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“I’m not going to sit around and do nothing.” I thought about my art and wasn’t certain I had it in me any longer. Time would tell.
“You’ll have a studio where you can paint to your heart’s desire.”
His words brought a wide smile to my face. “You’ve thought of everything.” The way he turned his head in my direction gave me a series of tempting sensations.
“Perhaps I have.”
“I won’t put anything past you.” When a girl appeared from nowhere, asking if we’d like something to drink, Danny took full control requesting champagne, which surprised me. “What are we celebrating?”
“New beginnings.” He ripped off his seatbelt, rising to his feet and removing his jacket. Then he unbuttoned and rolled up his sleeves and I couldn’t seem to take my eyes off him. When he slowly turned his head, I was struck once against by how beautiful his eyes were.
“Did you know your eyes were the first thing I liked about you all those years ago?”
“Not my stunning wit?” he asked then laughed.
For a few seconds, I felt like an awe-struck idiot.
“Well, you were entirely different then and I was into the Backstreet Boys.”
He snickered as he sat down. “I’d like to think your tastes have improved.”
The deep timbre of his voice rippled through every cell, the heat rising to a boiling point. “Oh, they have.”
“A toast.”
“Yes,” I whispered. “New beginnings.”
I had a feeling he wasn’t simply talking about the relationship we were in but about letting go of something extremely private. We remained quiet until we both had a glass of champagne in our hand. I unfastened the seatbelt, turning and curling my legs under me against the soft leather.
He appeared agitated, still concerned and angry about everything we’d been through.
“Do you like what you’re doing? Your job, I mean?”
“Which one?”
“Saving people.”
An instant cloud passed over his eyes. “For the most part.” He gulped half his glass and I pressed my hand against his arm.
“As I told you before. You’re a hero.”
The look in his eyes darkened. “I’m no hero. No one can ever call me that, including you.”
“What happened?”
“What do you mean?”
“Who was the one person you couldn’t save?”
I was certain he’d ignore the question as he’d done before. But an odd look crossed his face, almost as if he was relieved I’d figured out the ugly secret he’d been hiding. “Her name was Leone. She was the daughter of a French diplomat in town for four weeks. He’d had death threats and my team and I were hired to guard her twenty-four hours a day while in the country. It seemed like a straightforward job. What we weren’t told was that Leone was… fragile.”
“You mean she had some emotional issues.”
He exhaled and nodded. “To put it mildly. She was manic depressive, her mother’s recent death hard on her. The poor girl wasn’t allowed to have a life, sequestered in their apartment in Paris. She had few friends and wasn’t allowed to get a job. Leone was a beautiful woman both inside and out, except for the demons.”
“Someone killed her?”
“No. I shot the bastard stalking her between the eyes. But the event and the entire situation rattled her badly. By that point, she only wanted me on the job, none of my team, her father pushing me to accept the change. We got a little personal.”
