by Selma Wolfe
Rick finally said, “Aren’t you supposed to be taking a bullet for me if I need you to?” His face was totally expressionless and his voice was impossible to read. Hope started to wonder if Rick was the sort of man who would only work with people he could intimidate. If that was the case, this job was going to be over before it started.
She laced her fingers together and straightened her posture.
"If I have to, yes," she said, "but I'd prefer it not get to that point, if it's all the same to you." She stared Rick straight in the eye.
There was another long moment of silence where Rick just looked at her.
Then a grin curved up over Rick's face, instant and infectious. His eyes lit up and he started laughing, so open and honestly amused that it almost made Hope want to laugh with along with him.
How long had it been since she really laughed, she wondered? She didn't think she'd ever laughed like that, sounding totally unguarded and carefree.
Rick stepped forward and shoved his hands in his pockets, carelessly wrinkling the fabric. He slipped the aviators off and really looked at her. Hope’s heart turned over in her chest. The easy grin and casual action took him instantly from bored socialite to someone good-humored and charming. Someone characterized less by his money and more by the intensity of his eyes.
Hope was used to adrenaline rushes hitting her body in the instant where a locked gaze turned into the need for self-defense. She instinctively braced herself and pulled back, widening her peripheral vision to take in the whole area.
Of course as soon as she did so she felt foolish. There was no threat on this boat, unless it was to her dubious virtue. Mentally she scolded herself for being ridiculous. It wasn’t like she was some teenage boarding school prisoner meeting a man for the first time. She needed to get ahold of herself.
Luckily, she was subtle enough in her confused reactions that Rick didn’t seem to notice. As an olive branch, and to give herself something to do, Hope reached up and slid the sunglass onto the top of her head. Rick watched her intently. It was odd, being the obvious focus of someone’s attention like this. Hope resisted the urge to squirm.
"You don't look bigger than me. I mean, you have some muscle on you, but you just look like you’ve been to the gym. You’re not even tall.” Rick surveyed her with an openly curious expression. "Are you some kind of martial arts master?"
Hope suppressed a sigh. This was familiar territory, at least. "I practice Judo, but generally assassins don't wait long enough for you to get them in a headlock. They prefer long distance things, like snipers. Or bombs."
Rick seemed to think about that, and then raised his eyebrows. "Are you about to tell me that you're functionally useless, but we need to give security the old college try anyhow?"
"Hardly," Hope said, though she couldn’t keep her eyebrows from raising. She hadn’t been expecting the man to actually listen, or think about what she said. He had come to the wrong conclusion, but it was still a conclusion, which was unexpected enough. "I'm telling you that being a bodyguard doesn't mean what you think it means. And if anyone's told you different, they were either humoring you or not very good at their job."
Rather than looking offended, Rick’s interest only seemed to increase at her candor. He moved toward a cluster of benches set in the middle of the boat and waved Hope after him, not taking her eyes off her. Hope wondered what he was looking for. Was he watching her gait, like her ability to adjust to the gentle toss of the waves said something about her? Or maybe he was just looking for scars, the way some people did.
Whatever he was looking for, he kept looking for it after she sat down across from him and folded her arms.
“I’ve never had a bodyguard before, actually, so I didn’t know what to expect.”
Hope frowned. “Never? But you’re very…”
A smirk curled up the side of Rick’s mouth. “Stupid?”
“…Wealthy,” she finished.
Rick shrugged that off like it was nothing. She’d seen that reaction before, on other men who thought their privilege was meaningless because they’d never been without it. Hope smiled grimly. She knew all too well what it was like to be so far from stability and comfort that you couldn’t imagine what it felt like.
Something about this man seemed to distract her. Hope was normally extremely focused but his presence tugged at loose threads of her attention and spun them out, away from the task at hand. She had to focus to reel her thoughts away from studying the unexpected callouses and old bruises that marked his hands and forearms. It almost looked like the man did some sort of physical labor, but that didn’t correlate to what she’d heard about his personality.
Hope made a concerted effort to smack her brain back into gear.
“Sir, I think it would be best if you gave me a clear rundown of your expectations, since they’re already differing from your file. It said nothing about you wanting me to pretend to be something I’m not,” she said.
Rick made a face, which amazingly enough didn’t actually make him look unattractive. It made him look humorous, like he was in on some joke that Hope wished she understood.
“First, I expect you to call me Rick. Everybody does. I can call you Hope, right? Because I gotta be honest with you, I’m not so good with the whole, y’know, the name thing. Or the face thing. Or the people thing, actually. But I think I’ll remember you.”
“Try. I’ll be the one with the gun,” Hope said drily. Rick immediately looked far too interested.
“Ooh. Can I see it?”
“No. What other requests?”
Rick looked tragically disappointed, but carried on in an unfalteringly respectful way that made Hope like him more. That wasn’t good. She was already far too interested. She couldn’t afford to actually like him. Emotion was bad for the vision.
“Well, this sort of goes with the other thing, but I’d like you to dress normal so people don’t guess. Whatever you’re comfortable with. This is fine, just not, like, pink camo or a samurai outfit.”
“Now you tell me. I’ll have to throw out all my luggage,” Hope surprised herself by saying, and was surprised even further when Rick threw his head back and gave a rich, full-throated laugh that carried over the ocean air and made the group of men at the other end of the boat glance in their direction.
She couldn’t help the little swell of - not happiness, exactly. Satisfaction? - inside her at the unfamiliar feeling of making somebody laugh. At the same time Hope was horrified. She hadn’t just blurted something out like that in literally years.
It was official. Hope had a To-Get list, and “a grip” was at the very top of it.
When she looked up, Rick was smiling at her, his brilliant green eyes twinkling and his face creased with honest amusement. To her horror, Hope realized that it made him even better looking.
Think about the Google safety filter, she reminded herself. You’ve never fallen for a client yet. This is very much not the one to lose your reputation to. Although you’d be in good company. Well… you’d be in a lot of company, anyway.
“I think we’re going to get along just fine,” Rick said, sounding surprised, and at that moment Hope couldn’t entirely disagree.
CHAPTER TWO
Hope glanced over her shoulder for the third time in a row, checking the stability of her perch. Sitting on the edge of the boat like this felt risky and rebellious. It wasn’t the most stable spot she could pick, and if she fell off the edge of the boat she wouldn’t be much use as a bodyguard. Hope leaned back and glanced up at the endless, slowly darkening sky. She rationalized to herself that this was the only way she could have her back to anything close to a wall. Rick was off to her right, choosing to stick fairly close to Hope, and the rest of his posse were swapping supposedly witty banter and laughing too loudly at each other’s jokes.
The ginger man on her left leaned in a little closer and just barely missed spilling his beer on her leg. Hope restrained a glare.
“How’d you s
ay you knew Rick again?” he asked, with what he clearly assumed was a winning smile. His assumption was incorrect.
“Oh, we go way back.” All the way back to several days ago.
Unfortunately Ginger persisted. He chortled and leaned in even closer.
“No, but I meant, like, are you his girlfriend, or…”
Hope had been keeping an eye on Rick in her peripheral vision, so she knew that he’d been talking animatedly with an animator. But even though she was sure he couldn’t have been listening, he had some good timing, because right then he jumped up and shouted, “Alright boys, party’s over! It’s almost night, where I turn into someone that wants something better to drink than just beer.”
Apparently there was only a party until Rick Stone said there wasn’t. The half-dozen men jumped up like there were strings attached to their loafers and gathered up their effects, still chattering amongst themselves.
Hope automatically fiddled with the laces of her boots, casually giving everyone else time to leave. When they had all headed for the exit, she got up and started walking. Rick drifted back and grinned at her.
“Enjoying yourself?” he asked.
“Am I supposed to be?” Hope muttered, and Rick laughed.
He followed her all the way back to the car she’d hired, and watched as she beeped it open with a perplexed expression.
“Oh, this isn’t going to work,” Rick said.
Hope’s head jerked up and she stared at him in surprise, peering to see his face clearly through the shadows. Night had fallen over the beach and everyone was leaving. She scrambled with her thoughts, trying to understand - the last few hours had been boring, sure, but then she didn’t imagine that listening to a group of rich men congratulating themselves (undeservedly) for being clever and laughing too hard at each other’s jokes would be entertaining for most people. Had her behavior been unacceptable in some way? She had personally thought she’d behaved flawlessly. If she had been quiet, well, she’d still laughed at the right moments, and she’d demurred, “Oh we’re just old friends,” at the appropriate time.
“What isn’t going to work?” Hope asked, her fingers still gripping the handle of the car door.
Rick pointed. To her car. “That!” he exclaimed. “You’re just going to go home?”
“Uh… yes?” To a hotel, actually, but it had been a long time since Hope had given anyone information that they didn’t strictly need. Knowledge was power, and not always in the ways you’d think. “I’ll arrive at your place tomorrow at eight o’clock in the morning.”
He shook his head, and behind him Hope saw the last car pull out. A small part of her mind wondered if these people were really content with this kind of existence. Of course they could afford to do nothing all day but sit on a boat headed to nowhere, but it seemed a little empty. She could attest to the fact that it was definitely very boring. Except, maybe, for Rick. Hanging out with him might be a perk.
“No, no, you’re coming back to my place. You’re supposed to guard my body all the time, not just whenever you feel like it, right?”
Hope shook her head, though she let go of the door handle. “That’s not really how this works,” she said.
Inexplicably Rick grinned. “Sure it is,” he told her cheerfully. “Here, I’ll pay you double if you want, how about that? Besides, people have tried to break into the house a few times, so I think it might be smart to keep you around.”
Her breath caught in her chest at the amount of money that was being tossed around so casually - her services didn’t come cheap. Still, that wasn’t enough to convince her – it wasn’t like she really needed the money for anything.
“Wait, people have tried to break in? That’s not - you didn’t put that in your file.”
Rick shrugged expansively. He turned and started to head off, presumably for his own car. “Must’ve forgotten.”
“You can’t just - ” Hope ended up walking after him to get him to listen, “not tell me things, how am I supposed to do my job if I don’t know about this stuff…”
They had gone several yards when Rick stopped in front of a big black car with a driver already in the front seat. He opened the door and gestured for Hope to get inside
“Then I guess you’ll just have to come with and quiz me along the way. C’mon, get in.”
Hope narrowed her eyes at Rick. He smiled back guilelessly.
“I’m taking my own car,” she said, and then realized she’d just acquiesced.
Rick’s smile widened.
When Hope pulled up behind the big black car and put it in park, she just stared for a moment before getting out.
She’d seen mansions before, but this was a freaking estate.
A vibrantly green lawn rolled away from her car in every direction. The two of their cars were parked on a huge paved semi-circle that shot off in different directions - a length of paving made up the driveway, but smaller paths forked off toward what were presumably gardens, and the shortest one ended right at the foot of the stairs that led up to the door of Rick’s house.
Well, to one of the doors, anyway.
It was easily the biggest house she’d ever seen, and that was saying something, considering that her services didn’t come cheap, and it was pretty rare for average Joe’s with 9-5s to need an expert bodyguard. And yet Rick Stone’s house dwarfed all of her expectations. With its towering height, length that stretched off into wings, and stone (of course) construction, Hope half-thought it might be a castle.
Someone rapped on the window. Hope didn’t jump, because she’d been watching the shadow approach out of the corner of her eye, but she was immediately resentful.
“No, my family did not have that thing flown over from England brick by brick, if you were wondering,” a muffled but cheerful voice said through the window. “C’mon, enough with the architecture porn, get out so I can show you around.”
Hope blew out a silent sigh, grabbed her bag, and got out.
“I like architecture,” she told Rick, who stepped obligingly out of her way and looked at her with interest.
“Really?” he asked, watching her as she nodded. “That’s good. I like it when people are interested in things.”
Hope raised her eyebrows and they moved off toward the huge house together. She said, “I think most people are interested in things.”
“You’d be surprised,” Rick said.
In the mixed outdoor lights and shadow, Hope’s eyes struggled to take in Rick’s profile accurately. One moment his strong jaw and sharp cheekbones made him look like a brooding Byronic hero. Then next second he stepped into a patch of light and angled a smile at Hope that belonged on some heartthrob actor or singer.
She swung her gaze back to the stone face of the house and frowned at it. Rick seemed like a fairly well-adjusted, if demanding, human being. There was no real need for her to be examining him like an enigma. He was a spoiled rich boy grown up into a spoiled rich man, with a little charm added for taste. Hope knew the type.
While she was automatically scanning the perimeter, checking for obvious methods of entry or routes of escape, they got to the steps. Rick reached out and brushed gentle fingers along her elbow. It was a surprisingly observant gesture, and although Hope had been keeping track of her footing, she still appreciated the gesture. She nodded her thanks before drawing away. There was no reason for Hope to feel nervous at all. Sure, this estate was pretty open, but no doubt the inside was defensible if necessary. And Rick seemed harmless enough. He was sure to be vapid and self-centered, but she’d certainly dealt with worse, and she couldn’t complain about his attitude.
So why was her pulse threatening to speed up, even as she forced it back down with controlled breathing?
Rick yanked the door open and held it for her.
“Wow,” was all Hope could think to say as she walked through the door. Off to the side she saw Rick grin as he stepped in and shut the door behind them.
The interior of the house su
rprised Hope, honestly surprised her, in a way that made her walk around in a circle just to get a full 360 view.
She had figured that the classical face of the house was just a front, and that inside everything would be sleek and modern. But she couldn’t have been farther from the truth. Just inside the door there was an uncovered stone floor that split off into hallways with floors that were covered by old but beautiful carpets in rich shades of red and blue. The awning overhead was a mix of stone and wood. She almost expected to see lit tapers stuck onto the wall. But here, at least, aesthetics had given way to comfort: there was a chandelier over the entryway and recessed lighting built into the wooden ceilings of the halls.
“Like it?” Rick asked. She nodded and he looked pleased. “C’mon, let me show you where you can stay.”
Hope was busy looking around the halls, putting together a careful map in her head. Fortunately Rick seemed content enough to walk in a comfortable silence. She appreciated it. Not everybody could accept the quiet. Some people had to fill the void with noise every second, which she found distracting.
After walking through four halls, up two sets of staircases, across a landing, and down another staircase, Rick finally stopped in front of two doors set off to the end of a hallway with a high ceiling set in what Hope guessed had to be the west wing.
“Here we go!” he said and fumbled through his pockets. “Ah! Excellent. A key for you. No wait, two keys. No… three.”
Hope waited until he’d given her all three to ask, “Why do I need three keys?”
“One for the front door, one for your bedroom door, and one for the connecting door,” Rick said.
Hope’s eyebrows reached for her hairline.
“Why is there a connecting door?” she asked.
A bad feeling bloomed in her stomach and she had to stop herself from taking a step away from Rick, who was looking at her calmly, with a tiny line creased over his nose, like he was confused. It wouldn’t be the first time that Hope had turned a client down on a job, but it would definitely be the fastest time. She readied answers in her mind (it’s not professional, it’s distracting, I just don’t, stop talking now) and tried to judge exactly how entitled Rick was in the few fractions of a second she had left to decide how to behave.