Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
Thea gave a surreptitious glance in Fergus’s direction the following morning. He was sitting in the front of the SUV beside the man driving them to the private airfield just outside of Paris where the man had informed them the Wynter jet was waiting to take them back to England.
The other man was very tall and rugged, with lots of salt in his dark hair, and he wore a fitted blue suit with a white shirt and dark blue tie that did nothing to disguise his muscular arms and chest.
He had already been in the kitchen with Fergus when Thea came downstairs this morning and had introduced himself to her as Declan Quinn. The same man Fergus had told her was brilliant at his job and was going to be her personal bodyguard until the problem of her stalker was settled.
Declan appeared to be about the same age as Fergus, but the amount of salt in his hair made him appear older. He also had deep lines etched beside his shrewd and watchful blue eyes. Irish eyes, Thea would guess from his name and the slightly accented lilt she detected in his deep and gravelly voice.
There had been a dangerous stillness about Declan as he checked their surroundings before allowing Thea to leave Fergus’s Paris home. He had also positioned himself so that she was fully protected when he opened one of the back doors of the black SUV for her to climb inside.
Declan gave every appearance of behaving like a crouching tiger about to pounce on its prey if it became necessary for him to protect her.
Thea also knew, having caught sight of it when she shook his hand after the introduction that, despite the law on carrying concealed weapons both in France and the UK, Declan was wearing a shoulder holster and had a gun hidden beneath his perfectly tailored suit jacket.
Fergus didn’t seem to have brought any luggage of his own, and Thea could only assume that was because he already had clothes in his apartment in London. Thea had brought her own small suitcase into the vehicle with her, reluctant to let it out of her sight when it now also contained the pillowcase, not the pillow, obviously, which had been missing until yesterday.
She had been hurt but somehow not surprised when Fergus chose to climb into the front passenger seat of the black SUV parked outside, sitting beside Declan rather than in the back with her. The atmosphere between the two of them had been more than a little tense since Thea joined Fergus and Declan in the kitchen earlier.
She’d been alone when she woke up in Fergus’s bed this morning. They had showered together before going to bed, Fergus holding her as she fell into a deep sleep.
Thea hadn’t thought too much of waking up alone at the time, knowing they were leaving Paris first thing this morning and that Fergus probably had a few personal things in need of his attention before they left.
It was only when she saw the remoteness of his expression, once she had joined him and Declan in the kitchen after she had showered and dressed in comfortable jeans and a T-shirt for traveling, that she’d had to accept that the expected familiarity between them simply wasn’t there. The man could barely bring himself to even look at her.
It didn’t help that Fergus’s appearance was once again formal and businesslike in one of those tailored suits, charcoal gray this time, with a pale gray shirt and silver tie.
He had remained distant when he set out coffee and croissants for her breakfast, his voice lacking any real warmth.
Even then, Thea had tried to give him the benefit of the doubt. After all, there was a third person present, and it probably wasn’t a good idea to let one of his employees realize how personal their relationship now was.
Or, at least, it had seemed so to Thea. Fergus’s distant behavior, as if none of the intimacy between them had happened, told her he didn’t feel the same way about it.
That he perhaps wished it hadn’t happened at all.
Leaving Thea with no choice but to adopt the same polite distance toward him as he had toward her.
Inwardly, she was hurt, of course. She didn’t know what she had expected, but this cold and distant Fergus certainly wasn’t the same man who had made passionate love to her the previous night. The same man whose bed she had afterward shared for the night.
Fergus followed the same pattern on the flight back to England on the luxurious twenty-seater private jet, once again choosing to sit beside Declan rather than with her.
There had been three other men, all wearing formal suits, waiting for them when Declan drove the SUV over to the plane parked on the far side of the small airfield. All the men had greeted Fergus by name before nodding acknowledgment of Thea.
She guessed this was the rest of Declan’s team.
The flight home was so tense and awkward for Thea that, although she had accepted Fergus’s assistance in returning to England on this private jet rather than running afoul of her stalker for a second time by flying from a public airport, she knew she couldn’t accept any further help from him.
Something she intended to make clear to him the moment she arrived safely back at her apartment.
Having a hostile Fergus protecting her, possibly a grudging one, was even worse than having no Fergus or protection at all.
He would probably argue against her dismissing him and his help. She already knew him well enough to understand he was a man who always liked to keep his word. But that was just too bad. Every part of him now screamed that he regretted what had happened the previous night, and that what he wanted most of all was to put distance between them.
Much as that realization hurt her, and inwardly she just wanted to sit and cry, Thea refused to do so until she could be completely alone.
She now knew that coming to Paris and talking to Fergus at all had been a mistake on her part. Asking for his help had been an even bigger one. She’d never needed or asked for anyone’s assistance before, and she didn’t need or want this cold and distant Fergus’s begrudging help now either.
“Whatever you’ve been thinking about the past few hours, I advise you not to waste any more of your time on it,” Fergus told her as he sat beside her in the back of another black SUV on the drive to her apartment. Declan sat behind the wheel in front of Thea, a member of his team seated beside him.
A second black SUV followed behind them, the other two men inside.
“Declan and his team are staying in your life until this situation has been settled, and so am I,” Fergus continued grimly.
“Really?” she challenged. “And in what world do you think I’d be willing to accept the help of a man who so obviously not only resents me but doesn’t like me?”
“What the fuck!” A nerve pulsed in his clenched cheek as he turned to face her. “I don’t resent or dislike you,” he insisted.
She gave a scornful snort. “Your every word and action since I came downstairs this morning says differently.”
He flicked a glance at Declan sitting behind the wheel. “Can we talk about this once we’re inside your apartment?”
Thea’s mouth tightened. “There’s nothing to discuss.”
“What does that mean?”
She snorted. “That I’ve decided to take my chances and report this situation to the English police.”
* * *
Over Fergus’s dead body!
Or possibly Thea’s, if the police didn’t monitor this situation closely enough, and Fergus had no reason to believe they would.
Thea’s accusation of having a stalker in London—her claim that someone had broken into her apartment and stolen a pillow , one which had suddenly reappeared in her Paris hotel suite—wouldn’t be strong enough for the police to feel the need to give Thea 24/7 protection. The attack in Paris, while she was alone in that same hotel suite, came under another country’s jurisdiction.
Fergus released a heavy sigh. “Look, if for some reason you’ve decided you don’t like the idea of Declan guarding you, we can?—”
“I like Declan just fine,” Thea cut in icily before adding. “It’s you I don’t like.”
What the hell…!
Fergus glanced at the rearview mirror, only to find Declan looking straight back at him with mocking blue eyes before the other man’s gaze returned to the road ahead.
Bastard!
Fergus scowled before muttering. “You liked me just fine last night.”
Her cheeks colored a fiery red. “And now I don’t,” she snapped. “I wonder why that is,” she scorned before turning to look out the side window.
Fergus knew exactly why Thea was so angry with him, and he knew it was all his own fault.
But he had felt wrong-footed when Declan arrived at his house this morning before Fergus had a chance to go back upstairs and speak to Thea again.
Last night, making love with Thea, had been more momentous, a deeper intimacy, than Fergus had ever experienced before.
He’d had good sex in the past, the occasional mediocre sex too, unfortunately, despite all his efforts for it to be otherwise. But he’d never had the spectacular sex he’d experienced last night. And he knew a big part of the reason for that was because he felt an emotional connection to Thea that he’d never had with any other woman.
Something he had intended to tell her before they left Paris.
Then Declan had arrived, shortly followed by Thea coming downstairs before Fergus could take her the coffee and croissants he’d been preparing for her up to his bedroom.
Thea hadn’t even looked at him as he introduced Declan to her, leading him to the conclusion she must regret last night’s intimacy.
After that, he had reacted defensively to what he felt was her rejection of both him and their lovemaking.
Hours later, he could see how his behavior made him look like a ten-year-old who, having sent a note to the girl in class that he fancied, had to watch as she threw that note into the bin before walking away.
He had not only behaved ridiculously, but badly. Brought about primarily, no doubt, by the fact that Fergus had never spent the whole night with any of the women he’d had sex with. Hell, he had never invited a woman into his house in Paris, let alone to his bedroom and his bed.
Magnus would laugh his head off if he knew how childishly Fergus had responded to the situation. Especially when a more obvious explanation for Thea’s earlier coolness was that she had felt just as disconcerted as he had by having a third person present when they greeted each other again for the first time after their intimacy and spending the night together in the same bed.
The truth was, it had taken every effort on Fergus’s part not to take Thea in his arms and kiss the hell out of her the moment she walked into the kitchen. To devour and claim those lips that he had kissed so deeply the night before.
He had woken in the night, his cock once again hard and throbbing with need as it nestled between Thea’s arse cheeks. His arm was draped possessively about her slender waist, anchoring her against him.
But he had forced himself not to wake her.
The last couple of weeks—hell, months, possibly even years, from what Thea had told him—had been stressful ones for her. More recently because she had been hit on the head the previous day and knocked unconscious.
His own needs be damned, Thea had been sleeping far too peacefully for him to want to wake her for his own selfish reasons. He was an adult, not some kid who allowed the needs of his body to dictate his actions.
He hadn’t been able to fall back to sleep, though. Instead, he’d remained awake in the darkness, holding Thea and making all sorts of decisions and plans for the two of them he had no right making without her input. But the main decision he had made had been that he intended to remain in Thea’s life for as long as she would allow him to do so.
The coldness of her expression now told him that she had already reached that point!
“We’ll talk once we’re inside your apartment,” he said again as Declan parked the SUV outside the building where Thea obviously lived.
“I’m not inviting you up to my home,” she told him.
“Thea—”
“My answer is no, Fergus,” she reiterated. “Take off the child lock, Declan,” she instructed evenly after trying to open the door and failing. “Don’t look at Fergus for permission, just do it,” she grated from between gritted teeth after the other man had done exactly that.
“Do as she says,” Fergus instructed Declan, immediately followed by the sound of the child lock being released. “Fuck it!” he muttered as Thea thrust open the door beside her and stepped out onto the pavement, taking her small piece of luggage with her.
Declan, on the same side of the vehicle as Thea, quickly followed her. Fergus and the other bodyguard stepped out onto the road.
“Shooter!” Declan shouted.
Fergus turned in time to see Declan wrap his arms around Thea, followed by the sound of two shots being fired and the two of them falling to the pavement.
For the briefest of seconds, the rest of Fergus’s life, without Thea in it, flashed in front of him.
Empty.
Barren of light.
And love…