“I’ve got bottled water, grapes, bubbly, paper . . . a pen, what else will I need for the next seventeen hours?”
Megan smiled. “You so don’t want me to answer that.”
Anita shooed Megan away with a wave of her hand, laughing quietly to herself. It would have been nice to have Zachary Mitchell sitting beside her, talking about anything, everything, just sharing the long ride . . . sharing his life. But that would cause a whole big to-do on the plane, rampant speculation, and a bunch of crap that she didn’t have the stomach for right now.
Her fingers picked up the pen as her gaze found the horizon and she allowed her heart and mind to bleed all over the pages.
Placing her pen down carefully on the walnut fold-in table, Anita tucked her legs under her body and picked up her glass of champagne. She stared into the golden sparkling liquid hearing the melody and driving refrain inside her head. She closed her eyes, allowing the artistic process to take over, throwing herself down into the pit of the emotion, wallowing in it until tears wet her lashes and her hand reached out to pick up the pen again.
“Tell me when did you know?” she murmured, eyes closed, head back, the melody drifting in her mind and in the small private space she’d created for herself. “Tell me, tell me, just be honest, baby, tell me . . . I need to know, right now, just—”
A presence looming over her gave her a start and made her open her eyes, jolting her from the creative process. Her initial scowl mellowed and gave way to excitement and curiosity.
“Ms. Brown, I’m sorry— but Megan said you wanted to discuss logistics for when we touched down . . . and I wouldn’t have interrupted you if I’d been aware that you were working. I’ll come back later.”
“No, Zach, it’s cool,” she said, motioning to the seat beside her. “I was just picking away at something new. No big deal.” Her heart felt like it was pounding a hole through her chest. He’d come over. His eyes said he wanted to sit with her, but his formal tone told her how private a person he was and how hard he’d work to keep the more personal aspects of their relationship on a strictly undercover basis.
He nodded but his entire body felt tense. This wasn’t right. He’d wanted to come up with a ruse to sit by her without causing a stir, and he thought she had beaten him to the punch. But then he saw her glance at Megan with an arched eyebrow . . . so her personal assistant was playing Cupid. Just great. Clearly he’d interrupted the woman while she was working on something important. Her new hits were definitely a big deal, the stuff of platinum. Never in his life had he seen a songstress at work, seen a true musician craft a song from the depths of pain, never witnessed the birth of a song, and now, despite all his resolve not to be starstruck, he was.
“Listen,” he said, carefully sitting down next to her and glancing at the paper she’d shunted aside. “We have hours to go before we land and have to disembark. I really wouldn’t have interrupted you for the world. What I have to say is fairly perfunctory and can wait. There’s no need to impact your creative pro cess.”
She stared at him with a sad smile, wishing they could get back to where they’d been last night. Her hands ached to touch him, to reach out and cradle his face. Last night he’d surrounded her entire body with his like a human shield just so that she could sleep in that safe cocoon he’d created. Now, because of other people, they had to act almost like strangers. But his eyes said it all, told her not to go there as they searched her face. The slight flare of his nostrils was enough to let her know, oh, yeah, he felt it, too.
She bit her bottom lip and held his gaze. “Who knows,” she finally murmured. “Maybe you’re part of my creative process right now. I really enjoyed our conversation last night, which made me connect to some things I was trying not to deal with . . . just talking to somebody who missed home, knew what it was like to be alone in a crowd . . .”
He didn’t know what to say. She had no idea what her statement did to him. Anita Brown connected all the dots, connected his heart and soul to his libido for some strange reason that he could barely fathom. Someone he’d initially thought was a spoiled star was a deeply profound woman fighting against a tough industry all by herself, and like any kid from the projects, was apparently holding her own, even if it wasn’t always a flattering picture. Then he’d realized that she wasn’t only fighting for herself, she was fighting for him— fighting to keep SWAT International, and she’d gone to war with her management for the sake of someone else she cared about, for the sake of a principle.
That reality rendered him mute. He’d been there, seen it, and done that, too. But she opened up more than his head, she opened his ears when she leaned back and quietly sang the words of the new song she was working on.
“That’s good, uh, positive,” he said, feeling like a complete idiot.
The timbre of her voice ran all through him, the soulful, begging quality in it, just asking a man to be honest and honorable— to love her with his complete heart— stole the air from his lungs. Jonathan Evans was a fool. He didn’t care how many millions the man had or how much access he had to women he could exploit, what man in his right mind could walk away from the one sitting beside him now?
Anita smiled. Her expression telegraphed that she seemed to know that he was choking on incomplete sentences. Somehow she seemed to also know that he had no idea where to begin.
“You’re right,” she said after a moment, placing a finger to her lush mouth. “It is very positive, good vibes . . . and we do have hours to discuss the logistics . . . mind if we just eat a late lunch and talk about home, life, what ever?”
“All right,” he said, hedging, not sure.
She chuckled. “You are so . . . I don’t know . . . military.” Then she lowered her voice. “In public,” she said in a near whisper, before returning her voice to a normal conversational volume. “One word answers— I’m gonna call you the Spartan, if you don’t loosen up. Like those guys in 300. Now they were gangsta.”
This woman was definitely messing with his head by carrying on a conversation in code on two levels at the same time; one private, one public. The way she looked at him and dropped her voice to give him some mention of last night, and making references to their encounter was giving him wood. Plus she’d seen one of his favorite movies and liked it. He couldn’t help smiling, and a lopsided grin tugged at his cheek.
“I’m on duty, and shouldn’t be imposing on your personal space.”
“Are you hungry?”
He shook his head. “I ate a couple of hours ago, but don’t let me stop you.”
“Champagne?”
He shook his head and smiled wider. “No thank you, ma’am. I have a cranberry juice over where I was seated.”
“Oh, my God . . . okay— right, you’re on duty.” She let out a long breath and began picking at a bowl of grapes on her foldaway table. “So, does this mean when we get to some of these really plush Middle East hotels, you’re going to stand by the pool in a suit with a wire in your ear the whole time?”
“Affirmative. That’s the plan; those are my orders.”
She closed her eyes and slumped back like a forlorn child. “Dang . . .”
“That’s what you hired me to do— to be boots on the ground and to make sure that you, your staff, and your assets are completely covered.” He winked at her and chuckled.
She opened her eyes with a brilliant smile. “You don’t want me to comment on that, do you?”
“Your equipment, your luggage,” he said, chuckling.
“Oh, just checking, because I don’t mind you covering my assets.”
He looked down at the floor and felt his face warm as he laughed. “That’s also in the contract . . . to make sure nothing happens to you.”
“Ah, nice recovery. You are indeed a gentleman.” She raised an eyebrow with a wider smile. “So, what’s wrong with you?”
“Pardon?” He tilted his head, it was a throwback reaction from his old roots, and then he caught himself.
&n
bsp; “Ooooh, I made the neighborhood come up out of you, after all.”
She doubled over laughing and he found himself chuckling quietly. She was right; it had leaped to the surface without warning, and the fact that it tickled her so was hilarious to watch.
“You were ready to square off on me and run the dozens, don’t lie.”
“Ma’am—”
“Anita, remember,” she corrected, touching his arm. “I’m really getting to the point of not caring about formality.”
“Anita . . . I was just going for clarity, but you did take me back to Detroit for a minute.”
“Uhmmm, hmmm.”
She hadn’t removed her hand and the warmth of it radiated up his arm.
“What I meant was, how come a fine, educated gentleman like yourself is still available?”
He shrugged, his smile fading. “My lifestyle leaves a lot to be desired, I guess.”
“Lifestyle?” she said, panic suddenly filling her eyes as she jerked back her hand.
“No, no, I’m not—”
“Whew, okay . . . no problem with anyone who is . . . a lot of my best friends are, but that would have been a real disappointment if you told me that.”
He smirked. “That’s the least of your worries.”
“Okay, Detroit, now you’re on the verge of talking trash.”
He had to laugh.
“So, what’s the deal?”
He let out a long breath and his smile faded. “I travel too much, I’m on long assignments overseas, and can’t be contacted in some of the places I go. I don’t make what some of the guys who’ve chosen high-profile corporate professions make . . . and the person I had in my life decided that was too much to deal with. It would’ve just been nice if she would have told me, rather than allowing me to walk in on a very bad situation.”
“Shut up!” Anita said in a low murmur. “Is she crazy? Didn’t she know you know how to kill people with your bare hands?”
He smiled. “When you know how to do that, losing it like that is the last thing you wanna do. I value my freedom; doing time in prison isn’t in my career plans.”
“So what happened?”
He shrugged. This was not at all the direction he’d ever thought a conversation with Anita Brown would take. He hadn’t even gone into full details with Lowell, just said that Monica had cheated and found someone new.
“It was what it was.”
“Spill . . . you have gotta tell me— I have always wanted to know what a man thinks when he rolls up on a situation like that. Normally it’s the other way around.”
His outrageous client sat forward so eagerly, like an entranced child, that he felt himself almost becoming hypnotized, wanting to purge his soul and tell her just to get it out of him once and for all.
Zach let out a long breath. “Not much to tell, really. I stood there for a couple of seconds . . . tried to get my mind to make sense of what my eyes were seeing, then turned around and walked out. She sent me a text message to follow up and bring closure.”
“Wait . . . she sent you a text breakup message after you walked in on her?” Anita opened and closed her mouth. “Now that was cold, dead wrong.”
“I was gone for six months— she had needs, what can I say?”
“Then what did you do?” Anita stared at him slack-jawed.
“I went right back to the base and asked to decline my leave . . . went to Afghanistan to get it out of my system. Did a lot of damage there.”
“So, you just threw yourself into work and never looked back?”
“Something like that.”
Anita blew out a long breath that made a low whistle.
This was definitely not the conversation he’d wanted to have. Not the topic he’d ever wanted to revisit.
“Did you love her?”
He stared at Anita. “Enough to let her keep the ring . . . sometimes money doesn’t matter.”
“Oh, my God . . . you were engaged and she did that?” Anita murmured. “I know what you mean about the money not mattering, but, brother, you should have gotten the ring back, for real.”
“Did you love him?” He figured it was a fair question, since she’d burrowed way deep into his psyche— it was an unauthorized security breach.
Anita turned the paper around toward him. “Read it and weep . . . you heard me humming that crying-ass love song. But, trust me; I am so over Jonathan Evans . . . still, what I’m not over is wanting to be with someone special— does that make sense?”
“Yeah.” Zach looked at Anita and then looked away. It made more sense than he could articulate.
“I don’t even know why I’m wasting time on some dumb song.” Anita let out a resigned sigh.
“What little bit I heard was beautiful,” Zach said, truly meaning it. Then more unauthorized words pushed past his lips too quickly for his brain to stop them. “Whatever inspired it . . . the man is insane.”
“Thank you,” she said with a shy smile, “for both observations. I’m glad you wound up being on this detail,” she added, gathering up her papers.
“So am I,” he said quietly. “I promise that you won’t be disappointed that I’m a stand-in for Lowell Johnson— he’s a good man, the best, but I’ll try to approximate his skill to keep you and your entourage safe.”
“I’m already impressed,” she said very quietly and then looked around to be sure the others weren’t listening in. “I think fate made sure it was you, and after last night . . .”
He leaned in and dropped his voice. “’Nita . . . I can’t talk about last night and sit next to you on a seventeen-hour flight— all right? That’s why I keep backing off that subject. You’re messing me up.”
He’d expected her to smile or tease him but her expression remained stone serious.
“I’m already messed up . . . maybe that’s why I keep going there. I’m sorry.”
“You’ve gotta stop,” he said in an urgent whisper. “Your condition won’t be obvious; mine will be.”
“Okay,” she said and then sat back for a moment. “But I have to ask another personal question.”
Zachary smiled. “Do I have a choice?”
“No,” she said with such a serious expression that he wanted to kiss her hard. “Okay, how long ago did this chick burn you?”
“Last year,” he said, losing his smile, suddenly feeling every minute of his self-denial.
“Last year . . . after you were already gone for six months?” Anita’s eyes were wide and she covered her heart with the palm of her hand. “So, you’ve been running women since then— you know, the lone-wolf type?”
“No. I’ve been busy working. That causes too much drama and I like to keep my life uncomplicated.”
“Wait . . . you mean to tell me . . .” Her words trailed off as she shook her head.
He shrugged and then laughed self-consciously, not having meant to reveal quite that much detail about his life or his circumstances. But Anita was street-wise and read into his statement the subtext that was there; it was true, he hadn’t slept with a woman since his breakup with Monica, and hadn’t been with her six months prior to that while in Kuwait. Now staring at Anita Brown and answering her outrageous questions made him acutely aware of his personal drought.
“Okay, just tell me, is it because of some serious religious convictions, because I can respect that. If I was in foxholes and avoiding bombs, I’d probably get saved again, too.”
“I do take my personal religious convictions seriously, but I can’t lie on that,” he said smiling. “Don’t want to bait fate by doing that, especially at thirty thousand feet in the air.”
“I heard that,” she said with an easygoing smile. “So, why didn’t you just hit a club?”
“Well . . . I was stationed in Muslim countries,” he finally said, still smiling. “You don’t roll like that unless you wanna get someone stoned to death or get shot by some-body’s father or brother. There are also health risks and I’m already in a high-risk
profession where I get shot at— so why add to the odds? When I got home, I just didn’t have the energy for the games . . . so I focused on other things. No big deal.”
“Oh, wow . . .”
“Yeah,” he said shaking his head. “You get used to it.”
“No, you don’t,” she said, sucking her teeth and folding her arms over her chest. “What you mean is, you deal with it, but you don’t get used to it. Ask me how I know?”
She had a point and he glimpsed her from the corner of his eye, making them both start laughing again. The woman was truly outrageous. No one had ever asked him anything so personal in his life. The whole conversation was crazy, and yet, here he was having this conversation with, of all people, arguably one of the most beautiful women in the world.
“You learn serious self-discipline being stationed in foreign nations— it isn’t worth dying for,” he finally said in self-defense.
“I feel you,” she said, nodding and taking a sip of her champagne then popping several grapes into her mouth.
“By the way . . . you’re going to have to cover your head when we disembark in the Middle East . . . you don’t technically have to, but it would sure make our security detail easier . . . so we’re asking the ladies to cover up their arms and not have on shorts and deep plunging necklines. What you wear on the base and for the show is one thing . . . but while we’re in country, if you go into the city away from the hotel— which I strongly advise against . . .”
“I’m not trying to have any problems” Anita said, raising her hands in front of her.
“Thanks,” he said, growing serious. “I really appreciate it.”
He had thought she would argue with him and take a stance just because she could. But she didn’t. Something about their interaction had changed since he’d held her all night long and something within her overall demeanor had seemed to mellow. Urban instinct told him it was that hard-to-define thing called respect.
“I really appreciate you,” she said quietly after a moment, staring at him without blinking.
He watched the light play against her satin-textured, cinnamon brown skin, wishing for a moment that there weren’t thirty-eight other people on the plane. His palm ached to reach out and touch her face; his fingers tingled with the need to trace the delicate line of her jaw. Stupidity made him fantasize about watching her turn her lush mouth against the palm of his hand when he cradled her cheek. But in reality all he could do at the moment was keep a professional distance and hope that his eyes conveyed nothing but respect.