Ewan’s kiss overtook Nina harder and faster than any attack with fists or weapons ever had. It stunned her into inaction, only for a second or so, only for the time it took for her heart to beat a few times. To take a breath or two.

Then she pulled away to take his face in her hands and stare deeply into his eyes. With her mouth still wet from his kiss, she tried to tell him not to worry. Not to struggle. In the emergency lighting that had come on in the aftermath of the decibel bomb’s blast, he should have been able to see her clearly, but his gaze was clouded. He didn’t know what he was doing, that much was obvious.

This was not the time, not the place. Definitely not the man to be kissing her. Yet something in her could not resist brushing her lips over his once more before the security team swarmed in and hauled the attacker off the floor. It was Dima.

“Trust me, I’m here, you’re safe,” she said even though she knew Ewan couldn’t hear her.

He’d recovered a bit by that time, at least enough to shake off the hardest effects from the decibel bomb. He didn’t kiss her again, but why would he? Confusion in the aftermath of an attack like that was common. Expected, actually, since the fierce blast of noise and light often knocked people unconscious and also caused hallucinations.

He must have thought she was someone else.

She got him out of the bedroom, away from the broken glass and toppled furniture. In the anteroom he settled on the couch with his head in his hands while Nina made sure there was nothing else around that was going to harm him. The security staff had gone ahead and called his on-staff physician, who arrived disheveled and grouchy, like a disgruntled parent called yet one more time to the aid of a troublesome teen.

“Sorry I can’t get attacked in the middle of the afternoon when it’s more convenient,” Ewan said in a raspy voice at the doc’s complaints.

The doc, whose name Nina hadn’t learned because, typically, Ewan hadn’t introduced him, frowned. Heavy dark brows furrowed over his glinting black eyes. He stood, an immense mountain of a man who looked more like a wrestler than a medical professional. “How about you stop getting attacked at all? Isn’t that what she’s here to prevent?”

“She’s here to keep me safe. And she did. Again.” Ewan looked at Nina.

Maybe he had heard her, then. Maybe he remembered the kiss as truth and not imagination. An uncommon impulse to take his face in her hands swept over her, but she didn’t give in to it. They shared a long look that broke when Ewan, with a grimace, dropped his face into his hands.

Nina’s head hurt in the aftermath of the decibel bomb, but by the looks of it, Ewan was in way worse shape. He sat with his hands pressed to his temples while the doc checked him over.

“I can give you a painkiller,” the doc began, but Ewan waved him to silence and shot Nina a look.

“No. I’m fine. I don’t want to be impaired, in case something else happens.”

“You’re going to be impaired from the pain, if nothing else. A decibel bomb is nothing to joke about, Ewan. You’ve got several burst blood vessels in your eyes, and the ringing in your ears isn’t going to stop for a few hours, maybe longer.”

Ewan shook his head with another of those sharp glances at Nina. “I said no. I can handle a little headache.”

The doc sighed and muttered under his breath, something about why pay him if he wasn’t going to be allowed to do anything for the patient. Then he clapped Ewan on the shoulder hard enough to make him stagger from the weight of the grip and gave Nina a look. He hadn’t asked her if she wanted pain relief.

“My head hurts, too,” she offered mildly without looking at Ewan. “Decibel bombs are a bitch.”

The doc laughed. “Yeah, and I could give you something that would dissipate in your system so fast it wouldn’t be worth taking.”

She knew that, of course. Her body’s ability to metabolize incapacitating substances was meant to keep her safe from being drugged. Surgery was hell. Just because she had a high tolerance for pain didn’t mean she didn’t feel it at all.

Ewan waited until the doc left before he looked at her again. He still wore the low-slung pajama bottoms that he’d worn to bed. Bare chest and feet. Aside from the couple bright streaks of crimson, one threading through his left eye and two smaller ones in the right, there was no sign that anything had happened to him. Well, other than his rumpled hair and the scowl.

“I’ve known Dima for years,” he told her. “He’s an affable drunk who blows through money like water. And Vanslyke . . .”

Ewan trailed off, shaking his head. So far, there hadn’t been any connections between Dima and Vanslyke and any of the organizations that had so far been behind the attacks on him, but it was only a matter of time before something would turn up. Nina was sure of it. She’d broken both Dima’s arms, and he’d started squealing, spouting out names and dates that had meant nothing to her. He’d passed out before the security staff dragged him away, but they’d be getting more information out of him.

Ewan looked at her. “Vanslyke’s stupid attack was meant as a decoy, wasn’t it? To get everyone out of there, to distract us from Dima on the couch. He’s passed out and stayed over a dozen times in the past. I didn’t give it a second thought.”

Nina nodded slowly, after a second or so. “That seems like it makes sense.”

“Except it doesn’t make any sense.”

Ewan got up from the couch. He paced, running a hand through his thick, dark hair and pushing it impatiently out of his eyes when it tumbled over them. “Let’s talk about the fact that I have every single person who comes through these gates double-, triple-checked, then about a hundred times more, and let’s not fucking mention that the only way anyone gets through the front door is if they’re willing to sign their life away and risk losing everything they have for breaking any kind of confidentiality agreement, not to mention what would happen to them if they actually turn out to be in league with anyone who tried to get to me . . . All of them checked out. None of them had anything on them.”

“I searched your rooms when I first arrived for anything like the decibel bomb. The unit itself came in with the deliveries,” she added. “Rather, it must have been added to the pile after it arrived. Surely you have it all checked before it ever gets inside the gates.”

“Of course.” He twisted on one bare heel and kept pacing. “Obviously. “

“So the unit came in with the packages earlier in the day and was set to go off after everyone but Dima had gone. When it detonated, he came into the room.”

“To kill me?”

“He didn’t seem to be prepared to do a very good job of it,” Nina said. “It’s possible, maybe, that he was simply confused? Drunk? Passed out in the media room, heard the commotion, and came to see what was going on? Until you get some truth out of him, you can’t know for sure he’s connected to the League of Humanity or anyone else.”

“That makes the most sense, but it doesn’t feel right.” He frowned.

It didn’t feel right to her, either. “No. Until it can be proven that Dima wasn’t involved, I wouldn’t trust him or any of the others.”

“A decibel bomb isn’t meant to kill. Just distract or impair. Just like none of the attacks so far have been meant to really kill me. Just to warn.” He scowled and stalked the length of the room, one hand pressed to his temple. The headache must be excruciating. Hers was bordering on unbearable, and he didn’t have nearly the level of pain tolerance that she did.

She stood and stepped in front of him so he either had to move around her or stop the pacing, which like his fingers tapping on his chest and a myriad of other fidgety habits, was beginning to work on her nerves.

“Hey,” she said. “Come here.”

He would not, of course. Ewan Donahue would spit into the wind rather than do as she asked. With a lift of his chin, he crossed his arms over his chest and glared at her.

“What?”

“Come here,” Nina repeated gently. She didn’t touch him, didn’t try to grab him. They both knew she could force him to follow her to the straight-backed chair and make him sit in it. She didn’t want to do that.

She stood behind it, instead, and gestured at it. Waiting patiently. After a minute or so in which Ewan stared her down, she placed her hands gently on the back of the chair.

“Come here,” she said again. “Please.”

* * *

It was the “please” that got to him. Nina had never been rude to him, not even when she was teasing or being irreverent. The way she asked him to sit in front of her had him moving without a second thought to settle into the chair.

Her fingertips touched his temples. Then she stretched her pinkies a bit to press a couple of spots on his skull. It took a few seconds, but the ringing, stabbing ache in his head left over from the decibel bomb began to fade. Not entirely, but enough.

Ewan sighed. He’d felt the pain, but hadn’t realized how intense it truly was until there was some relief. He closed his eyes as the tension he’d been carrying in his neck and shoulders began to melt away under the steady, firm, but gentle pressure of her fingertips.

He’d kissed her.

What a jerk.

He could still remember the flavor of her lips and tongue on his, as fuzzy as it had been coming out of the dream he’d been having after the decibel bomb knocked him out. Nina would have had every right to deck him unconscious for kissing her, but instead she’d taken his face in her hands and looked him in the eyes as the agony rocked through him. He couldn’t hear what she’d said over the ringing in his head, but he could make out the words on her lips while her gaze had captured and held him, comforting. By the time the doc arrived, Ewan had extricated himself from Nina’s touch and managed to get himself fully conscious.

The decibel bomb wouldn’t have killed him, but Dima might have, if Nina hadn’t been there. She’d done her job in an exemplary fashion, above and beyond, as a matter of fact, because she hadn’t been hired to hold his hand after an attack like he was some kind of mewling infant. She wasn’t required to offer him the soothing touch she was giving him now, either.

He put a hand over one of hers to stop her. “That’s better. Thanks.”

“I can do a little more. It’s acupressure,” she said. “It will make the pain go away faster.”

“I’m fine.” He didn’t move, but she took her hands away. He regretted the loss of her touch at once but refused to show any signs of that. “Listen. About what happened.”

Her soft chuckle stirred the fine hairs at the nape of his neck. “Hmm?”

“Nina.” He twisted to face her. The sight of her small, tilting smile sent heat whispering along his nerves, and he shoved away the sensation with determination.

“Mr. Donahue,” she said, and although he wished she would call him by his first name again, he would not ask her to.

He’d meant the kiss, not the attack, but looking at her now, Ewan knew he wasn’t going to say anything about it. Nina had made it very clear that she had no compunctions about mixing sex and business, especially if she thought for some reason that it would protect him.

Trust me. I’m here. I’ll keep you safe.

All he could think about now was that Nina had believed allowing him to kiss her was related in some way to keeping him unharmed. He had to get things back on track. An apology for the kiss rose to his lips, but he bit it back without quite knowing why. Maybe because he wasn’t sorry about it. Maybe because saying it aloud would force them both to acknowledge it, and he wanted to pretend he hadn’t been such a colossal moron.

“I’d like your assessment of the situation,” Ewan said.

Nina’s expression smoothed from amusement to professional neutrality. “Of course. Clearly, your preventive security measures are not working. While all the breaches so far have been relatively minor, they still need to be taken seriously. I would say, actually, that it seems like they’ve been created more to threaten and scare you than truly cause you harm. Dima didn’t even have a weapon, which to me says he, or whoever sent him, knew that trespassing is a far less severe crime than attempted murder. However, just because none of the attacks in your home have been truly life-threatening, that doesn’t mean that the next one won’t be.”

“Rhen Maloris came at me with a shiv at a charity gala and ended up killing my bodyguard instead. The one before that, Emilie Henson, managed to get to me at a rally.” He paused, hating the memories. “That’s when I lost the second guard. I decided to go private for a while to make it harder for anyone to get to me, but also because I couldn’t keep going out to events and putting others in danger. I figured I’d stay home until things got quiet. Thought it would be easier. Safer.”

“And you hired me,” Nina said. “I can’t imagine that was an easy decision to make, all things considered.”

Ewan frowned. “You think it makes me a hypocrite.”

“I did, yeah. In the beginning. I didn’t care,” Nina added. “It’s a job, that’s all, and if I refused to take jobs because I was being hired by people who spoke out of both sides of their mouths, I wouldn’t get very much work, would I?”

“But not anymore?”

“Not anymore,” she told him.

“We’re never going to agree on the Enhancement Repeal Act,” he said.

Her smile was a little sad. “We don’t have to agree on it, Ewan.”

She was right. That didn’t make him feel better. If anything, it stabbed an unfamiliar sensation deep into his guts. Guilt. Remorse. Regret. No wonder she wasn’t interested in going to bed with him.

“I don’t know why you feel so adamant about it, but I can tell you’re acting from the heart,” Nina said before he could answer her. “I can respect that. Envy it, as you might imagine. I hope you can respect my reasons for thinking you’re wrong. The difference is that while I will be more than happy to testify against you and donate to your opposition in the hopes that somehow, someway, that act can be overturned, I promise I will never try to kill you.”

He laughed, hard. Shaking his head, Ewan ran a hand through his hair to push it out of his eyes and looked at her. “For which I shall be eternally grateful. Because if anyone could manage to do it, you could.”

He’d meant it lightly, but the look on her face said the joke had gone sour. Nina pressed her lips together and cut her gaze from his. It seemed natural enough in that moment to step forward, to reach for her. He snagged her wrist, taking her hand in his. He wanted to link their fingers together and squeeze, but at the last moment he turned it into a standard handshake.

“Deal?” he asked, searching her gaze with his.

“Of course.”

It was the perfect moment to tell her exactly why he’d gone so far out of his way to lobby for the Enhancement Repeal Act. All of his personal reasons. It would not have been a short conversation, though, and his head still ached from the decibel bomb. More than that, it would have meant revealing truths to her that Ewan had worked tirelessly and with great personal sacrifice to keep hidden. Nina had asked him to trust her with his life, and he did, but he could not yet manage to trust her with his past.

Enough lives had been lost because he’d become a target.

“Do you think there’s someone on the inside working against me?” Ewan asked.

“It seems likely,” she said and hesitated. “I also think there are a lot of people out there who want to terrorize and intimidate you, and many of them are not related to each other. So that’s something to think about. Who really wants to bully you versus who’s trying to outright hurt or kill you? I know you had several real attempts on your life over the past two years. What does your team say about it now?”

The thought sobered him. He paced, hands on his hips, thinking over the past few years. “I have them monitoring all kinds of threats, culling social media commentary and tying stuff together. But so much of it is idle, especially since I’ve been out of the public eye.”

“People like to talk big, especially online. Say things they can’t back up. Rich men always have someone who’d like to see them knocked down a notch. And you . . . well, you’ve got yourself all tangled up in some truly controversial and inflammatory business,” Nina told him.

He turned to look at her. “I didn’t set out for it to be that way, Nina.”

“I didn’t think you did. But that’s what it’s become, and unfortunately, you have to face the consequences of that.” Her eyebrows rose slightly. Her lips pursed, and she touched the tip of her tongue to the center of her top lip.

Now he was remembering the taste of her mouth again. The firmness of her curves. The smell of her hair.

“I can’t win, you know. One way or another, no matter which side I come out on, someone is going to hate me.” Ewan shook his head.

She nodded. “That’s a hard thing to deal with. Being hated for what you believe in. For who you are.”

“You know how it feels,” he said in a quiet voice. “To be hated for who you are.”

“Not for who. For what I am,” Nina corrected gently. “That’s what people believe. That I’m a what, not a who. It’s a little different. But we could toss around semantics all day and night and it wouldn’t make a difference. Right now, we need to figure out a way to make sure all those people who hate you are kept far away.”

“Did you ever?” he asked, hating that he was even asking but helpless not to know. “Hate me, I mean?”

Nina looked surprised, as though the concept hadn’t occurred to her. “Because you’re responsible for the Enhancement Repeal Act?”

“Well, certainly not because I use a fancy jam spoon instead a normal one.”

This time, she did laugh. Relieved that his humor had hit the target at last, Ewan chuckled with her, his gaze tracing the lines of her smile. Her eyes lit up when she was amused. He’d never considered himself a funny guy, but he wanted to always see that light in her eyes.

“I hoped that over time you’d change your mind, but . . . no. I didn’t hate you. I can’t, remember?” She shook her head.

“The laws are in place now. Even if I did change my mind, it’s not so simple to overturn them. It took a lot of work, time, effort, money, to get that law enacted. It would take even more to get it repealed. And with public opinion such as it is, I don’t think I could even if I wanted to.”

That was also his doing, though she wouldn’t know that. His behind-the-scenes work using social media to change the public’s perception couldn’t be traced directly back to him any more than his involvement in the origination of the tech. In an age of near-instant coverage of everything online, money still managed to keep secrets, and Ewan had enough to ensure his were kept. Gray Tuesday had helped with that.

Nina was no fool. “I think we both can agree that you have the following and ability to sway public opinion in the other direction. If you wanted to. I understand that you don’t,” she added, putting both her hands up and making a small pushing gesture. “I get it. And really, it doesn’t matter. As my grandma was fond of saying, you get what you get, and you don’t pitch a fit.”

“Good advice,” Ewan said.

“She had a lot of terrific words of wisdom, most of which I did not learn to take until I was much older.”

He smiled. “And wiser?”

“Well,” Nina said lightly, “maybe just older.”

They stared at each other in silence for the span of a breath or two, and Ewan said, “I admire you.”

“I am admirable.” She grinned, curling her fists toward her shoulders to show off her biceps, one and then the other. She tossed her braid over her shoulder. “But thank you.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Ewan said, enjoying this easy, casual conversation more than a serious one but needing her to understand. “You could have come in here with a chip on your shoulder, but you didn’t.”

“I don’t need a chip on my shoulder. I have a few in my brain.” She smiled, but her voice had gone a little chilly. “Also, I don’t see the point in trying to antagonize someone I have to spend literally every second of my life with. That’s a very good way to be miserable, isn’t it? Who wants to spend their time being miserable?”

Ewan shook his head. “I don’t. I’m not as good as you are, though. With the positive attitude.”

“Maybe I’ll rub off on you,” Nina said, then hooted low laughter and rolled her eyes.

“We both know you don’t want me rubbing off anything anywhere near you.”

His attempts at humor had failed more often than hers, but now Nina gave a surprised chuckle. “Is that what you really think?”

He wanted to kiss her again. No, he wanted to apologize for kissing her. No, Ewan thought again. He wanted to stop wanting her.

Nina said, “We should talk about what you’re going to do next.”

Disappointed that she’d turned the conversation but knowing it was for the best, Ewan shook his head. “Siege mode. Nothing comes in, nothing goes out, until we figure out if there is, indeed, an internal leak or my team determines the threat levels have dropped again.”

“And if they don’t?”

“They will,” he said confidently. “They always do. If the League of Humanity doesn’t have anything fueling it, eventually they’ll get tired of harassing me. Not that I think they’re the real danger, anyway.”

“How long are you willing to hunker down?” she asked him. “I mean, it sounds romantic and all, surviving off the land and all that. You certainly have the setup for it. And I mean ‘romantic’ in an old-fashioned sense, not, you know. Romantic.”

She gestured, curving her fingers into the shape of a heart and bumping it against her chest.

“For as long as it takes. Why? Do you have someplace to be?” Again, what was meant as a joke fell a little flat.

Nina tilted her head to look at him. “Not particularly. I did sign an open-ended contract. If that’s what you think is the best option . . .”

“You don’t?” When she shrugged, he took another step closer to her, making sure to look her in the eyes. “You have a better idea?”

“I’m not a strategist, Ewan. I’m a soldier. It’s not up to me to decide how you resolve these threats. I’m here to—”

“Protect me. I know. But you have thoughts on it. I know you do. I’d like to hear them.”

Nina frowned at first, then stood straight and tall, her shoulders squared. “I do have an idea, but it’s going to be dangerous. Do you trust me?”

* * *

“Absolutely,” Ewan said at once. No hesitation. His gaze never left hers.

Nina nodded, her mind working fast. She was usually not one for pacing, preferring to keep her physicality controlled, to use her energy wisely, but now she mimicked his habit by striding back and forth in a few short paces, her hands on her hips as she worked it over in her brain. She shot a glance over her shoulder at him.

“What would it take,” she said, “to make sure that nobody was even looking for you?”

Ewan’s brow furrowed. “Not following.”

“Your team’s been putting together reports on all the threats against you, correct?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Perfect,” Nina said, pacing again. “I assume you have analysts, yes? Determining the strength of the threats in order of danger. Advising you about whether or not it’s okay to attend an event, stuff like that?”

His soft laugh turned her to face him. “Yes. Of course.”

“But the last two events you attended, you were attacked. And people have managed to breach your security several times since I’ve been here. So you think maybe there’s also someone on the inside. Someone on your team isn’t loyal.”

“Could be. What are you getting at?”

She turned again. Back and forth in front of him. Thinking, thinking hard. Trying to put the pieces into place.

“If you made it clear that you’d be particularly vulnerable at a certain time, and someone really was working against you, it would seem likely they’d make sure something happened then. Right?”

Ewan shrugged. “Possibly.”

Nina faced him. “So, we make it clear that you’re vulnerable. You’re sending the staff away, going into siege mode. You’re paranoid. Pissed off that the guards weren’t doing enough. Something. You clear the house and make sure your team knows you’ll be alone. Well, except for me, of course.”

“And then what?” He sounded curious, but open, his gaze frank and assessing.

“We see if something happens.”

Ewan laughed briefly. “So . . . what, as a way to prove that I have a leak?”

“More than that. If they’re coming after you to scare and bully you, that’s one thing. If they’re really going to try to hurt you, even kill you, the time for them to do it would be when you’re not as well protected as you should be.” Nina clenched and unclenched her fists, putting together a plan. “You would be, obviously, since I’d still be here. But it might prompt whoever’s been coming after you to up their game.”

“And the benefit of that is . . . ?”

She grinned. “If they think you’re dead, they’ll stop coming after you. At least for a while. You’ll see who steps forward to take credit. You could figure out who really is behind all of this and stop them for good.”

“They’ll all step up and take credit,” Ewan pointed out. “Any of the groups that want me gone would be happy to say it was them.”

“Sure, of course. But you know it would only be a matter of time before you could get someone to figure out the truth. So, first off, you’d know for sure you had an internal source leaking your information and could work from there.” She ticked the list off on her fingers. “You could get a handle on which group is really behind the big guns and not just the scare tactics.”

She spun in a slow circle, tapping her finger against her lower lip, then caught sight of him looking over with a bemused grin. “The key is, you make them think they got you. Then you can handle all the rest.”

“You’re telling me to fake my own death? That would . . .” He shook his head. Paused. Then again. “That would be crazy. Do you know what that would do to my business, if I suddenly up and died? It would be chaos.”

“Surely you have instructions in place in case that happened,” Nina said. “I mean, the fact is, your life’s been threatened over and over again for years.”

“Yeah, but . . . I’m not actually going to be dead!”

She laughed at his expression. “No. Not if I have anything to do with it. Is there one person, at least one, who you can trust with everything you have?”

Ewan’s smile faded as he looked at her. “You, Nina.”

“I’m not in charge of your business.” Heat inside her flared at his words, though, and at the look in his hazel eyes. “I meant someone who’d be able to handle everything for you while you were in hiding. You wouldn’t have to fake your death. In fact, you’d have that person deny that you were dead, despite all the signs pointing to you being totally offed. Make them guess. It will be pandemonium, but surely there are measures in place to handle things.”

“I have a phalanx of lawyers, sure. And Rodriguez has instructions, he’d be able to handle everything for a while. Nothing would happen for months, especially if they couldn’t prove I was dead.”

“Like, if your body was missing,” she said.

Ewan’s brows rose. “Yeah, like if my body was missing. I’m a little worried that you’ve thought this far ahead, Nina.”

“I’m really just brainstorming,” she told him. “I told you, I’m not a strategist. I’m just trying to figure out a way for you to get out of here and into someplace really safe without anyone figuring it out, and a way to get them off your back.”

She snapped her fingers, realizing none of this was going to work. At his expression, a mixture of confusion, amusement, and something else she couldn’t name, Nina shrugged. She could go hand-to-hand with a half dozen people trying to take him down, but she was making a mess of all of this.

“You’d need a place to go,” she said. “Someplace nobody knows about, where you can stay for as long as you have to. I mean, you can scarcely say ah-choo without the media speculating on what caused the sneeze. You need a—”

“A safe house,” he said. “Of course.”

“And as it happens,” Nina began, with Ewan once more finishing her thought for her.

“I have one.”