Men-of-Action-Seres-03 -The McGregor Affair Page 2
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brown skin, smooth and radiant, almond shaped eyes and a mouth that her father said captivated him from the first time he saw her. They met on a dig in Thebes, the Irish man and the Egyptian…they fell in love and married. They traveled the world on their adventures, while calling the States home for a few months a year. Then her mother got pregnant.
Her parents slowed down for all of two seconds. The joke was that they had stopped long enough to give birth before hitting the road again.
She figured those jokes had more truth than fiction. Her earliest memories were in Egypt and Ireland, on digs with her parents. She spoke Egyptian Arabic, could translate ancient hieroglyphics, could speak Gallic, English, and French by the time she was ten. Her childhood had been adventurous and uncommon. She was homeschooled, which allowed for her parents to travel and take her with them. She didn’t regret a second of her past, but she would have if they had stuck her in some boarding school. They had the world they loved while keeping the family together.
She had no doubt that her adventurous spirit came from her parents. She could handle snakes because of her mother. She had taught her which ones she could safely—or rather relatively safely—remove and which ones were deadly. Her father had taught her to climb and river raft down fast rapids, while her mother had taught her how to dig for treasures without damaging them. They had both shared their knowledge with her, and they had made her a better person because of it.
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She couldn’t wait to get back to South Dakota to see them. Of course they were off in Egypt right now, but by the time they wrapped shooting she was sure her parents would be back stateside. At least they had assured her they would be back stateside by the end of the year.
She laughed. “Yeah right,” she mumbled. They would probably find some other adventure to skirt off too and she would probably find herself flying to Istanbul or something just to go on the journey with them. Her family didn’t know the meaning of the word vacation.
“Are you ready?” The deep voice behind her broke her thoughts. He was new, cute even, but that didn’t mean she liked having him there. He was dangerous to a woman’s single lifestyle. He was a man you’d want to do more than take to bed once or twice. He was Gavin McGregor—sexy, Irish, adventurous—and worst of all, he was somebody Warren had insisted they work into the background on a few of the more dangerous shows.
She understood the need for safety precautions. The last guy that had worked with them vanished while scoping out a shoot location.
She heard later that he had been found dead. Nobody would say how, other than they found part of him in the ocean. She assumed that meant the sharks had gotten to him before he could swim back to shore. What she couldn’t understand was just what he was doing in the ocean in the first place. Their next shoot wasn’t a water adventure.
This new guy, as cocky as he was, felt the need to get in her space on a constant basis. Yes, he was supposed to pretest some of the The McGregor Affair
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more adventurous activities with her beforehand, but that didn’t mean they needed him everyday.
They had strict instructions to accommodate him, not to get him on camera as they weren’t paying him for that and they didn’t want a lawsuit if he ended up in one of the shots accidently. What a jerk!
Accidents happened when filming, and since he seemed to want to stay nearly attached to her backside she wasn’t sure how he planned not to be in some of the shots. So far they had made it work. She didn’t want to do some of the scenes twice. It didn’t make sense to climb the same mountain within a week simply because he had to be there for the first go through, but couldn’t be on camera.
It was Warren’s dime so she shouldn’t care. In fact, the addition meant she worked a little longer this season so her pay went up a notch.
She shouldn’t complain really, but she would.
“In a hurry to go through the volcanic tubes are you?” He smiled. She wished he wouldn’t do that. He looked more human when he smiled and she didn’t want to think of him as human, or sexy—she wanted to think of him as just another cocky Irish-American man.
“Applebee wants me to test out the dangerous ones with you.
He also wants me on set for the day of shoots, so you’re just going to have to get used to having me here.” He leaned closer to her and she stepped back.
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Did he have to smell so good too? His natural, shower fresh scent was all he wore. She was thankful. Some of the guys she had been around had piled on the cologne as if they had taken a bath in it.
The scents made her sick—literally. She couldn’t understand why men and women wore fragrances as if they had dumped the entire bottle on their body every morning. She liked a fresh, natural scent. Even if a guy wore a hint of aftershave she preferred it if it wasn’t something she could smell coming from ten miles away.
Well, she mused; if she had to have the sexy Irish man on top of her at least she could be thankful he wasn’t smelly. She nearly laughed.
On top of her…now there was a position she wouldn’t mind exploring.
Get your mind out of the bedroom McGowan.
The last thing she needed was to let him seduce her. She had no doubt in her mind that he was trying to. The close contact, the accent he brandished at will, and the pure sexual energy he had virtually coming off his body in steam pockets, and it was amazing she hadn’t let him win her over yet.
It wasn’t that she didn’t think she might want to get married some day…well, maybe it was that. Maybe she didn’t want to get married and settle down. If she found somebody like her father, somebody who liked adventure as much as she did, somebody who wouldn’t demand she give everything up so he could have the life he wanted while she had the life she hated…then maybe she would get married. She doubted there was another man like her father out there.
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Her mother had hit the jackpot when she met Sean McGowan. London doubted she would be as lucky.
“It’s really not necessary for you to be here today,” she assured him. They had already had this conversation. In fact, she had told him off the very first day because he had tried to be some macho man protector, telling her how to do things and how not to. She had to remind him that she had done these things before, that she had been in far more dangerous situations, and she had done just fine without his help…or anybody else’s for that matter. She wasn’t some damsel in distress. She knew how to take care of herself. She wouldn’t say she was an expert on everything, but she didn’t need to be coddled and hand held either.
“Actually today is more about me seeing more of what goes on here,” he smiled at her again. “Applebee knows my soon to be step-father, and I think they’re both devising a plan to pull me into the business.”
She laughed. She knew of Gavin’s soon-to-be step father. He was highly important in Hollywood from what she had heard. Cross the man and bury your career, they had said. “Parents,” she laughed hard.
“Well at least he likes you enough to want to share his world with you.” He shrugged. “This isn’t so bad. I get paid to do things I like to do anyway.”
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“Did you work before this?” She hoped so. He looked like he was in his mid-thirties and she hoped that meant he had devoted some time to work over the years.
On the other end of things, he could have spent his adult life in college. She knew a few people who had done that. One of them was still in college, working on his seventh doctoral degree, and he seemed to have no intention of joining the world of working adults. He was nearly forty and hadn’t worked a day in his life. Perhaps Gavin had the same luxury.
He nodded affirmatively, putting an end to her growing speculation. “
I led adventure tours for those who had far too much money and far too much time on their hands.” She had heard something about adventure tours when Warren insisted on dumping Gavin on them. He hadn’t mentioned that he led them; just that he had experienced them. Leading and experiencing were vastly different in her mind. Warren hadn’t divulged much information. He had only assured them Gavin McGregor was skilled enough to serve as safety consult on the show.
Warren wanted to make sure there were no more accidents on his show. They might claim any publicity was good publicity, but in their business it really wasn’t. Having a crew member found dead sparked rumors and safety speculations. Those speculations would make the network reconsider giving them another full season. Warren needed the show to do well. They all did. Their jobs depended on it.
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This was going to be their first full season. Having a crew member die while shooting was not good publicity.
She didn’t delude herself by thinking Warren’s reasoning was solely based on their safety. She didn’t think he would intentionally put any of them in harms way, but she did know that money was the bottom line for him. This new safety consultant wasn’t about Warren’s desire to keep them safe; it was about his desire to keep his show on the air. Apparently the new safety guy made the network very happy.
“All right then McGregor, let’s go.”
“Gavin,” he insisted once again. “Or would you prefer I start calling you by any name I see fit?”
“Correct me if I’m wrong here, but McGregor is your name; yes?”
“Call me Gavin, or I start calling you sweet cakes.” Oh, now he was pushing her buttons. Now she was ready to put him back in the jerk category or maybe the annoyingly irritating jerk category instead.
“Fine. Gavin it is.” She pushed past him. “Call me sweet cakes and you’re going to lose something vital to calling yourself a man.”
“Ouch,” he laughed so hard she was sure he hadn’t taken her serious. Oh, but if he only knew. She had her Irish temper from her father, and her ability to execute revenge from her mother.
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“You should put on some sun block,” she advised. “I know we’re going to be going into the tubes, but we have to hike to get there and it’s going to be sunny today.”
She always wore sun block, along with protective clothing for her skin. People thought the long sleeves would be hot, but she had worked in the desert, which meant she had had to ride on the back of camels in the blazing hot sun to get to location. She knew the long sleeves, the hats, scarves, anything to cover the skin, helped mitigate the sun’s hostile heat. Still, she put the sun block on because she was a firm believer in helping her skin stay cancer free. Every little bit helped in that area.
The hike to the location had been mostly uneventful. They stopped a couple times along the way to shoot a little piece of segment as a lead in, an explanation as it were, to the idea of going down into the dry lava tubes. London had expertly covered some of the usual thrilling background about the area and what they might find down in the tubes, but the real treasure, she had said, was seeing nature’s work first hand. The only thing out of the ordinary with the hike was when Jack Landers, the assistant cameraman, nearly fell down a steep hill.
London had managed to save his fall, not only proving she was stronger than she looked, but also proving she had quick reflexes. Jack was at least two hundred twenty pounds of muscle mixed with fat. The man The McGregor Affair
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was in shape, he had to be to keep up with the intense adventures of the show, but he wasn’t a body builder and he had the grace of an ox.
Several times Jack had been told to watch his step, and several times he had managed to stumble just a little more. Gavin was starting to wonder if those missteps were accidents or something Jack was doing on purpose. Every time he stumbled he managed to grab on to a branch, breaking it in the process. London had told him he was a threat to nature and to stop breaking every branch and bush in the jungle, but he had merely laughed and assured her he wasn’t doing it on purpose.
By the time they made their way into the first tube it was just London, the cameraman and the assistant cameraman. The entire crew couldn’t fit, which meant hair and makeup would have to stay behind because they couldn’t make it down there with them. He was surprised they would even bother with hair and makeup given the present working conditions.
London never ceased to amaze him. She got down and dirty easier than anybody on the set. While the men were sitting around wiping the dirt off their pants she was getting down on her knees and crawling through it just to get to some interesting find. To look at her one wouldn’t imagine she would be the adventure type. She was delicate to the eyes, but much stronger, much more confident in who she was than anybody would initially believe. Only her hands told of her ability to work, because the rest of her looked as if she had been pampered.
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Her skin was smooth, not just at sight, but to the touch. He knew that because he had reached out and grabbed her arm when he thought she was about to fall once. She had cut him a look that told him she didn’t need his help, but he hadn’t quickly released her. In fact, he held on until he got her up the side of the steep hill. Once he was there he released her arm and she released her temper. She made sure he knew she was capable of making it on her own, and not to ever again in his life treat her as if she were some damsel in distress.
He hadn’t been thinking of her as a damsel in distress. He was simply trying to make sure she didn’t go falling back down the hill. If he were being one hundred percent honest with himself he had really just wanted to touch her. He had wanted to put his hands on her since he had first met her.
When he arrived on set the first day she was up to her elbows—literally—in mud. He looked her over. She was slender, but her curves were still enticing. He surveyed her with keen interest. The pictures he had seen of her, the video footage and the shows he had had to watch hadn’t done her justice. Beautiful was an understatement. His initial reaction had been lust, a strong desire to get her in his bed, on her back with him between her legs.
He had forced his mind back on the introduction at hand. She hadn’t stopped digging for whatever treasure they’d had her hunting for long enough to shake his hands. She had smiled up at him, gave him a The McGregor Affair
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pleasant welcome and then returned her attention to the trench in front of her.
That smile had nearly been his undoing. Her smile, and her big dark brown eyes, had made him want to reach out and touch her, kiss her. He had refrained from making any advancements. Training and thoughts of his mission had been the only thing keeping him from going for her right there, trying to seduce her out of those cargo pants they’d put her in for the shoot.
Somebody on this show was aiding in the sale of government secrets; they had also killed the last undercover agent. It was his job to find out who it was and stop them, by any means necessary. He knew if she were involved he would take her down like any other criminal.
Whether he wanted her or not he wouldn’t let lust cloud his judgment.
He kept reminding himself of that, and for a little while it worked. For a brief moment he was able to look past her beauty and see potential danger. Now, it was getting increasingly difficult to look at London and not have the urge to strip her naked and take her where she stood.
He should have turned down the assignment in the first place.
He was attracted to her at first glance; that alone should have told him he was headed for trouble. The picture he had seen had been a publicity shot of her with her hair falling in curls, cascading down her shoulders.
The smile on her face made her mouth look inviting. Then, he had made the mistake of watching the sho
ws, hearing her voice, her laugh, watching the way she moved. He fantasized about what she would be Capri Montgomery
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like off camera. Would she still have that brilliant smile? Would she be friendly, or a world class diva?
He tried to tell himself she would be different than her television personality. He tried to tell himself that she was going to be a spoiled brat and his attraction would be snuffed out in an instant. But when he met her face to face, when he spent a few hours observing her, talking with her, he knew she was everything like her television personality. His attraction to her didn’t dissipate; it grew. His desire to have her deepened. Now he was entertaining the thought of acting on some of those midnight fantasies he’d had about her.
He tried to remind himself of the mission, but everyday he was around her, everyday he got to know her better, was just another day he wanted to take her. Getting involved on that level was a bad idea. If she turned out to be guilty as sin he would have to take her down…he knew his mission and that mission came first. He just had to keep reminding his body of that.
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Chapter Three
“Mr. Masterson, you’re wanted in conference room A,” the bubbly blonde flashed perfectly veneered white teeth. She, Leslie Anne Davies, had been trying to get him in bed since the day he stepped foot in his corner office. He would have to remember to thank Langston for making sure his cover had in-demand skills otherwise he would be stuck in a cube like the rest of the employees. He couldn’t have that.
How would he covertly spy on the company if he were surrounded by nosy employees? Unfortunately, the corner office came with a just as nosy secretary, no, they called them Executive Assistants now.
Whatever her title was, he didn’t like her.
He had been told his rugged good looks were amplified by his dark hair and dark eyes. The ladies always said it made him more Capri Montgomery
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