Playing His Dangerous Game

by Tina Duncan

  Shara nodded her head towards the brick. ‘There’s a message.’

  Leaving her where she was sitting, Royce picked up the brick using a corner of the bedspread. He’d have it dusted for fingerprints but he suspected there wouldn’t be any.

  He turned the brick over and read the crudely carved message. Biting out an expletive, he stared at the engraved letters with an icy calm that was far worse than any level of anger could be.

  It seeped through his skin and into his bones, freezing his insides to sub-zero.

  This was his fault.

  Fairly and squarely.

  There was no one else to blame.

  How many times had he told himself that emotions fuzzed your objectivity and dulled your ability to handle a situation the way it should be handled?

  Yesterday he’d been so wrapped up in Shara that he hadn’t even realised that Brady had followed them from the courthouse.

  It had been luck, not training and experience, that had led him to that brief glimpse of the other man when they were on the way back to the car.

  He’d consoled himself with the fact that nothing had happened.

  But it had happened now.

  There was no doubt in his mind that Brady had watched Shara and himself together. No doubt in his mind that it was doing so that had provoked this reaction.

  Their lunch at the restaurant and their walk along the beach afterwards flashed across his mind.

  No wonder he hadn’t seen Brady. He hadn’t been able to stop looking at Shara. The sadness he’d noticed in her eyes when he’d first met her was gone. She looked …

  Well, she looked happy. And relaxed. And so beautiful that she took his breath away.

  Hell, he’d been acting like a man, damn it!

  A man—not a bodyguard.

  A man moreover who had lost his emotional detachment.

  A man who—

  No!

  He put a brake on his thoughts.

  Dragged in a breath.

  Reproaching himself would achieve nothing.

  What he had to do now was focus. Or should he say refocus?

  OK. So he’d got in deeper than he should have for a little while. Lost his perspective. That was no big deal.

  All he had to do was take a step back. Or ten. Or however many it took to re-establish his normal objectivity.

  If that meant returning to a strictly professional relationship then so be it.

  Shara was the principal.

  He was the bodyguard.

  Full-stop.

  End of story.

  He glanced at Shara. ‘I suggest you sleep next door in the guestroom.’

  She waved a hand. ‘I have to clean up this mess.’

  ‘No. That’s the last thing I want you to do. The police will want to have a look at it.’

  ‘The police …?’

  ‘Yes, I’m calling it in.’

  ‘Do you think they can prove it was Steve?’

  Royce shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I doubt he’s left fingerprints. It’s the early hours of the morning—the best time to make an attack because most people are asleep. If we’re lucky someone saw him, or he ran a red light somewhere. But, frankly, it’s a long shot.’

  ‘Oh.’

  She sounded disappointed. Royce was aware that the responsibility for that sat squarely on his shoulders too.

  ‘Get some sleep,’ he said, and walked out of the room.

  Shara didn’t sleep. Instead she lay staring up at the ceiling in the spare bedroom.

  She heard movement in her bedroom. And voices. She wasn’t sure whether it was the police or operatives from the Royce Agency.

  It didn’t really matter.

  She’d bet money on the fact that they’d be unable to prove that Steve had anything to do with throwing the brick.

  Steve wasn’t stupid; he’d have covered his tracks.

  Finally the house fell silent. She waited for Royce to come to bed but he didn’t.

  She almost went in search of him, but she didn’t want to disturb him if he was busy.

  Around four a.m. she fell into a fitful slumber that was filled with bad dreams. The nightmare played out like a series of snapshots.

  Royce with a brick hitting his temple.

  Royce with bright red blood streaming down the side of his face.

  Royce lying prostrate on the floor.

  Not moving.

  Lifeless.

  Shara could feel anxiety filling her from the toes up. As if someone had taken a jug of fear and angst and was pouring it down her throat.

  Until she was completely filled to overbrimming.

  Until she was choking on it.

  A scream tore from her throat.

  She came awake with a start, jack-knifing into a sitting position. One hand was at her chest, where her heart was jumping around like crazy, the other went protectively to the base of her throat, where she could feel her pulse racing to a similar beat.

  Royce burst into the room with a force that almost took the door off its hinges. He turned on the main light and the sudden brightness made Shara blink like a startled rabbit.

  He scanned the room with hard eyes. He was wearing the low-slung jeans and nothing else. His body was tensed so that each muscle stood out prominently. ‘What is it? Is it Brady?’

  Shara shook her head.

  His eyes narrowed. ‘Then what is it?’

  She took a deep breath. It juddered in the back of her throat. ‘I had a bad dream.’

  He visibly relaxed. ‘Is that all?’

  She nodded, waiting for him to stride across the room and gather in his arms.

  But he didn’t. He stayed exactly where he was.

  Shara stared at him, puzzled and more than a little bit hurt.

  ‘Well, I’m not surprised. You received quite a shock tonight.’

  ‘So did you,’ Shara said, not able to shake the images that were seared onto her retina.

  ‘I’m used to it. You’re not.’ He paused for a moment. ‘Well, if that’s all, I’ll leave you to it.’

  Shara frowned. ‘Aren’t you going to join me?’

  He shook his head. ‘I have things to do.’

  ‘I see,’ she said.

  But the truth was that she didn’t see. She didn’t see at all.

  She’d heard the words. Of course she had. She’d even processed them. But they didn’t make sense.

  It sounded …

  Well, it sounded as if Royce was making an excuse not to be with her. That ‘I have things to do’ had sounded like the equivalent of I have to wash my hair or I have a headache.

  Maybe she was just being oversensitive—and maybe she wasn’t.

  Either way, she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong.

  Royce wanted nothing more than to stride across the room and gather Shara in his arms.

  When he’d heard her scream he’d frozen.

  That had never happened to him before.

  Normally his reaction to emergency situations was automatic. Without question.

  He didn’t think. He just acted. Whatever he had to do, he did it.

  But this time he’d hesitated—if only for a moment.

  With fear.

  Not for himself, but for Shara.

  Which just went to prove that he was too close. Way, way too close. On every level.

  So instead of rushing across the room to hold her he forced himself to stay exactly where he was.

  ‘Are you sure you’re OK?’ he asked.

  She nodded. Her eyes dominated her pale face. She looked anything but OK, but he couldn’t afford to comfort her.

  ‘OK. I’ll see you in the morning.’

  She nodded again.

  There was hurt and confusion in her eyes.

  Royce hardened his heart against it.

  Still, closing the door was one of the hardest things he’d ever had to do.

  As soon as Royce left the room Shara rolled over and buried her he
ad in the pillow.

  Tears were pricking at the backs of her eyes but she refused to let them fall.

  She didn’t want to think about Royce and why he was acting so strangely. Frankly, it hurt too much—as if someone was stabbing her in the chest with a sharp knife.

  Instead her mind went over the night’s events, then drifted back over the past few months.

  It was as if she was seeing things clearly for the first time. As if a veil had been lifted from in front of her eyes.

  She’d thought she was taking her life back.

  Thought she was standing up for herself.

  But really she’d only been paying lip service to that goal.

  There had always been someone else standing in front of her, fighting her battles for her.

  She’d escaped a domineering father by turning to a man she hadn’t even realised was far worse.

  She’d put up with abuse that no woman should have to put up with.

  And when the breaking point had come what had she done?

  She’d gone running back to Daddy.

  Her insides shrank in on themselves.

  Since then she’d followed a path of passive resistance—until Royce had made her realise what she was doing.

  Even then she hadn’t really stepped up to the plate. She’d been hiding behind the law, behind Royce, behind anything she could lay her hands on.

  But she was over that. Now, finally, she felt cold and determined and ready to fight. Really fight. She’d had enough. It was time to end this.

  And one thing was clear.

  If she wanted to deal with this problem once and for all then she needed to deal with it.

  Alone.

  Without assistance.

  The answer wasn’t going to be found in a courtroom.

  Or hiding behind Royce’s back.

  It was going to be found inside her.

  She had to find the guts to do what she hadn’t done in the first place and stand up to Steve.

  The realisation made her feel oddly calm—and oddly in control.

  Her courage had been growing along with her confidence. She was ready to do this.

  There had to be some way out of this mess.

  But what?

  Think, girl, think.

  And then it came to her.

  It didn’t come at her like a bolt out of the blue. It was more as if another veil had been removed from her eyes.

  In reality she’d known the answer for a long time. Royce had told her all she needed to know. She just hadn’t been ready to listen at the time.

  What she needed now was a plan that could turn the theory into reality.

  Reaching out, she picked up the phone and dialled a number she remembered by heart.

  Dawn was only just breaking, but he answered on the eighth ring. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hello, Steve,’ Shara replied calmly.

  There was a stinging silence.

  ‘Shara? Is that you?’

  ‘Yes, it’s me,’ she said, speaking quickly, determined to show no hesitation—and no fear.

  ‘What do you want?’ he asked.

  Her hand tightened around the phone. ‘I just called to tell you I received your message.’

  ‘What message?’ he asked innocently.

  She barked out a laugh. ‘Oh, come on, Steve. Let’s not pretend, shall we?’

  Another silence followed. This time she sensed his surprise.

  And she could understand why.

  She hadn’t talked to him the way she just had for a long time—if ever. She’d been too frightened of the consequences.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Steve denied.

  ‘Of course you do. Only little boys throw bricks through windows and then run away. Be man enough to admit what you did.’

  ‘Don’t play with me, Shara,’ Steve warned. ‘No doubt you and the he-man have the phone tapped and plan on trying to trap me into admitting something I didn’t do. Well, it won’t work. I’m too smart for you.’

  For a second—just one—she wondered whether he was right.

  But no.

  She couldn’t afford to think that way. Attitude was nine-tenths of battle. She had to walk the walk and talk the talk.

  She was no longer a victim, and it was time she started acting like it.

  Her hand tightened around the handpiece. ‘Who’s playing?’

  ‘You are. If you think you can outsmart me you’re wrong.’ He paused for a moment. Even through the telephone line she could practically hear the cogs of his mind turning over. ‘I’ll say this much, though. This is between you and me. You had no right bringing anyone else into it. Lose lover boy.’

  The implication was clear. As clear as if he’d added the words or I’ll do it for you.

  The suggestion was so ludicrous that Shara couldn’t help but laugh. ‘Don’t even think about it. Royce would take you apart piece by piece.’

  ‘That’s what you think.’

  ‘No. That’s what I know. He’d make mincemeat out of you in two seconds flat. But that’s beside the point.’

  ‘Then what is the point? Why are you calling me?’

  She dragged in a breath. ‘I’m fed up with this situation. Why don’t we get together and talk about it? I’m sure we can sort it out like two rational human beings.’

  There was a long silence. ‘What about the Restraining Order?’

  ‘What about it? You didn’t let that bother you when you delivered your message last night.’ She paused for a moment, and then said. ‘You’re not scared, are you?’

  It was a deliberate ploy. She knew Steve wouldn’t be able to resist such a provocative taunt.

  ‘Of course not,’ he denied quickly. ‘But if you’re thinking about getting someone to photograph me with you so that you can say I broke the Restraining Order then it won’t work. I’ll make it clear that you invited me. And just in case you’re thinking about lying then remember that the telephone records will prove that you called me—not the other way around.’

  ‘I’m not planning on having someone take a photograph of you.’

  No, she was planning something far more effective than that.

  ‘OK. When and where?’

  Shara thought rapidly, sifting through her options. She needed just the right place for the half-formed plan in her mind to work—somewhere public and open and, even more importantly, somewhere guaranteed to have a lot of people.

  She wanted them visible.

  ‘Bonito’s,’ she said, naming a popular café she and Steve had been to numerous times before. ‘Ten o’clock for coffee and a chat.’

  With that she hung up the phone. He’d be there. She knew he would. He wouldn’t be able to help himself.

  The sense that something was wrong between Royce and herself intensified the following morning.

  As was usual, Royce was in the middle of cooking breakfast when she walked into the kitchen.

  He always woke before her. He was one of those people who got up as soon as their eyes opened. Shara was the exact opposite. She liked to take her time, snoozing for a few minutes before she was ready to greet the day.

  ‘Good morning,’ she said, walking into the room.

  She walked towards Royce like a homing beacon. Her intention was to wrap her arms around his waist from behind and then wait for him to turn and give her a good-morning kiss.

  Royce threw her a brief smile over his shoulder, said an equally short good morning, and then turned back to the stove.

  Shara stopped dead in her tracks. She stared at his back for a long moment, a sense of unease rippling down her spine.

  After standing there for another minute, with not another word or look, let alone a good-morning kiss, she diverted to the fridge.

  ‘You didn’t come to bed last night,’ she said, trying to keep her voice light and even.

  ‘I slept in another room,’ he said, addressing the contents of the frying pan. ‘I didn’t want to disturb you.�
��

  ‘You wouldn’t have disturbed me.’

  In fact just the opposite. She’d wanted nothing more than to have him in bed with her, the hard, warm length of his body beside her, his arms wrapped around her.

  ‘You needed the sleep.’

  The hairs on the back of her neck prickled as her sense of unease deepened. She stopped part-way to the kitchen bench, a tub of yoghurt in one hand, a punnet of blueberries and a banana in the other.

  ‘Don’t tell me what I need or don’t need,’ she said, addressing his back.

  Particularly when he had it wrong.

  What she’d needed was him.

  She almost blurted the words out loud, but she swallowed them back. Given how stand-offish and unapproachable he sounded, it was hardly the appropriate thing to say.

  ‘You didn’t need to get some sleep after all the fracas?’ he asked, tossing the question over his shoulder.

  Their eyes met. His were blank. Empty. Totally without the warmth she was used to seeing in them.

  A shiver ran down her spine and her stomach shrank to the size of a pea.

  ‘Is something wrong?’ she asked, her heart beating anxiously in her chest.

  She was still staring at his back intently, which meant that she saw the infinitesimal tightening of his muscles. ‘No, nothing is wrong.’

  But everything was wrong.

  It felt wrong.

  Royce looked and sounded different.

  And she couldn’t figure out why.

  She wasn’t imagining things.

  And it hurt.

  It hurt more than she cared to admit.

  Royce was pretending to work—pretending because he couldn’t forget the look of hurt confusion in Shara’s eyes when he’d deliberately tried to blank her out—when his computer started to beep.

  His head snapped up, a frown on his face.

  Pulling the keyboard towards him, he tapped a few keys to take him to the household security system. The beeping indicated that the outside perimeter of the house had been breached.

  One look at the monitor confirmed someone near the garage at the back of the house.

  Was someone—Brady?—coming in?

  Or was someone—Shara?—going out?

  There was only one way to find out.

  He was on his feet and racing towards the back of the house in two seconds flat.

  He reached the rear door, only to find it locked. Cursing under his breath, he ran for the front door, noticed an open window and made a quick diversion. He squeezed through the opening, which he only just fitted through, and rounded the house in time to see Shara’s car disappear out of the gate at the end of the driveway.