Protect Me

by Selma Wolfe

  The hand dropped away and the feeling of his presence vanished. Hope looked up in confusion to see Rick watching her from a safe distance, his eyes solemn and slightly sad.

  “But not if you don’t want to hear it,” he added.

  Hope opened her mouth. Before she could decide what she wanted to say, her cell phone rang.

  Both of them jumped a little before she dug into her purse for the stupid thing.

  “Is that a…” Rick started to ask, staring at the inside of her purse, but she shushed him and tapped in the call.

  “Yes?”

  An excited voice that she could barely hear in a din of music and murmurings shouted down the line, “Hope? Are you here? I’m in and it’s awesome but I’m kind of, uh, by myself.”

  Hope suppressed a grin and started walking. “What, you can’t find any pretty ladies to hang out with?”

  “Uh, well, I’m sure I will. Later! But you’ll do for now. Are you here?”

  Hope rolled her eyes. “Thanks ever so. No, I’m not, but I’ll be there in a minute.” She cut the call and tossed the phone back in her purse while Rick watched her curiously.

  “Your guest, I assume?” he asked.

  She nodded. “Full disclosure, he’s actually a colleague. He’s young, but he’s learning. Watching me work could be a good experience for him… and he really, really wanted to come to one of your damn parties.”

  Rick laughed. “You’re a softie at heart, aren’t you?” He bumped her shoulder lightly with his own and smiled sweetly at her.

  Hope frowned and moved away, only teetering a little on her heels.

  “I’m not,” she said firmly.

  Rick’s smile didn’t waver; she shook his head and gave her such a look that she paused and stared back, wondering what he was thinking.

  “You know, you’re not exactly what I was expecting,” Rick said. “Not right when I met you – later, after I knew you a little.”

  “Oh? How do you mean?” Hope raised her eyebrows, but she knew exactly what he meant, and she knew that Rick knew it when he met her gaze in the mirror with identical raised eyebrows.

  He let it pass. “I mean, I figured you’d be… uh…” Rick struggled with himself for about a quarter of a second before giving in and telling the truth, “hard. The kind of person who believes in loyalty but not trust. Someone who’d turned their back on the world.”

  There was a subtle meaning in the difference between trust and loyalty, Hope knew, but she’d be damned if she could figure it out. She just shrugged and gave him a tiny smile.

  “You romanticize the hell out of things, Stone,” she said by way of an answer, and was rewarded with Rick’s deep, startled laughter.

  Noise blared out of the ballroom as they walked up to the side entrance, accessible only to people already in the mansion. Out of the corner of her eye Hope watched Rick draw in a tiny, almost unnoticeable breath.

  “Do you still get nervous for these things?” she asked in a curious undertone.

  Rick curled his fingers around the door handles and glanced over. He gave her a crooked grin.

  “It’s not nerves. It’s foreknowledge.” Then he pulled the double doors open and Hope blinked into the light. Strong fingers threaded through her own and Hope grasped them instinctively.

  She forced her eyes open ruthlessly. Through the haze of green and blue splotches she found herself already nearing the middle of a horribly crowded ballroom. She glanced instinctively at the rafters and breathed a quick sigh of relief. All her round mirrors were up there, in places only she would be likely to look.

  They stopped walking and her vision finally cleared. Rick was smiling at her.

  “Do you want…” he started to ask, when someone ran up to their side.

  “Hope!” Javier lunged forward and gave her a huge hug that was fortunately as brief as it was overenthusiastic. “This place is awesome! It’s huge! Did you know there’s like fifty kinds of champagne here?”

  “No drinking on duty,” Hope said sternly, unable to help herself. Javier was bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet like a huge puppy. He was dressed in a clearly borrowed suit that was almost too small for him, but his bright eyes and wide smile made up for it.

  “Who’s on duty? Not me!” Javier said gleefully. “Hey, look, an oxygen bar!” He darted off on too-big scuffed shoes.

  Rick coughed into his fist, clearly hiding a smirk. “I take it that’s your guest. Is he house-trained?”

  Hope rolled her eyes out of loyalty. “Cute, Stone. He’s young. Not everybody’s as old as you are.”

  Rick grasped at his heart and stumbled back. “Arrgh, my heart! You wound me, Miss Lasser. How could you be so cruel to me?”

  “It’s a lifestyle choice,” Hope said, and the corners of Rick’s eyes creased up as he laughed harder than she’d ever seen. She couldn’t help smiling; it felt as open and honest as the way that Rick always smiled at her. All she could see was the way Rick’s face looked right now, creased into imperfection and so gorgeous that she reached out a hand to take his, because yes, she realized that she actually did want to dance with him…

  “There you both are!” Trinity trotted up, balancing perfectly in high heels. She had on a flowing red dress that accentuated her curves perfectly. Trinity laid a hand on each of their shoulders. Hope deflated a little but smiled, not wanting her to feel unwelcome. “I wondered where you’d gotten to. Rick, someone wants to see you.” She raised a single plucked eyebrow.

  Rick looked like he was forcing a smile and trying not to stare at Hope. “Yeah? Who wants to see me?”

  “Everyone.”

  He groaned. At the edge of her peripheral vision, Hope noticed that someone was getting a jump on things.

  A petite woman on heels tall enough to make her willowy seemed to glide up to them. She touched the back of Rick’s hand in a delicate movement that Hope would never have even thought of, let alone been able to emulate.

  “Hello there Mr. Stone,” she said in a slight lilting accent. “It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?”

  Rick turned. His eyes lit up in genuine welcome and he gave the woman a quick one-armed hug. “Iseul! It’s great to see you again. It’s been - uh - it’s been…”

  “Too long,” she said with a smile. “How are you? How is the, er, invention coming along?”

  Rick’s face grew serious and he grasped one of Iseul’s tiny hands between two of his. “Great, thanks to you. Your help made things go about twelve times faster. Honestly, I can’t thank you enough. Now we’re just waiting on the FDA’s approval. If you could…”

  Iseul nodded. “I’ll see what I can do,” she promised, and Rick beamed.

  Then he let go of Iseul’s hand and moved to Hope’s side. She looked at him askance, startled; she’d assumed Rick had forgotten her entirely.

  A warm hand settled at the small of her back. “This is Hope, my date,” Rick announced. “She’s also my bodyguard.”

  Her blood froze so quickly that she almost missed Iseul’s surprised expression. Hope’s eyes narrowed and she turned on her heel to grab Rick’s arm a little harder than necessary.

  “Can I talk to you for a minute?” she said between clenched teeth. She flicked a glance toward the ladies. “Excuse us.”

  She dragged a protesting Rick a few feet away and leaned forward to hiss in his ear. “I’m undercover, remember? If you blow my cover, what’s the point in me being here?”

  “To be my date?”

  Hope gritted her teeth. “Look, just… don’t… talk. About me. To anyone. Got me?”

  Rick looked at her silently for a moment, their faces close.

  “If only,” he said. His hand came up and he traced the curve of her clenched jaw with a finger; for some reason she couldn’t think of for the life of her, Hope let him.

  The wistfulness dropped from his expression like a curtain had fallen and he stepped back, leaving Hope feeling cold.

  Rick slung his hands into his pock
ets and his face reverted back to the happy socializing mask. And suddenly Hope felt very alone.

  “I’ll remember,” he said with a nod. “I don’t want to put you in any danger. I should… I should probably go do my duty. Schmooze, mingle, talk the talk, you know. Why don’t you go talk to Iseul? She’s nice. You’ll like her. She’s sharp, like you.”

  He turned and walked off so quickly that Hope didn’t have a chance to tell Rick he ought to keep her close.

  CHAPTER NINE

  But the truth was, Hope didn’t need to smother him to do her job. It was a rookie mistake not to give the client space when they needed it. In theory clearing the area should prevent anything bad from happening at all, and worst-case scenario as long as she had an eye on Rick, there wouldn’t be time for anything truly heinous to start.

  She was standing alone on the dance floor, and she didn’t know anyone else here that she hadn’t lost sight of, so she walked back over to where Iseul was improbably still waiting.

  “Um… sorry about the interruption,” Hope said, uneasy. Iseul was giving her flitting looks like Hope was some kind of scary beast. Hope had no idea what to say to someone like this woman, who wore towering heels and a slinky green dress in the casual way that Rick wore his fantastically expensive suits.

  "You know, I don't want to date Rick anymore," Iseul said hesitantly.

  Hope's head snapped up; she blinked. "What?" She’d had no idea, but now that she thought about it, that made sense. Someone with Rick’s reputation had probably dated an awful lot of the women in this room.

  Iseul rubbed at one slim forearm with her hand and glanced away.

  "It's just... You don't need to worry about him talking to me."

  Comprehension hit like a ton of bricks. "Oh!" Hope shook her head vehemently. "No, no, it's not like that. It's just..." She dropped her voice to a hushed tone and shook her head again, "Rick has this habit of, you know, never shutting the hell up."

  Iseul burst out laughing. Hope let herself grin back. After all, this was a party. Having fun was blending in.

  "So, uh, you dated Rick?” Hope said, wishing there was some way to avoid the matter but knowing there wasn't.

  Iseul shrugged. "In a manner of speaking. For a few weeks I yelled at him and he avoided me before we came to our senses and realized we were better off as friends."

  A knot in her stomach that Hope hadn't even realized was there until a second ago eased a little. "Oh. I'm... sorry?" She gave Iseul a small, hopeful smile. The other woman was petite and delicate and coiffed, but she seemed nice, and Rick obviously still liked her a lot. Trinity actually talked to Hope, after all, and here in America she had time to be off duty, to make friends. Maybe…

  Iseul gave her an odd look that quickly melted into something softer and more anxious.

  "Don't hurt him, okay?" Iseul said quietly.

  A pained jolt of something strangely like panic shot through Hope's body. She focused on keeping her breathing even and not moving an inch.

  "It's my job to protect Rick, not to hurt him," she said after a moment, when she felt more composed. Hope didn't know how to say that she would never hurt anyone without sounding ridiculous. She would hurt people, of course, had done so in the past, but never in cold blood. Guarding people didn't make her a monster.

  The other woman slapped a hand over her mouth and immediately shook her head with quick, frantic movements. She pulled her hand away to say, "No, no, that's not what I meant at all! I'm so sorry, I would never accuse you like that. And Rick is obviously crazy about you.”

  Hope’s pulse slowed down in her veins. She wasn’t quite prepared to smile, but she found that she was willing to listen.

  It wouldn’t make sense to disagree with Iseul, after all. She was pretending to be Rick’s date. It was her job to go along with it.

  She soundly ignored the fact that Iseul already knew she was a bodyguard, which made the charade entirely pointless.

  “Do you, um, think so?” Hope couldn’t make herself look at Iseul’s face while she said this; she ducked her head and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. So she heard, rather than saw, the smile in the other woman’s voice.

  “Definitely. Trust me, I’ve known him for years, and I’ve never seen him look at anyone that way. He really… he pays attention to you,” Iseul said. The wistful note in her words made Hope look up.

  “Thanks,” she said tentatively, glancing from under her eyelashes at Iseul’s beautiful, delicate features. She wanted to say more than that, but the words weren’t coming. She tried anyway. “I’m not - well, I don’t - Rick is very smart.”

  The corners of Iseul’s eyes crinkled and she stepped closer, which Hope was grateful for. The party was loud and she couldn’t give Iseul her full attention, no matter how much she wanted to. Part of her attention always had to be trained on Rick’s broad-shouldered back and her view of his companions through the rounded mirrors installed on the ceiling. Right now Rick was nodding at a bald man who was either very enthusiastic or very drunk. Hard to tell which, but either way Rick didn’t look interested.

  “I’m sure you have a decent head on your shoulders or Rick wouldn’t be the least bit interested,” Iseul laughed. “Perhaps brains aren’t everything. I’ve got three PhDs and we couldn’t make it work, so maybe you’ll do better.”

  Hope blinked. “Three? What in the world did you need three for?”

  “For making men take me seriously, mostly,” Iseul said, and Hope barked out a surprised laugh, and then without her quite knowing how it had happened, they were grinning at each other like old friends.

  Conversation flowed surprisingly easily as they made their way over to a dessert table. Hope was grateful for how sharp Iseul was on the uptake; the other woman silently watched her take odd routes to keep her eyes on the mirrors and then let Hope take the lead.

  While they propped up the wall and munched on cream puffs that left chocolate stains on Hope’s fingers, she noticed Iseul eyeing her legs critically.

  "What?" Hope asked, resisting the urge to shuffle her feet.

  "You're standing like you're about to tackle someone, not take a bunch of flowers," Iseul said frankly.

  "But..." Hope opened her mouth and then closed it again.

  "It's not a problem," Iseul said, and now she looked uncomfortable. "But you asked, so I just..."

  "No," Hope said firmly. The other woman was right - after all, her job was to blend in. She couldn't ignore that just because she was in a dress and not fatigues. "You're right, I'm not doing this correctly. Show me how, please?"

  Iseul’s face brightened. She straightened her shoulders and tugged up her skirts to show her ankles. “See how my feet are just a few inches apart? And you want to be light on your feet. Don’t look solid, look airy - you need to be able to pick a foot up at any time.” She lifted one of her small feet off the ground and hooked it behind her ankle. “Oh, and your hands…”

  When Rick found his way back over, Hope felt a sharp twinge of shame; she’d been having such a good time that she’d only been keeping half an eye on him. He beamed at both of them. She gave him a weak smile, too guilty not to.

  “I see you ladies are getting along famously,” Rick said. As he talked he slid over to Hope and slipped an arm around her waist; she was so surprised by the gesture that she let him. “I knew you would. See? I have the best plans.”

  “Well, you have plans, anyway,” Iseul said, but even though she tried to keep a straight face her eyes were still crinkled up in a smile.

  Rick sniffed at her and then turned to Hope curiously. “Where did your young friend get off to?” he inquired.

  “No idea. I’m sure he’s fine…” Alone, at a huge party, surrounded by alcohol and gorgeous women.

  The three of them all looked at each other for a minute and started craning their necks around to find him.

  They didn’t have to look long; just a few seconds after Hope started a slow methodical scan of the room, she spott
ed movement coming toward them in the form of Javier towing a good-natured Boran behind him by the arm.

  “Oh!” Hope exclaimed, and her companions turned to her. “I didn’t realize you’d be here too, Boran.”

  “This is your colleague?” Rick said, looking Boran over with interest. Hope noted that he didn’t use the word “friend”. Not that she could technically take issue with that, but…

  Boran rocked back on his heels and extended a meaty hand to Rick.

  “Pleasure to meet you, sir.” They shook hands and Rick smiled, but there was somehow less warmth in it than usual. Hope tried not to let her frown show on her face.

  “Hey, you're not standing like Clint Eastwood anymore," Boran said cheerfully to Hope. Iseul made an indignant noise. Hope glared at Boran; he smiled back innocently. “I saw you across the room earlier, but couldn’t get over to say hi till now.”

  Hope opened her mouth, but was interrupted by an arm wrapping firmly around her waist again. She almost stumbled when Rick pulled her against his side. For a second she was irritated, but when she caught a glimpse of Rick’s face she was taken aback - he looked all but angry.

  “I think you may have a client to attend to,” Rick nodded in a clear dismissal. “We wouldn’t want to keep you from your duty.”

  She could barely look at Boran, whose mouth was hanging open in surprise, staring between Rick and where his fingers were pressing firmly into Hope’s hipbone.

  She was about to say something again when Boran gave a tight nod, said, “Sir,” turned on his heel, and left.

  Rick looked still irritated but vaguely satisfied. Iseul looked knowing. Javier looked surprised.

  Hope wasn’t sure what she looked like, but she knew what she felt like: pissed off.

  “Excuse me.” She yanked herself out of Rick’s grasp; he frowned in denial and reached out after her but she moved back in the tiny steps Iseul had taught her. Hope propped her hands on her hips. “What do you think you’re doing? You can’t order him around. He’s not your employee.”

  Rick rolled his eyes and grinned at the same time, which was a semi-impressive feat, but Hope was in no mood to be impressed.