Page 11 of 1001 Dark Nights: Bundle Forty-Two

“Why?”

He moves closer, and I have tofight the urge to back away and regain some of my personal space. “Becauseyou’re my responsibility,” he says. His voice is gentle, but his eyes are hard.They’ve captured me, and I feel myself tumbling into their deep, green depths.And that, I think, is a dangerous kind of fall.

“Can we just fucking go?” I snap asI lurch backward, needing space between us. “Or is staring at me part of yourmaster plan to keep me safe?”

“Sure. We can go,” he says, stepping past me toward the dooras if my words have no sting at all. “As for staring, I was just sussing you up.”

“And?” The word’s out of my mouth before I can think betterof it.

“Eh,” he says, then heads through the door, leaving me tofollow as I nurse the unexpected sting left by that single, throwaway word.

Chapter Four

She was getting under his skin.

No doubt about that, and the simple truth annoyed the hellout of him. Francesca Muratti was gorgeous and snarkyand irritating and fascinating, and he really didn’t want to like her becausehe knew only too well whatever bits he actually didlike were as fake as the chimera she projected onto screens all over thecountry.

So no, he didn’t like her. But maybe he respected her. Alittle, anyway.

“Grab your purse if you need it,” he said, pausing beforeopening the front door. “We’ll go check in with the team, then head to myplace.”

“I’m not allowed to stand by myself in my own kitchen, butwe’re going to traipse around the yard instead of heading straight for yourcar?”

“Yeah, well, I’m over this assignment. Figured that was agood way to wrap up this gig fast.”

She cocked her head and gave him a death stare, but he sawamusement in her eyes and, dammit, his respect for herratcheted up a notch.

She grabbed a bag from a small table by the door and slungit over her arm. “Fine.”

He waited for her to argue, and when she didn’t, he openedthe front door, then waited some more. Still no argument. Instead, she liftedher chin then stepped past him onto her massive front porch. He followed, moreimpressed by her courage than he wanted to admit. He was confident all wasfine, but he could understand how she might still be nervous. And yet she was trusting him.

Or, if not trust, she was trying to prove something to him.Well, he’d take it.

“This way,” he said, leading her down the steps, then alongthe path that led to the side yard. The fence had a code, and he entered it,then held the gate open as she stepped through. The fence was solid,surrounding three sides of her five-acre yard, with the fourth being a cliffdrop-off to the beach below, which used to be accessible by an iron staircase.The team had removed it early that morning, and after the threat wasneutralized, they’d re-install it. But in the interim, no one was sneaking upthe cliff to Francesca’s land.

As for the fence itself, it had provided a modicum ofprotection, but with the upgrades the team had finalized today, it was nowstate of the art.

They moved past the pool, her heels clicking on the tiledecking. When he stepped off the tile and into the grass, he heard her sigh.“If you’d told me we were coming back here, we could have gone out the backdoor. Plus, I would have slipped on some loafers.”

He turned to face her and watched as she kicked off the palepink shoes, then left them on the deck as she moved quickly toward him, barefeet in the cut grass.

“You’re not picking them up?”

She quirked a single, perfectly plucked brow. “You thinkthey’re going to get lonely?”

“Aren’t they Jimmy Choos or something? Those things probablycost more than my car.”

“They’re Gucci, yes, but they’re still shoes. I’m surethey’ll survive the trauma of temporary abandonment. Well?” she said a momentlater as he stood staring at her, stopped short by hissurprise at her words. “What are we waiting for?”

A good question, and since his only answer was that he’dbeen waiting for the shock of liking her to fade, he ignored her and started tocross the yard, trusting her to keep up with him. Right now, she was a client.A potential victim. Of course he had empathy and professional concern. It wouldbe later, when she put on the Hollywood hat, that his skin would prickle. Itwould happen. It was inevitable. And then it would be on him to stayprofessional. Because he wouldn’t like thatFrancesca. He knew how selfish Hollywood types were. How willing theywere to walk over anyone in order to get what theywanted. To lie. To cheat. To abandon the people they professed to love fornothing more than the promise of those lights and cameras.

Yeah, he knew the type well. So he’d protect Francescabecause that was the job. But he damn sure wouldn’tlike her.

He glanced down, not wanting her to see his expression, thennoticed that without the shoes, the hem of those perfectly tailored silk slackswas dragging in the grass, and she didn’t even seem to care. He felt his wholebody tighten, not certain if he was disgusted by her casual treatment ofsomething so expensive, or impressed that she clearly wasn’t one of those womenwhose entire day might be ruined by a grass stain.

He remembered when Kristen got the job at the agency, thencame home insisting that she had to revamp her entire wardrobe because she hadto look like someone who should be in front of the camera, not behind a desk.He’d been amused at first, assuming she was joking, but after that—

“Simon?”