Page 43 of The Night Belongs To Fireman

“Definitely not, but I’ll consider the sheets.”

Oh damn. Did she have to mention the sheets? The atmosphere in the bathroom tightened, as if someone had sucked some of the air out of the room. He felt a little light-headed. She must feel it too; her cheeks flushed and she ran her tongue across her lips.

He took a quick step backward and bumped against the sink. Keep it professional. He wasn’t here to flirt, he was here to work. “How about you show me the security now?

Rachel shook herself out of her trance and practically ran out of the bathroom. She was going to have to work on her immunity to Fred. Something about his sunny sense of humor really got under her skin. No one ever teased her. People tended to tiptoe around her, not joke around with her. Joking around with Fred felt good. Really, really good.

She reminded herself that he was working for her father, and only for a couple of weeks, and that she’d been the one to declare their relationship purely “professional.”

Regaining her cool, she showed him around the rest of her apartment, the spacious living room, the tricked-out office, the entertainment room, the kitchen. It took quite some time to demonstrate all the security measures her father had instituted.

Fred paid close attention as she showed him the hidden alarms, the reinforced glass in all the windows, the bullet-proof drapes, the motion sensors.

“Every time I leave the apartment, I set the alarm that activates the motion sensors. It would be highly unlikely that anyone could come in here undetected.”

“Is it hooked up to a monitoring system?”

“Yes. There are cameras all through here.” She waved at the upper corner of the living room, where a discreet wall sconce disguised one of the cameras. “They deactivate when I turn off the alarm system, but any panic button or a voice code will reactivate them. Marsden has access to the video feed and so does the security team at Cranesbill. That’s my father’s place in Marin.”

He waved his hand in front of the wall sconce, which was cast from imported Italian bronze. “How do you know someone isn’t watching right now?”

“Because I turned off the alarm. All the cameras are dead.”

“Do you know that for sure?”

Rachel shrugged uncomfortably. She’d made her father promise not to ever invade her privacy by activating the cameras himself. She chose to believe he’d honor that vow, but did she know for sure? “I’ve never put it to the test, put it that way. But my dad promised and I believe him. Anyway, he’s a busy man. He has better things to do than spy on his daughter. He just wants to know that all measures are being taken.”

Fred didn’t look convinced. “Maybe it’s time we put it to the test.” He put his hands to the top button of his jeans.

“What are you doing?” Alarmed, Rachel grabbed at his arm.

“Stand back,” he said with mock seriousness. “This is man’s work.”

“What …”

Turning his back to the camera, he unbuttoned his jeans. From where she stood, a step or two to his right, she caught only a side view, but enough to be struck dumb, like one of those nightmares in which everything moves in slow motion. By the time she gathered the words to protest, he’d already pulled down the top of his jeans, revealing the upper half of his muscular rear.

Fred was mooning the million-dollar Kessler security system.

Rachel squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for the sky to cave in. Her father would never tolerate a gesture of disrespect like that. If any of the security team saw it, not a second would pass before they’d be pinging their boss, shooting him a still shot of his daughter’s new bodyguard’s ass.

But nothing happened.

“How long would it take?” Fred asked cheerfully.

She pried one eye open to see that he’d refastened his jeans, and was settling them back into their comfortably butt-hugging position. “What?”

“For your father to be notified, and for you to get a call. What else would you be waiting for? You look like a bomb’s about to drop.”

“It wouldn’t take long,” she admitted. “By now you’d be fired.”

“First of all, I doubt that. Your father got the message. Second, now you know.”

“Know what, that you have a cute butt?” she shot back.

He raised an eyebrow at her. “Is that a fact?”

Fizzy energy shot through her. Joking around with Fred was better than playing Ping-Pong while sipping Bellinis on a cruise to Mexico. “What I saw of it was all right.” She sniffed. “I didn’t get the full view.”

“I’m not getting paid enough for the full view.” He winked. “Though I did dance at a bachelorette party once. Just think, if you and your friends had hired some fireman strippers instead of renting a limo, we might never have met.”

She pretended to consider that. “There’s always next time. Liza’s getting pretty serious with her boyfriend. Anyway, even though what you did was completely inappropriate, I’m glad you did it. You proved my dad isn’t spying on me.”

“Not really. Just that he’s not spying on you at the moment.” Fred made a circuit of the room, peering at all the electronics nestled in corners and potted plants. “It must be a strange feeling to think you’re being watched all the time.”

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