“Special as in what you can do? Fight, I mean.” Although I was prepared for an outlandish explanation, I was surprised that it began in his childhood.

“Right,” Jared confirmed. “My father taught us much of what we know; he took us al over the world to round out our training.”

“What kind of training?” I asked.

Jared squirmed in his chair. My insides wrenched as I watched him struggle; I wanted to somehow make it easier for him. I reached across the table and slid my fingers between each of his.

“This is why I’m here, right?” I said, offering a reassuring smile. Jared relaxed a bit and gently squeezed my fingers.

“We were trained to defend ourselves, to defend someone else, and received al the training each branch of military receives, including tactical, structure penetration, reconnaissance and patrol ing, hand to hand combat, demolitions, weapons, field medicine…you get the idea.”

“Why?” I said in a more incredulous tone than I’d intended.

Jared took another bite, considering my question. I couldn’t wait for him to decide the best answer.

“Your father was in the security business?” I prompted.

“More along the lines of security detail.”

“Bodyguard stuff,” I nodded.

Jared chuckled. “Yes, bodyguard stuff.”

“So Claire went through the same training?” I imagined tiny Claire training with the Navy Seals and shuddered. I wasn’t sure if it was because I feared for her safety, or because she was even more dangerous than I had previously thought.

“We were separated a lot. When she proved to be accelerated in most things we trained together.” His face twisted with irritation.

“Accelerated?”

“She could hit a target from fifteen-hundred yards by the time she was eleven. She’s probably the best sniper the military has ever seen,” he waited for my reaction. After seeing the deliberate smooth features of my face, he continued, “You can imagine how many elite branches of government and private sectors are fal ing over themselves for her, counting down the days until her eighteenth birthday.” He said the words with a hint of the tone a protective father might have when discussing his daughter’s first date.

“Are you close?” I asked, remembering the way they had reacted to each other in the pub.

Jared frowned. “I love her. She’s my sister.” The crease between his eyebrows grew deeper, “She’s also very obstinate and, like most teenage girls, she’s very self-absorbed. But in a lethal-type of way because of her training.” He was suddenly very far away. “Claire’s been through a lot. She didn’t get to have a normal childhood because of the way we were raised, and she’s angry about a lot of things.”

“Are you angry about the way you were raised?”

“No,” he said the word softly, but with firm conviction. There was no pause between my question and his answer. He scanned my face with such affection that I felt myself fidgeting with unease.

“Why is that?” I bit my lip, stil apprehensive about the intensity in his eyes.

“We’l get to that later. Dessert?” he asked, squeezing my hand before letting go.

I noticed the absence of his touch instantly when my hand turned cold. He took my nearly empty plate and returned with the perfect-sized slice of Angel Food cake. No icing, no layers. Just the way I liked it.

Taking a bite, I closed my eyes. “You have more than one talent, Mr. Ryel,” I said after swal owing the moist, spongy goodness. “Tel me more about you. I want to hear the little things, too. You know al of my favorites; it’s only fair that I know yours.”

Jared laughed once. “Okay.” He wiped his mouth with his napkin and leaned against his chair. “The little things….I was born in Providence on May ninth. I’m twenty-three,” he explained. “Breakfast is my favorite meal. Summer is my favorite season. I don’t have a favorite color, but I’ve always been partial to that crazy green-honey brown color of your eyes. I have this addiction to sweet potato fries.”

“Wel . There you go…I knew something about you after al ,” I grinned.

“See? I’m an open book.”

I rol ed my eyes. “Go on….”

“I think best when on my motorcycle; I don’t real y have time for hobbies. I have a sister, whom you’ve met,” I nodded, “and a little brother, Bex, who’s eleven. They both live with my mother, but Claire spends a lot of time here…sometimes too much,” he grimaced.

I giggled. “And you have your own security business?”

As soon as I asked, I wished I hadn’t. Jared’s eyes instantly clouded over into familiar twin storms.

“I brought you here tonight to be honest with you, Nina.”

“I know,” I said, trying to sound braver than I felt. Whatever it was I would listen, believe, and figure out a way to live with it. I had no other option versus the alternative. Now that I’d met him my life would never be the same again. It would be something too peculiar for anyone else to accept, but I had seen enough in the past months to know anything was possible. “I want you to tel me everything.”

Jared looked away. “You may feel differently before the night is over.”

I tilted my head to draw his eyes to mine. “After everything that’s happened, you don’t think I know there is something abnormal going on? I’m here, aren’t I?”

Jared leaned over and touched my cheek with the palm of his hand. I couldn’t help but lean into it, his skin was always so warm that it radiated into my bones.

“Okay, then. The truth.” He took a deep breath, “My father has been…close to your father for a long time.” He watched my expression, but that part I was somewhat prepared for. He continued, “My father served as protection for your father and, as you can imagine, Jack was a ful time job. He made a lot of the wrong people very angry on a regular basis.”

I winced. I had come to this conclusion after reading the Port of Providence file, but hearing it from Jared rubbed salt in the wound.

“I’m sorry, Nina. I don’t like tel ing you this; it goes against the very principle I was raised on.” Jared reached his hand across the table to mine.

“What do you mean?”

“That’s what my family does, Nina. We protect your father. And your mother…and you.”

I shook my head. “I don’t understand. Your family protects mine? Since when?”

“My father has known Jack since before you were born…before he married your mother.”

I felt my eyebrows pul in. “Why haven’t we met before?”

Jared squeezed my hand. “We have. One of my earliest memories is of Jack encouraging you to take your first steps. We went on family vacations with you; I watched you blow out the candles on your birthday cakes; I saw you drive your first car; we were always in the background.”

I shook my head. “When we had lunch I asked you if we’d met. You said we hadn’t.” Frustration made my words sharper than I had intended.

“We hadn’t met in the way you were inquiring,” Jared pointed out. “The moment I sat beside you on that bench I’ve been very careful not to lie to you, Nina. I promised myself that if the day ever came that I could final y be in your life—in a real way—I would always be honest with you.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Your father protected mine?”

Jared nodded.

“Who is your father?”

“Gabe Ryel.”

“Gabe is your father? But…I don’t remember you. I spent time in his home. You weren’t there.”

“Claire and I were away. We had to start our training early to be ready in time. Bex is eleven and he’s already finished school. He’s been in training for the last eighteen months. It’s just the way it works.”

“It’s the way what works?”

Jared winced at my irritated tone. He was struggling with each piece of information, now. He spoke as if he expected me to run away with every new fact he revealed.

“I’m getting to that,” he shifted nervously.

I pul ed my hand from his and lowered it to my lap. “I don’t remember any of that.”

Jared watched me pul away from him with a pained expression. “You weren’t supposed to. Your father did everything he could to keep you from the dark parts of his life. He did love you, Nina.”

I shook my head, trying to keep the tears at bay. I couldn’t think of any words. Jared stared at me for a moment and spoke again, “Are you sure you want to hear this?”

“Yes. I’m sure.” Knowing something real, even if it was hurtful, was far better than living a lie.

Jared sucked in another breath. “About the time I was ready to work alone, you were becoming more independent. It was thirteen months before there was a need for my training. Up until then, I’d pretty much felt like a babysitter.”

I cringed at his choice of words.

“Five days before your sixteenth birthday Jack had begun a deal with the cops you saw in the surveil ance photos. My father told Jack it was a bad idea, but the bottom line was always the money, and those men—,” Jared spoke with disdain, “—were the easiest way to bypass the system.

“Once Jack realized that dirty cops are a different breed of criminal with even less regard for the law, it was too late. Jack was used to being targeted, but he wasn’t prepared for them to go after you. No one had ever been stupid enough to push Jack that far.”

“After me? We’re talking three years ago, and I had no idea? How is that possible?”

“Because I’m good at my job, Nina. I had to be.” Jared tensed as he continued, “I’d hoped your father would be honest with you—although at the time I wasn’t sure why—but it only made Jack even more determined to keep you from the truth. He didn’t want you to live in fear, and I couldn’t argue with that logic.”

“What made you change your mind?”

Jared’s hands locked together on top of the table. “The first time you were targeted, I took a bul et to the shoulder. The training made it automatic for me to stop that bul et, Nina; but in that one instant, my eyes were opened. The moment I saw Tipton’s finger press against the trigger I wasn’t protecting you because I had to. For the first time, I realized that I could lose you.”

“You were almost kil ed?” I gasped. I imagined him bleeding from a bul et wound while I went on with my life, oblivious. My heart faltered.

Jared crossed his arms on the table and smiled. “Not even close.”

“So these feelings you have for me…you had them before I ever knew you existed,” I said, more of a statement than a question.

Jared grimaced, incensed at my choice of words.

“Nina,” he shook his head. I had obviously offended him somehow. “I was in love with you before you ever knew I existed. It was very difficult to be around you for hours on end and not be able to comfort you, or touch you…even speak to you. I wasn’t al owed to let you see me, but it was my job to watch your every move. That included standing by while people lied to you, betrayed you, caused you pain.

“Jack reminded me constantly that it had to be that way. He could see that every day it grew harder for me to be non-existent…to be invisible to the woman I loved.” His eyes were unfocused, mul ing over the memories that troubled him.

Jared had now said it twice: He was in love with me.

“You can’t imagine the rage I felt seeing some sleaze that didn’t appreciate you take you to dinner, take you for granted, kiss you…make you cry. It was my duty to protect you and I wasn’t al owed to protect you from that; although, I would have gladly murdered Howard without a second thought the night of your sixteenth birthday.”

Adrenaline rushed through my veins, and my mind burned through the memories of that night. Stacy Howard was my first and only boyfriend. He personified the stereotypical supercilious rich boy, complete with rebel ious nature and bad attitude. The longer I put-off a physical relationship with him, the more acerbic he became. It didn’t take long for me to grow tired of him, but just when I’d decided to end things, Cynthia insisted on it first.

Playing the part of the stubborn fifteen year-old daughter to perfection, I grudgingly stayed with him just long enough to show my mother that I would make my own choices.

We had been together for just over a year when he’d chosen my party to break it to me that he was in love with Emma Noble, my then-best friend.

His plans were unnecessary when I caught them having sex in the pool house before he had a chance to tel me. I was so relieved I barely noticed.

“You’re referring to Stacy,” my eyes narrowed.

Jared nodded with an angry expression on his face.

“You knew about that?” I wailed.

Jared shook his head and closed his eyes. “From the moment it began. It was hel watching him go back and forth, not being able to tel you… or kil him. He was just a kid, and I wanted to end his life…so many times,” he whispered in a low, intimidating tone.

I buried my face in my hands. Fire exploded across my face and ears. It was worse than anything I could have possibly imagined. Jared hadn’t just been hired to protect me since my father had passed away; he’d observed my awkward tween years, my humiliations, and every one of my embarrassing failures.

The degradation was unbearable. I sprang from my seat and headed for the door, but before my first step, I heard Jared’s chair grate against the floor. In the next moment he gently grabbed me from behind, wrapping his arms around my waist.

“I know this is humiliating for you,” he spoke quietly in my ear. “I wanted to tel you, I begged Jack to let me expose that cheating little maggot so many times, but he wouldn’t let us interfere unless it was absolutely necessary. Doing that to you on your birthday,” he said, fuming, “it was the breaking point for me. That night was the first time I’d fought Jack on anything.”