Protect Me

by Selma Wolfe

  “Sorry about that, didn’t want to offend your delicate sensibilities,” he said with a wink. He started to stride down the hall and Hope had to scramble to keep up with him, with no idea where he was headed.

  “What were you doing all that time?” she asked. “Where’d the blue stuff on your shoes come from? I can’t do my job properly if you don’t give me adequate information, you know.”

  Rick flashed her a wide smile, all dark hair and sparkling eyes. “I’m sure you could MacGyver the hell out of your job if you needed to, darling. You’re very impressive.” He even leered a little to add to the effect. One of his hands came up to fix strands of hair that had come loose around her face; as Hope pulled away from his fingers she felt the heat of his touch brush by her temple. Rick let her go without comment, but couldn’t hide the satisfied set of his mouth. He thought he’d put her off.

  Actually, Hope found this act far less distracting than a quiet Rick Stone with gentle eyes who watched her carefully and curiously. But it was obvious she was going to get nothing useful out of him, not tonight. Hope tucked away her suspicions to examine later and changed threads.

  Hope held up the tiny phone and fiddled with it for a moment. Her fingers felt too big for the buttons and a window had opened up without her meaning to do it. “How do I work this thing? I tried to call you, but then I angered it.” Oh no, the window had closed and now other windows were opening.

  “There’s nothing too special on it,” Rick said, waving a hand dismissively. He peeked at it and then glanced away, purposefully disinterested. But as convincing as the bored rich boy act was on him, Hope was starting to doubt it. She had seen Rick’s eyes bright with sparked interest, and heard him ask terribly perceptive questions about things she wouldn’t expect even a friend to notice. “The usual. Internet, calls, texting, access to all the latest scientific papers. I subscribe to all the university papers, and internationally…”

  “That’s great,” Hope interrupted, “but where are the contacts? And I think I just turned it off?” She stared down at the blank screen.

  Rick finally turned toward Hope and fixed her with an incredulous look. She stared back.

  He seemed to struggle with himself for a second, but curiosity won easily, and the next second he walked over and ducked into Hope’s space, stooping to look at the phone from her perspective. His shoulder shoved right up against Hope’s to fit in the crook of hers. It brought his face up close to hers, so that his hair tickled her cheek and though their skin wasn’t actually touching anywhere, Hope’s body felt charged. She couldn’t stop herself from turning and looking at Rick’s tousled hair, his cheekbones, the tiny wrinkle that creased his forehead as he frowned.

  “Did you…” Rick reached up with a finger and tapped across the screen as Hope unthinkingly held it up for him. He shook his head, brushing his hair back and forth across her cheek. “What did you even - oh my God, are you from the past?”

  Hope hmphed. “All I need is a beeper, alright? A flip phone could work.”

  Rick went very still and then twisted around to look up at her, his bright green eyes wide and horrified. His hand kept moving on the screen, just by feel. “No, please, you’re not saying this right now, you can’t be, Hope, you’re breaking my heart here, babe.”

  Like a knee-jerk reaction, Hope immediately imagined having that power. She wondered for a fraction of a second what it would be like to have someone like Rick look at her and want her.

  Rather than dwell on it, Hope shook the images out of her head and dropped the phone in Rick’s palm so she could move away.

  “Sorry.” Rick tilted a glance up at her, watching her back up, but didn’t say anything. “Guess I’m just not the gadgety type.”

  A smile flitted over Rick’s lips.

  “Maybe you just don’t have the right gadgets,” he said.

  Hope frowned. “What gadgets would I want?”

  Rick tossed the phone from one hand to the other, his eyes still on her. “Are you looking for something you want… or something you need?” His eyes never left her face.

  Hope blinked.

  “Are we… are we still talking about phones?” she asked cautiously, and Rick laughed.

  He winked. “We’re talking about whatever you want to talk about, babe.”

  This man was going to give her a permanent headache, Hope just knew it.

  The next morning, Hope was even more tempted to sneak into Rick’s room and figure out what was going on over there. But there was a knock - a lot of knocks actually - on her door at 8am, and apparently breakfast with Trinity was a thing they did now.

  “Are you going to go do more paperwork?” Hope asked. Trinity snorted, presumably at the idea of Rick actually doing work. It seemed unlikely to her too, but Hope wanted Rick out of her hair. If he wasn’t going to give her answers, she’d go find them on her own.

  Rick shook his face, getting strands of dark hair in his face. He grinned at her through the choppy curtain and Hope felt a sudden surge of fondness for his endless good humor and enthusiasm.

  She looked down at her omelet. Bad idea, she reminded herself. She’d only known the client for a few days and already she was getting attached? This was all different shades of not good. It was normal, even vaguely encouraged, for bodyguards to take a personal interest in their clients. The idea was that it would push them to work harder.But there was no executive protection agency in the world that would encourage Hope to be drawn in by the sharp curve of Rick’s jaw, or to wonder if his cupid’s bow lips were as soft and talented as they looked.

  “Hey.” A round hip nudged against Hope’s shoulder and she looked at Trinity, who was staring down in concern. “You okay? That’s a good omelet. I would know, I made it.”

  “Something’s wrong?” Hope swung her head around to see Rick staring at her with his forehead creased in worry. “What happened? Did I do something? Is it someone’s birthday again?”

  “Yes, and happy birthday to me, but she didn’t know that either,” Trinity said. Both of them continued to stare at Hope.

  If her reactions hadn’t been trained so that her instinct was to hold her ground rather than pull away, Hope would have shrunk back to huddle in her chair. She stared at the two of them in confusion. They were so… concerned. About her. She didn’t know what to think of it.

  “Happy birthday, Trinity,” she said quickly. She turned to Rick and frowned severely at him. “Don’t you have something to say?”

  Rick blinked and finally glanced away from Hope, giving her a break from the unrelenting concern. He gave Trinity a half-hearted grin. “Uh, right, have a bonus.”

  Hope kicked him under the table. He yelped.

  “Ow, Jesus, what did I do?” he grumbled, reaching down to rub his shin.

  Trinity looked like she was trying not to laugh and failing. “Oh honey, if you’re trying to house-train him, you’ve got your work cut out for you. Making this one human will be more than your job’s worth, let me tell you.”

  “Will it now?” Hope said. She wondered just how much Trinity actually knew about her job.

  “What? What’d I do?” Rick demanded, for all the world like a puppy that didn’t want to be disciplined, but didn’t want to be ignored either.

  He got what he wanted though, since both of them turned back to him.

  “You’re supposed to wish her happy birthday,” Hope sighed.

  “Oh.” Rick looked surprised. Then he brightened. “I can do that. Happy birthday!” He smiled hugely at Trinity, looking genuinely pleased with himself. Hope didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

  Trinity did though; she laughed and shook a spoon at him.

  “I’ll take that bonus,” she informed him. “Now, both of you find something to busy yourselves with - out of my kitchen.”

  They wandered out of the kitchen together in amiable silence. Hope slipped her hands into her pockets and Rick tucked one of those manila folders of notes under his arm.

  S
he started to wander down toward the East Wing and was surprised when Rick followed her.

  “Are you going to play video games again?” she asked, remembering his excuse (lie) from the day before.

  Rick shook his head and caught her gaze with a grin.

  “I have some free time. I was thinking I’d show you around a bit more, if you’d like.”

  Hope couldn’t very well turn that down. “Sure,” she said, not bothering to mask the surprise in her voice. “If you don’t have anything better to do.”

  “Never,” Rick said with another of those easy smiles. His dark eyes seemed to only see her, and Hope wondered why he bothered with being kind. Wondered how many other women he’d look at this way.

  For several minutes they strolled down the hall in companionable silence.

  “Taking me anywhere in particular?” Hope finally inquired. It was nice to be the one to break the silence for once. A refreshing change of pace. Usually it was pushy employers, or things exploding.

  Rick tapped a finger against his lips. “If you didn’t have anything in mind, then yes, I had an idea.”

  She let him take the lead. There was a second when Rick passed her that his hand trailed near her fingers and Hope thought that he was going to take her hand. But maybe the pause was all in her imagination, because then he took that step in front of her smoothly, like nothing had happened at all.

  Hope flicked the feeling away from her fingers and shook her head at herself behind Rick’s back. Perhaps she needed to scare up a date in her nonexistent free time, if she was getting this worked up over a client. She’d never been attracted to someone just because they were out of bounds before.

  Doesn’t matter the reason you’re attracted, she reminded herself. He’s still off limits.

  “I thought you might like this hall,” Rick said over his shoulder, and she focused on his face. She tried not to remember what he’d looked like in this position earlier, shirtless and tanned and imperfect enough to be interesting. “The architecture, I mean - it’s modeled after neoclassicism.”

  Hope glanced at the high walls that rose up around her in varying shades of pale stone.

  “Honestly, I have no idea what that means. I just like looking at pretty stuff,” she admitted.

  Somehow it wasn’t insulting when Rick laughed and dropped back to walk by her shoulder - he seemed to appreciate the honesty, and be more than willing to teach her. He pointed at a raised image of vines and flowers that was carved into the wall.

  “See that?” His breath brushed by the side of her face, close enough Hope knew he smelled like tea. She needed to move away. She didn’t want to. “It’s called a low relief. There’s a French name for it that gets used a lot but that’s kind of pretentious, so whatever, basically it’s just an image projected out from the wall that has a shallow depth. You see how the picture is isolated?”

  Hope looked at it dubiously. This sounded like an art history class.

  “Well… it stands out because it’s just one picture. There isn’t anything else on the wall connected to it.”

  “Exactly!” Rick beamed. “Neoclassicism emphasizes the kind of features that are autonomous unto themselves. Kind of like you.” He winked and moved ahead while Hope lingered behind, memorizing the way the picture of vines and flowers looked on the wall. She’d know what to look for next time, she thought, and smiled.

  Ahead, Rick was gesturing her to follow him over to a set of huge doors. There wasn’t anything Neoclassicist about these, Hope thought drily. They stood out like a sore thumb. Very pretty though.

  "And here..." Rick took hold of both handles of the double doors, and threw them open with admirable dramatic flair, "is the library!"

  Hope stared into a huge, airy room with a floor-to-ceiling windows and bookcases that stretched up to cover every wall entirely. They were crammed with everything from obvious textbooks to what looked like the Harry Potter novels. A tasteful arrangement of sofas and chairs decorated the middle of the room. It looked at once pristine and well-loved; the long white sofas appeared to be new, but the brown leather chairs looked like they were often used. There was a spiral sprawl of books on the coffee table in the middle that somehow managed to look like it was actually in use rather than a feature in a magazine.

  “Um. Wow? It's... nice,” she said, feeling Rick's eyes on her.

  The nice thing about Rick was that you didn't have to worry about figuring out what he thought. He had no problems letting you know.

  Rick frowned and stared at her quizzically. "I was going for a Beauty and the Beast moment here," he said, which meant nothing to her. "I thought you'd be a little more excited."

  She stepped inside the room, because Rick seemed to want her to, and gazed around at the shelves loaded with books.

  "I'm not really a big reader," she said, hating the hesitation in her voice. "I wasn't very good at school, and now I'm busy." She'd always had more important things to worry about than homework. And her mother certainly hadn't cared. Hope reminded herself of those things, but it felt hollow. She stared helplessly at the thousands upon thousands of books.

  "That right?" Hope glanced back at Rick; he was watching her with a soft look in his eyes. "That's a shame. You're too smart not to read."

  Hope blinked. Smart? That phrase didn't sound familiar to her ears. Strong, yes. Capable, absolutely. But she couldn’t remember a time anyone had described her as intelligent before. Not ever.

  Pride bit her tongue and held her back from saying so. She stared at the calm confidence on Rick's handsome face. Something in his expression gave her courage.

  "So… what do you recommend?" she asked quietly.

  Rick's eyes lit up and he darted forward into the room. He went to one bookshelf first and then hesitated, moved over to another. He poked around in the shelves in the familiar way of a frequent visitor.

  "Here." He pulled an old, worn hardback off the shelf and handed it to her.

  Hope took it gently. She stared at it for a second, perplexed. Even she recognized this one.

  "Jane Eyre? Really?”

  Rick cocked an eyebrow at her. "Yes?”

  "Isn't that a romance?" Hope wasn't sure if she was protesting him giving a romance to her, or him knowing a romance well enough to recommend it. But it was easier to make a case for the latter. "You like romance novels?"

  Rick didn't look put off in the least. He just grinned a little, his eyes catching the sparkle of the afternoon sun filtering in through the huge windows.

  "I like good books. And Jane Eyre's a damn good book." His grin widened and he smirked. "Besides, it seemed appropriate. An over-large mansion, a bright young woman, a dashing, handsome, charming, clever..."

  "Alright!" Hope actually laughed a little and Rick joined in, the rich sound of his deep, rolling laugh filling up the room that had seemed intimidatingly large a moment ago.

  There was nowhere else she really had to be for the rest of the afternoon. So she raised the book in a mock salute and settled down into one of the squashy leather chairs. She didn’t kick off her shoes, but she did curl up in the chair in a way so that her combat boots would dangle over the side. Hope tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear and flicked the book open to the first page.

  The smell of tea and the sensation of a warm hand on her shoulder interrupted her focus on the page.

  “Nothing sexier than a woman reading,” Rick’s voice, deeper than usual, said softly in her ear.

  Hope didn’t move. She stared unseeingly at the page in front of her eyes, trying to decide what to do. If she ignored him, she was certain that Rick would move away. But if she turned to face him…

  A hugely loud alarm blared into the room and the book dropped from Hope’s hand.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  She was on her feet in a fraction of a second.

  “Get down,” she hissed at Rick, her hand already on his shoulder and shoving him toward the floor.

  He pulled away from her hand and
raced toward the door. Hope was close on his heels. She threw herself in front of him to block the doors.

  “What the hell are you doing?” she demanded.

  “It’s just the fire alarm!” Rick said, his face gone pale. “Shouldn’t be anything to worry about.”

  “Then it shouldn’t be anything to worry about while you go to the panic room and wait for me to figure out what’s going on,” Hope said calmly, watching the surprise register on Rick’s face. As if she wouldn’t go looking for a panic room first thing just because he didn’t tell her it existed.

  Rick pursed his lips and stared at her mutinously. Hope stared right back. She knew they were fighting silently over something, but she had no idea what, because she wanted to protect him and as far as she knew he wanted that too, she’d been hired to protect him.

  “Look, just let me go check on something, alright? You can stay here and… call the police or something.” His gaze darted around her body like he was hunting for a way out. He wouldn’t find it.

  “Absolutely not,” Hope said. She crossed her arms over her chest. “Unless you’ll tell me where you want to go and why?”

  “No, it isn’t… can I just… fine, okay, fine.” It looked like it about killed him to say it. Hope didn’t understand, but right now she didn’t have to.

  She took a firm hold on his upper arm and opened the door. The alarm was still blaring in their ears. She dropped down to her knees, opened the door, and cautiously looked out in both directions.

  “What are you doing?” Rick asked, sounding perplexed despite his annoyance.

  “People tend to look at eye level, not up or down,” Hope said under her breath. She stood. “Clear.”

  They made their way through the halls slowly, with Hope taking appropriate care at each corner and door. Thankfully there were actually three panic rooms in this monstrosity of a house, and it only took five minutes for them to reach the panic room in the East Wing.