Page 114 of Nanny for the SEALs

She squealed happily in his embrace until he let her go.

“We’re out of options,” I replied. I had no interest in re-arguing everything we had just talked about. “If you have a better plan, spit it out.”

“She’s guilty about the hotel,” Brady said calmly. “She… distracted me. A couple of times.” He glanced at the kids around him. “I’ll leave it at that. The only reason she’s offering to help is because she feels guilty.”

“That’s her decision,” I said, turning to leave.

“I think I love her.”

I stopped with my hand on the doorknob, then turned around. Brady was staring up at me defiantly, daring me to disagree with him. He looked just like Dustin in that brief moment, lower lip stuck out, threatening to pout.

“Who do you love?” Micah asked.

Brady ignored the boy and continued staring at me.

“Is that true?”

“Yeah. It is. I can’t put her in harm’s way—no matter how low wethinkthe harm is.”

Love. The word was powerful and jarring, especially coming from Brady. I paused to consider my own emotions. I really liked Heather. But beyond that… I wasn’t sure how I felt. It had only been five or six weeks. Heather was amazing in every way, and there was a growing potential for something serious, but love…

“I care about her deeply,” I told Brady. “I also care about you and Asher, yet I’ve sent you on dangerous missions before.”

Brady jabbed a finger up at me. “This is different, and youfuckenknow it.”

The boys whipped their heads over at him, and Cora gasped. Brady winced.

“Ooooo!” Dustin crooned. “You said areallybad word!” Micah started giggling and looked at me to see my reaction.

“Ducking,” Brady insisted. “I said ducking. Like, what ducks do. Quack quack! Can you make duck sounds?”

That may have worked when they were three or four, but they were too smart to be fooled now. Brady was normally really good about watching his language around the triplets. For him to let that slip out while he was surrounded by them…

“Heather isn’t in any danger,” I said. “Heimdall wants to scare Amirah, not injure her.”

“What if you’re wrong? What if it’snotHeimdall?”

I was certain it was our rival security company. Every piece of evidence we’d received pointed to them: the varying number of attackers, the SAS-issue knife, Cardannon’s appearance at the hotel. But my certainty wasn’t at one hundred percent. It was more like ninety-five.

“Heather’s a big girl,” I said. “And she’s also the most stubborn, headstrong woman I’ve ever met. If we tell her the plan is too dangerous, she’ll probably run out and do it on her own without our help.”

Brady let Micah jump on his back like a monkey, then stood and fixed me with a final glare. “You can make all the excuses you want, but youknowthere’s a non-zero chance of something going wrong. Now, I’m going to do my best to protect her. I know you and Asher will do the same. But if anything happens to her, I’m holding you responsible.”

If anything happens, I’ll hold myself responsible too, I thought as I opened the door and went downstairs.

44

Heather

The plan materialized over the next few weeks.

The studio was on board with the whole scheme. Due to certain road closure permits, the first day of filming was in downtown Los Angeles, using some special effects to simulate the aftermath of a building collapse. These scenes didn’t include Amirah at all, so they could let me hang around on set posing as her without getting in the way of their film schedule.

But that meant we had a small window to flush Heimdall out and catch them. We had to make this one count.

Due to the nature of the demolitions, they were closing off a four-block radius around the set. Rogan and the dads liked this because it meant bystanders were even farther away than normal. The situation was controlled in a way that was conducive for catching Heimdall at whatever they intended.

Amirah was enthusiastic about any effort to catch the people threatening her. The Weiman Agency was also helpful since someone other than their client was being put in the metaphorical crosshairs.

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