KCPD Protector Read Online Free PDF Page B

bell and sounded his alarm. But James had strolled up the walk. His breathing had been perfectly normal, without a drop of sweat visible anywhere.
    Glancing up and down the street, Elise peered into shadows beyond the streetlights but saw nothing out of sorts. The only thing that wasn’t right was the portentous wind that made her clothes instantly stick to her skin again, and the nagging suspicion about a man who claimed to be her friend.
    Why would James lie? What was the point of sneaking around her house? And when she’d asked him about the flowers, he’d never actually confirmed sending them. Or denied it.
    She’d gotten rid of the roses. She’d gotten rid of James.
    But she couldn’t get rid of the feeling that her life had taken a very weird, very unsettling turn.
    * * *
    G EORGE HEARD THE hurried rhythm of a woman’s high heels tapping across KCPD headquarters’ marble floors behind him.
    “Hold the elevator, please.”
    Even if he hadn’t recognized the voice, he would have pushed the button to hold the doors open. It was the polite thing to do. But he did recognize Elise Brown’s articulate, slightly breathless tone, and his blood suffused with an instant warmth.
    “Thanks.” Elise tilted her head and smiled as she darted into the car and moved to the railing behind him.
    He knew it was wrong to identify his assistant by the warm contralto pitch of her voice. And he shouldn’t be familiar with the faint whiff of tropical fruits that emanated from the soft waves of her chin-length hair as she breezed past him. His gaze dipped down to the navy blue heels she wore without hose, a choice made in deference to the forecasted triple-digit temperatures, no doubt. While a part of him admired the sensible concession to the summer heat wave, George’s chest constricted and he resolutely averted his eyes.
    He wasn’t admiring her sensibility. He was imprinting the curve of her smooth, tanned calves beneath a hemline that brushed the top of her knees to memory, coming up with another completely inappropriate, equally unmistakable way to identify Elise Brown.
    Yeah, his life would be a heck of a lot easier if he wasn’t so observant of little details like that—especially where his executive assistant was concerned.
    Pushing the button for the eighth floor, George tempered the quickened pace of his breathing and made sure his commander-in-chief expression was in place before he turned to greet her. “Good morning, Elise.”
    He might have hit fifty, but he wasn’t dead. He was single and he was a man. Couldn’t blame a guy for noticing an attractive woman. Still, it wasn’t quite protocol to charge up with this rush of energy just because she’d smiled at him, just because he got to spend a few moments alone on the elevator with her clean, fresh scent. He felt more awake, more alert, than he had a few seconds ago. And he hadn’t even had his first cup of coffee yet.
    She tucked her sunglasses into the modest neckline of her sleeveless dress and brushed a swath of nut-brown hair off her cheek. “Good morning, sir.”
    Way to kill the buzz. It was one thing for the men and women he outranked at KCPD to refer to him with the respectful title. It was something else again for the woman he worked with every day of his life to call him sir. Hearing that from Elise, no matter how well intended, always made him feel like one of her father’s friends or a Dutch uncle. It was easy to squash any perky urge to smile now.
    The doors drifted together and the elevator made a slight bounce before starting its ascent. “It’s George, remember?”
    “I’m sorry. Good morning, George.”
    “No need to apologize. I’ll just keep reminding you until you get it right,” he teased.
    Only, she didn’t seem to get the joke. Her blue gaze darted up to his before she suddenly needed something from her flowered purse and focused her attention there. “Of course.”
    While he was careful about crossing the line into anything