He read right through the playful edge in Nicola’s voice and heard the terror that had crept in.

“All of you need to back off. Way off.”

A couple of guys looked over at him and made the mistake of dismissing him as some old guy in a suit. Several of them had their cameras out and they were putting their hands on Nicola to get her to pose for pictures with them.

“Hey Nico, take off that big sweatshirt, would you, so everyone can see how hot you are?”

Marcus pushed into the group so hard and fast a couple of the college kids knocked over like bowling pins. “Get your hands off her,” he growled. When they didn’t move fast enough, he grabbed them by the shoulders and shoved them away.

“What the hell are you, her bodyguard or something?”

Marcus’s hand was already in a fist when Nicola grabbed his arm. “Yes, he is. And I’m afraid I’m late for something. Nice to meet all of you!”

She dragged him away from the group. “Good timing,” she said under her breath as they made a beeline for the elevators. “They were getting a little annoying.”

Annoying? That’s all those buffoons were to her?

Forgetting that they were supposed to be going upstairs separately, he said, “They weren’t just annoying, they were outright dangerous.” He wanted to run his hands over her body, make sure nothing had happened to her. More than that, he wanted to take her someplace safe and make her stay there, out of harm’s way.

“They weren’t dangerous,” she said, dismissing his concerns. “They couldn’t have done anything really bad in the middle of the hotel lobby.”

But Marcus could think of a dozen different things they could have done to her, including ways they could have kept her from crying out for help.

“How could you have gone to that club alone last night? What if a bunch of drunks had cornered you on the street? Or by the bar?”

“Honestly, that kind of stuff doesn’t happen all that often. I usually remember to put on sunglasses and a hat so that people can’t recognize me that easily. Besides,” she added in a super-soft voice, “if I hadn’t gone to the club, I wouldn’t have met you.”

He wanted to make her promise to be more careful in the future, but before he could, a large family got out of the elevator and an earsplitting squeal sounded as soon as the children saw her.

“Oh my God, it’s Nico!”

* * *

The boy and his sister, who couldn’t have been more than seven or eight, threw themselves at her and she caught them as they impulsively hugged her. At the same time, their mother struggled to get a huge, heavy stroller out of the elevator.

Marcus moved quickly to help her before the door closed, and with her arms still around the children, Nicola watched him say something soothing to the harried mother that had her mouth curving up into a smile. That soft spot in Nicola’s chest grew even bigger for this beautiful man she was about to take upstairs to do very naughty things with.

“Mom! We need your camera to take a picture with Nico!”

Just then the baby in the stroller started crying. Considering their mother already looked like she was at the end of a very frayed rope, it was clear that the last thing she needed was to look for her camera.

“I’ve got to deal with your sister,” she told them, already reaching in to unstrap the baby girl.

Nicola had always loved children and her secret hope she’d never shared with anyone was to have a big family of her own. She’d been a heck of a babysitter as a teenager. It was partly why she felt her music translated so well to children. She genuinely liked them, rather than just putting up with them.

She was about to reach out for the little girl when Marcus beat her to the punch. “Would you like me to hold her?” he offered to the mother.

Considering the boy and girl were whining now about how horrible it would be to not have their picture taken with Nico, after assessing Marcus in his professional suit and his obvious trustworthiness, the woman said, “Okay, if you wouldn’t mind, it will just be for a second or two. I’m pretty sure my camera is down under everything.”

Marcus took the tearful little girl, who stopped crying as soon as he lifted her up to his face. “Well, aren’t you a pretty little thing?”

The mother beamed. “I know, she’s gorgeous, isn’t she?”

He nodded, never once taking his eyes from the baby’s toothless grin. “What’s your name?” he asked the baby as if she could answer, and she happily replied with a gurgling mountain of spit bubbles.

Without missing a beat, he used her bib to wipe off the spit...and Nicola started falling.

She wasn’t sure how long she stood there staring openmouthed at how good Marcus was with the baby—he was now maneuvering her as if she was a mini diapered airplane, even making the noises to go along with it—until the kid’s mother said, “Found the camera.”

Nicola snapped to attention as if from out of a deep fog. The kids were now standing on either side of her, smiling for the camera.

Oh God. She couldn’t possibly be falling for him already. She hardly knew him, didn’t know what he did for a living, or what he did for fun.

But, a contrary little voice in her head told her, don’t you already know everything that matters? That he loves his family and is good with children and has been kinder—and gentler—to you than anyone else ever has? Not to mention the way you go up in flames when he kisses you....

“Say cheese!”

Nicola smiled for the camera, the same smile she’d given thousands of times over during the past few years. But when the woman turned the viewer around and said, “Look at how cute you all are,” she was shocked to realize it wasn’t the same smile at all.

Instead of Nico the pop star smiling back at her, it was Nicola, a woman who’d just been flattened by unexpected emotion, looking utterly bewildered by what had just hit her.

Wanting desperately to reset back to normal again, she turned her complete focus on the kids, asking them their names, what grades they were in, if they had a favorite song. She asked their mother if she could have their email to send special concert tickets over for her show on Saturday night.

Finally, Marcus put the baby back in her stroller and gently strapped her in. The family left, calling goodbye. She waved back at them, glad for the movement to hide how unsteady her hands were.

Marcus pushed the elevator button again and followed her in, his hand on the small of her back, just as it had been the night before when they’d walked out of the club. She was immediately enveloped by his heat, along with that sense of safety she’d felt from the first moment she’d met him in the club.