Wicked Attraction (The Protector) Read online

  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