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boss.
    By the time he got to his car she was gone, but her SUV was
no match for his sporty convertible. When she finally pulled into her garage,
he was already sitting on her couch, his legs stretched out before him.
    He heard the door to the garage slam shut with a violent thud.
She was pissed, but that was her problem. She’d hired him to fill that vague
role of bodyguard and assistant, which meant he had keys to just about
everything—her home, her office, even her vacation spot in Saint-Tropez. If she
didn’t want him to do his job then she needed to fire him, which he was sure
she was on the verge of doing when she stormed into her living room where he
waited.
    “I told you I didn’t need an escort.”
    “And since you were gone by the time I got to the garage,
you didn’t get one.”
    “Then what the hell are you doing here?” she fumed.
    “I’m here to make sure you’re safe—which is my job,” he said
patiently, as if he were talking to a petulant child. Some days— many days—Katherine could be trying, but he knew her well enough to know her tough-girl
attitude was necessary in her line of work and was more a façade than anything
else.
    She’d had to fight tooth and nail to build Taboo from the
ground up into one of the hottest, trendiest casino resorts in Vegas. Katherine
had a reputation for being cold as ice, and she didn’t easily let people behind
her steely armor.
    He stood. But she’d let Joshua in. She’d also let her guard
down around her secretary, Michelle. There were probably only a handful of
people who could say they knew the real Katherine, but he wasn’t one of
them. For two years he’d been by her side, spent more time with her than anyone
else, and during that entire time she’d never once let her walls down around
him. It had taken him up to a few months ago to figure out why that was.
    Seth ambled to his feet, towering over Katherine. The
mocha-skinned beauty stood before him with her hands on her rounded hips, her
caramel-brown eyes flashing, the smooth skin of her cheeks blooming red and her
full breasts jiggling as her chest heaved from anger. She was all masculine
bravado rolled into the sexiest, shapeliest, most feminine package he’d ever
laid eyes on.
    “You can go home now,” she said, her chilly words breaking
through his thoughts.
    He snorted. “I’m not going anywhere.” To emphasize his
words, he peeled off his blazer, carefully watching her.
    Her gaze followed his every move, her breath quickened and
the flush in her cheeks turned redder.
    He hadn’t set out to draw her attention, but now that he had
it, he relished it. He bit back a smile of triumph—the icy queen wasn’t so cold
after all. Of late, Katherine was doing a poor job of hiding her attraction to
him, as if something had changed that made it hard for her to keep her desire
for him out of her wandering gaze.
    She wanted him. Good. At least he wasn’t alone in
this intense attraction that pulsed between them, hidden beneath the layers of
their animosity toward one another. With her taste in men, he hadn’t realized
she was attracted to him until recently, until there were moments like this
when he caught her watching him, her eyes burning hot with lust. It had taken
him some time to figure it out, but now he understood why she fought so hard to
keep her guard up around him. Her attraction to him scared her, and the only
way she knew how to deal with it was to push him away. But the desire radiating
from her was impossible to ignore, even harder to withstand. If she wasn’t
careful, one day he might just demand that she fulfill the promise of passion
burning in her honey-brown gaze.
    He’d wanted her for a long time, had been attracted to her
from the moment she’d hired him, but he’d kept his thoughts and feelings to
himself. He liked his job, was good at it—he had no desire to fuck things up
with an ill-fated affair. And that’s exactly what it would be.
    As much as his body desired