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If Eve had looked like you, Adam would have gladly left Eden. Trace had said those words to her less than three weeks ago. And he had meant them, she knew it. He’d bared his soul to her that day. Now it was time for her to do the same. She headed straight for the sitting room before her courage failed her.
* * *
Trace had steeled himself for the upcoming confrontation, but he was afraid of what the princess might say if he let her start the conversation. So the minute she entered the room he whirled to face her. But as his gaze focused on the white gauze bandage wrapped around her palm, the words that came out of his mouth weren’t the ones he’d planned to say. “Why the hell did you do it?” he asked her abruptly. “Don’t you know any better than to get in the middle of a knife fight?”
He couldn’t drag his eyes away from that bandage, beneath which were those seventeen stitches. The cut had been straight and not too deep, and thankfully hadn’t required surgery, but each stitch was an indictment of him, and what he had failed to do. His anger at himself made him lash out at her. “Don’t you know any better than to grab at a blade that way with your bare hand?”
She stared at him for long seconds as if taken aback by his accusation. As if she had no idea this was what he’d wanted to talk to her about. “I thought he was going to hurt you,” she said finally, in a low voice. “I thought you might be killed.”
Trace swore, and she flinched. “It’s my job to keep you safe,” he said. “Not the other way around.”
“Do you think I care about that?” she asked intensely. “Do not talk to me about whose job it is to protect whom when I know I am more to you than a job.”
He swallowed hard and turned his back on her so he didn’t have to see her pain. It had to be now—he would never have a better opportunity. But he couldn’t look into her eyes and lie to her. “No,” he said. “You’re a job. One I should have taken more seriously. That’s why I’m angry you risked your life. If anything had happened to you it would be a black mark against me, and I could kiss my career goodbye.”
She hesitated. “And love? Where does that fit in?”
Still with his back to her, he pretended he was staring out at the landscape through the window even though it was nearly too dark to see anything except his own reflection. The face of the man in the glass was the face of a stranger. As if he were standing outside of himself Trace answered, “It doesn’t.”
She moved quickly, coming to stand in front of him, forcing him to look at her. The expression in her eyes was one he’d seen once before, the night she’d struggled to save Suleiman. And he knew she wasn’t giving up without a fight, not when she loved him with every fiber of her being. Exactly what he’d feared. “I love you,” she said in a rush. “You must know. And you love me.”
“That’s what I was afraid you were thinking. That’s why I’ve asked to be reassigned.”
“Reassigned?” She stared at him in shock. “You...you are leaving?”
He nodded. “I’ll finish out this month, but come January someone else will replace me on the team guarding you.” When she didn’t say anything he tried to break it off gently. “What you feel isn’t love, Princess. You would have felt the same toward any man who—”
She cut him off, her voice low and fierce. “No!”
He continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “Toward any man who showed you what your body was capable of. It just happened to be me. But don’t fool yourself it’s love you’re feeling—you would react the same way with any other man.”
“You cannot believe that,” she whispered, obviously appalled. “I could never...no other man...”
Her expression tore at him, weakening his resolve, and he had to remind himself of all the reasons why they could never be together. “Okay, maybe what we had wasn’t just...sex.” He caught himself before he could reach out and caress her cheek at the stricken look in her eyes. “Maybe it was...special...in its own way. But it was going to end sooner or later. We both knew that. A year from now you’ll look back on this as a pleasant interlude, but not something to build a life on. You’ll meet someone you really love, and forget all about—”
“That is not true!”
He overrode her vehement interruption. “You’ll forget all about the special agent assigned to guard you. Just as I’ll forget about you.”
“No,” she said, shaking her head with determination. “You love me.” She placed her hand over her heart and tapped lightly. “I know it here. You will not forget me any more than I will forget you.”
