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“Did you mean what you promised? That you would do anything to make up for what you did to me?”
Ah.
She had read his letter then.
He said simply, “Yes.”
A single tear slipped down her cheek at Drake’s answer. That one word granted Mairi the chance to keep her from losing herself completely in Damen. It also came with the knowledge that she would hurt Damen with it, and that she never wanted to do.
But she had to.
God help her, but she had to.
It was the only way to be strong.
Damen didn’t understand a fucking thing about what Mairi and the other man were talking about. All he knew was what his instincts were telling him, and it was that Mairi was hurting and Drake’s answer had her hurting more.
“Mairi.” He struggled to keep his voice even. “Tell me what’s wrong—-”
“I know what I want you to do for me, Drake.”
Damen’s control snapped and he stalked towards Mairi. “Ask me for help, Mairi. Ask me—-”
More pieces of her heart broke off at Damen’s words, but she didn’t allow herself to be swayed by it. Keeping her gaze focused on Drake, she whispered, “I want you to be my bodyguard. I want you to live here with us and stick with the job until...the end.”
Shock reverberated in his system at his wife’s words. “A bodyguard?” The rest of her words hit him, and his eyes narrowed. “And what the fuck do you mean with ‘the end’?”
She lied, “Until our troubles with your mother and the Kokinos clan end.”
Something in it didn’t quite ring true, but for once, Mairi’s normally expressive face didn’t give anything away. All Damen could see was the stiff tense way she held her body straight and the strain on her face. He could fight her on this, he knew. He fucking wanted to, the idea of having Drake Morrison too close to Mairi every fucking day enough to have him seething.
But he didn’t.
Because she needed Drake.
It was clear in her eyes there was something she wanted that only the ex-sniper could give. And in the end, what the woman he loved wanted, Damen wanted her to have even if it practically tore his heart in half.
A gasp of surprise escaped Mairi when Damen suddenly hauled her into his arms. When she looked up at him in confusion, Damen responded by kissing her hard. The kiss had Mairi stiffening even more, but Damen didn’t let up, his lips moving aggressively and seductively until with a choked cry, Mairi’s lips parted underneath his.
Damen’s tongue stroked in, and when he deepened the kiss, Mairi found herself forgetting everything. She forgot that Drake was there, forgot that she wasn’t supposed to let herself be swept away by Damen. She forgot that this kiss didn’t mean he loved her. It never did.
As Damen pulled her closer, their bodies molding to each other like they had always been born as two perfect halves, Mairi could have wept at the beauty of it. How perfect his kiss tasted. How beautiful his touch felt. So dear God, why couldn’t he love her the way she loved him?
When he lifted his head, the haze of passion in Mairi’s eyes only brought him a small dose of satisfaction. How could he be happy when behind the passion lurked the tears that always seemed in danger of spilling?
Damen knew he had a long way to go to making things right between them, and it didn’t fucking help that Mairi wanted her ex-lover tailing them every second. He thought about Whitney Houston falling for Kevin Costner in The Bodyguard. He thought about Princess Diana once being linked to her security detail. Wasn’t there a supermodel who also started dating her bodyguard, someone who had been in her employ when she was still married to someone else?
Over Mairi’s head, his gold-flecked gaze met the ex-sniper’s eyes, Damen not bothering to hide his thoughts from the other man. If Drake Morrison thought being his wife’s bodyguard would give him the chance to steal Mairi away for good, then he should know now that Damen was ready to die just to keep Mairi at his side.
The other man’s face remained expressionless, even though it was clear Drake understood Damen’s silent message.
In his arms, Mairi tried to wriggle away and Damen cupped her chin, leaving her with no choice but to look at him again.
“Why did you kiss me?” Her voice was strained as she asked the question, Mairi still shaken by the ease in which Damen was able to make her forget everything with just one kiss.
“Because I wanted you to remember that you’re mine.” His voice became hard. “It was also my way of letting you know that it’s not going to work.”
Mairi paled, but still she tried to lie, mumbling, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
