Tempted

Masters and Mercenaries Book 26.5, Sanctum Nights Book 14

About the book

From New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Lexi Blake comes a new story in her Masters and Mercenaries series…

When West Rycroft left his family’s ranch to work in the big city, he never dreamed he would find himself surrounded by celebrities and politicians. Working at McKay-Taggart as a bodyguard and security expert quickly taught him how to navigate the sometimes shark-infested waters of the elite. While some would come to love that world, West has seen enough to know it’s not for him, preferring to keep his distance from his clients—until the day he meets Ally Pearson.

Growing up in the entertainment world, Ally was always in the shadow of others, but now she has broken out from behind the scenes for her own day in the spotlight. The paparazzi isn’t fun, but she knows all too well that it’s part of the gig. She has a good life and lots of fans, but someone has been getting too close for comfort and making threats. To be safe, she hires her own personal knight in shining armor, a cowboy hottie by the name of West. They clash in the beginning, but the minute they fall into bed together something magical happens.

Just as everything seems too good to be true, they are both reminded that there was a reason Ally needed a bodyguard. Her problems have found her again, and this time West will have to put his life on the line or lose everything they’ve found.

**Every 1001 Dark Nights novella is a standalone story. For new readers, it’s an introduction to an author’s world. And for fans, it’s a bonus book in the author’s series. We hope you'll enjoy each one as much as we do.**

“Witty banter, plenty of action, and tons of steam has made this series an all-time favorite of mine.”

— Saucy Southern Reads

“Delicious, so many lovely vignettes and poignant moments. Thank you Lexi Blake for another great installment.”

— Ruthie, Wicked Reads

“If you like bodyguard romances and want something fast to read or even get a taste of Lexi’s writing, you should give this book a try.”

— Read What I Like

“West’s story is a wonderful addition to the series and a quick and easy read that thoroughly entertains its readers.”

— ksroma16

“This was such a fun read with a little suspense, mystery, and spice.”

— cynsational_reads

Excerpt

“Ms. Pearson, am I boring you?”

She forced herself to look up from her phone and directly at the big guy who seemed to be the boss of this particular company. He was big and broad and totally gorgeous. “Oh, yes.”

The hot guy at the end of the table snorted and started to laugh but quickly covered it up when the hot dude beside him sent him a death stare. It was a good death stare, as those went. She believed it.

They looked a little like brothers. Brothers or really close friends, though one of them seemed significantly older, so she was betting on a familial relationship.

A brow rose over the big boss’s icy eyes. “Well, don’t let me keep you then.”

“So you don’t need me?” She stood up. If she could go, there were a million things to do before the table read.

“Allyson, sit down.” Her stepdad had flown out with her and seemed determined that she take things seriously, hence she was at McKay-Taggart sitting in a conference room going over things she’d already lived through.

She sighed and sat back. “Fine, but I already know all these things. And everyone has a folder about the case. You know this is the part of the movie I never understand. The scene is obviously only there to inform the audience about the facts of the case. Wouldn’t a smart writer find another way?”

“I don’t know the facts.” The ridiculously hot guy at the end of the table held up a hand. He had sandy blonde hair and all-American good looks. His accent was slightly twangier than the rest of the people in the room. She would bet he hadn’t grown up here in Dallas. Most of the people she met from Texas cities had light accents. “I mean, I know some of them.”

“That’s great, West.” Sarcasm dripped from the big hot guy’s mouth. “Since she’s your client.”

That was interesting. The minute she’d entered the conference room, she’d noticed the guy at the end of the table. He was big, too, though not as massive as the truly scary dude. Lucky for her, she’d learned how to handle scary dudes. You ignored their scariness and plowed right through.

“Sweetie, this is not a movie,” her stepdad pointed out. “They need to be able to ask you questions, and that means going over the case with you.”

“But they have the reports.” She wasn’t sure why she would have to go over it again. She mostly wanted to forget those episodes of her life.

“Sometimes there’s more nuance to a situation than what shows up in a report.” The big guy’s wife was gorgeous, and she seemed to be something of a fan.

The morning had started okay. She’d been greeted by a bevy of women. Charlotte Taggart had introduced her friends as Genny Rycroft and Yasmin Tahan. She’d signed some autographs and answered some of their questions. They seemed to be the kind of fans who understood that reality TV wasn’t a hundred percent real. Charlotte had offered her some truly excellent coffee, and they’d all talked while they waited for the exposition…conference thingy to start.

She liked those women. They were cool. And there was a teenaged girl hanging around who looked like she wanted to murder someone. Ally already liked her.

“I think I can get what I need from the reports,” the hot bodyguard guy said. He was seriously gorgeous and had a smile that lit up a room. There was no smile on his face now, though. “I doubt she’ll add anything to the discussion.”

Oh, he was not a fan. She wasn’t sure if it was because he knew who she was or he simply didn’t enjoy the company of fun, charming, successful women. It could be either.

“I have questions, and I have procedures,” the big boss explained. “If you don’t want to follow them…”

He let the threat dangle, and Ally sat up a little. Now she was interested because this dude knew how to make a few regular words into a threat that had everyone at the table straightening their shoulders like they were soldiers and the general wasn’t happy. Even her stepdad. This dude had some serious mojo, and she could work with that.

She’d played an ex-military character before. She’d done training with a group of soldiers who took her through an abbreviated BUD/S program. It wasn’t like the infamous Saving Private Ryan training, but she’d done her time in the field. She’d eaten MREs and learned how to survive in a forest and the desert.

Mr. Taggart could be excellent inspiration if she ever had to do it again. Not that the character had to be military. She could use it for Delia Crowne. She had a monologue that she knew the director wanted her to shout her way through, but now she wondered if she shouldn’t go quiet. It might be far more impactful.

“I’m sorry, sir,” Hot Guy Who Didn’t Like Her said. “I only got the assignment last night. I’m happy to be brought up to speed.”

“Ms. Pearson, this is West Rycroft.” Taggart sat back, using the pen he held in his hand to point West’s way. “He’s going to be your main bodyguard and will be coordinating all of your security. You’ll spend most of your time with him, but he’ll have two other guards who fill in when he needs time off or if he thinks you need more than one set of eyes.”

Oh, wouldn’t her life be easier if she only had one set of eyes on her.

Nope. She wasn’t pulling the poor little rich and famous girl routine. She was not falling into that trap. Her life was good, and she was working to make it even better, and she wasn’t going to apologize or whine and cry about it. “Excellent. I promise I’m here in Dallas to work. I’ll film for ten to twelve hours a day, and I’ll be in my trailer most of the rest of the time. I have a couple of social events, but they aren’t high risk.”

“Social events?” West had picked up his pen and looked down at the blank legal pad in front of him, but not before she’d caught that hint of disdain in his eyes.

She was so sick of men. They came in two types, it seemed—the ones who thought she was a sex toy to be passed around and the ones who decided she was an airhead with no thoughts in her head past her next shopping trip. She twirled her hair in one hand and gave her best blank look. “You know. Parties. Chilling with some of the hot people here in Dallas. Gotta get in my socials, you know.”

Charlotte Taggart’s gaze narrowed, and she could practically hear the woman calling bullshit, but West simply put his pen down.

“You’ll have to run anyone you’re…chilling…with by me,” he said, clearly taking on the disapproving authority role.

“She’s not going to be partying.” Her stepfather sent her a death stare of his own. “Believe it or not, she’s not a partier.”

“I just play one on TV,” she quipped.

“I think you’ll find the social events she has scheduled are all charity gatherings.” Her stepdad pulled out his phone. Unlike a lot of the older people she knew, her stepdad was a whiz with tech. Gavin Jacks wasn’t letting the world pass him by. “I sent your boss her schedule for while she’s here. She’s resisted getting a personal assistant, or her assistant could help you. Ally won’t tell you this, but when things get hard for her during this shoot, take her someplace out in nature when she has a day off. She looks like a city girl, but she enjoys hiking and being by herself. This is going to be hard on her. She’s used to a lot of alone time.”

“Not according to her actual socials she’s not,” West argued. “Look, Mr. Jacks, I am a huge fan of yours, and I respect the fact that Ms. Pearson is your stepdaughter, but you need to understand that I’m her bodyguard, not her nanny. I do not need feed and caring instructions.”

“Damn straight.” It was good to see someone stand up to her stepdad. He was good to her mom and had always watched out for them, but he was also a leading man in Hollywood, so he could play the massive dick card when he wanted to.

Her stepdad frowned her way. “You are not helping.”

“How about we discuss the reasons why Ally needs security?” Charlotte seemed determined to turn this whole thing around.

Exposition it was then. “A couple of years ago, I picked up a stalker.”

“Since the beginning of her career, she’s picked up four of what I would call credible threats,” her stepdad interjected. “Everyone who works in show business at our level has to deal with overzealous fans. These four went beyond that.”

“We disagree on that,” she countered, not wanting to overestimate the threat. “One of them was a mom who lost her daughter, and I look like her. She fixated on me. That was all.”

“She found your house,” her stepdad argued.

They weren’t going to have this fight in front of people they didn’t know. “And I handled her. The other two the police caught, and they haven’t bothered me again. That we know. Honestly, it could be one of those two men.”

“I’m sorry. The math isn’t adding up.” West had a pen in his hand again, so she figured she was talking about something he was actually interested in now. “You said four stalkers?”

“Mrs. Jackson wasn’t a stalker. She was a woman dealing with grief, and she’s getting help.” She wasn’t going to tell them that she personally was paying for the woman’s therapy. “Brian Hudson is in jail. Not for breaking into my place. He attacked a model.”

“Yes, and you were lucky it wasn’t you,” her stepdad said.

She ignored him. Nagging was one of his love languages, which was great because it was her mom’s primary language. “The other known stalker is a man who goes by JK Harris. He was a set designer, but he hasn’t worked in the last two years. I met him on a set a few years ago. It was my second film.”

“Ready for Love?” Charlotte asked.

It was nice to have one person in the room who liked her. “Yeah. I was the gloomy best friend. It was actually a fun part. Anyway, I talked to the guy. When you’re on set, unless you’re some kind of huge star or some assholey method actor, you end up spending a lot of time with the crew. You get to be friends. Well, JK took it too far. He got drunk at one of the crew parties and got super handsy. I called him out, and he got fired. So I became the bitch who ruined his career.”

“Of course.” Charlotte’s eyes rolled. “I’ve heard that accusation a couple of times myself.”

“Oh, baby, you did not. You never ruined a career. You blew heads off.” Taggart winked his wife’s way. “No one complains after that. Have you thought about doing that, Ms. Pearson?”

Oh, they were a fun couple, and she wanted that story. “Every day. Did you do it up close or from a distance?”

Charlotte’s elegant shoulder shrugged. “It all depended on the job. I will tell you it’s far less messy from a distance.”

“Do we know where this JK Harris is? Also, who is the fourth stalker?” West seemed excellent at ignoring his elders, too.

“He disappeared a while back,” she admitted. “And that’s where things get interesting. The police think Harris is the one causing trouble, but I don’t think so. Harris’s letters were all full of threats, and he sent them through the mail. He liked to stand outside red-carpet events shouting about what a whore I was until he was escorted off the grounds. He didn’t send elaborate, horrifying art projects.”

“He could be escalating,” West offered.

“Or he could be someone new, hence the fourth stalker, who might or might not exist.” It was what she was afraid of. Like she needed another person who wanted to take her down a peg, who blamed her for their problems.

“West, if you were running the investigation portion of this case, where would you go from here?” Taggart asked. “You’re not, of course. Think of this as an academic exercise.”

Oh, she knew a teaching hospital when she saw one. Was she getting the newbie? That could be fun.

“I would ask Eve McKay for her opinion,” West replied. “I would request that Eve study the case reports and give me her thoughts on whether this is the same JK Harris or if she thinks we’re looking for another person.”

“Unsub.” See, this part was interesting. Or it would be if it also wasn’t horrifying because she was living through it. There was a reason she preferred fiction to real life. “We’re looking for an unsub. I once got through four rounds of auditions to play an FBI special agent who hunted serial killers. I did a ton of research and even wore a boring suit and everything, but they went with the brunette.”

“I told you to dye your hair,” her stepdad said.

He’d been right about that. Apparently, blondes made better victims than feds, according to the completely dickish casting director who’d offered to let her play a dead body. Naked, of course.

“Excellent. That is exactly what I’m going to do.” Taggart pushed back and stood, straightening up that big muscular body of his. “I’ll leave you and West alone to work out your schedule. As for the investigation, I’ll be the lead on that.”

“I appreciate you taking care of this personally, Mr. Taggart.” Her stepdad stood.

“Jared is a friend of the family,” the big boss replied, shaking his hand. “Why don’t we go to my office and settle up the accounts? You’re not staying in town, right?”

“No. I have to get back to LA. I start my own shoot in a couple of days,” her stepdad said as they started out of the conference room.

The last man standing was the one she was almost certain was West’s brother. Or cousin. Or stunt double. “Can you handle this on your own or should I stay to referee?”

West gave him a steady smile that held only the slightest hint of dismay. “We’ll be fine.”

She was glad one of them was optimistic.