had happened, when he’d finally reappeared, had been absolutely ridiculous. Sure he’d been flying alone and crashed his small plane in the ocean and had been stranded on a tiny island for a year, living on fish and coconuts without even a volleyball for company. No one had believed it.
But the photos and video after he’d come back hadn’t suggested a publicity stunt. The smirk was gone. He’d lost weight, which made sense if you believed in the fish and coconuts, and he’d looked haggard. Even haunted. She hadn’t believed the tropical island story, but it was obvious that it was a cover for something real. She’d assumed he’d either been in rehab for some kind of addiction or in treatment for a serious illness that he hadn’t wanted to make public.
Even now, he looked haunted just talking about it.
“I never thought you faked it for publicity,” she said. “I know something bad happened.”
His face seemed to freeze over, leaving him completely expressionless. In an equally guarded voice, he said, “Roll over so your back is to me.”
“You can say, ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’ You don’t need to order me to do random things to change the subject.”
“I wasn’t changing the subject,” he snapped. “Seriously, roll over.”
“Why? What don’t you want me to see?”
“Do you always jump to the worst possible conclusion?” he demanded.
Forbearing to point out that she’d just said she didn’t believe that he’d vanished as a publicity stunt, she retorted, “When it comes to you.”
Carter heaved a put-upon sigh, then rolled over himself, showing her his back and cuffed hands. A very nice back, she couldn’t help noticing. Very muscular. The back was an underrated part of the body. So many sexy parts to it. The narrow groove of the spine, for instance. If it hadn’t belonged to Carter Howe, she’d have wanted to run her finger along it. If she hadn’t been handcuffed, it would have been a temptation she’d have struggled to resist.
“See what I’m holding?” he asked.
She yanked her attention to his hands. He held something shiny and delicate and metallic.
“Hairpins?” she asked.
He lowered his voice, even though they were alone in the chilly cargo hold and the roar of the engine would make it impossible for anyone outside to hear them. “Lockpicks. I had them concealed in a hidden seam in my pants.”
Her voice rose in exasperation. “You’ve had lockpicks this entire time, and you lay here chit-chatting instead of using them?”
Aggravated, he said, “I’ve been trying to get them out this entire time. My hands are cuffed behind my back, remember? Now roll over so your hands are next to mine, and I’ll get your cuffs off.”
“Can you really do that?”
He snorted. “No, I carry them solely as a treasured keepsake.”
“I really hope you’re being sarcastic.”
“Of course I can use them,” he snapped. “Now roll over, unless you like lying on a freezing cold floor with your shoulders pulled halfway out of their sockets.”
She did not. Fen rolled over, which was not at all comfortable while handcuffed, wriggled closer to him, then writhed down until their hands were level. At least his back was turned too, so he wouldn’t see her squirming on the floor like an earthworm.
She stopped when their hands touched. It was remarkable how much you could observe by feel alone. His hands were big, with his nails cut short and nicely buffed. She could feel the shapes of calluses and a few little scars, but like his nails, his hands were well cared-for. No rough edges. His movements felt practiced and competent as he manipulated the tiny lockpicks.
“How’d you learn to do this?” she asked.
“My teammate—I mean, an associate of mine—taught me. Merlin said to think of it as playing Jenga with a stack of very fragile, very expensive, blown glass vases.”
The image of Carter doing exactly that leaped into her mind. The vases in her mental image had big bright flowers on them, like a stained glass window, and he handled them with almost sensual delicacy.
Her mind bounced away from that image, jumping to the luxuriant sensation of the heat of his hands. The airplane was cold, and her hands especially had been freezing. Carter’s hands were deliciously warm. Carter was deliciously warm. They were close enough that she could bask in his body heat even without directly touching. If his clothes were off, it would be even better…
Stop it, she scolded herself. He’s your enemy. Imagining him naked is gross.
Her treacherous mind responded with a detailed and vivid image of Carter naked. It was annoyingly not gross.
“Does it distract you to talk?” she asked, though it was obvious that unlike her, he had no trouble focusing. But it was the first thing that came to her mind to get it off the Carter-feels-so-good and Carter-would-look-so-good track.
“No, it’s fine,” he said.
Of course it’s fine. Everything comes easily to the great Carter Howe.
She gritted her teeth, torn between bitterness at that thought, general aggravation with him, guilt for being aggravated with him when he was trying to rescue her, hope that they really would be rescued, and frustration with her own uncooperative mind. Why did she have to work so hard to do normal things like paying attention?
“How did you get here?” Carter asked.
As if he didn’t know! Her fists clenched involuntarily, making the cuffs jerk. His hands twitched, clutching at the picks.
“I got a call from your office,” she said. “You demanded a meeting with me to discuss my hostile takeover of Howe Enterprises. You said if you didn’t get one, the next call would be from your lawyers.”
“I didn’t say anything,” he retorted. “You got a call from some person claiming to be from my office. For the record, I got a call supposedly from your office, saying the exact same thing. And also for the record, Little Bit isn’t going to get its little paws on my company.”
“Just you wait,” she said automatically, but the cuffs clinked gently as her hands relaxed. Begrudgingly, she said, “I guess I believe you. Given that you’re handcuffed too. I went to get some coffee before the call, and someone jumped me. They stuck a cloth over my face that smelled like chemicals. It was some knockout drug. I woke up here. What about you?”
“Very similar. I left a—” He broke off abruptly.
“Yes?” Fen inquired when he didn’t continue. “You left a… important meeting? A bomb threat? Six naked supermodels?”
