by Tina Folsom
Caught in her bluff, she glared at him. For several seconds an internal struggle appeared to rage in her. Her chest heaved, her hands clenched, and her shoulders stiffened. Silence stretched between them.
Then she finally gave him an answer. “I can’t wait for the day we break up.”
“The feeling is mutual.” He turned on his heel and stalked to the door. “I’ll see myself out. I’ll get your schedule from your campaign manager.”
After all, there might be events that Tessa didn’t feel he should accompany her to, and Poppy was less likely to leave anything off.
“I’ll be back when you’re ready to leave City Hall.”
4
Hamish stormed into the men’s room—which luckily was empty—and charged into one of the three stalls, slamming the metal door behind him so hard that the entire structure rattled.
“What was all that about?”
He whirled around and found himself face-to-face with Enya, who materialized right in front of him.
“What was what?” he growled. For a moment he’d forgotten that Enya had accompanied him to the initial meeting with his charge—though she had remained invisible the entire time just as Cinead had requested.
Dressed in black shorts and a red, rather tight top, her long blond hair braided and pinned around her head, a casual observer would have never guessed what a magnificent warrior she was—fearless and lethal. Both with her hands and her sharp tongue.
Enya crossed her arms over her chest and slanted him a don’t-bullshit-me look. “Interesting approach you’re taking with your new charge, buddy. Hope it works out.”
“You’re my second, so don’t question my authority.” As the sentinel, the lead guardian on the assignment, he was the one who gave the orders. Enya was his backup.
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” she replied. Her tone said otherwise, however, he had no intention of justifying his actions.
How could Cinead have been so wrong in his assessment of Tessa Wallace? The emissarius who’d claimed she was good through and through should have his head examined. Tessa was anything but. She was combative and head-strong. “She’s a piece of work, that woman,” he ground out.
“Because she didn’t fall to your feet and say ‘Yes, sir!’ to everything you said?” Enya put her finger to her lips in a mock-contemplative gesture. “Hmm. Makes sense.”
“What’s your fucking problem?”
Enya shrugged. “I have no problem. Because I don’t let my emotions get the better of me.”
“Neither do I!” Though Tessa’s opposition to his suggestions had riled him up. In a purely professional way, of course.
“My bad.”
And now Enya was getting on his nerves by making more out of the situation than there was, turning a molehill into Mount Everest. “Don’t apologize if you don’t mean it.”
“You really don’t get it, do you?” she asked, shaking her head, her gaze a little softer now.
“Get what?”
She jerked her thumb over her shoulder. “A woman running for mayor isn’t gonna be a pushover. Making her comply with certain rules so you can keep her safe will take some finesse. I always thought you of all people had a boatload of that at your fingertips.”
“Guess I’m fresh out of finesse.”
At that, she chuckled, a sweet sound that reminded him of why he’d always seen and treated her like a younger sister, even though she was practically the same age as he.
“You’d better stock up on it then, because you’ll need her cooperation if this whole fake boyfriend-girlfriend scenario is supposed to work. There’s only so much I can do in the shadows.”
He lifted his hand, stopping her. He knew his duties. “I don’t need anybody telling me what I’m supposed to do. Which brings me to your duties.” It was best to deflect from him now. Enya had already stirred up too much shit for one morning.
“Don’t worry, I know what to do,” she said almost bored. “I’ll be staying in her office, checking out her visitors and the staff that’s coming in and out. I won’t leave her side until it’s time for you to take over.”
“If she makes any appointments or agrees to any events without putting them on the calendar or notifying her campaign manager or me, I’ll need to know.”
“Understood. But do you honestly think she’d try to sneak past you?”
“She didn’t exactly like the idea of me accompanying her to every event.”
Enya rolled her eyes. “She’s not stupid. She knows that if she wants to be safe, she needs to stick with you. She’ll just have to get used to the idea. She strikes me as an independent woman who’s not used to asking for permission. Put yourself in her shoes for a moment. Would you like it if some stranger suddenly showed up and said you couldn’t do this or that and would need to run every decision about your whereabouts by them? Answer: no, you wouldn’t like it at all.”
He grunted, but he knew Enya was right.
“So why don’t you make it a little easier on her?”
“How?”
“Don’t provoke her. She’ll only fight back like a caged tigress.”
Enya’s last words conjured up an image of Tessa dressed in a slinky outfit charging at him and tossing him on a bed, mounting him, mauling him...
Fuck!
He ran a shaky hand through his hair. He hadn’t had fantasies like that in a long time. Not since his ill-fated almost-union with Olivia—a woman the demons had manipulated to get to him. And he’d fallen for it, for her. Hard. But it had all been a lie. A lie that had nearly killed him. Was it then a surprise that whenever he saw a woman who stirred any kind of feelings in him, he lashed out in anger, hoping to drive her away before he made the same mistake again? Before he got emotionally involved and let those emotions cloud his decisions.
“… and maybe a box of chocolates. Those always work wonders. Every woman loves them,” Enya said.
“What?” How long had he zoned out?
“Why the fuck do I bother giving you advice when you don’t even listen?”
“I was listening,” he lied.
She looked him straight in the eye. “So what did I say then?”
“To give her chocolates.”
“And?” She pressed her lips into a thin line.
He scrambled for an answer. “Say something nice to her.”
Clearly surprised, Enya arched one eyebrow. “So you do listen occasionally.”
Lucky guess. After all, he wasn’t born yesterday. He had been with enough women to know how to pacify one: pay her compliments, and shower her with gifts. How hard could it be?
“Just don’t lay it on too thick. Women can smell it when a man is insincere.”
“Enya?”
“Hmm?”
“Get the hell out of here! My capacity for listening to bullshit advice has reached its limit for today.”
Chuckling, Enya eased back, walking through the metal door without opening it, while her body turned invisible. “She’s got spunk. Maybe I can learn something from her.”
He couldn’t let her have the last word and swung the stall door open. “You’re supposed to just follow my fucking orders. If you can’t comply—”
But Enya was already gone. Instead, a man in a suit had entered the restroom and stared at him, shaking his head.
“Man, just do the deed in private. And for God’s sake, don’t talk to it.”
Cursing three ways to heaven, Hamish hurried past him, embarrassment and anger sweeping through him in equal measure. But that wasn’t the worst of it. Having to play boyfriend to this bossy woman, who didn’t know what real danger she was in, was by far the bigger problem. Cinead had been wrong: the betrayal he’d suffered hadn’t inoculated him against being attracted to a woman he had no business desiring.
But he wasn’t taking the blame for this. No, he had a very convenient scapegoat up his sleeve: rasen. Every Stealth Guardian experienced the mating call the closer he got to his two-hundredth birthday
. Rasen, the need to find a mate and procreate, influenced a Stealth Guardian much in the same way a dog was affected by a bitch in heat. But Hamish was determined to ignore it—even if that mating call came in the form of the most delectable female he’d ever encountered.
Rasen could kiss his bloody ass!
5
When her assistant Collette, a leggy black woman in her mid forties, popped her head into the office, Tessa looked up from her files.
“Tessa, I’m leaving now,” Collette said. “And so should you if you want to make it to the party on time. Traffic is hell out there. Did you hear they had to close off Park Avenue because of a demonstration?”
“Oh, crap!” Tessa shut the file and jumped up from her armchair, glancing at her wristwatch. “I didn’t realize it was that late already. Thank you, Collette. Is Poppy still in the building?” Maybe Poppy could ride with her so she wouldn’t have to be alone with her new bodyguard, who’d texted her that afternoon to tell her he’d be picking her up at City Hall to take her to the event.
“No, she left long ago. Said she had meetings outside the office. I believe she was planning to meet you at the party.”
Tessa pasted a fake smile on her face to hide her disappointment. “That’s perfect, thanks. Have a great night, Collette.”
“You, too, Tessa,” her assistant replied and left, easing the door shut.
“Damn it,” she cursed as she collected her handbag.
It was time to get ready to leave. She quickly checked her clothes, making sure there were no stains on her blouse, then slipped into her gray suit jacket. She’d chosen this outfit especially this morning, because she could wear it both to the office and the event and wouldn’t have to waste any time by stopping by at home and getting changed.
Tessa pulled out her compact and perused her reflection. Did her cheeks look a little red? She shrugged. So what if they did. She wasn’t going to the event to win a beauty contest.
Her stomach growled. No wonder. She’d skipped lunch in order to receive several concerned constituents who had family members embroiled in the recent riots downtown. They’d been beside themselves, begging her for help, claiming their sons had nothing to do with the fights that had taken place at a demonstration. After two hours of listening to the same story over and over again, she’d been exhausted and close to tears. Something had to change in this city.
Switching off the light on her way out, she closed the door and locked it. The antechamber, which was shared by four assistants, all working for one council member or another, was empty. She was crossing the room when she heard a noise behind her. Spinning around, she instinctively gripped her handbag tighter, hoping to use it as a shield against an attacker. She froze. There was nobody behind her, just the closed door of her office and Collette’s tidy desk a few feet to its left.
Heart beating into her throat, she cast frantic looks in every direction, but she was alone.
“Shit!” she cursed under her breath.
She was definitely losing it. She hadn’t wanted to acknowledge it until now, but the death threat two days earlier had rattled her, and the arrival of the bodyguard had driven the reality of her situation home. She was in danger because somebody didn’t like her political agenda, when all she wanted was to bring peace and prosperity back to this city. The people of Baltimore needed her, and therefore she needed to win this election. And that’s why—even though she didn’t like Hamish’s macho attitude—she would just have to play along with her overbearing bodyguard.
And her bodyguard was already waiting for her when she reached the lobby. He’d changed clothes and was now wearing a dark blue suit with a lavender-colored tie. But even the elegant attire couldn’t disguise his muscular physique or the fact that he looked like he could overturn a tank singlehanded. To her surprise he smiled at her as she approached him, and when she reached him, he leaned in and kissed her on the cheek.
“You look great, Tessa.”
Shocked at the physical intimacy and the compliment, she froze, unable to form a coherent sentence. She felt him lean even closer, his hand on the small of her back now, his mouth near her ear.
“This is where you say, thanks for picking me up, Hamish,” he whispered.
He wore no aftershave that she could detect, and he smelled more masculine than any man she’d ever been near. Trying to get her rapidly beating heart under control, she pulled back a few inches and stepped out of his almost-embrace.
“Hi, Hamish, I hope you didn’t have to wait long.”
He offered his arm, and she had no choice but to accept it, allowing him to walk her past building security to the large double doors leading out of the building.
“You’re worth waiting for,” he said.
She cast him a sideways look and lowered her voice to a whisper. “You don’t have to lay it on that thick. Nobody’s watching us.”
He graced her with a devastatingly charming smile. “You never know.” Then he winked at her. “Besides, I need the practice. We both do.”
She had no comeback for this.
At the bottom of the stairs, he let go of her arm and opened the passenger door of a black Mercedes and helped her in. She slunk into the elegant interior. Moments later, Hamish got in on the driver’s side and started the engine.
He motioned to the controls. “If you want the air condition on, feel free. Or if you’re too cold, I can switch on the seat warmer.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Why so friendly all of a sudden?”
He pulled away from the curb and eased into the evening traffic. “I think you got the wrong impression of me earlier.”
“Did I?”
“Apparently. And I know that’s partially my fault. I’m not used to my charges refusing protection.”
“And I’m not used to somebody telling me where I can and cannot go.”
“I realize that. That’s why I propose a truce.”
“What kind of truce?”
He looked at her briefly. “The only kind of truce there is: where both parties lay down their arms and agree not to start a fight.”
She shrugged. “I never started a fight with you.”
He opened his mouth, but then closed it again. For a moment he said nothing, then, “Well, then I guess it’s up to me to apologize for the argument in your office.”
“Guess it is.” She wasn’t going to make this easy on him, because she had to set one thing straight: she was the client.
“I’m sorry if I came on a little strong earlier,” he started, his voice a little gruff, as if it irked him that he had to apologize—or as if he’d never done it before and was entirely unfamiliar with the concept. “But all I’m concerned about is your safety, and I’m not going to make any compromises when it comes to that. As you may have guessed, I’m not too wild about having to pretend to be your boyfriend, but from now on neither you nor anybody else will notice that. I guarantee it.”
While she appreciated his apology, he’d practically negated it with his last words. He wasn’t too wild about being her pretend-boyfriend? “And you think I’m wild about it?” She blew out an outraged breath and looked out the side window. “If I had time to date, you wouldn’t be my first choice either.”
“Ouch,” he said, accompanied by a barely suppressed chuckle.
She whirled her head to him and saw him grinning. Damn, why did that annoy her so much? Or was it not the smile that riled her up, but the fact that he didn’t like the idea of dating her? As if she wasn’t good enough for him. Or pretty enough. Or—oh screw it! Why did she even care? Well, she didn’t!
“Hmm, now that we’ve cleared that up, I’m sure we’ll get on famously,” he prophesized. “Nothing helps a relationship flourish like low expectations.”
“Aren’t I lucky?”
6
Hamish took a deep, calming breath, stopping himself from replying to Tessa’s comment.
Keep it together, man!
Fuck, he wasn’t good at this. It h
ad been hard enough to apologize, and he’d be damned if he made any more concessions. Maybe she could treat a real boyfriend like this, but not him. And everything had started so well. He’d paid her a compliment, kissed her on the cheek, led her to the car like a gentleman. He’d even opened the car door for her. What else did she want from him?
If I had time to date, you wouldn’t be my first choice either.
Her cold words echoed in his mind. She’d made it pretty clear that she didn’t like him. He should be happy about it. After all, didn’t that make things easier? At least he wouldn’t be tempted to act on his inexplicable attraction to her, knowing she would reject any advances anyway. But instead of welcoming her indifference toward him, it pissed him off.
“We’ll be there soon,” he said into the silence.
“There’s a lot of traffic,” Tessa said, her voice sounding doubtful as she pointed to the intersection ahead of them.
By the time they reached it, it was clear why no one was getting through. On the street to their left, an angry mob had formed. What or whom they were angry at wasn’t immediately discernible. After all, random riots seemed to break out pretty much every other day lately. And this mob was armed with baseball bats and stones.
“Shit!” Hamish cursed and looked for an escape route. He was already blocked in by traffic behind him. And while he had enough space in front to do a U-turn, oncoming traffic had blocked that lane too, preventing him from turning around the way they came.
Crossing the intersection wasn’t an option. The police had already barricaded the street. His only option was to turn right. When he glanced at Tessa, he noticed her apprehensive look.
“It’s getting worse every day,” she murmured.
“I’ll get us out of here.”
Turning the wheel sharply to the right, he pulled them out of traffic and jumped the curb. They drove down the broad sidewalk, two wheels on the street, two on the sidewalk. Good thing that all the pedestrians had fled, not wanting to be caught up in the angry mob that was now bashing in windows and throwing rocks at cars, shouting and yelling unintelligible things.
