Having Nina as his constant shadow made it a little harder for Ewan to set up the dinner he’d planned. But what had she said about fighting without her weapons in top shape? Difficult but not impossible? Ewan didn’t have weapons in his arsenal. He had skills, one of which was making things happen. Not that arranging a meal in his own home was anything close to hand-to-hand combat, but he still felt accomplished at pulling it off without her finding out until he took her into the dining room.

Her words had stayed with him long after she’d said them. No matter how hard he tried to shove them away, he couldn’t shake the idea that somehow, she was right. That the tech had somehow stolen even more from her than he’d thought possible. Ewan had spent a number of hours going over old records, the ones nobody else had access to after Gray Tuesday. The tech had never been meant to suppress emotions. He could find nothing in his original specs that indicated anything like that had been part of the programming, and yet he couldn’t stop thinking about what she’d said.

What better way to create soldiers capable of utter carnage than to take away their ability to feel intense emotion?

It wasn’t that she could feel nothing at all, he knew that, but it made complete sense that anything beyond the mildest range of feelings would be blocked or controlled by the same tech that adjusted the rest of her body’s functions. The question was why did the tech work that way in Nina, but not in all of them? What set her apart from the rest?

Because she was different, Ewan thought. Different than the others. Different from any other woman he’d ever known.

The look on her face had made the entire morning’s worth of effort totally worth it. He’d had the staff set the table with the fancy china he usually saved for dinner parties. Candles with a real wick and flame, not the battery-operated sort most people used now that the diminishing bee population made beeswax so hard to come by. The soft, golden light glinted off the cut crystal glassware as well as the tiny diamond chips around the rims of the plates.

Nina ran a fingertip around one of them and looked at him. “Used to be a time when a plate like this would’ve cost you so much money you wouldn’t have dared eat off it.”

“I don’t spend my money on things I can’t use,” he told her. “No matter how pretty they are.”

She glanced up at him with a quick grin. “Uh-huh.”

“Always the double entendre with you,” he said, but the truth was, he liked the way she teased him. How had that happened? “Anyway, the jam spoon impressed you so much, I figured it was time to really go all out.”

“Maybe I’m not that easy to impress.”

Ewan pulled out the chair and gestured for her to sit. “Are you saying you’re hard?”

“That’s not usually me, no.”

Too late, he realized he’d opened himself up to another play on words. Nina chuckled and took her seat, waiting as he pushed it in for her. She glanced at him over her shoulder . . . and damn it, his cock twitched. For a moment, Ewan’s fingers clutched at the back of her chair as he itched to run his hands over her shoulders.

Instead, he took his own seat and waited until the server had poured them both glasses of wine and left the room before he answered. “I thought you deserved some recognition and appreciation.”

“For doing my job?”

“For everything you’ve been through,” Ewan said.

“So you’re going to feed me?” Her laugh sounded genuine, if still the tiniest bit strained.

After their conversation and the news earlier this morning, Ewan had researched Allan Hendricks. There’d been nothing in any of the media about him having a relationship with Nina, although there were several pictures of them together at some of the early publicity events from before the worldview about the enhancement tech changed, when the fifteen soldiers had been paraded around like prize sheep. Ewan didn’t want to admit how thoroughly he’d scoured the photos, looking for any signs of them being a couple. One shot had Hendricks’s hand resting on Nina’s lower back.

Ewan had stared at that one for a long time, hating how angry it made him.

Unlike his own social media legacy, however, beyond whatever he could dig up about Nina in the early days after the public reveal, he could find next to nothing more recent about her. If he’d known the names of her clients, he could have searched them to catch a glimpse of her in the background, but most of them appeared to have been as concerned with anonymity and discretion as Ewan was. He had the assets and contacts to dig deeper, but so far, he hadn’t.

Nina deserved her own privacy. Also, respect. Consideration. She deserved better, he thought now, watching her unfold the soft cloth napkin and lay it on her lap.

“As much as you can eat,” he said.

Her laugh softened at that. Right there in front of him, she blossomed like a flower in the desert that had just been watered. “You sure about that? I can eat a lot. What’s on the menu?”

He’d done his research, as best he could, to find out her favorites. It had taken researching way back into her hospital records to see what meals she’d requested most. What he’d done hadn’t been exactly legal or ethical, but it wouldn’t be the first time he’d bent the rules to accommodate himself.

“Steak. Potatoes. Garlic bread . . .” He stopped at her quizzical look. “Or I could have the cook make you something else?”

“Real steak?”

He hadn’t had anything but real beef in so long, it hadn’t occurred to him that she might question what he was serving. “Yes. Of course.”

“I haven’t had real steak in ages. Only synthbeef, and really, I think I’d rather just not bother.” She rubbed her stomach with a grin. “Real steak, Ewan?”

“The kinds of company you’ve kept, I didn’t think it would be such a big deal.” He pressed the service button to start the courses arriving.

Nina rolled her eyes in an expression he was rapidly finding both familiar and endearing. “This may come as a surprise to you, but even though it’s understood that I am always to be in the same room with them, most of my clients have not invited me to sit at the table with them to actually share a meal.”

“That’s . . .”

“Common,” she finished for him when he could not find the right words to convey how appalled he was.

“Insulting,” he said.

Nina rolled her shoulders in a small shrug. “Not really. You’re paying me to keep you safe. You’re required to feed me, but nothing says you have to do it with grand fanfare. Anyway, some people like to posture and having me stand behind them while they eat, being all intimidating and stuff, it makes them happy. Whatever the client wants. Did you invite your other bodyguards to eat at your table?”

“I never had any of them living with me, they only attended public events.” He sat back to allow the server to settle the platter of meat and potatoes in front of him. “It never occurred to me not to let you sit at my table. You never mentioned it was unusual.”

“You think I was going to turn down that strawberry jam? You’re crazy. Besides, I’m so easy to get along with, what was I going to do. Argue?” She gave him a look of such wide-eyed innocence all he could do was laugh.

He gave her one of his own. “You? Argue? You, be . . . dare I say it, bossy?”

“No, no, no.” She shook her head, waving a hand but staying out of the way so the server could put a thick steak on her plate for her, along with a fat baked potato glistening with butter and herbs. “I’ll need another one of those, please. And ooh. Rolls.”

When the server gave her another, she continued, “I respectfully beg to differ, Mr. Donahue. You’re the boss.”

“I like it better when you call me Ewan,” he said.

Nina’s brow crinkled. “Huh. Yeah?”

“Yeah. It’s nicer.”

“Fine. Ewan. See?” She added in an arch tone, “I’m super amenable and easy to get along with.”

“Unless I ask you to leave me alone while I go to the bathroom.” He dug into his steak with a small murmur of delight at the flavor. “You’re right. Synthbeef is a waste of time.”

“Says the man who can afford real steak.” She cut a slice of her own steak and tucked it into her mouth with a noise louder and more sensual than his had been.

His heart skipped at the sound of it. Watching Nina enjoy her food with such obvious and pure delight put ideas in Ewan’s head that didn’t need any help to bloom. In the time she’d been here, spending every waking and sleeping moment with him, her ability to selectively shutter her gaze against his nakedness had been fine for showering and bathroom functions. He had not, however, had any time for . . . well. While unpartnered, Ewan had been used to taking care of himself on a daily or semi-daily basis. His waking erections had grown increasingly fierce and were taking longer to go away. Now, thinking of it, he had to shift in his chair with a discreet tug at the crotch of his trousers.

Nina glanced at him, brow furrowing. “You okay?”

“Yes. Of course.” He stabbed a knife into his own steak, cutting it into bite-sized pieces.

Nina nodded and took a fork of potato. “You grew these?”

“Technically, they were grown in a greenhouse with assistance from automated gardeners. But yes. They were grown on my property. I told you,” Ewan added, forcing himself to focus on the food and the conversation, not the coiling tension in his balls. “I intend for this place to be fully self-sufficient.”

Nina chewed slowly, clearly savoring. He allowed himself to wonder if she’d take the time to enjoy every sensual pleasure the way she did her food, before shoving that thought down. Way, way down. She caught him looking, though, and he hoped she couldn’t guess what he’d been thinking.

“In case of a siege.”

“Yes.”

She took another slow bite. She swallowed and pointed her fork at him. “What happens if you’re away from home and you get attacked?”

“It’s happened.”

Nina nodded. “I know. I’ve read your history. It’s good for me to know what’s happened to you in the past for a lot of reasons.”

“Does that mean you interviewed all my ex-girlfriends?”

“Who’d have the time? That could take years.” Her smile tipped a little more on one side than the other, quirking. Sarcastic.

Another swell of desire pressed at him. “If I get attacked away from home, I hope I have time to get back here. Or to one of my safe houses.”

“Safer than Woodhaven?”

He hesitated before answering. “One of the things that makes them safe is that nobody knows about them. Everyone knows about Woodhaven. If I had to be holed up here, I want to be prepared. But if there’s a truly dire sitch, I have a couple places I can go.”

“Very smart. And fortunate,” she added. “That you’re able to have them.”

“If I wasn’t the sort of man with the money to afford them, I wouldn’t be the kind of man anyone wanted to kill.” Ewan sipped some wine then lifted his glass toward her. “This is very good.”

She glanced at her glass but didn’t take it. “Everything you own is very good, so I’m not surprised.”

“You’re not drinking it,” he pointed out, noticing she’d ignored his first statement.

“I very rarely can even get a buzz, but it’s not worth the risk of being even the smallest bit impaired. Like making sure my gear’s clean and ready at all times,” Nina said, “I try to make sure my body is, too.”

The words hung between them. She was flirting with him again . . . or was she? The back-and-forth game of romance had always bored him, especially since as time went on and the more money he acquired, the easier it was to find a woman interested in dating him. Also, the harder it had become to find one he was interested in being with for longer than a few dates. But, as he’d already determined, something about Nina was not like any of those women with whom Ewan had passed the time.

“I’m sure your body is always ready,” he said.

Nina paused mid-chew, then took the time to swallow carefully. “Are you coming on to me?”

“I don’t get involved with people who work for me,” Ewan said at once.

“Technically, I don’t work for you,” Nina said, evenly meeting his gaze. “Technically, I work for ProtectCorps.”

“Does that make a difference?” he challenged, muscles tensing at the sudden flare of heat that wove slyly and insistently between them.

She smiled.

* * *

“You tell me if it makes a difference to you,” Nina said. “Mind if I have more steak?”

She made a show of helping herself to another thick slab of meat from the platter, not wanting to wait for the server to come back from the kitchen. She glanced at Ewan from the corner of her eye, knowing instinctively that ignoring him would drive him crazy. The inferno that had flared between them after the drone attack had not yet returned, but hints of it tickled low in her belly. Nina already knew how easy it was for her clients to let the forced intimacy of constant contact turn into something more. People gravitated toward sex, and stressful situations seemed to make it happen even more. She’d been known to use that to her advantage, but hadn’t she also known from the very first moment she set eyes on this man that he was going to be trouble?

The question though, was what would she do about it?

“Nina.” Ewan’s voice had dipped low and dangerous, which was not at all a deterrent to her.

She looked at him. “Ewan.”

“I was not coming on to you.”

She waved a languid hand. “Fine, if you say so. Anyway, you like blondes.”

Ewan’s fork clattered against his plate. “What?”

Nina chuckled. She put a hand over her mouth to make at least the semblance of an attempt at holding it back, but couldn’t. After a moment, Ewan sat back in his chair with a frown and a furrowed brow.

“You find me very amusing,” he said.

“I find you frustrating,” Nina corrected. “And intriguing. But yes. Also amusing.”

Ewan shook his head, the frown softening. He picked up his fork again, but set it down at once. He jabbed a finger at her. “Well. I find you frustrating, too.”

“But intriguing?” she asked with a grin, leaning back in her own chair.

His hazel eyes glinted as the corners of his mouth twitched. “Yes.”

“I knew it,” Nina said.

“What would you have done if I had come on to you?” Ewan sipped more wine. In the candlelight—and real candles, she’d noticed that—he looked like something out of an old-time viddy.

“Flirting puts people at ease. Makes it easier to connect.” She shrugged, contemplating her plate and more food, but deciding to wait for a few minutes to let what she’d already eaten settle as she thought about how to explain herself. “The gigs I work tend to be serious or complicated and stressful. A little bit of winky nudge helps. People feel better when they’re flirting. Takes their mind off the stress.”

Ewan made a gruff noise, low in his throat. “What about when it’s more than just a little flirting?”

“You mean sex?” She leaned on the table with her chin in her hand and watched to see if he’d blush again. The soft flickering glow made the flush on his cheeks hard to see, but she thought it was there.

“Yeah.”

“I like sex. Don’t you?” She smiled.

“Of course I do. But that’s not what I was asking.” He leaned forward, gaze intense.

She took a small breath. There it was again, the first tingling tease of desire. Tendrils of curling heat began to unfurl in her belly. “You want to know if I can get turned on? Yes. I can still feel arousal. And even though orgasms and fight-or-flight can seem awfully the same, I can still come. If that’s what you really want to know.”

“The tech can tell the difference between sexual arousal and defense?”

“I don’t know if the tech can,” she said. “But I can.”

Ewan shook his head, leaning back in his chair. “But not intense emotions.”

Nina didn’t answer him for a few moments while she cut her steak into bite-sized pieces. She ate one, chewing slowly. Savoring the flavor of real beef, seasoned to perfection. She ate another, her gaze lifting to meet his, but Ewan was staring at her mouth and then lower, at her throat working as she swallowed the meat. His eyes went to her lips when she licked them, and only then did he look into hers.

“It doesn’t make sense,” he said.

She frowned and put her fork down. “I don’t need you to believe me.”

“I believe you,” he said. “I’m just trying to figure out why it works that way.”

At this, her irritation rose. “Well, wouldn’t it be nice if there was a way to figure that out? For example, oh, I don’t know. Research and development? But guess what? Your lobbying efforts, your campaigns, have effectively made that impossible.”

He didn’t reply to that with anything more than a long sip of his wine. When Nina saw he didn’t meant to answer, she took another few bites of steak. Her tongue told her it was still delicious, but the pleasure she’d been taking in it had faded. She pushed her plate away with a sigh.

“Would you go to bed with me?” Ewan asked.

Nina’s eyebrows rose. “Is this a rhetorical question, or do you want a real answer?”

“A real answer.”

“I thought you didn’t get involved with people you work with,” Nina answered lightly, even as winding, twisting tendrils of desire began threading through her body.

Ewan sat back in his chair. He said nothing, but his pulse had stepped up. His cheeks were the tiniest bit flushed.

He was horny.

Nina sure understood that. She’d had clients who didn’t care if she was in the room while they rubbed one out, and truthfully, she’d simply turned on her selective screening to block it. Donahue hadn’t so much as furtively stroked his boner the entire time she was here. Unless the guy had a libido as limp as overcooked pasta, he had to be getting riled up by now, without any kind of release. She hadn’t done any self-pleasuring maintenance of her own, but while she noticed it, she could certainly control it.

“No,” she told him. “I don’t intend to go to bed with you.”

“Have you ever slept with any of the other enhanced soldiers? Other than Hendricks?”

She thought of Al Chastain. Connor Blakely. “Yes.”

“And there weren’t any emotional problems with them?”

“Neither of them were the same sort of relationship,” Nina said, eyeing him curiously.

“Have you slept with any clients while on the job?”

That he wanted to know was not a surprise. That he’d actually had the balls to ask her the question was. Nina used a cloth napkin to dab grease from her lips. She considered a lie for a half-second, but why? She had no need to save his delicate ego.

“Yes. I have.”

Ewan pushed back from the table and rang for the server, who appeared immediately to start clearing away the platters. “I see.”

“I hope there’s dessert,” Nina said. “And I don’t think you do, really.”

“Explain it to me, then.”

She didn’t have to. She owed him nothing but her protection. “It’s not something I would do again without considering all the ramifications.”

“You told me, ‘Once you’re mine, you’re mine all the way.’”

Nina’s brow furrowed. “Yes. That’s true.”

“But not about fucking,” Ewan said. “Or at least, not about fucking me.”

This had gotten more serious than she’d intended it to be, so she considered her words carefully as she met his gaze. “No. But it’s still true.”

Ewan drained his glass and poured another while the server brought in an enormous cake frosted with white. Nina could smell the lemon at once, and her taste buds smarted, but she grinned. Lemon cake was the one she liked best.

“My favorite,” she said.

“I know. You’re not the only one who did homework.” Ewan asked also for coffee, and the server disappeared back into the kitchen.

Nina shook her head. “Not sure if I should be flattered or concerned. Now you know all my secrets.”

“Most of them,” Ewan corrected. “Not all.”

She glanced at him as she sliced two thick pieces of cake and gave one to each of them. “And here I thought I really didn’t have any.”

“Everyone has secrets,” Ewan said and waited until the server had left the coffee and disappeared again before pouring them each a cup.

They both sat back in their chairs with the cake and coffee, and the next couple minutes were silent, without conversation. Nina didn’t mind. They’d started off light and flirty and ended up going a little more serious than she’d meant to. Besides, the cake was above and beyond delicious and the coffee . . .

“Real coffee,” she murmured, sipping. “So, so good.”

“I trust you with my life,” Ewan said, somewhat abruptly.

Nina paused in relishing the coffee, both her hands wrapped around the cup. “I’m glad. And honored.”

“I don’t want there to be anything that comes between us that would affect that,” Ewan continued.

“Because you think that if we were intimately involved I wouldn’t be able to keep you safe?” She shook her head in protest, but he interrupted her.

“No. I trust your skills and talents no matter what else is going on . . .”

“Thank you.”

He gave her a look that seemed meant to shut her up until he’d finished, so she went quiet.

“I’ve seen you work. I fully believe that no matter what was happening, you’d be able to protect me from any harm. I also believe you’re entirely capable of separating intimacy from the job.” Ewan’s gaze pinned her. “And I’ve certainly had my share of casual encounters. Go ahead, make a joke if you want.”

“I don’t need to make a joke,” Nina answered. “I don’t care much about your love life. It’s really not any of my business, and I shouldn’t have made a joke about it before, either.”

“The tabloids make a big deal about my relationships not lasting. Money can’t buy love. That sort of thing.”

“You said yourself you didn’t believe love could last. Why should you let those sites bother you?” Nina asked with a scowl.

Ewan sipped coffee and shook his head. “I don’t really care about any of that. Any of the women I’ve taken out were interested in my money, and I knew that right up front. We usually had a generous agreement between us. An understanding. The few, the very few, times I ever thought about trying to make it work with someone seriously, it ended pretty quickly. Usually by them, usually because they said I was too distant. Too occupied with my work. A few of them said I didn’t have a sense of humor.”

“They were wrong,” Nina said.

Ewan looked pleased, then frowned. “Most of them also complained about my lack of emotional connection.”

Nina took a bite of cake, enjoying the rich frosting and delicious tang of lemon. She sipped coffee. “Did you tell them what you told me? About not believing love can last?”

“Some of them,” he said. “I stopped bothering when it became clear that even if I did tell them there was no possibility of our relationship ever becoming more than physical, they didn’t believe me. Women always think they’re going to be the one to change a man.”

“You don’t have to worry about me,” Nina told him. “I can’t fall in love with you, remember? So even if I did go to bed with you, and trust me, if I did, it would blow your mind, you wouldn’t have to worry about me trying to make it into something more.”

She’d been teasing him, but this time, Ewan didn’t so much as crack a grin. “But you’re not going to.”

“No,” she told him and waited to see if his ego would prompt him to ask her why.

“Does it bother you? Knowing about me and other lovers?”

“No.”

It did bother him, she thought. “I can sense the change in your temperature, not to the exact degree, but enough. I can, if I focus just right, hear how fast your heart is beating. I can’t tell a hundred percent if someone’s lying, but I can generally get a very good idea if it’s likely.”

“You think I’m lying?”

“I don’t know why it would bother you to know that I have, in the past, gone to bed with a client while on the job, but there’s something you should understand. This . . .” She gestured at herself, her gear, the table, the room, then let her hand settle on her harness with her fingers touching her shockgun. “All of this is not the job. You are the job. And so long as I am on this job, you are my priority. Whatever you need to keep you safe, that’s what I’ll do.”

* * *

“Not including fucking me.” Ewan’s words fell flatly off his tongue and tasted sour beneath the sweetness of the lemon cake he’d had the kitchen make especially for Nina.

She frowned and dragged her fork through the last of the icing, then licked it off the tines carefully before setting it back on her plate. “If fucking you saved your life, yes, I would do it.”

He barked out a short, sharp, and harsh laugh. “Somehow I can’t really imagine a scenario where that would be necessary.”

Nina gave him a brief sideways glance he could not interpret and sat back in her chair with a hand on her lean belly. “They seem to make it happen in a lot of terrible viddyporn.”

Ewan got up from the table. The dishes rattled. “I’m not in the habit of begging for anything. Much less sex. I was just asking out of curiosity.”

“Of course you were,” she said, clearly scoffing and calling him out. “And because I didn’t leap at the chance, suddenly you didn’t mean it. Are you going to tell me I’m ugly, now, too? Toss in a fat-shaming comment? Oh, I know. You could imply or come right out and call me a slut because I have fucked other people, but I just said no to you.”

Her words, measured and steady, were a hail of bullets, each of them hitting their mark. Ewan took a step back, his hands going up as though he could protect himself from that onslaught. His stomach twisted, but although he opened his mouth to deny her accusations, a part of him knew, ashamedly, that she wasn’t entirely wrong.

Nina hadn’t finished. “Let me tell you something, Mr. Donahue. If I choose to kiss you, or if I choose to let you touch me, or if I choose to fuck you, those are my choices to make. I do not choose to be with someone intimately who’s going to wish as soon as it’s over that we’d never done it to begin with. Do you understand me? If we are together, it will be because I feel like you really want me, Nina Bronson. Even if it’s only for the time we are together, I’m not going to get involved with someone who doesn’t see me, the entire me, not just a convenient place to get his dick wet.”

Everything about her had set him on edge. He couldn’t get the memory of her straddling him out of his head, but now it was overlaid with an imagined scene of her with someone else. Many someone elses. He watched her finish her coffee with a contented sigh. When she slicked her tongue along her lower lip, muscles low in Ewan’s stomach tightened. His cock thickened. He made a conscious effort at slowing the sudden hitch of his breath, too aware that she could probably sense his arousal the same way she did a lie.

“Brandy and cigars in the library?” Nina asked abruptly, and it took him a second or so to follow her line of thought.

How was it that despite his desire to keep a distance between them, to ignore the way she turned him on, Nina could also get him laughing with seemingly no effort at all? Genuine laughter, not forced or faked. She joined him, the crinkles at the corners of her gleaming amber eyes so sexy he couldn’t stand it.

“You don’t drink on the job, and I only have vape cigars,” Ewan said as she pushed back from the table.

“How about a viddy, then? Something funny,” Nina offered. “Seems to me that we could both use a good laugh.”

In the media room, she helped herself to the touchpad on the viddy screen and pulled up a popular series that Ewan had heard a lot about but had never watched. Without asking permission, Nina raided the snack cabinet for some popcorn and fizzy drinks, then settled onto the synthleather sofa to prop her feet on the ottoman. She gestured for him to join her, and he did.

To his surprise, because he’d thought the premise of the program was so stupid it couldn’t possibly be funny, they spent the next half hour guffawing. He snuck a look at her while the next episode loaded. She’d made herself completely at home, her face alight with humor, and yet he knew without a doubt that at any second she could turn from giggling to fighting.

“You never take that off?” he asked, pointing to the harness and all her gear. He’d received a list of what she carried when he’d signed the contract but had to admit that he had no idea where half the items were, even if he believed she had them on.

“Only to shower, and even then it’s close at hand. It’s waterproof, anyway,” she said, tapping the straps.

“Doesn’t look very comfortable.”

Nina stretched, tipping her chin up to the ceiling for a few seconds before turning her face toward his. “It’s custom sized and built to exactly match my specs. It’s almost like a part of myself, at this point.”

“It’s got to be heavy,” he said.

Her smile didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Yeah. It’s heavy.”

“I’m sorry,” Ewan said suddenly. “For the conversation at dinner.”

She nodded, mouth twisting. “We’re in a weird sitch, you know? Artificially intimate in a lot of ways, but it doesn’t automatically cross over to a true friendship. Or attraction. It’s easy to let it override the reality of things. Easy to confuse this with closeness, either emotional or physical, but we both have to remember it’s not real.”

“You say that as though it’s something I could turn on or off, like a switch.” He wondered if that was how she saw him, as a man who could control his desires with such precision. Actually, until Nina had come along, he’d prided himself on being exactly that sort of man.

“I think your parade of exes who all told you that you’re incapable of making an emotional connection with them might prove at least part of a truth,” she said after a moment. “You can turn off your feelings. It must have been hard and scary and depressing, to lose the last two people who were supposed to be protecting you. They did their jobs and lost their lives, and maybe you think you don’t feel anything about that at all, but I bet you do.”

His throat closed. His eyes burned. He’d sent money, lots of it, to the families of the two men who’d died in his service. He’d made sure to take care of those who’d been left behind. Yet until this moment with Nina, he’d never spoken aloud about how he felt about any of it.

“I am a selfish, self-absorbed prick,” Ewan said aloud and blew out a breath of something that felt like relief. “I should feel guilty for their deaths, and I don’t.”

Nina sat up on the couch, leaning toward him. “You hired them to do a job, and it was their lack of attention or skill or simple bad fortune that they died while doing it. Anyone who takes on work like this knows the risks. You can’t be held accountable for it. You’re not the person who arranged the attacks. Unless you were being an arrogant dingle and ignoring their advice and putting them in danger because of it, then you don’t have to feel guilty. Were you? Because I think you and I both know that you have a wee issue with taking orders.”

“They weren’t as strict as you,” he said.

She smiled. “Uh-huh. But admit it, you kind of like that about me.”

Denial rose to his lips, especially because he was fairly sure she was teasing him again, but instead Ewan said, “I do.”

He expected laughter, perhaps more gentle teasing. Instead, Nina weighed him with a steady, intense gaze. She smiled, her head tilted. Unexpectedly, she leaned to cup his cheek for the barest of moments, the touch of her fingers enough to make him take a long, deep breath and close his eyes, but only for as long as it took for her to sit back in her place.

“And you don’t like that you like it,” she said. “I understand.”

She’d accused him of not understanding her already tonight, and he thought about doing the same to her. The problem was, Ewan wasn’t sure he understood himself, at least not about this. He shook his head.

“Nothing about you is anything like I thought it would be,” he told her.

Nina tilted her head for a second. “Good.”

It wasn’t good. It was distracting. Disturbing. It left him unsettled, and Ewan Donahue did not like to be anything but in control. Another flash of that same memory nudged him, of Nina dropping him to the ground and straddling him. He thought it would be in the back of his mind forever, that moment, and his reaction to it.

“You don’t like that, either,” she said softly as though she’d read his mind.

It took him a second to realize she didn’t mean his feelings about having her on top of him. Ewan pushed back to get some distance between them. “I don’t. None of this is what I wanted, or thought would happen. I hired a service. That’s all. You came recommended as the best.”

“I am the best,” she told him. “But only you can decide if I’m the right choice for you.”

There were layers of meaning in her words that Ewan did not want to explore, so instead he turned his face toward the viddy screen and shut her out.