“I don’t need this shit,” he said more to himself. Then to her, “Just give me a moment to pack and I’m out of here.”
Hope watched him as he walked out of the kitchen and into the living room. She heard the door to the guest room slam shut and then sagged against the wall. What had she done?
Yes, she was angry with him and she did not appreciate the way he’d flung her around, but she had not meant to fire him. Hell, she needed him if she had any hope of catching whoever was trying to sabotage her business.
She grabbed her hair with both hands and pulled, groaning in frustration. She hated apologizing more than anything in the world. And she was going to have to apologize to that idiot. Oh, she was the idiot, goading him like that.
Sure his words had hurt her. The part about her being horrible to work for, not the part about her not being his type. She already knew that. Okay, shit. It did hurt, especially when he was so much her type. But that was irrelevant. His words struck at the very heart of everything she’d worked hard to project and to be. A fair boss. She had bent over backwards to create a harmonious and friendly work environment for her staff. Her people loved her, damn it! How could he say she was a horrible person to work for? That hurt beyond measure.
And she still had to apologize to him or he would be gone and where would that leave her? He had access to classified information. He knew more about hacking than she did and she did not know anyone else who could save her company from sinking. She would have to swallow her pride and go to him. Damn.
She hit her head on the wall, calling herself all sorts of names. She was usually smarter than this and tried her best to never lose her cool. She preferred to think things out before acting and had learned that reacting usually did not turn out well. Now she’d painted herself into a corner.
“Well, it’s time to wear my big girl pants,” she muttered to herself.
Taking a deep breath and letting it out in a sigh, she walked to the room Rusty had occupied and tapped on the door.
It was jerked open and she found herself gazing into furious amber eyes.
“What?”
“I’m sorry,” she said softly.
He frowned. “Say what?”
“I’m sorry for yelling at you and making your job more difficult than it is. I had no right talking to you that way, I apologize.”
Rusty stared at her in apparent shock. He laughed in disbelief then shut his eyes.
“Fuck.”
Chapter Eleven
Rusty stared at the woman standing just outside the door to his room. He was blindsided. He had expected a lot of things from the Queen Bitch, as he’d recently termed her, but he sure as hell had not expected an apology.
He’d been pacing the room thinking about offering her one himself. He knew he’d messed up. Sure, she was stubborn and unreasonable, but she was not the first difficult client he’d dealt with and he didn’t think she was going to be the last. So why had he lost his cool and said all those mean things to her? The longer he’d thought about it, the more frustrated he had become.
He’d also thought about the look that would be on Emily’s face when he told her that he’d lost the lucrative client because he’d been unable to keep his stupid temper in check. It had not been a very comforting thought. He knew that he had to apologize.
He had expected to beg, grovel a little and have her lord it over him, but she’d taken the wind right out of his sails by offering an apology and by the look in her eyes, she was sincere.
“No, Hope. I’m the one who should be apologizing,” he said at last. “I should not have lost my cool.”
She was shaking her head. “I was wrong to threaten you with a lawsuit. On some level, I knew that whatever you were doing was for my protection.” She shrugged. “I just really don’t like being manhandled.”
He noted that. He would be careful about physical contact going forward. That was if he still had a job, he wasn’t so sure about that. He was curious though. What had made her apologize?
“Why?”
She looked at him in confusion. “Why what?”
“Why are you doing this?”
Hope cocked her head to the side and thought about his question for a moment, then sighed. “I need you.”
The effect of her words was unexpected. Rusty felt like he’d been sucker punched. He took a step back as unbidden lust coursed through him.
She must have realized how her words sounded because her eyes went wide and color filled her face. Her tongue darted out to lick her lips in a nervous action.
“I-I meant that I need you to get to the bottom of this hacking business,” she quickly clarified.
Rusty heard the words, but his body did not seem to compute what she was saying. He could feel his balls growing tight. His eyes focused on her full lips and he wondered what she would taste like. Would she be all tart or would she taste sweet like honey?
“Rusty?”
He blinked at her face came into focus. He could read the apprehension in her gaze and swore to himself. He did his best to bank the rising desire and pasted a bland look on his face.
“I’m sorry, Hope, I was just thinking about the case.” Yeah, his sudden case of acute lust.
She still looked doubtful, so he put on his thoughtful face.
“I have a really strong feeling that whoever is behind this is someone that knows you really well.”
“You mean like someone who is close to me?” she asked.
“Either that, or someone who has studied you thoroughly.”
“That’s scary,” she said with a frown.
“Hmm…” They were standing by the door, which was not exactly conducive for such a discussion. “Want to come in?” Even as he made the offer, everything within him began shouting Bad idea! But the words were already out of his mouth.
“Sure,” she said with a shrug.
“So, do I still have a job? If I remember correctly, you fired me a while ago,” he said, stepping back for her to walk into the room.
“C’mon, I’ve said I’m sorry, of course you still have a job.” She threw him a glance over her shoulder, rolling her eyes in the process.
Rusty smiled. She was cute.
She settled on the only armchair in the room and crossed her feet.
“You know…you might be right,” she said. “There’s something about this whole thing that is nagging at the back of my mind, but I can’t place it right now.”
“I have my people working on it so we should figure out something soon enough,” he said as he sat on the bed.
She nodded thoughtfully then turned piercing eyes on him. He could see the questions swirling in her expressive grey eyes.
“Okay, go ahead and ask,” he said with a sigh.
“What?”
“I can see you’re dying to ask a question so go ahead and ask it.” He sat back on the bed, then reached for the pillow and placed it behind him.
“Was I that transparent?” she asked with a sigh.
Rusty laughed. “Not really, I’m just damn good at reading people. Most times.”
“Yeah, and very modest about it too,” she said dryly.
He shrugged. Modesty didn’t get anyone very far, in his opinion.
After a moment, Hope sat forward. “How did you start doing this, you know…working with Silver Shield and all that? You are ex-military, right?”
Rusty nodded, surprised at the questions. He had expected something related to work. If there was one thing he’d noticed about Hope Conran in the short time he’d known her, it was that she was incredibly focused. So the personal questions took him by surprise.
“I had a brief stint where I worked with Emily in the Middle East. When I left the army, I was at a loose end so when she called to say she was starting Silver Shield, I jumped right in.”
His mind went briefly to those dark days after his dismissal from the army. He had suffered from a depression so deep, he hadn’t thought he would ever recover. He
had never imagined before then that he was a suicidal person, but he had attempted to take his own life. Emily had found him and kicked his ass for giving in to self-pity. A year later, he was able to do the same for his best friend, Tamika. He owed his life to Emily.
“Why did you leave the army?”
Hope’s quiet voice broke into his reverie. Why did he leave the army? How could he even answer that? He didn’t even want to think about how he’d been betrayed or how she would interpret the facts if she got to know them.
“I’d rather not talk about it.”
She cocked her head to the side and gave him a level stare without saying anything. After a while, she nodded.
“It must have hurt you a lot, whatever happened…don’t worry, I’m not going to push,” she said when she saw him open his mouth to respond.
Rusty shook his head. She was too damned perceptive. Then something occurred to him.
“You understand people,” he said.
She just smiled, a sad, tired kind of smile that almost broke his heart.
“It kind of goes with the territory. As a child, you learned quickly how to read the adults around you so you knew how to stay out of the way of the bad-tempered ones. If you didn’t have that skill, you got hurt.”
Rusty could imagine her as a little girl, lost and feeling abandoned, maybe clutching a blanket as she searched the gazes of those around her for some sign, any sign of affection. The image was so vivid, he blinked.
Okay, now he was letting his imagination run away with him.
“What are your plans for this evening?”
She looked surprised at the sudden change in subject, but she went with the flow. “I was hoping to stop at the office.”
Yeah, work. “My friend Ace and his partner, Sierra, are having a cookout this evening.”
“Sierra Newman?”
“Yeah, you know her?”
“She’s the one who told me about you guys. She stopped to help when my brakes failed at an intersection.”
Rusty nodded, he’d read about that in her file. “Yeah, Sierra’s a sweetheart. So anyway, I was wondering if you would like to come with me?”
“Isn’t the temperature still a bit, you know, cold for a cookout?”
“They have this great patio with a fireplace. It’s really great.”
“Hmm…If I said no, would you still go?”
“I’m your bodyguard. I go where you go.”
“I thought as much. What time is it?”
“Any time after five p.m.”
“Fine. I’ll go.” She got to her feet and walked towards the door.
Rusty wasn’t sure he’d heard her right. “Wait, did you say you’d come with me?”
“Yep. You shouldn’t have to miss out on hanging with your friends just because you’re babysitting me.” She flashed him a smile and disappeared out the door.
He stared after her with a smile on his face and a curious feeling in his chest. There was something about this woman. There were layers to her. At first glance, she appeared nice, but then there was a hard inner core that she tried hard to disguise. He was beginning to think that the hard core was just a protective shell, hiding the amazingly nice woman inside. He wondered what it would be like to get her to let down all her guards.
He shook his head at his fanciful thoughts. He did not think Hope Conran would ever relax enough to let down her guards. She was always alert and watchful. She trusted because it was more convenient. Take her employees for example. She did not want him investigating them because it could get messy. It was easier for her to “trust” them, yet from what he could see, she did not invite them into her personal space.
The woman was a mystery and unraveling the mystery was something he could really get into.
**
Several hours later, Hope was ready for Rusty’s cookout. She glanced at her outfit in the mirror. She didn’t look too bad in the boot cut jeans and pale yellow sweater. It was one of her favorite sweaters and she loved how the v-neck showed off her creamy skin. She finished it off with a pair of dark brown ankle boots and some chunky jewelry.
She glanced at her watch. It was five minutes past five p.m. She knew Rusty was ready, but she wasn’t quite ready to go down yet. She brushed her palms over her jeans, and that was when it occurred to her that she was nervous.
Nervous.
What did she have to be nervous about? These were not her friends; they were Rusty’s people. She didn’t know anything about them and didn’t care what they thought about her. So why would she be nervous?
She moved to her bed and sat down at the edge.
“Why is this cookout thing so important to me?” she asked aloud. Because the only time she got nervous about something was when the outcome was important to her.
I don’t care about these people. Hell, I don’t even care about Rusty. But here I am, heading towards a nervous wreck because of some damn cookout.
Okay. This was getting ridiculous.
She got to her feet, took a deep breath and let it out. Straightening her shoulders, she made up her mind that she was going to the cookout, she would have fun, even if she didn’t really know anyone there. And if the food was any good, she was going to stuff her face and damn everyone’s opinion.
That said, she grabbed her purse and went down to meet Rusty. She found him in the living room, waiting for her.
“You look really nice,” he said with a smile as soon as he saw her.
“Thanks, you don’t look too bad yourself.”
Even as she said the words, it crossed her mind that she was damning the man with faint praise. He looked extremely hot. He was wearing a pair of dark blue jeans and a cream sweatshirt over which he flung a black leather jacket. If she did not have her self-respect to think about, she would have swooned right before him. Not because she found him attractive or anything, well, actually…any hot-blooded female would react to the hotness standing before her. It was nothing personal, she was just being a normal female.
“Thanks.” He flashed her a smile and her stomach dipped. “Shall we?”
Hope nodded, not sure of what to say. She hadn’t liked the way her stomach dipped. She placed a hand on the offending part of her anatomy as she preceded him out of the house. She found a surprise waiting for her once she stepped outside.
“How did my car get here?” she asked, glancing back at Rusty.
“While you were closeted up in your room, I got a Silver Shield agent to drop it off. He stopped by the house for the keys first.” Rusty opened the door of his vehicle for Hope to get in.
Hope got into the SUV and waited for him to enter. “Really? How did I miss that?”
Rusty gave her a look that said seriously?
Hope chuckled, “Well, I guess when I’m programming I tend to be deaf to everything else around me.”
“Yeah. I’m beginning to discover that,” he said with a wry smile as he turned on the engine.
“Tell me about your friends,” Hope said as they pulled out of her driveway.
Rusty threw a glance her way before turning back to face the road. Hope wished she could decipher what that glance had been about, but she’d been unable to read his expression.
“Hmm, let me see…there’s Emily, Emily’s mom and Sierra, all of whom you’ve already met,” he began.
Hope nodded.
“Right. Then there’s Sierra’s partner, Ace. He’s a former Navy SEAL. Same with Ryan, you met him the other day.” He didn’t specify which of the other days he was talking about and Hope didn’t ask.
He went on to tell her about the other people that were in Silver Shield, including those that had moved out of town. Listening to him, Hope got the feeling that these were more than just friends to him, they were his family.
“Tell me about Tamika,” she said.
Rusty looked at her in surprise. “Why Tamika in particular?”
Hope shrugged. “I don’t know…your voice got softer when you spoke about
her so I got the impression that she’s kind of a big deal to you.”
She felt silly and awkward, but she hadn’t been able to help noticing the way even his expression softened as he talked about the woman. It was…nice, for want of a better word.
“Yeah, she’s my best friend,” he said simply.
“And you’re not in love with her?” Okay, Hope, you idiot, you need to drop that line of questioning ASAP!
Rusty laughed. “I wish. It would have been so neat, you know, but nah…we were not in love. She fell instead for one billionaire hotelier in New York.”
“Hmmm.” Lucky babe.
Not that Hope was searching for some rich dude to take care of her, that shit came with too many strings attached. But she didn’t think a badass chick like Tamika would need someone to take care of her either. And if she was a Silver Shield operative, she had to be badass, right?
She also noted that Rusty had not specifically denied being in love with the Tamika chick. All he’d said was they were not in love. Did that mean he wasn’t in love with her? She wasn’t in love with him? Or they both were not in love with the other?
And why was she obsessing about this anyway? She did not care one way or another. He could be in love with a dozen women for all she cared, she wasn’t interested in him that way.
And even Hope knew she was beginning to protest too much.
They got to a trendy neighborhood in Chicago and turned onto a street that had several nice houses. Rusty parked in front of one and turned off the engine.
“What’s up?” Rusty asked.
She looked at him. “What?”
“You have this funny look on your face.”
Hope immediately looked away. “Oh, nothing. I guess I’m just a bit nervous about meeting your family.”
“Don’t sweat it, Hope. They are kind of like you.”
He had stepped out before she could ask him what he meant. He came round to open her side of the door just as another vehicle drove up and Ryan jumped down. She decided she could always ask him another time. Right now, she needed to put her game face on.
Chapter Twelve
Silver Shield Security Box Set Page 84