The Billionaire’s Marriage Of Deception

Before Amanda could make sense of that, a noise to her right had her spinning around again, crouching low by instinct. There was a man there holding a gun, and as she moved forward and the light from the villa fell on his face, Amanda’s knees almost gave out.

It was Michael’s boss, Demore Williams, with a nasty red line across his forehead that looked like it was still bleeding. “You all right, ma’am?” he rumbled, his aim locked on the man he’d shot.

“Yeah,” Amanda panted out. “I think so.”

“Back up.”

Amanda obeyed, watching as Demore carefully crouched down and took the gun from the dead man’s hand. At least Amanda assumed he was dead—she didn’t see his chest moving, and the deep red splotch was nearly covering his whole chest.

Feeling like she was going to be sick, Amanda quickly turned her back. “Are you okay?” she asked shakily.

“Okay enough.” Demore straightened up and moved in front of her. “What happened?”

Amanda looked up, her heart pounding. “They wanted Michael the whole time. It was a trap for him. They were waiting for this guy to—” she gestured at the dead man behind her and swallowed. “But they’ll have heard the gunshot, won’t they?”

“They’ll think it was for you.” The hard words were belied with a calm, knowing expression that did little to quell the nausea in Amanda’s gut. “So we have some time. But I’m going to need your help.”

Amanda nodded eagerly. “You want me to get security or the police?”

“They’ll both have been bought off, most likely.” Demore racked the slide on his gun. “You know how to use one of these?”

Mutely, Amanda shook her head.

“Too bad.” Demore looked up at the villa. “How’d they get in?”

“Balcony. At least two of them did.”

Demore nodded. “I didn’t think they could get up that way, but that’s about where they knocked me out.” He wiped the back of his hand over his forehead, smearing blood over his forehead. “Good thing I’ve got a hard head.”

Amanda gave a weak smile, wanting nothing more than to be away from here doing something. “What do you want me to do?”

“I’m gonna need a distraction. Count to a hundred, go inside and throw something across the living room. Just make a noise on the opposite side from where you are, you got it? Do not let them see you.”

Demore’s face was mostly in shadow, but the intensity in his voice was unmistakable. Amanda nodded seriously. “Count to a hundred, throw something, hide.”

“Good.” Demore’s hand briefly clamped down on her shoulder, and then he was moving swiftly and silently around the villa.

Amanda started counting and got to ten before she realized she had no idea how fast she was supposed to be counting. One hundred seconds, or one hundred as fast as she could count it, or—?

She cut off her thoughts midstream and took a deep breath. She obviously had to give Demore enough time to get up to the balcony. Right. One hundred seconds it was.

Surprisingly, at least to Amanda, everything went perfectly smoothly from that point. She crept inside the still-open front door, picked up the small vase on the entry table, and at the right moment, lobbed it across the living room so that it shattered against the plywood over the windows. She dived for the coat closet as footsteps started down the stairs.

A moment later, there were thumps and shouts coming from overhead, and then footsteps racing back upwards. Then a gunshot, and a series of crashes descending the stairs. Amanda huddled in a crouch, heart pounding, as everything went quiet.

“Amanda?” It was Michael’s voice, frantic and loud, and Amanda didn’t hesitate before bursting out of the closet.

Michael was rounding the corner from the stairs, shirtless and gleaming with sweat. He nearly dropped his gun when he saw Amanda, but he took two long strides forward and was wrapping Amanda up in an embrace. “Thank God,” he muttered into Amanda’s shoulder, arms folded tight around her.

Amanda was stunned for a moment, but she moved to return the embrace, hands resting on Michael’s broad back, relishing the warm, solid feel of his body next to her. “You okay?” she murmured in Michael’s ear.

“Fine.” Michael’s arms tightened around her, safe and strong. His voice lowered, sounding almost broken in Amanda’s ear. “I heard the gunshot outside, and I thought—”

“Jesus, Michael.” Amanda looked up to see Demore regarding them both with exasperation and amusement. “You wanna make sure all the targets are down first?”

“They are,” Michael returned almost petulantly, without moving. “Give me some credit.”

The corner of Demore’s mouth turned up, and he looked away, reaching for the phone at his hip.

Amanda let herself breathe in one deep draw of Michael’s scent and gently pushed her back. “I’m fine, Michael. Go do your job, okay? I’ll be here when you’re done.”

“Will you?” Michael asked softly, hands resting lightly on Amanda’s sides. His thumb was brushing back and forth over her ribs, right where the gun had rested, as if he could brush away the memory of the touch or at least cover it up with his own.

Amanda drew in a deep breath, aware that there was more than one layer to the question. “Yeah,” she finally said, looking up into Michael’s eyes and letting herself relax for the first time since this man had crashed through her window. “I’ll be here.”

It turned out that wasn’t actually true, at least not in the literal sense.

The criminal gang known as Calaveras that had been after Michael in retaliation for the role he played in taking out half their members a few months ago.  In fact, they had taken out Wyatt’s security guy who had set up on an overhanging hill that overlooked the villa.

Resort security had snitched on him to the gang after they were threatened with a blood bath if they refused. The resort manager was so embarrassed (and afraid of getting sued, Michael pointed out later even though they had – eventually – called the police) that he insisted on refunding all of Amanda’s money and giving her another free week at their sister resort on the other side of the island. Since the place Amanda was currently staying in was now a blood-stained crime scene, she was happy to take them up on the offer.

Especially since she had a perfect excuse to send her second in command for the convention because obviously she was traumatized. The press had gotten wind of ‘an incident’ that had happened and that she was involved as a victim. There was some vague chatter on the gossip sites about her foiling some sort of kidnapping attempt. Bottom line, she was off the hook from socializing with people for a while.

Unfortunately, Michael had a lot of metaphorical mopping-up to do, including flying back to the States to attend some kind of debriefing. Amanda still wasn’t sure what Michael did for a living, just that it was some paramilitary/law enforcement/security consulting kind of thing and that every time she asked a question about it, Michael carefully deflected it until Amanda finally gave up.