Chapter 13 #3
“No, you stay there. Scared the hell out of me when I found out you’d slipped out of the hospital.
At least until the man on the gate called Peterson and me to let us know you were here.
” He squeezed her arm gently, his fingers a light brush against her skin, but he pulled away before she could capture the contact then sat down on the coffee table in front of her.
Blinking furiously, she catalogued his appearance. He really did look like hell.
“You didn’t want visible security. They briefed me on your aversion to it and the fact that you slipped a detail before.
The job as your assistant was perfect. I’d be with you for a huge portion of the day, I could assess your internal security in the office, coax the building into increasing it, and provide the rest of the detail with the data on your schedule so they could maintain surveillance at a distance.
It—it created an illusion that would make you comfortable and safe at the same time. ”
“Yeah, it’s the illusion part I’m having a problem with.” The stilted words were like shards of glass being driven into her chest.
“The job—as your assistant, that was an illusion that I enjoyed. I did do the work. You and me? That was…” How could she describe it? God, she’d wanted to be the one to tell him. Finding out the way he did and then… “You weren’t under lockdown, were you?”
His lashes dipped once and his gaze slid away from hers. “No. I was drunk.”
“Ripping the Band-Aid off?” She threw his words back at him.
“No, drowning the Band-Aid. I was angry and terrified. You bled so damn much and I wanted to strangle you for trying to save me.”
“Well, you told him to shoot you.” Her anger surfaced. “You never tell a nutjob to shoot you, they just might do it.”
“I didn’t want him to shoot you.” The words gritted out between his teeth were a fierce snarl and the distance in his eyes vanished to be replaced by fury.
“He had a gun to your head, Kate. He had a gun to your head and my heart stopped. All I could think about was making sure you got out of it alive.”
She knew damn well where the gun had been pointed. “Without you it wouldn’t have mattered,” she whispered.
“Why?” He leaned toward her, their faces inches apart. “Why was it so damn important to do your job when you’d quit? Or was that an illusion too?”
“No, you jackass, I quit because I was falling for you and I couldn’t be rational or reasonable about your security. I had to save you because I love you.” She hit him, but the blow didn’t move him. Not when she barely had any force behind it. “I love you.”
He stilled, his gaze searching hers. “I want to believe you.”
“Believe me or not, a man can be convinced of anything only if he wants to be convinced.” She closed her eyes, but it was too late, a tear slipped out.
“The scariest moment in my life happened when I saw him swing that gun at you. I knew I had seconds to act. Even though I hit the panic button, they would never get there in time.”
“So you stepped into the bullet.”
“I’d do it again.” His face wavered through her tears.
“I’d do it in a heartbeat. I don’t want to be in a world that doesn’t have you in it.
I wasn’t lying when I said I’d never met anyone like you before.
You—blow my mind. You’re so damn smart and so incredibly dedicated and you make me crazy.
I loved every moment we spent together and I love you, Richard Prentiss.
Call me a fool, call me a liar, call me anything you want. But I love you.”
He cupped her face and brushed away one of her tears with his thumb. The utter gentleness in the action took her breath away. “I let you in, deeper than I have ever let anyone.”
“I know.” Her heart sank. Trust was a huge issue for him and she’d violated it. She’d violated it before she’d ever loved him. “If I could go back…”
“You’d change it?” He continued to stroke her cheek with his thumb, the hard line of his mouth softening. “But if you changed it, I wouldn’t have met you.”
“I could have told you the truth, that day in your office.” It was bravado. Peterson would never have given her the job if she couldn’t maintain the confidentiality.
“I would have thrown you out on your sweet ass.” His lips curved in a hint of a smile.
A flash of humor raced through her. “You could have tried. You forget, I’m damn tough.”
“No, I haven’t forgotten at all.” His tone gentled.
“You keep proving your strength to me over and over. If you’d told me the truth then, I wouldn’t have gotten to know this wildly capable woman with her ability to manage me so finely tuned she does it while recuperating from multiple gunshot wounds. ”
“His Highness brought you your prescriptions.” Another weight lifted off her shoulders. He was so bad about remembering them.
“Okay, before we go any further— Again, His Highness is named Armand. He called you a sister today, so you can call him by his name to his face. Or jackass, or pain in the ass, or son of a bitch—I highly recommend all of those. But no more formality with him.”
Surprise flickered through her at his fierceness. “Richard…”
“No, I’m not done. You had your turn, now it’s mine. You can’t bodyguard anyone anymore. No more stepping into bullets, no more Wonder Woman. I know you can and I think you’re brilliant because you do it so fearlessly, but my heart can’t take it. So I need you to tell me you’ve retired from that.”
Laughing through a fresh wave of tears, she winced. “Okay, don’t make me laugh, that hurts.”
“Yeah, you still haven’t said you’re retiring.”
“I don’t really think it’s going to be a problem after I ditched Peterson at the hospital.” The security chief had been on hand every day since she’d been admitted and she’d gone out of her way to avoid him in the hospital.
Concern mixed with curiosity filled his tired eyes. “How did you get out of there?”
“You don’t seriously think you’re the only one who knows how to avoid a security team, do you?
” Taking a shallow breath, she shifted on the sofa and sat forward.
Not having the pressure on her back or her chest helped.
Richard watched her like a hawk, but when he would have spoken, she pressed two fingers to his lips.
“I’m not a big fan of the undercover bodyguard job and to be honest, I took this work because I have a pretty specific skillset. I like protecting people.”
Brushing her fingers with a kiss, he caught her hand in his. “I can learn to adapt, just not a fan of you being shot.”
“Well that makes two of us and it occurred to me the other night…before I got shot, that what you do for those women? At the shelter? You’re amazing. That’s why you have all those clothes upstairs.”
A singular nod. “Sometimes they need a swift escape and can’t take anything with them.
Some need to be relocated to other states or be somewhere they’re sure no one will find them.
I can bring them here, they can come and go via the back and they feel safer and it helps them to make the decisions that are right for them. ”
He really was one of the white hats. “You do realize that if you’d told Peterson and your security team, we might have looked to the ex-husbands and abusers for a potential threat against you.” Keeping it a secret may have protected his clients, but it had left him unguarded.
For a long moment, consternation arrested Richard’s expression.
She expected him to argue, but instead he sighed and gave a slow nod.
“You’re right. I didn’t want guards because it threw me back to my childhood—to the FBI watching us and digging through my life.
I really didn’t think anyone was after me. ”
Because she adored him, she threaded her fingers with his.
“That man wasn’t really after you, so in that you were right.
You’re one of the good guys—the real deal.
You take a risk with yourself and not for any reward but to help others.
You’re amazing man, Richard.” He was too.
He’d let himself bleed, take any hit for another, but for some reason he didn’t think others should do it for him.
“It was about my father.” With a sigh, he slid a hand up to cup her nape and leaned his forehead to hers. “I am so sorry that he was the reason you were shot.”
“No, I was shot because I wanted to save your life, because yours means more to me than my own.” She told him honestly. “Don’t let the actions of a man made mad by grief, and mental illness, color any of this. Yeah, maybe your father screwed his family, but Leonard Braun’s actions were his own.”
“Except…” Of course he wanted to argue it.
“No,” she shook her head and the gentle friction where their foreheads brushed offered comfort and connection.
“No. You did nothing wrong, except keep some key details from your security team. I did nothing wrong except let myself get distracted from my training. At the end of the day, Braun chose to come at you with a weapon, to make you pay for those slights against him, real or imagined and he’s in custody, you’re safe and I’m—”
“Hurt.”
“But I’ll recover and I thought you said my scars were sexy.” Her tease had the desired effect, the hard line of his mouth softened into a smile. Then she sobered. “What about your father, though? What will you do?”
Richard shrugged. “To me—the big man I loved and admired died when I was a kid, and it disrupted my whole world. The man who took his place? The selfish jerk who trashed so many lives? That’s not my father.”
Her heart twisted for him, but she could understand the need to distance himself.
“But—I can’t make decisions for Barb.” At the mention of his sister, he frowned.
“I’ll call her. If she wants—if she wants anything to do with him, I’ll be there.
I’ll help her.” Without a second thought for how it might hurt him.
God, the man needed a keeper, someone to protect him.
“I can’t ask you to quit,” he said suddenly. “I want you to, but—”
She stopped him again with a kiss. “I was already thinking that a change might be necessary. Like I said earlier, I have a pretty specific skillset. Don’t suppose you know anyone who could use someone like me?
” Like the women at the shelter—she knew Richard helped some disappear and restart their lives. She could protect them.
“You can interview for the position of my assistant. I lost the last one due to some meddling by a certain jackass royal who’s about to have his hourly rate climb exponentially.”
“Really?” Kate cleared her throat. “That sounds very challenging.”
“Quite.” He nodded. “I’m not going to lie to you.
The job won’t be easy and will demand travel at least forty percent of the time.
Where I go, you go. When I need a file, I need you to pull it up.
You have to anticipate last minute changes and I may be calling or texting you at three in the morning to come in because we have to have a brief in front of a judge at eight. ”
“That won’t be a problem. I’m used to a tough schedule and travel. Of course, I’ll need to get out of the hospital first.”
“True, you will need plenty of recovery time.” Richard traced the outline of her mouth. “At least a month or more.”
“I believe the recommendation from the physician would concur. I was remarkably lucky, but I should probably not rush it.” Daring to hope, she pressed a kiss to his fingertips.
“But I have to ask, do you think we can work well together? Do you have any particularly annoying habits that I might object to? Are you a vegetarian perhaps? Or someone who speaks with their mouth full of food? Do you eat while you dictate your notes? Do you prefer MP3s or in person dictation? What types of confidentiality contracts am I expected to sign? Will I receive any type of additional compensation for the level of disruption in my life? When you have romantic liaisons will you expect me to wait in the other room on the off chance of a three-a.m. emergency?”
“We work exquisitely well together, and the only annoying habits I have are that I have been called impossible on more than one occasion.” Heat kindled in his eyes and the last of the shadows drifted away.
He shifted, and pulled a prescription bottle out of his pocket.
“The only time I talk when my mouth is full is when I’m devouring you. ”
Electricity tingled through her. “I do recall that habit…on more than one occasion.”
He thumbed open the top and poured two pills out into her palm.
It was her prescription. “And you know about how I dictate my notes and where—and when. But what about you?” Rising, he crossed the room to the kitchen and returned a scant moment later with a bottle of water.
“Do you have a boyfriend or significant other that will object to my calls at three a.m.?”
After swallowing both and washing them down with a drink, she said. “There’s only one man in my life that may object, and since he’s the one offering me the job, he’ll know exactly where I am at three a.m.”
“Naked and in my bed,” came the very firm order. But she didn’t mind it, because that was exactly where she wanted to be.
“Richard? Do you think you can forgive me?”
“I already have.” He pressed his lips to hers in a soft, very chaste kiss that still managed to curl her toes. “I love you, Kate. Everything else we can figure out—and Armand is sending us to the Mediterranean. I hope you like Florence and yachts and very expensive vacations.”
Delight curled through her. “Oh?”
“Oh yes, you need to recover and I need you.”
Her cell phone buzzed where she’d left it on the table and she grimaced at her mother’s name appearing on the caller ID. “I don’t suppose you could run interference with my mother?” In all likelihood, Shirley Braddock had turned the hospital upside down when she’d realized Kate left.
“Running interference is what I do best.” Richard grinned and picked up her phone.
“No, it’s not,” she told him, but he’d already answered and he raised his eyebrows in silent inquiry. She mouthed the words “you love me.”
“Hello, Mrs. Braddock, Kate’s fine. She’s at my house and I’ll get her back to the hospital immediately,” Richard said, his smile growing. “Yes, this is Richard Prentiss, the man who loves her.”