78
The Australian is undeniably gorgeous in her pale green Arabian Nights flowing chiffon gown, and my eyes often stray to her pretty dimple as she smiles.
Sitting on the Persian carpet covering the yellow, shifting sands, I lean back and stare into the firepit as it spreads a warm glow and welcome heat, beating back the cold Egyptian desert air.
Surrounding us the cameras whir, and in the background the camels occasionally make loud, burping sounds.
But other than that, it’s a peaceful enough location for a date, and a longed-for break from the whirlwind of travel and the pressure of trials for me as much as for the contestants.
Unfortunately, as comfortable as I might be with the company and the setting, I’m not as relaxed as I should be.
I’m trying to figure out a way to end the night and get back to the palace the girls are housed in where my new security had a better chance of keeping everyone safe.
As it is, I’ve left half of them there to guard Cat.
It may not have been her people who shot me, something I’d yet to acknowledge to her, but that didn’t mean the threat from them had decreased.
If anything, Falcon’s news that her blood sample had been lost, in Rome of all places, just made me all the more suspicious that perhaps her pursuers were more powerful than I’d believed — although she’d told me that on several occasions.
If I’m honest, I feel guilty about not trusting her word after I’d been shot.
Especially after she so selflessly saved my life.
Extra security was a small price to pay to redress that until I can apologise.
‘And I will. I’ll make it up to her just as I hopefully made up for ruining her first kiss, a spur-of-the-moment action that I couldn’t have stopped if I’d wanted to.
Christ, the passion I felt when I was feeding from her.
A purely physical connection. It was like we were linked, two souls twinned in fire — and then, her lips… .’
I clear my throat and think of something else lest my body start to respond to my lustful thoughts in a most embarrassing way again.
Since the make-up woman had been fired for ‘fraternising’ with me, I have no enthusiastic, no-strings-attached outlet for such thoughts.
Thinking about what to do about Asumpta is a good distraction.
She’s someone who doesn’t stir me to anything other than violence.
After all, she’d ensured Vietnam had cost me dearly, not just my body, but my security.
The crazy bitch had taken out pretty much all my guards before she shot me.
I imagine it was her way of telling me that she was a force to be reckoned with, although I already knew that.
She’d had centuries to master swordsmanship, marksmanship, any number of martial arts, and a suite of personalities.
All this made her an excellent procurer and a formidable enemy.
The last time I’d fought her, caught her and tortured her, I hadn’t come away unscathed; it was not by any means an easy feat.
I imagine she’s had thirty years at her majesty’s leisure to consider how to best me since then, and right now I’m not at all confident in my ability to protect the woman in front of me and save my own life if my stalker should attack.
My only consolation is in knowing that if she wanted me dead, I’d be dead. She shot me precisely in the location she chose to send a message. A message carved on bullets and lodged close enough to my heart to hurt.
‘I really need to end this date before Miranda gets killed. I wouldn’t put it past Asumpta to come thundering down on a fucking elephant at this stage or drop a bomb from a drone.
She could do any number of things. The stupid fucking director won’t take any guidance on date locations.
I wouldn’t mind if HE took a stray bullet... ’
“So you see.”
I frown and try to concentrate as the Australian goes on.
“It’s a big deal because I’d be only the second from my nation to ever win the Games.”
“And your strategy to win?” I smile at her and lean back, stretching my legs out towards the fire.
“I plan to rock your world,” she says quietly, her lips parting and eyes darkening as they meet mine.
“Then get to it,” I murmur.