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***
His stare unnerved her.
Lark shifted uneasily on the couch—Oliver’s couch because Midas had driven her back to Oliver’s place.Oliver had headed off to meet her brother, and she’d been left with the bodyguard.
A bodyguard who just watched her with his too intent amber gaze.Midas stood near the fireplace mantel, with his arms crossed over his massive chest and with his stare pinning her.
Lark cleared her throat.This business had gone on long enough.“You know it’s not polite to stare.”It was, in fact, super creepy, and she already had enough going on to creep her out, thank you very much.
“It’s also not polite to break my best friend’s heart.”
Her mouth dropped open.She hurriedly snapped it closed even as she leapt to her feet.“I did no such thing!”
“Sure, you did.”A sage nod.“I’m the one who had to pick Oliver’s drunk ass up the day after you walked out on him.Man is a sad drunk, by the way.Was moaning about how you were the best thing ever to happen to him.”
She shook her head.
“Yeah, I told him that, too.Plenty of fish in the sea and all that.No sense getting broken up so hard over one woman.”
Her eyes narrowed.“I don’t think I like you.”
His mouth hitched into a half-smile that never reached his eyes.“Surprisingly, I get that a lot.Honestly, though, it helps with the job.When clients go falling in love with you, it just makes things complicated as hell.”
The man was not serious.He can’t be serious.He’s just trying to get a reaction from me.There is no way I broke Oliver’s heart.“Oliver was using me to get information on my brother—”
His deep and loud laughter cut her off.
“I stand by my previous statement,” she muttered.The one where I said I don’t think I like you.
“I was there,” Midas informed her with a roll of one big shoulder.“Saw him.Heard him mooning over you.Poor bastard even wanted me to drive by your house like some lovestruck teenager.Thank Christ he got called away to handle some other serial killing freak so he could get some distance from you for a while.”
She blinked.“Did you…Wait, are youthankfulfor a serial killer—”
He winced.And one hand rose to rub along his jaw.“Yeah.That probably came out wrong, didn’t it?”
“I don’t think it came out right,” Lark assured him.“I don’t know if there was a way in which that statement could sound right.”
He shrugged.“It was good for him to get away.Stand by that.He needed to put some distance between the two of you.Especially seeing as how you had broken his heart.”
Enough.She strode toward him.Put her hands on her hips.Tilted back her head.“I was the one who toldhimthat I loved him.Yourbest friendnever said those words back to me.As far as I know, it’s because he never loved me.He was using me all along.Oliver had no real interest in me whatsoever.”
Midas’s brows rose.“You tell yourself that a lot or something?”
Yes, actually, she did.
“You did hear Oliver when he said I was supposed to guard you with my life?”
“Yes, obviously, I heard him say that.I was standing right beside the man,” she muttered.“And you guarding me with your life—that’s an expression.”
“Not for Oliver.Not when it comes to you.For him, it was an actual order.”His stare swept over her.“When it comes to you, he meant every word.Why else would he call me in?Why not just use one of those Feds that were running around the Bureau like crazy?”
She opened her mouth to reply.
“I’ll tell you why,” he said before she could speak.“It’s because you matter.And what matters to Oliver—even if I am mad as hell at you for breaking his heart—well, it matters to me.”
She could only shake her head.
“So I’ll protect you with my life.He is my best friend, after all.I also owe him more than I can ever repay.”Another shrug.“It is what it is.”
