Grace
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Grace couldn’t get over the bodyguard managing to catch the surprise!flying rat. And without harming it, too. He not only had ridiculously fast reflexes, which made sense given his occupation, but a light touch. It was especially impressive given how big his hands were. They weren’t disproportionate—he was big all over—but they looked strong enough to crush walnuts.
He was staring at her—probably wondering how a weirdo like her had managed to snag such an important job on such a big show—so she stared right back. He was strikingly handsome, with hair that made her want to run her fingers through it. It looked smooth as silk and was just long enough that strands kept falling appealingly around his face, but not so long that it looked girlish.
Grace frowned. His hair was exactly the perfect length. That couldn’t be an accident. She knew how fast hair grew. This Rafa guy must go to the salon once a week to keep it trimmed to such tempting perfection.
Her suspicion of the sexy bodyguard grew as she continued to inspect him. He towered over her, which wasn’t unusual as almost all men did, but he also towered over Lubomir, who was 6’1”. Unlike the director, who always looked vaguely underfed, the bodyguard seemed made of solid muscle. His legs, his arms, his chest, even his stomach were incredibly ripped... and she could see that because he wore tight black jeans and a close-fitting shirt, clearly to show off his fabulous body. They were expensive designer brands, as were his shoes, and he wore them well. His smooth brown skin contrasted delectably with his white shirt.
She dragged her gaze from his stunning body and back to his face. Beautiful brown eyes with long thick lashes. Strong jaw. High cheekbones. Sensual lips. Everything was pure masculine perfection.
He looked like a Greek God—okay, a Latino God. And he obviously thought he was God’s own gift to women.
Handsome. Rich. Cool job. Gorgeous smile, Grace thought. This is a man to stay far, far away from.
If Dean had been bad news, Rafa was the herald of the apocalypse.
He suddenly laughed for no reason whatsoever.
Oh, there’s an imperfection, Grace thought, both relieved and disappointed. He’s a sexy lunatic.
Apparently noticing her expression, Rafa gave her a smile charming enough to win her heart if she was weak-willed enough to let it. “You must be Grace, the stage manager who saved Paris’s life last night. I’ve heard so much about how skilled and brilliant you are. What a true pleasure it is to meet you.”
In a smooth gesture, he offered her his hand.
She didn’t take it. “You’re handing me a rodent.”
He yanked his hand—and the white rat—back, his cheeks darkening. Was he actually blushing?
He was. She’d never seen a guy as manly as Rafa blush before. It was awfully cute...
Down, girl, Grace ordered herself. He’s bad news. Plus, he belongs to Paris. No way will a woman as gorgeous as her and a man as hot as him not end up having sex if they’re together 24-7. If they haven’t already started.
Paris bent over the white rat. “Poor thing. Lucky Rafa caught it, otherwise it might have hit the back wall. Melissa’s got one hell of a kick.”
“Let me have it,” said Ruth, putting down her notebook and stepping up. “I’ll take good care of it. I used to keep rats as pets when I was a little girl.”
“Rats, really?” said Paris, sounding dubious. “I used to have hamsters. So cute and furry! Not very friendly, though.”
“Rats make great pets,” the scientist assured her. Her usual sternness left her expression as she went on, “I’d go on walks with mine riding on my shoulder. I loved watching people do double-takes.”
The hot bodyguard held out his hand to Ruth. The white rat hopped on to her palm and ran up her arm to perch on her shoulder.
“Aww,” Paris remarked. “It’s sweet. What are you going to name it?”
Ruth scratched behind its ears. The furry little creature gave her a sniff, its little pink nose twitching. “Tycho.”
Paris laughed. “Because of the nose?”
Ruth stared at the actress. “You’ve heard of him?”
“I don’t get it,” interjected Grace.
Ruth smiled, possibly for the first time since Grace had met her. “Tell her, Paris.”
“Tycho Brahe was a medieval astronomer. He got his nose cut off in a duel, and had to wear a prosthetic nose made of gold.” Paris added, speaking to Ruth and sounding apologetic, “That’s all I know about him. I had a pretty entertaining history teacher in high school.”
“Among his many other accomplishments, Tycho Brahe measured the diurnax parallax of Mars,” added Ruth. Scratching the furry Tycho’s ears, she said, “It seems appropriate for a Mars: The Musical rat.”
Grace decided not to ask what a diurnax parallax was. The last time she’d asked the NASA scientist what something was, she’d gotten a completely incomprehensible, twenty-minute lecture on orbital mechanics.
“What’s a diurnax parallax?” Paris asked.
Once again, Ruth smiled. It made her surprisingly pretty. “Well, parallax is the displacement in position of...”
Lubomir, clearly registering that everyone was way too distracted for any more work to happen, called out, “Fifteen minute break!”
As everyone crowded around, Paris introduced her bodyguard to the cast and crew. He had stopped blushing by then and greeted everyone pleasantly. But Grace noticed that he kept darting glances at her. Did she have spinach in her teeth? He’d never seen purple hair before? He thought her outfit was weird?
The mystery was solved when Rafa turned to her and said, “Can you please show me around the theatre? I need to inspect it to figure out how to make it as safe as possible. Also, if you show me the locations of the ‘accidents,’ I may be able to find some clues.”
“I can show you around,” her assistant Carl volunteered.
Carl was always so helpful. But Grace couldn’t help wishing that he wouldn’t be, just this once. She wanted to be the one to show the hot bodyguard around. Just to look at him a bit more. That was all. She’d pretend he was a sculpture in a museum, to admire hands-off.
She was trying to think of a good reason why she rather than Carl should escort Rafa when the bodyguard said, “If Grace can be spared, I would like her to do it.”
“Carl, please stand in for her,” Lubomir ordered. “Grace, take your time.”
Carl sat down in her seat and picked up her clipboard. “I got it.”
Ruth was still explaining incomprehensible mathy stuff to Paris. The actress held up her hand, said, “Hang on, Ruth. Rafa, should I go with you?”
Grace couldn’t help being impressed with the way Rafa rapidly scanned the theatre, his sharp brown eyes clearly evaluating all possible threats.
“No,” he said. “You’ll be safe here. Call my name if you need me.”
Paris smiled and patted his bulging bicep. “Gotcha. I trust you.”
Yep. They were already sleeping together. No way was a plain old hired bodyguard getting his arm petted. That was genuine intimacy if Grace had ever seen it.
She felt oddly regretful as she led him backstage. Oh, sure, she’d have to be out of her mind to get entangled with Perfect Hair Bodyguard. But it was depressing to know she’d never even had a chance. Men like him didn’t date women like her. In retrospect, she was pretty sure Dean had only gotten involved with her in the first place because he’d liked her apartment better than his, and figured she’d be too busy with work to notice that he was single-handedly funding Santa Martina’s stripper business.
Forcing her mind away from those gloomy thoughts, she led Rafa to the place where the stagehands worked the flying wires. He examined it closely and asked the stagehands a number of questions, then turned to Grace. “It looks like someone set up a device to pull the wire at high speed and from a distance, without anyone seeing that anything was wrong. Since the stagehands were standing right here, my guess is that it was above their heads.”
He pointed upward. The ceiling was so high and full of stage machinery that any small device could have been either lost in the shadows or hidden behind something.
“Have you looked up there already?” Rafa asked.
“Yeah, but it didn’t occur to me until the next day,” Grace said. “By then there was nothing there.”
“How many people go into the rafters? Would it be worth my time to dust for fingerprints?”
She regretfully shook her head. “A lot of people helped hang the lights and rig the scenery. Anyone could have their prints up there.”
“There does seem to be a lot of touching around here.” He gave a graceful wave of his hand, encompassing a chorus member giving a wire a curious poke, a stagehand on his hands and knees applying luminescent tape to the floor, and Grace herself, who was absent-mindedly straightening a set of plastic Mars potatoes on the prop table.
She hurriedly replaced the potatoes, stepped away from the table, and tripped over a stray alien artifact.
With startling speed, Rafa caught her arm, saving her from falling. “Careful!”
His hand was warm, his grip firm without being painful. It felt awfully nice to have him holding her arm...
Why hadn’t he let go of her arm? She’d gotten her balance back. She jerked her gaze up to his handsome, handsome face. Which was giving her a weird, weird look. The sort of look a guy gives his girlfriend. Which was very uncool, considering that he had a girlfriend—a woman he was having sex with, anyway—and it wasn’t her.
She yanked her arm away. Then she remembered to say, “Thanks.”
“My pleasure,” Rafa replied, his voice dropping sexily.
What was with him? He had a glamorous leading actress, what did he want with a chubby stage manager?
Whatever. She wasn’t there to ponder the ways of hot cheating bodyguards.
Grace lifted her foot and shoved the alien artifact back to its correct place. “That’s not supposed to be there. I wish people would stop messing with them. See, that’s the area where they’re supposed to be stored. It’s very clearly marked. This is the third one I’ve tripped over this week. Sooner or later, someone’s going to take a fall.”
Rafa pointed to the place where the alien artifact had been. “Look, it was right in front of a trapdoor.”
In the dim backstage light, Grace hadn’t seen that the trapdoor was open. Rafa had good eyes. She bent down and closed it, then latched it in place. “Those are never supposed to be left open. We have the lights off backstage all the time. It would be so easy to fall in. Especially with a heavy prop in front of it!”
“It would, wouldn’t it?” Rafa’s lazy playboy air had vanished; now he reminded her of a cat on the hunt. “What would have happened if you’d fallen in?”
“I’d have broken my ankle, at the very least. Or my wrist. Something.”
“And what would have happened then?”
“I might have had to leave the show,” Grace replied after a moment’s thought. “Once we open, I have to run the play from the stage manager’s booth. You can only get into it by climbing a vertical ladder. I don’t think I could do that if I had my arm or leg in a cast.”
Rafa pursued the question with a relentlessness that made her understand how he’d gotten his job. “And what happens if you leave?”
Chilled, Grace said, “Carl takes over.”
“How ambitious is Carl?”
“I don’t know. But only Paris could have been hurt by the accident last night, and Carl wouldn’t benefit if she had to leave.”
Rafa ran his fingers through his silky black hair. “Have there been any accidents when Paris wasn’t present, or that seemed targeted at someone other than her?”
“Yeah, there have.” As she continued showing him around the backstage area, she gave him a rundown of every mishap that had happened to Mars: The Musical, culminating in a detailed account of the horrific flying incident the night before.
He listened intently, periodically asking intelligent questions. At the end, he said, “Do you think Paris is the target of these incidents?”
“No, I don’t. I don’t think any specific person is. Anyone could have tripped over that rock. And no one could have known that rat would run up anyone’s pants, let alone the pants belonging to one particular person.”
“Actually, they could,” Rafa said. “The rat could have been trained to run up pants with a specific scent, and that scent could have been rubbed on a specific pair of pants.”
Grace hadn’t expected that sort of outside-of-the-box thinking from a charming hunk. Normally they coasted on their looks. But Rafa was clearly smart, as well as being hot. Muscles and beautiful brown eyes were great, but as far as Grace was concerned, intelligence was the biggest turn-on of all.
He’s sleeping with Paris, she reminded herself.
Life was so unfair.
Forcing her attention back to the topic, she said, “Should we check Melissa’s pants for Eau de Rat?”
Rafa smiled. “We can try. It might be an odor that only animals can detect, though. If that’s even what happened.”
“Oh, I bet it is,” Grace said grimly. “Melissa is terrified of rats, and everyone in the play knows it. There’s a stuffed rat we use in a lab scene, and she screamed fit to wake the dead once when it fell off the prop table. She’d thought for a second that it was a live one that had jumped off.”
“Oh.” He tugged at a lock of his hair again. That habit of his was driving Grace crazy. Every time he did it, she wanted to smooth back that black silk herself. “Maybe I can borrow her pants once she changes out of them. I’ll take them to—” he hesitated briefly. “—to a lab. To do an analysis. They’ll be back by the next rehearsal.”
“That’s tomorrow,” she pointed out.
Again, he hesitated, then said, “I know a place that could put a rush on it.”
They reached the door leading outside. Both of them stopped and stared at the note posted on it, a sheet of paper with huge letters reading, BARF.
“That’s certainly a dramatic statement,” Rafa remarked, looking amused. “But what does it mean? Is it a comment on working conditions? On the quality of Mars: The Musical?”
Her cheeks heated up with annoyance. “It means someone on my crew has no idea how to make a warning sign that would actually warn anyone.”
“I was joking,” he said hastily. “I know what it’s about. I listened in over the headsets for a minute when I first came in. Do you have a pen on you?”
Grace always had a pen on her. She handed him a Sharpie. He took the sign and amended it to read,
There is BARF outside.
Don’t step in it!
Grace, who had been ready to explode with fury, laughed instead. “Thanks. Well, the BARF is one thing I can’t blame on whoever’s trying to sink Mars: The Musical. There’s a bar next door.”
He gave her a thoughtful glance. Quietly, he said, “Is there somewhere a little more private where we could speak?”
“Sure.” She indicated a built-in ladder leading straight up the wall. “Come into my booth.”
Grace climbed up first. When she was halfway up, she glanced down to make sure he was following her. He was, his long arms and legs making easy work of the rungs. And, she realized, he was getting a fantastic view up her skirt.
She scrambled up the last few rungs like they were on fire.
Once she was in her booth, she smoothed down her skirts and sat in her chair, trying to seem dignified. Rafa climbed in, glanced at the low ceiling, and, in a fluid movement, managed to slide into the chair beside her without ever standing upright.
“I’m impressed,” she admitted. “Most people hit their heads on the ceiling the first time they come in.”
“Most people should have the common sense to look up when they climb into an attic,” Rafa remarked. His sharp gaze swept around the booth, taking in Grace’s station between the light and sound boards, the snarl of cords and plugs beneath them, the headsets, and the huge window with its view of the stage. “When do you move up here?”
“A couple nights before we open. Right now it’s easier for me to be in the audience, so I can physically get onstage and backstage if I need to.”
“Lucky for Paris that you could. So, what do you think is going on?”
She hesitated, eyeing him warily. “I have a theory, but everyone I’ve told it to has thought I was crazy.”
Rafa stretched out in his chair, crossing his ankles. He was a blissful island of relaxation in the middle of the chaos that was Mars: The Musical, and those legs of his seemed to go on forever. “Let’s see if I can break that streak. Hit me.”
“I think someone’s trying to shut down Mars: The Musical.”
It was at least the fifth time she had said that sentence. But the response she got was one she heard for the very first time. Rafa nodded and said, “I think so too.”
“You do?” She couldn’t believe it. “Everyone else brushes me off when I say so.”
“No wonder this has gone on so long. Who benefits if the show fails or never opens?”
Grace had to think about that. She’d been so caught up in trying to convince people of her theory, which she’d spent over an hour trying to explain to the cast and crew the night before, that she hadn’t had a chance to think of its implications. But once she did, she realized there could only be one answer. “My Fair Lady. It’s the other musical opening at the same time. If Mars doesn’t open at all, or if opening night is a disaster and it gets terrible reviews, everyone will see My Fair Lady instead.”
He tipped an imaginary hat to her. “Congratulations. You’ve solved the mystery. Watch out, you’ll put me out of business.”
She couldn’t help feeling warm inside at his words. It really was too bad he was Paris’s guy. She’d enjoyed talking to him. Sitting so close to him that she could feel the heat of his body. Gazing at his gorgeous brown eyes. His charming smile. The place where his shirt had pulled up to expose a bit of his washboard abs...
Stop it.
“So, someone from My Fair Lady must have snuck someone into Mars to sabotage it, right?” Grace asked. “Any idea who?”
“Not yet, but we’ll find out,” Rafa assured her. “And in the meantime, I’ll shift from protecting Paris to protecting you.”
She stared at him. “What makes you think they’re after me?”
“I mean, protecting the show in general,” he said quickly. “Which includes you. I just mentioned you because you’re the one I’m talking to.”
She didn’t quite follow that explanation, but she saw a bigger problem than that. “Won’t Paris mind?”
“Not once I explain that she’s not the only target. And I’ll still also be guarding her. But in the meantime, since I won’t need to escort her around outside of the theatre... May I take you out to dinner on Saturday night?”
For a single, golden moment, Grace was delighted. Of course she wanted to go out with this hot, smart, strong, intriguing hunk—a hunk who wanted to know her opinion about things and took it seriously once she’d told him. When had she ever met a man like that? Never, that was when.
Then bitter disappointment crashed over her as she remembered that he was already taken. Rafa was nothing but a smooth, charming cheater, like all smooth, charming men. How could she have been fooled by him, even for a moment?