by Loki Renard
“I want my purse!” She tore free of him with a burst of the sort of strength normally attributed to a mother bear protecting her cubs. She made it all of a step, but Harris caught her again almost immediately, resulting in more shrieking while the thief hightailed it into the distance.
Just when she was giving up all hope for her purse, she saw Tom step out from behind a corner and effectively clothesline the thief, knocking him to the ground with nothing more than his forearm. Her shrieking turned into a whoop of delight as Tom swept her purse out of the thief’s clutches and strode toward her without so much as a second look at the prone fellow.
“I believe this is yours?” He handed it to her and she gave him a thankful smile.
“It is,” she said, tucking it under her arm. “You’re not as useless as you look.”
For a moment he looked offended, then he laughed. He was nice when he laughed, a broad white flashing smile with twinkling blue eyes. He didn’t look quite as old either.
“Maybe you’ll find other uses for me,” he suggested archly.
It was Fiona’s turn to raise her brows. Now that was an unexpected turn of events. There was an undeniable sexuality in his tone and in his body language, a vibe that washed over her and had a surprisingly physical effect on her. She could feel her nipples hardening under her shirt, a little zipping sensation around her areolas which wiggled its way on down between her legs.
“It’s nice you got my purse, but let’s not push it,” she said. “I don’t want you around here. I don’t want you following me. I don’t want… hey!”
She stopped talking when he wrapped his hand around her forearm. “Let’s you, me, and Harris talk about what you need rather than what you want.”
Fiona found herself propelled back to the same cafe. This time Harris and Tom sat with her, blocking any further approaches from local shysters. She sat down in the same chair she’d left, put there firmly by Tom who managed to be somewhat forceful and gentlemanly at the same time. It was quite a trick.
“I got your purse,” Tom said. “So I reckon you owe me a proper conversation at the very least.”
Fiona supposed that was fair. “I owe you a conversation maybe, but you’re working for my father, and I don’t owe him a thing.”
“It’s off the record,” Tom said. “Think of me as a confessor.”
Fiona snorted and looked at Harris to see how he was reacting. She trusted Harris’s instincts. Harris wasn’t much of a talker, but he always had her back. He must have been there the whole time, shadowing her while Stefan the purse snatcher sweet talked her. Why hadn’t he done anything?
“Why did you let that man steal my purse?”
“It’s not my job to stop you from talking to people,” Harris said simply. “When he made a move, I made one. Prior to that he showed no ill intent or aggression.”
“The lady has a point,” Tom chimed in. “Clearly Fiona needs to be protected from her own bad judgment as much as anything else.”
“Well fuck you too,” Fiona swore at him softly over her sparkling water.
“Watch your language, little lady.”
“Watch your condescension, little man,” she snapped back.
“I’m not being condescending. I’ve watched you two days now, Fiona. I’ve seen you throw tantrums, break private property, almost get thoroughly probed at the airport and pick a purse snatcher to snuggle up with.”
“Well of course, if you say it like that, it sounds bad.”
“It is bad,” Tom said. “You have the street smarts of a kitten.”
“It’s not your problem,” Fiona replied. “It’s not even any of your business. Don’t sit there and pretend like you care about me. You’re working for my father. You’re here to drag me back to the States for him.”
“All due respect, Miss Fayrefield, if I wanted to drag you somewhere, I would have done it by now.”
There was a soft, masculine cough. “No, you wouldn’t have.”
Harris was giving Tom a look that Fiona very much liked. A hard, strong stare. It reminded her of a pit bull, quiet but intense.
“Perhaps not,” Tom conceded, “but I wouldn’t need to come here and sit down and get your purse for you and listen to you shriek like a banshee. Listen,” he said, changing tack unexpectedly. “I think I owe you an apology.”
That was better. Better than threats of diapering.
“For?”
“Frightening you,” he said. “It’s obvious my presence here is of concern to you.”
“What’s of concern to me is that my family refuses to respect my wishes and leave me alone.”
“You can’t avoid charges.”
“There aren’t any damn charges,” Fiona scowled. “I haven’t done anything wrong.”
“These say otherwise.”
Tom reached into his pocket and produced several pages of documents. Fiona glanced at them, saw her name, saw the charges and just barely managed to keep the control necessary not to scream.
“These aren’t real.”
“They are,” Tom said. “I took the liberty of verifying them.”
“No,” Fiona explained. “You don’t understand. My father holds land in England and judges in America. He could get a piece of paper that said I was the zodiac killer if he wanted. Do I look like I’ve been masterminding a Ponzi scheme?”
Tom gave her a hard look for a moment before acknowledging that no, she did not strike him as someone who had been involved in white collar criminal conspiracies.
“My name might be associated with these things, but I never did anything,” Fiona said. “This isn’t about criminal charges. This is about my father getting me back where he can control me, so he can marry me off. He wants to sell me, basically.”
“What?” Harris snapped the question. “What do you mean, he wants to sell you?”
“My father is about power,” Fiona explained. “He has power in England. He has power in America. He wants power in the Middle East. A year ago, he invited me to dinner. Since my mother died, I’ve played hostess when he needs one. This time though, was different. This time there was hardly anyone there but an old Sheikh, more than sixty years old…” she shuddered at the memory. “It turned out that my father wanted me to go to Saudi Arabia and become this man’s fourteenth wife in exchange for receiving private shipments of oil at cents on the gallon.”
“Are you sure about this, Fiona?” Harris sounded doubtful, as if she were maybe making it up. She wished she were making it up.
“He explained it to me just that way,” she said. “He told me I was doing nothing with my life, I hadn’t gotten married, so I may as well move to Saudi and ensure that our family could do business there. He told me it was my duty as his daughter to do it.” She stopped and smirked sadly at her sparkling water. “I actually think he expected me to go. He doesn’t know me very well.”
“So what happened?”
“I refused, obviously. First he asked me nicely, then he tried to bribe me into it, and when I still wouldn’t he got these trumped up charges and now he has you.”
“What year is this?” Harris posed the question through gritted teeth. “I thought the days when parents married off their daughters were long gone.”
“My father is old fashioned,” Fiona said. “And I’m his only daughter. Everything and everyone in the world is a pawn to him.” She looked at the handsome Texan sitting across from her. “That’s what you are, Tom. You’re a pawn. And if you don’t do what he wants, he’ll sacrifice you.” She leaned back in her chair and pointed a finely manicured finger in his direction. “Did you research my father, while you were verifying those charges?”
“I know who your father is, Fiona,” Tom said sounding more than a little defensive. “I did not know he intended on marrying you off.”
“Well now you do,” Fiona said. “So if you can possibly find it in your heart to leave me alone, I’d appreciate it.”
/> “But leaving you alone won’t help,” Tom pointed out. “Like you said, if I don’t get the job done, he’ll find someone who will. And there are certainly men much less respectful than me.”
“That’s my problem. Not yours.” She turned to Harris. “Now you know what you’re up against, I’ll understand if you want to leave.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Harris said.
Fiona smiled at him. He was loyal. After two weeks and a whole world of hell, he wanted to stick around. He must be crazy. She liked crazy.
Chapter Seven
Harris returned his client’s smile, reached out and squeezed her hand reassuringly.
The girl had a temper, but she also had balls. Serious balls. She was disobeying someone incredibly powerful. Disobedience didn’t seem to be a problem for Fiona, however. Probably because she’d gotten away with doing as she pleased her whole life and only now was coming to her father’s attention as being useful in some way.
He believed her when she said her father was trying to marry her off. Fiona didn’t lie terribly well. In fact, Fiona didn’t tend to lie at all, except occasionally by omission. She’d always been too convinced of her power and completely unconcerned by consequences to go about lying.
It made sense on other levels too. If there were really charges of that nature, they would have come up when Harris first took the job of protecting her. He’d done a full background check then, and nothing had come up. It was possible she’d been charged in the last two weeks, but unlikely.
“You and I have some things to discuss,” he said. “But my leaving your service is not one of them.”
“I’d like to help,” Tom interjected.
“I don’t need your help,” Fiona said sharply “I don’t even know who you are.”
“Let me tell you who he is,” Harris said. “Let me explain why I didn’t throw him out the moment I saw him and move you somewhere safer.”
Fiona’s blue and green eyes settled on him with silent curiosity.
“I owe this man my life,” Harris explained. “When I was a green officer in Iraq, he came between me and certain death. He’s the only reason I’m here today. So I trust him.”
Fiona glanced over at Tom and looked down at her hands. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I can’t trust someone my father sent to get me. If he can turn from being my father’s ally to being mine, he can turn back just as easily.”
“All due respect, missy,” Tom drawled. “I was never your father’s ally. I took a job he gave me. You can buy my service. You can’t buy my loyalty. That’s not for sale.”
“Why don’t you just go home then, and leave me alone?”
“Because,” Tom replied. “I don’t like being used as part of a scheme to marry a woman off against her will. I was told that I would be acting as a bounty hunter, not as a human trafficker. And if your father is as ruthless as you say he is, you’re going to need my help. Harris can’t protect you twenty-four seven. He’s just one man. You need at least two.”
“Listen, Fiona,” Harris said. “You’ve got someone on your side from your father’s camp. If Tom here helps, he can feed your father false information, keep anyone else off your back until your father loses interest.”
“He’s not going to lose interest,” Fiona said. “He gets what he wants, or he gets revenge.”
There was a tinge of fear in her voice. It made Harris’s protective instincts kick in overdrive. “Don’t you worry, Fiona. I’m going to take care of you. We both are.”
“He just met me,” Fiona said. “Why would he help me?”
“Because,” Tom replied. “When I find a damsel in distress in a fox hole, I don’t leave her there to be captured by the enemy. I help her.”
“If it’s money you want…” Fiona let her voice trail off suggestively.
“I don’t need your money,” Tom said. “I took this job as a favor for a friend who happens to be a friend of your father’s. I’m retired and independently wealthy.”
“Don’t you have a family to miss you?”
“I have a ranch in Texas and a sister in Wisconsin, that’s about it,” Tom reassured Fiona. “I know we haven’t known one another long, Fiona, but I think we were brought together for a reason…”
“Yeah, because my father wanted you to help him sell me.”
“That might have been your father’s plan, but it’s not God’s plan,” Tom said. “I didn’t end up here in Milan because of your father. I ended up here because this is where the Lord wanted me. I believe that. I’m here for you the same way I was there that night where Harris almost got himself turned to sushi.”
“I’m not religious,” Fiona said dismissively.
“Sure you are,” Tom smiled wryly. “You worship at the altars of Gucci and Prada.”
Some women might have been offended by a comment like that, but not Fiona. She laughed and agreed. “Okay,” she admitted. “I do have a fashion fetish.”
“Listen,” Tom said. “You’re fighting a big battle here. You need all the help you can get. Harris is good, but he’s not going to be able to hold off everyone your father sends alone. Man has to sleep sometime. It just makes sense to have more than one bodyguard.”
“I don’t know,” Fiona said.
“How’s about we ask Harris,” Tom suggested.
Two pairs of expectant eyes, three blue and one green, turned on Harris. It was his call, and he’d already made it. Dealing with Fiona on his own was doable, but it was no picnic. And the fact that he had to sleep every day made both him and Fiona vulnerable during those hours.
“I could do with some backup,” he said. “For when the vases start flying.”
Fiona rolled her eyes.
“And for when your good right hand is tired from spanking sense into this girl,” Tom winked.
Harris thought Fiona was going to have a fit, instead she giggled. “I don’t know if I like this spanking talk.”
“Oh I think you do, little lady.”
“Stop calling me little lady,” Fiona said. “It’s not respectful.”
“Little varmint?” Tom teased.
Fiona smiled. Harris smiled too. Tom had a way with her, and in spite of the fact that Fiona very much didn’t want to like him or trust him, she obviously did.
“Okay,” she relented. “I trust Harris, and if Harris trusts you, then I’ll trust you too. But if you ever double cross me…” Her lips thinned and for a moment, she looked quite malevolent. The blood of the Fayrefields ran strong in Fiona. You didn’t get to be a British dynasty without having a ruthless streak in your DNA.
“I have better things to do than help sell bratty heiresses to unsuspecting Sheikhs,” Tom replied. “The poor guy wouldn’t know what to do with you.”
Fiona gave him a sharp look. “What are you trying to say?”
“I’m saying you’re more trouble than a two headed rattlesnake once you get going, little lady,” Tom drawled.
Harris laughed and Fiona smiled. “Well I only have one butt,” she said. “So be gentle.”
“Gentle? Missy, you don’t need gentle. You need a firm hand.”
It was a real pleasure to see Fiona squirm happily. She was an unparalleled brat, but she responded to the right kind of attention. Harris was looking forward to working with Tom too, it was going to be nice to have the backup.
“First things first,” Tom said. “We need to get out of this city center.”
“I like our hotel,” Fiona objected.
“If you liked it, you should have refrained from throwing the décor around,” Harris said. “We’ve been asked to leave, and you’ve been charged for the damages.”
Her face crumpled. “That seems unfair.”
“In what way is that unfair? You broke their things.”
“But I’m paying for it all,” Fiona said. “I should be able to break it if I like.”
A snort rose from Tom. “Let’s find a new
hotel room and set this little lady straight.”
Chapter Eight
A new hotel room was found, this time not quite so close to the markets Fiona loved, but with a much more modern and eminently less smashable décor. Harris was happy with it, as was Tom, who of course booked himself into the room opposite theirs. He had been invited to dine with them that evening, so he was comfortably ensconced on the couch when Harris decided to take care of outstanding disciplinary matters regarding Fiona.
“Fiona!” Harris called her out of her room. “We need to talk.”
She came, swishing a gold bangle about her wrist nonchalantly. “About?” She knew what the conversation was going to be about. She also knew it wasn’t going to just be a conversation, but she was playing dumb.
“About your behavior today.”
She gave him a curious look, tilting her head to the side. “What’s there to talk about?”
Harris decided to communicate more clearly, lest they spend the evening talking in circles. “What I actually meant was, I need to spank your bottom for smashing up a hotel room.”
She looked at him as if to say hotel rooms are there to be smashed up. “I’m sure they had insurance, and they charged me, remember? No harm done.”
“That’s not the point,” Harris said firmly. “The point is, you need to respect things that do not belong to you.”
“Everything belongs to me if I want it to,” Fiona replied. “I can buy anything I like. If I break it, I bought it,” she smirked at him.
“You’re not understanding my point, Fiona,” Harris said, giving her a hard scowl. “This isn’t funny. There are some things in life that aren’t replaceable.”
“Yeah, and they’re not left in hotel rooms,” she smarted back. “They practically expect you to break something.”
Harris rolled up his shirt sleeves. This was going to be quite a spanking, especially with Fiona’s unrepentant attitude factored in.
“I suggest you rein that tongue of yours in, little lady,” Tom drawled. “Your bodyguard is fixin’ to tan your behind.”
