The past three weeks since she’d come back to work for him had been a game, both of them playing to win and neither of them quite clear on the rules. Maybe the problem was that the game had no rules. No way to determine the champion. Neither of them would ever be the winner, Nina thought, her gaze moving over his face like a caress before she forced herself to look away. They’d both already lost.
She wasn’t going to let Ewan see any expression on her face but one of professional neutrality, no matter how much—against her own will—her body wanted to revel at his touch. She blinked, and her eyes stayed closed a second or so too long to be natural. She couldn’t stop herself from thinking about his touch. His taste. His heat and his breath gusting over her face and the way he moved against and inside her . . . With a shudder, Nina straightened her shoulders.
Her eyes stung, her throat closing, and a wave of grief and loss swelled so fiercely inside her it threatened to send her to her knees. She would not weep. Not here, in front of everyone, but especially not in front of him. Not ever again, she vowed, sadness replaced by fury in no more time than it took for her to take another breath.
“Nina,” Ewan murmured. “Are you all right? Should we go sit? You look a little—”
“I’m fine.” Her clipped tone gave away the lie. She looked to where Ewan had gestured with the card tucked between his fingers. “All the way over there. Is that supposed to be a place of honor? You’d think there’d be a throne or something.”
Oops, that hadn’t been exactly professional. Definitely more snarky than neutral. Too bad she couldn’t control her tongue as easily as her pulse or body temperature.
“Aw, shucks, I forgot my crown at home, and you seem to have left your tiara behind.” Ewan’s fingertips traced a small circle on her skin before he stepped away. She shivered at the breaking of the contact, self-loathing tickling along her nerves at how weak she was in his presence. “We’ll have to settle for regular chairs at that table in the back. Like the common folk.”
Giddiness. Now instead of struggling not to punch something, she was trying not to burst into hysterical laughter. No doubt, she preferred this rush of joy over the other sweep of intense emotions, but she forced it back the way she’d done with those. It was easier, somehow, either because she was getting better at it, or because it always seemed easier to tamp down happiness than sorrow.
“So long as there’s some bread and butter on the table when I get there, I don’t really care where we sit. Ooh, an appetizer buffet.” Nina gave the long, food-laden table at the side of the room a nod and watched from the corner of her eye as Ewan chuckled and shook his head.
“Let’s get you something to eat. It’s been at least four hours. Are you all right?”
She didn’t want his obvious concern to move her. She didn’t want him to know her so well, but he did. She shoved away the memories of exactly how well and nodded.
“I’m not starving, but of course I can always eat,” she said.
“Let’s go hit the appetizers, then. Can’t have my girl getting too hungry.”
She opened her mouth to correct him, to remind him that she was no longer his girl and had barely ever been. The look on his face stopped her. He was poking at her for a reaction, seeing how far he could push her. The less she reacted, the more it would bother him, so instead Nina gave him another of those fake, wide smiles that didn’t reach her eyes.
“Sounds perfect,” she said.
As they headed for the appetizer table, Nina scanned the room, automatically assessing for anything that hinted of a threat from the formally dressed crowd. So far, she hadn’t detected any signs of danger, but she didn’t particularly expect to. This was a charity auction to raise money for the Katie Donahue Foundation, the organization Ewan had started in his sister’s name to support the breeding and reintegration of nearly extinct animal and insect species back into the wild. There would be dinner and dancing and the obligatory speeches. Every guest here had their backgrounds and personal histories thoroughly checked before they were even put on the invitation list, and then again long before they got there. Each would also have been physically searched upon arrival. Every person in this room had passed a rampart of security guards on the way in, more than a few of whom Nina had worked with in the past. All of the guards were above and beyond professional and skilled, even if they weren’t enhanced. Ewan was going to spend the evening getting his ass kissed, not kicked.
“If you want to sit, I can bring you a plate,” Ewan said with a gesture at the long line snaking around the appetizer table.
“I think I can manage to wait in line,” Nina replied.
Ewan’s soft chuckle twisted her insides, and she forced away another set of memories of the two of them laughing together. Standing next to him and pretending he hadn’t broken her heart was not the most dangerous thing Nina had ever done, but it might very well have been the hardest. She kept her gaze focused on the crowd around them, not on him.
“I wouldn’t mind bringing your food, Nina. I know you could do your job from across the room if you had to. But I certainly don’t mind having you by my side, if you insist.”
“Makes you feel safer, right?” she shot back, knowing that wasn’t the only reason. Furious with herself for asking, for needing to hear him say it. She looked at him, finally, daring herself to meet his gaze.
“Because I want you next to me,” Ewan replied evenly, no fake smile. No smile at all, his gaze steady and burning into hers.
The first time Ewan Donahue had hired her, he’d been snarky. Chilly. Downright grouchy. Nina would have preferred him that way this time, too, not solicitous and charming and so incontrovertibly, painfully in love with her.
She frowned. “You’re the one calling the shots. Whatever you say.”
“We both know that’s not true, but I’m happy to pretend if you are,” Ewan answered, and the sight of his grin slaughtered her all over again.
Together, the two of them moved through the guests mingling around the open bar. Ewan stopped to grab them both glasses of champagne. Nina had always made it a practice not to drink while working even though her enhanced metabolism made it nearly impossible for her to get intoxicated. Things had changed, though. She sipped the cool liquid now, relishing the crisp, tickling bubbles and happy to have something to take her attention.
It would almost be easy to pretend things were different between them. A fancy party, a pretty dress, a sparkly glass of champagne. Almost, but not quite simple to allow herself to imagine she was there because of their mutual desire and not a contract binding her to accompany him. It was what Ewan wanted, she knew that. For her to be with him because she truly was his companion and not an armed bodyguard pretending to be his date. Hiring her had been a transparent excuse to get her back into close quarters with him, yet she’d allowed it. She could have, should have, walked out on the contract the minute she saw he was the one who’d hired her. She hadn’t, and no half-glass of sparkling wine was going to make her forget that the real reason she was here right now was because although she wanted to hate Ewan Donahue, she hadn’t yet quite managed to figure out how.
Most of the party guests were Ewan’s acquaintances. Almost every one of them greeted Ewan with a handshake or a simpering smile. Air kisses on both cheeks. Most of them, men and women both, gave Nina curious or outright assessing looks. If any of them wondered who she was, they were all too polite to ask, even when Ewan didn’t introduce her. He kept his hand on her, guiding, heading for the buffet table without stopping for anyone longer than a second or so. Before they got there, a blonde in a flowing emerald-green tunic emblazoned around the hem with sparkling lights stepped in front of them.
Nina reacted at once to the sudden confrontation, fingers twitching, but she knew at once this was no real threat. She kept herself from making fists and stepping between Ewan and the other woman. He noticed. She saw the way his mouth quirked up on one side. Felt the brush of his fingertips once again on the small o
f her back. Reminding her that he knew exactly what she was thinking and why she did what she did. Letting her know he appreciated feeling safe because of her, even when there was no real reason for him to feel endangered.
“Ewan Donahue. I never thought you’d dare show your face in this room tonight.” The words were hostile, the tone flirtatious. The blatant way the blonde gave Nina a once-over and shifted her gaze immediately back to Ewan said a lot. She thought Nina was competition, but barely.
“Ginger.” Ewan shook her hand briefly, two quick pumps and then dropped it. “I wasn’t expecting to see you here. Have you met Nina?”
So now he introduced her by name?
“Nina Bronson, isn’t it? I’ve heard all about you.” Ginger let her gaze linger on Nina this time. Her eyes, dark and almond-shaped, glittered with gem inserts. “What an interesting gown. Off the rack?”
“I wouldn’t know. Ewan bought it for me. Someone came to the house and measured me for it.” Nina gave Ginger the sort of smile only one woman can give another when both of them are circling the same man—except that as far as Nina was concerned, Ginger could have him.
Ewan coughed lightly. His fingers slipped along Nina’s naked skin again, higher up this time. The tickling touch landed at the base of her neck before the look she gave him forced him to take a half step away from her.
“Ginger’s been one of the campaign’s biggest donors,” he explained, as though Nina cared.
Nina gave him a cool smile and met his gaze unflinchingly. “I’ve seen the pictures of you two together. In the gossip viddy stream.”
“We were supposed to be here together, weren’t we?” Ginger tilted her head to allow one honey-hued ringlet to graze her bared shoulder. “Your people were supposed to set it up with mine.”
“Must have missed that,” Ewan said.
Ginger turned to Nina. “Lucky you.”
Nina said nothing. She wasn’t going to go toe-to-toe with this gal. She focused instead on the appetizer buffet. From here she could see towers of what looked like real grapes and cheese. Her stomach didn’t do anything so crass as rumble, but she pressed her palm to it for a second anyway.
She tipped her chin toward the display of food and looked at Ewan, ignoring Ginger outright. There were many ways to cut someone, and they weren’t all with a knife. “I’ll be over there.”
“I’ll come with you,” Ewan said from behind her and easily fell into step beside her before she’d gone far.
“You don’t have to. I’m shiny fine,” Nina said. “Go back and enjoy your conversation.”
He stopped as she kept walking, then took two long strides to reach her again. He touched her elbow to stop her. “Hey, hold up. Not so long ago, you would have refused to leave my side long enough to grab even a single spring roll.”
“Times are different. You didn’t hire me for that level of protection this time, and,” she added before he could protest, “you don’t need it.”
“You never know.”
Nina paused. “You haven’t been the target of any violence since they put Wanda Crosson in prison. Even the League of Humanity has backed off. You hardly need me at all. You could’ve settled for someone big and intimidating.”
“But I do need you, Nina. I’ve been telling you that for weeks.” Ewan’s voice dropped low enough that she was the only one who could have heard him speak. “I wish you’d believe me.”
Nina wanted to whirl on him. Get in his face. She wanted to call him out on this, to scream at him how unfair it was to say such things to her in a room full of strangers when he knew without a doubt she wasn’t going to make a fuss. Later, when they returned to his house, which was not her place and never her home, she could ignore him and go off into the room he’d given her. The one he’d decorated and designed to fit every need she’d ever imagined she could have. She could burrow under the pile of blankets and force her breathing and heartbeat to slow as she gave in to the urge to weep. Here, all she could do was press her lips together in a grotesque parody of a smile that hurt her face to make and keep her eyes dry as bone.
“I’m hungry,” she said flatly after a few interminable seconds in which they stared at each other fiercely, neither willing to drop their gaze first. Ewan finally flicked a glance toward the buffet table. Nina took that broken stare as a victory, although it wasn’t much of one.
Ewan drained his champagne and put the glass on the tray of a passing server. “Then let’s get you something to eat.”
“You know what?” She put up a hand as he tried once more to follow her. “I’m fully capable of grabbing myself a plate. You’re here to meet and mingle and do whatever it is that you need to do at these sorts of things. You go on ahead. I’ll meet you at our table. Don’t worry, sweetie pie, I won’t be long.”
His eyes narrowed and the blaze of heat in them sent an undesired thrill spiraling down from the base of her throat to somewhere much, much lower. Four months ago, Ewan Donahue had hired her to keep him safe. Two months ago, she’d fallen in love with him. A month after that, he’d betrayed her worse than anyone ever had.
Now, here they were.
“Don’t call me pet names,” Ewan said. “I know you don’t mean it.”
Nina frowned. “Fine. Then don’t you call me beautiful.”
“But I do mean it.” He was suddenly too close, murmuring into her ear, his lips brushing the dangling tendrils of her hair.
The horrible part of it all was that she believed he did. Another surge of blistering love/hate roiled through her, twisting and clenching her too-empty stomach. Ewan stepped away before she could be the one to do it, turning on his heel and not even glancing back over his shoulder as he headed for the table they’d been assigned. He was stopped almost at once by a man in a gray tux who shook his hand and clapped him on the back. Then by someone else just a few steps along. Ginger had caught sight of him alone and was heading for him with blatant determination. It was going to take him a long time to get to his seat at that rate.
Another of those onedamned memories of the taste of him, the sound of his breathing in her ear, tried to slice her right to the core. Nina didn’t let it. She’d been dead once, already. She wasn’t going to let him keep on killing her over and over.
CHAPTER TWO
Ewan had often enjoyed these galas. Excellent food and outstanding drink, the company of people he could convince to fund his projects . . . at the very least, the scenery was generally enjoyable. He’d usually gone home with someone who was as disinterested in seeing him the next morning as he was them. Women like Ginger Tanaka, who’d finally given up her pursuit when he made it clear that tonight he only had eyes for one woman.
Nina.
“I was wrong,” he said to her now, leaning close so that nobody else at the table would be able to hear him. Not that he cared if they did. He’d have shouted his feelings from every rooftop, if it would have made a difference. “About the dress.”
Nina had been sipping from a glass of red wine and looked at him now with the liquid teasing her lips. She put the glass down and ran her tongue along the crimson droplets, a perfect match to her dress. Her brow furrowed. “It doesn’t look good?”
Ewan shook his head.
She frowned, glancing at herself. “Nothing I can do about it now.”
“The dress is just a dress. It’s you who makes it beautiful, not the other way around.”
Nina burst into raucous laughter loud enough to make everyone sitting with them turn toward her. She acknowledged their curious glances with a wave of her hand, but kept laughing. Ewan grinned, not caring what anyone else thought. At least he’d made her laugh, really laugh, for the first time since she’d come back to him. To work for him, he reminded himself with a pang. She’d come back for a job. Not him.
Nina jabbed a finger at him as she made an obvious effort to swallow her guffaws. “You’re a cheeseball.”
Her eyes gleamed as she lifted her wineglass again, this time with a small shak
e of her head and a soft, genuine smile, the first he could recall seeing from her since she’d returned. It lifted his heart. Maybe there was hope. He leaned toward her, wanting to kiss her right there in front of everyone, but Ewan hadn’t managed to get where he was in this world by being totally stupid. He caught himself before he could make an utter fool of himself and sat back to lift his own glass.
“To making you laugh,” he said.
Nina clinked her goblet to his. “It’s better than making me cry.”
An apology rose to his lips, but she’d already turned away from him to focus on the plate of pasta that had been delivered by the server. After that, dinner took precedence. He caught her glancing at him now and then, not smiling, but with an appraising look that he hoped meant she might be on her way to forgiving him for being such a colossal sphincter.
“So. Nina. Tell us how you met our dear Ewan,” Katrinka Dev, seated on Ewan’s opposite side, leaned around him to ask.
Nina put down her wineglass and blotted her lips carefully. Her tone was light, but Ewan heard the wariness in it. “He hired me.”
“Oh, do you work in one of his labs?” Katrinka smiled, revealing teeth blinding-white against the crimson of her lips. She nodded, sending a few tendrils of ebony hair spiraling over her shoulders. “My son Jordie works in one of the labs, too, although he’s only an apprentice.”
Before Ewan could reply, Nina shook her head. “I’m not a code monkey. Mr. Donahue hired me to provide him with a particular set of talents.”
“She’s my bodyguard,” Ewan cut in before Nina could say more. He caught sight of her smug grin and knew she’d deliberately made the innuendo. Shaking his head at Katrinka’s amused and slightly confused expression, he said, “Katrinka’s been a longtime supporter of many of my campaigns.”