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A frisson of something hard to understand ran through her body. “This is all such an overreaction,” she said with a bluster she didn’t feel. “I’m fine. There’s no reason to think that just because someone slashed my car, he’d do anything to hurt me.”
“And you’re an expert on criminology?”
His rapier quick response took her breath away. “I don’t think we can presume to know what this guy is all about.”
He hadn’t released his grip on her wrist and she stood perfectly still, liking the way it felt to be this close to him, liking the way it felt to have his fingers wrapped around her.
“This is going to be a very long week if you second guess everything I say.”
“I’m not used to having the terms of my life dictated to me.”
“No,” he agreed, and for a moment she thought she saw something like sympathy soften the corners of his eyes. “But it’s the way it has to be.”
“Am I fighting you on that?”
His smile thundered through her, resonating as though she’d been struck with lightning. “Yes.”
“I’m not.”
“You have to trust me.”
“Perhaps you can understand why that’s not easy for me?”
He nodded, his thumb padding her inner-wrist. Did he realise he was doing that? “You’re being stalked. It’s natural that you can’t tell what’s safe and what’s not. You don’t know who to believe. But Gray does. He trusts me; you can too.”
Gray. This man was one of her brother’s best friends – she had to remember that. It was like being doused by a bucket
of ice water. She pulled her wrist free, rubbing the skin where his fingers had touched.
“I just want to get this over with, okay?”
They drove in silence to her Chelsea townhouse. He sat in the front of the car, beside Felix, her driver, and she in the rear, as always. She pretended preoccupation with her phone, updating her Instagram stories, checking the news bulletins, getting back to friends’ texts and emails, but work that usually absorbed her completely barely scratched the surface of her concentration now. She found her eyes flicking to the side mirror every few seconds, his reflection unfairly fascinating. He wore dark glasses, so it was impossible to know where his eyes were, but his head was dipped, and he had pulled a tablet from his bag when he’d got into the car, so she was presumed he was engrossed in his own work.
Questions fired through her brain – the kinds of questions she would have answers to if she’d hired this guy herself. She would have done her due diligence, ascertained everything she could about him, before appointing him to this position. Where did he go to school? Where did he grow up? What’s his training background? Experience? She knew only this: if Gray trusted him, he was a good guy, despite the whole gruffer than anything appearance.
As the car slowed down, ready to enter the security gates of her driveway, Noah removed his dark sunglasses, his eyes landing instantly, directly on hers. It was like being trapped. He wasn’t touching her, but he might as well have been using those big, strong hands of his to keep her face right where it was, her eyes locked to his in the small, square reflection of the side mirror.
It was Noah who freed her, after only a few seconds, moving his gaze from her face to the driveway, scanning quickly, scoping it out.
“I’ll get out here,” he said to the driver, his American accent more pronounced because no one had said anything for at least twenty minutes.
She watched as he strode from the car, his every step athletic and powerful. He moved to the sliding gate, watching as it opened, analysing it – for God knows what – before stepping in ahead of the car. More analysing, looking, searching. The car drove in, the gate swung closed.
She’d lost sight of Noah and to her chagrin, shifted in the car seat to locate him before she could stop herself.
The garage door went up and the driver took the car inside, into the lower level of the townhouse.
It still gave her the creeps to think that someone had been here. She had no idea how they’d got in, but she did know there was an insufficient barrier between the garage and the house proper – a simple door with a single snib lock – easy for anyone of average size and strength to overpower.
The driver opened her door and she stepped out, almost bumping directly into Noah.
“Is there a problem?”
He shook his head once in response. “Just getting the lay of the land.” He reached out and took her handbag. She let him, not sure if it was a security gesture or good old-fashioned chivalry, but too tired suddenly to argue.
She needed a stiff drink and a hot shower.
“Am I allowed to go inside?” She asked at the door, lifting a brow in silent challenge.
