Gwen winced as Neil brushed over the glass lodged in the cut on her leg. “I-I dropped a coffee cup.”

Karen moved from one side of Neil to the other, attempting to get a look at Gwen’s leg.

“Ouch!” Gwen squealed.

“Hold still.” Neil’s large fingers passed over the embedded glass again, working it free.

“That hurts.”

Neil huffed and continued probing her skin.

Karen moved away. “I think you’ll live,” she said as she found a cup and filled it with coffee. “What are you doing here anyway?”

Gwen met Neil’s hazel eyes, which changed color with his mood. As usual, Neil didn’t offer an explanation for his appearance. He focused on her leg again. The cut was superficial but the hot coffee left an angry shade of red in its wake.

“Always nice talking to you, Neil,” Karen said with a laugh. “Gwen?”

“I…” She cleared her throat. “I left the back door open. Neil was checking on us.”

Karen sipped her coffee. “Oh.” With her comment, Karen left the room huddled over her cup of coffee.

After turning off the water, Neil cradled Gwen’s calf in his big hand and gently blotted her skin dry with a paper towel.

“You’ll need medicated cream on this,” he told her.

“We have some upstairs.”

He stopped touching her injury but kept his hand on her ankle. Without looking at her face, he said, “Don’t sneak up on me.”

Gwen would swear his voice trembled, but that would show some sign of weakness, and Neil was never weak.

“You don’t have to tell me twice. Lesson learned.” She wouldn’t soon forget the hard expression on his face as he drew his gun.

He hesitated when he let her go and turned toward the back door. He closed and locked it with a loud click.

Without any other words, he left the room and the house through the front door, leaving Gwen to stare after him.

Neil waited until he was around the corner from her home to stop on a side street.

He gripped the wheel until his knuckles were white. His heart hadn’t stopped racing since her knock on the car door. The absolute look of horror and fear that raced over Gwen’s face when he turned his gun on her would live with him forever. His finger had been poised over the trigger. One squeeze and he would have…He shook his head, banished the thought.

How the f**k had he fallen asleep? Not seen her approach?

He was getting soft and when that happened people got hurt. Killed.

If something happened to Gwen on his watch…and it was always his watch…he’d never be able to live with it.

With one press of a button, he had one of his men, the ones he called on when he needed backup, on the phone. “I’m going dark for a couple of hours,” he told Dillon when he answered the phone. “I need your eyes on Tarzana and Malibu.”

“You got it, Boss.”

Neil hung up and turned off the video feeds. He needed to regroup. The only way to achieve that was hard, physical work.

He ran on the treadmill for a solid hour instead of his usual thirty minutes. He doubled his repetitions with his weights, added twenty more pounds, and pushed his muscles past their limits. After a shower, he stretched out naked on his bed…the one he seldom slept in…and closed his eyes.

And he dreamed.

Oh, he dreamed…

Dressed down, at least as much as Gwen knew how to, she sat at an outside café in Santa Monica sipping iced tea. She’d arrived early to assure the table she occupied was not one where others could spy upon her and her client.

She wore a hat, and not the kind she preferred, but a brimmed variety that flattened her hair and made her feel very American.

She scanned the entry to the patio and spotted Michael as he slipped past the hostess and walked straight toward her. A hat also covered his dark hair, and sunglasses hid his eyes and most of his features from those in the restaurant. Gwen stood as he approached and didn’t back away when he greeted her with a hug and a kiss to the cheek as if they were old friends. “So good to see you again,” she said, avoiding the use of his name should anyone be listening.

“Thank you for meeting me.” He waited for her to sit before taking his seat. He looked around the room. It wasn’t lunch or dinner hour so the restaurant wasn’t busy. The closest group of people was well out of hearing range.

“I assumed you wanted some privacy,” she said just above a whisper. “I hope this establishment meets your needs.”

He glanced around again. “I’m hoping this is the only time we meet in private.”

The waiter arrived and took their drink order. They ordered a couple of appetizers and let the waiter know that they weren’t there for a meal.

Once his soda arrived, and the waiter walked away, Gwen started asking questions. “Tell me, Michael…should I call you Michael?”

“Let’s stick with Mike for today. For some reason my fans don’t think of me as a Mike.”

Gwen smiled and continued. “What do you know about Alliance, Mike?”

“I know you have the ability to find a companion for my needs. My temporary needs.”

“You make us sound like a call service.”

Michael smiled, and shook his head. “That won’t be one of my needs.”

Ahh, yes. The confirmation she needed of his sexual orientation. But just in case she was mistaken, she prodded him one last time. “I’m told you can have any woman you want. Why come to us?”

Michael leaned forward and peered over the top of his sunglasses. “I can have any woman I want. I’m coming to you because although I don’t want one, I need one.”

“I see.”

He slid his glasses up on his nose and kicked back in his chair. “I’m an actor, Miss Harrison. I pretend to be something I’m not every day of my life. My wife will be required to do the same.”

“That’s understood. All my clients understand the rules.”

“But mine will have to do it in front of the public eye. She will have to be as skilled as I am in convincing people we’re happily married and that ruse must not fall until after the divorce.”

Gwen noticed the waiter approaching and shifted their conversation to the weather. Once the food was on the table, she continued. “How long will you require a wife?”

“A year…maybe slightly longer. My filming schedule is massive over the next eighteen months, which will take me out of the country quite a bit.”