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His lips flickered in brief, sardonic acknowledgement. “I thought I did answer?”
“Without telling me anything. Why are you so secretive?”
“I don’t make a habit of sharing details of my personal life with clients.”
“We’ve already discussed this. I’m not a client.”
“So what does that make you?”
Her heart slammed into her rib cage. Dinner had been a tense affair – at least, it had been for Max. She had been aware of his every movement, his every breath. On some level, she was grateful for the monumental attraction to Noah – it lessened the obsessive fear she might have been feeling if Noah wasn’t with her. A shiver ran down her spine as she imagined what it would be like to be alone in her home now, after the events of today.
“You’re still someone I need to protect.”
She dragged her attention back to their conversation. “Does answering my questions make you less able to do that??
?
A muscle jerked low in his jaw. “There should be limits to how well we know each other.”
Frustration was a whip at her spine. She stayed very still, careful not to reveal it on her face. “You know everything there is to know about me.”
He dipped his head in silent concession.
“Is it so unreasonable –,”
“Yes. We’ve discussed this, the day you accepted to hire me. Your life being an open book was a condition of me taking this job.”
She didn’t want to be a ‘job’ to him! She didn’t want him to see her as a client. Anger zipped through her veins.
“How does it make you less able to protect me if I know a bit more about you?”
His eyes clashed with hers. There was a hardness in their grey depths, but also a plea. Stop this.
“I mean it, Noah. All night – ever since I’ve known you, actually – you’ve stone-walled my questions, telling me almost nothing about you. Does that really help you protect me?”
“It’s part of the job.” His hand tightened on the coffee cup he held. “I’m not here to get to know you. I’m here for one reason only –,”
“Because Gray asked you to be.”
“To keep you safe,” he corrected, but dipped his head once, in silent, terse agreement with her question. “I need to keep my mind clear, to be focused on the job. And when the work is done, and this guy is caught, I will pack my bag and leave, back to America, to my life, my business, to whatever – and whoever – needs my attention next. I don’t get attached to clients. I don’t do follow up calls. In a week’s time, you won’t even know me anymore.”
A sense of isolation hollowed her out, turning her organs into tumbleweeds. She stared at him, hating the picture he was painting. “You think it will be that quick?”
His expression showed caution. “I think there are a few leads your security team overlooked. Things that only someone with my experience would have noticed,” he clarified, the professional courtesy of attempting to make an excuse for her team’s failings not lost on her, even when she knew it was a lie. Noah would never miss anything, not a single detail. “I’m chasing those leads down as we speak, and should have some answers in the next twenty four hours.”
A shiver ran through her. “And then you’ll leave.”
“I don’t stick around for the epilogue,” he agreed with a nod. “My part ends with the bad guy being arrested.”
“What happened with Marina?” Max asked, pushing up into a sitting position, her legs crossed on the sofa. And for all Noah was insisting on keeping a degree of distance between them, his eyes moved over her body like liquid silk, appraising her, studying her, drugged by her, as though he couldn’t resist. Heat spread like wildfire.
“What do you mean?”
“There was no single ‘bad guy’ in her case. She was just generally hated, turned into a victim by everyone she came across. How did you know it was safe to leave her?”
He drank his coffee, his eyes holding hers over the rim, then placed the cup on the occasional table to his left. “It’s why I stayed so long,” he said after several beats.
“But why leave?”
