Protect Me (18 page)

She
looked up and around at Boran. Cocked her head in a question. Forced her heart
rate to calm down. “Something you need?” Hope asked, her voice deliberately
cheerful. A warning sign to anyone who’d worked with her as long as Boran had.
Her default was neutral, not cheery.

Boran’s
forehead creased and his big eyebrows drew together. He frowned at her. Then,
suddenly, the lines on his face smoothed out and he attempted something very
like a smile.

“It is
just… I just wanted to tell you that, er, I apologize. For attempting to
interfere.” Boran released her arm and moved past her to hover over Javier’s
shoulder, clearly feeling that Rick himself wouldn’t take it all that well. As it
was Rick paused his speech for a moment before seeming to mentally shrug and
move on, too enthusiastic at having an audience to stop for long.

Hope
blinked at them slowly. What the hell…? Boran wasn’t a bad guy, but that was
all relative. Her profession was made up of a bunch of hardened experts who
rarely bothered in niceties like apologies for anything less than outright
attempted murder. Apologizing for a minor rudeness was… to say it was out of
character was understating it in the same way as saying some people got wet on
the Titanic.

At
least she wasn’t expected to respond, she supposed.

Boran
appeared even more interested in Rick’s passionate speech than Javier. She had
to work not to feel charmed by the site of the two men listening raptly to her
- well. To her employer. To her future ex-employer. To her something.

This
time when a hand landed on her arm, Hope was more than aware and turned neatly
ahead of time to avoid any actual contact.

“Yes,
sir?” she said politely. Boran’s client snarled in a way that might have looked
impressive on someone whose shoulders weren’t so hunched as to make him appear
concave.

“When
are we getting out of this freak death lab? What the hell went on upstairs?
You’re going to be hearing about my lawyers for this, let me tell you. The
security here isn’t worth…”

“We
can’t actually do anything about people breaking in and attacking us,” Hope
said, wondering who “we” was supposed to refer to exactly. Her? Boran? God?
This angry man in an exquisite suit seemed like the sort of person who might
start an argument with the universe at large.

Sure
enough, he growled and brought a big finger up in front of her face. “Don’t
sass me, missy, I am not in the mood. Somebody is responsible for this
disaster. I do not appreciate being exposed to actual gunfire. Do you have any
idea - this isn’t the sort of thing I should ever be exposed to!”

Hope
wondered who this rich man thought
should
be exposed to gunfire.

She
opened her mouth without any clear idea of what to say when a warm presence
appeared at her side. She glanced over to see Rick smile that disarming,
slightly self-deprecating smile and extend an arm in an all-encompassing
gesture.

“Very
sorry about that, old man. What can I say, sometimes these things get out of
hand, I guess. No idea what all that’s about. Still, seems like everyone’s
alright, and that’s the important thing.” A warm hand pressed flat against the
small of her back and then Rick moved forward to clap the disgruntled man on
the shoulder and talk to him in familiar tones. She watched the snarl slowly
fade into a sort of reluctant goodwill, and could only shake her head.

Hope
looked over her shoulder at Javier and Boran. Javier was watching Boran. Boran
was…

“Don’t
touch anything,” she said sharply, knowing without question that Rick would not
want any civilian fingers on his science.

The big
man pulled back and looked at her. Hope had never seen guilt on his face
before, but she thought maybe there was something close to it in his
expression.

“Of
course, I’m sorry,” he said, an old accent coming out thicker in his voice, “I
meant nothing by it. Just curious.”

“Right,”
Hope said. She gave him a long look. Behind her, she heard Rick’s words slow
down and felt his attention catch on the exchange.

Before
anyone could say anything else, noise pulsed through the floor above as the
police bellowed on their loudspeakers, “Please come out calmly and with your
hands above your heads.”

After
that, things faded into the blurry, slightly resigned haze of justice. The five
of them waited a reasonable amount of time to make sure the baddies were
actually caught before both Boran and Hope received phone calls with irritated
cops on the other end. They all trooped upstairs to surrender themselves into
the arms of the law, which welcomed them with copious amounts of waiting around
and paperwork.

It was
astonishing how boring the aftermath of almost getting shot (or kidnapped, in
Rick’s case) was. She’d gone through it more times than she could count by now,
and yet Hope never failed to be amazed by the sheer tedium of procedure. When
you worked in executive protection you spent your life on edge, toeing a line
between confident preparedness and wild paranoia. So when something actually
happened, it might be a disaster, but in a way it was almost a relief. The
human mind liked to think of things as closed circles. You signed up, waited
around to get shot at, and then someone shot at you. End of story, until you
started it up again.

Maybe
other people just dealt with the teeth-grating dullness of procedure better
than she did. Javier was ludicrously interested in everything, Rick smiled and
joked the way he always did, and Boran’s client threatened everybody within
earshot in a relieved kind of way. Boran himself was as blank-faced as she was;
like Hope, he kept any thoughts to himself.

“These
late nights are getting to be a thing for us,” Hope remarked later, as she
walked down the long hallway with Rick. Everyone had finally, finally gone
home, even the cops. Her muddled last impressions were of Iseul finding them to
grasp both Rick and her hands and exclaim how glad she was that they were okay,
of finding Trinity standing around still holding a big serving knife she’d
grabbed, and of Boran’s sharp gaze as he nodded over his client’s head on their
way out the door.

Now,
the hallways were pre-dawn quiet, and Hope was overly aware of her own
weariness. The sound of their footsteps was loud in her ears and she kept
swinging her head from side to side to check that nothing was out of place.

“Hey.”
Hope was tired enough to drop to her knees, but not so tired that Rick’s
fingertips tracing down her arm didn’t trail a little fire in their wake.
Without waiting or asking for permission he tangled his fingers with hers. She
stared at their hands - chemical burns and old scars - for a moment and slowly
tightened her grip. He smiled, shaded by concern as visible as shadows on his
face. “You doing okay in there? I told you, I can never tell what you’re
thinking.”

Hope’s
fingers twitched reflexively. She knew this part. But she was too tired to
avoid it; too old to want to put it off. A small sigh blew out between her
parted lips and she glanced over at Rick’s honest concern.

“I…”
she struggled for a moment with her own blurry thoughts and then shook her
head. “There’s something about these attackers. It’s in my head but I can’t…”

“Sleep,”
Rick advised, at the very moment their feet began to approach the door. Hope
wondered if he’d timed it like that or if he just had the luck of the devil
naturally.

“That’s
the plan,” she agreed. She reached out to open her door when Rick caught her
arm.

“If
you…” Rick didn’t look nervous precisely. More wary. His dark eyes were soft
and smoldering under his tousled hair, and when had that happened? She couldn’t
remember. Had he been looking at her like that all the time? “You could sleep
in my bed. It’s - uh - well, it’s got me in it.”

Hope
had to crack a smile at that; Rick winced good-naturedly and rubbed at the back
of his neck. She assumed that exhaustion must be hitting him hard too.

His
fingers spanned out to brush against the soft skin at the underside of her arm.
It felt good, and her feet almost took that step to cross the small space
between her door and his. She could stretch out, pull close, let Rick’s warmth
and easy smile lull her to sleep.

But she
didn’t move. Because Rick wasn’t just some guy she’d met at a bar. He was Rick
Stone, richer than God and intimately acquainted with the kind of women that
didn’t need Photoshop. And what was she? Compared to the kind of cut-glass
perfection of his usual type of woman, Hope knew that she was at best a
curiosity.

If he
was just a pretty face, it might not have mattered. But she didn’t just like
Rick’s front page looks. She liked the way he scruffed his fingers through his
hair, and the way he listened to her with the whole of his attention, and his
casual kindness.

No need
to make things worse than they were, Hope told herself.

She
extricated her arm from his grasp and wrapped her fingers firmly around the
doorknob to her room.

“See
you in the morning, Rick,” she said, the words as soft as the dawn light just
starting to seep in around the curtains. Ignoring the frustration and confusion
on his face - ignoring the way his mouth had opened to ask questions she no
doubt couldn’t answer - Hope shoved the door open and slipped inside.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Hope
woke up at 8:00 in a tangle of bed sheets and ruined dress.

She
wearily pulled herself out of bed, suppressed a groan out of habit rather than
any real need to do so, and went about the routine of getting ready for the
day.

When
she was decent she stared at the connecting door between her room and Rick’s
for a long moment. She still had the key; he’d never taken that away, not even
when she’d broken his trust. And even though she’d walked away last night, Hope
was pretty sure she would be welcome this morning. She could…

No.
Hope shook her head at herself and padded quietly out the door and into the
silent hallway.

Although
she had done a sweep last night, Hope stretched out her tired muscles in a
long, loping stride and scanned the mansion for any suspicious irregularities.
The halls were all silent; the various maids that worked for Rick were all
still in bed, presumably shaken after last night. It was only inside the
ballroom that she found remnants of chaos: tablecloths, furniture, cutlery
spilled haphazardly across the floor. Evidence of human life, Hope thought to
herself with dark humor.

The
familiar routine of the work wasn’t enough to keep Hope’s mind from turning
over the events of last night.

She
should have been thinking about the people coming for Rick. But she was a
bodyguard, not a detective, after all. And her mind kept slipping away to
recall the feel of Rick’s fingers on her skin, and the way his eyes had burned
into her outside the door. The way he hadn’t tried to protest, but had taken
Hope at her word and let her go.

Did she
really want to keep running? she wondered.

“You
look like you’re having thinky thoughts,” a voice interrupted her inner
monologue. Hope blinked and looked through a familiar doorframe at Trinity,
clad in an apron and still sporting eye makeup from last night.

She
glanced over at the table. It was still empty, so she took a seat, restraining
a shake of the head at her own feet. When had she started to see breakfast in
here as a routine?

Hope
sat down and frowned at the table. “No, I just… Maybe. Too many thoughts.”

Trinity
gave her a slightly shaky smile and Hope could’ve kicked herself.

“Sorry,
are you alright? I know that must’ve been a shock, last night. I was hoping
that wouldn’t happen, but - whoever’s after Rick is pretty persistent.” She
wondered if she was supposed to get up or maybe give Trinity a hug or
something.

Fortunately,
Trinity didn’t appear in need of any assistance. The other woman shot Hope a
smile and went back to whisking things.

“Thanks
honey, but I’m just fine. We all are, thanks to you.” Fairly inaccurate, but
Hope didn’t have time to interrupt. “You’re not thinking about work though. I
can tell. You’re thinking about our sainted Mr. Stone. The eye twitch and look
of despair are a dead giveaway.” Trinity winked and Hope burst out laughing in
spite of herself.

Maybe
she was taking this too hard. Just because she was used to life and death,
didn’t mean that everything she dealt with was life and death. Not even when it
felt as important as this was. Hope had a vague feeling like she was doing this
wrong - like she should be happy, not worried enough to put a permanent frown
line across her own forehead.

“It’s
just…” Hope wasn’t sure if she was relieved or horrified to be talking about
this. Her feelings, out loud. Giving them space in the room. “It seems so unreal.
Why me?”