Dangerous Promise Read online

  “You told me, ‘Once you’re mine, you’re mine all the way.’”

  Nina’s brow furrowed. “Yes. That’s true.”

  “But not about fucking,” Ewan said. “Or at least, not about fucking me.”

  This had gotten more serious than she’d intended it to be, so she considered her words carefully as she met his gaze. “No. But it’s still true.”

  Ewan drained his glass and poured another while the server brought in an enormous cake frosted with white. Nina could smell the lemon at once, and her taste buds smarted, but she grinned. Lemon cake was the one she liked best.

  “My favorite,” she said.

  “I know. You’re not the only one who did homework.” Ewan asked also for coffee, and the server disappeared back into the kitchen.

  Nina shook her head. “Not sure if I should be flattered or concerned. Now you know all my secrets.”

  “Most of them,” Ewan corrected. “Not all.”

  She glanced at him as she sliced two thick pieces of cake and gave one to each of them. “And here I thought I really didn’t have any.”

  “Everyone has secrets,” Ewan said and waited until the server had left the coffee and disappeared again before pouring them each a cup.

  They both sat back in their chairs with the cake and coffee, and the next couple minutes were silent, without conversation. Nina didn’t mind. They’d started off light and flirty and ended up going a little more serious than she’d meant to. Besides, the cake was above and beyond delicious and the coffee . . .

  “Real coffee,” she murmured, sipping. “So, so good.”

  “I trust you with my life,” Ewan said, somewhat abruptly.

  Nina paused in relishing the coffee, both her hands wrapped around the cup. “I’m glad. And honored.”

  “I don’t want there to be anything that comes between us that would affect that,” Ewan continued.

  “Because you think that if we were intimately involved I wouldn’t be able to keep you safe?” She shook her head in protest, but he interrupted her.

  “No. I trust your skills and talents no matter what else is going on . . .”

  “Thank you.”

  He gave her a look that seemed meant to shut her up until he’d finished, so she went quiet.

  “I’ve seen you work. I fully believe that no matter what was happening, you’d be able to protect me from any harm. I also believe you’re entirely capable of separating intimacy from the job.” Ewan’s gaze pinned her. “And I’ve certainly had my share of casual encounters. Go ahead, make a joke if you want.”

  “I don’t need to make a joke,” Nina answered. “I don’t care much about your love life. It’s really not any of my business, and I shouldn’t have made a joke about it before, either.”

  “The tabloids make a big deal about my relationships not lasting. Money can’t buy love. That sort of thing.”

  “You said yourself you didn’t believe love could last. Why should you let those sites bother you?” Nina asked with a scowl.

  Ewan sipped coffee and shook his head. “I don’t really care about any of that. Any of the women I’ve taken out were interested in my money, and I knew that right up front. We usually had a generous agreement between us. An understanding. The few, the very few, times I ever thought about trying to make it work with someone seriously, it ended pretty quickly. Usually by them, usually because they said I was too distant. Too occupied with my work. A few of them said I didn’t have a sense of humor.”

  “They were wrong,” Nina said.

  Ewan looked pleased, then frowned. “Most of them also complained about my lack of emotional connection.”

  Nina took a bite of cake, enjoying the rich frosting and delicious tang of lemon. She sipped coffee. “Did you tell them what you told me? About not believing love can last?”

  “Some of them,” he said. “I stopped bothering when it became clear that even if I did tell them there was no possibility of our relationship ever becoming more than physical, they didn’t believe me. Women always think they’re going to be the one to change a man.”

  “You don’t have to worry about me,” Nina told him. “I can’t fall in love with you, remember? So even if I did go to bed with you, and trust me, if I did, it would blow your mind, you wouldn’t have to worry about me trying to make it into something more.”

  She’d been teasing him, but this time, Ewan didn’t so much as crack a grin. “But you’re not going to.”

  “No,” she told him and waited to see if his ego would prompt him to ask her why.

  “Does it bother you? Knowing about me and other lovers?”

  “No.”

  It did bother him, she thought. “I can sense the change in your temperature, not to the exact degree, but enough. I can, if I focus just right, hear how fast your heart is beating. I can’t tell a hundred percent if someone’s lying, but I can generally get a very good idea if it’s likely.”

  “You think I’m lying?”

  “I don’t know why it would bother you to know that I have, in the past, gone to bed with a client while on the job, but there’s something you should understand. This . . .” She gestured at herself, her gear, the table, the room, then let her hand settle on her harness with her fingers touching her shockgun. “All of this is not the job. You are the job. And so long as I am on this job, you are my priority. Whatever you need to keep you safe, that’s what I’ll do.”

  * * *

  “Not including fucking me.” Ewan’s words fell flatly off his tongue and tasted sour beneath the sweetness of the lemon cake he’d had the kitchen make especially for Nina.

  She frowned and dragged her fork through the last of the icing, then licked it off the tines carefully before setting it back on her plate. “If fucking you saved your life, yes, I would do it.”

  He barked out a short, sharp, and harsh laugh. “Somehow I can’t really imagine a scenario where that would be necessary.”

  Nina gave him a brief sideways glance he could not interpret and sat back in her chair with a hand on her lean belly. “They seem to make it happen in a lot of terrible viddyporn.”

  Ewan got up from the table. The dishes rattled. “I’m not in the habit of begging for anything. Much less sex. I was just asking out of curiosity.”

  “Of course you were,” she said, clearly scoffing and calling him out. “And because I didn’t leap at the chance, suddenly you didn’t mean it. Are you going to tell me I’m ugly, now, too? Toss in a fat-shaming comment? Oh, I know. You could imply or come right out and call me a slut because I have fucked other people, but I just said no to you.”

  Her words, measured and steady, were a hail of bullets, each of them hitting their mark. Ewan took a step back, his hands going up as though he could protect himself from that onslaught. His stomach twisted, but although he opened his mouth to deny her accusations, a part of him knew, ashamedly, that she wasn’t entirely wrong.

  Nina hadn’t finished. “Let me tell you something, Mr. Donahue. If I choose to kiss you, or if I choose to let you touch me, or if I choose to fuck you, those are my choices to make. I do not choose to be with someone intimately who’s going to wish as soon as it’s over that we’d never done it to begin with. Do you understand me? If we are together, it will be because I feel like you really want me, Nina Bronson. Even if it’s only for the time we are together, I’m not going to get involved with someone who doesn’t see me, the entire me, not just a convenient place to get his dick wet.”

  Everything about her had set him on edge. He couldn’t get the memory of her straddling him out of his head, but now it was overlaid with an imagined scene of her with someone else. Many someone elses. He watched her finish her coffee with a contented sigh. When she slicked her tongue along her lower lip, muscles low in Ewan’s stomach tightened. His cock thickened. He made a conscious effort at slowing the sudden hitch of his breath, too aware that she could probably sense his arousal the same way she did a lie.

  “Brandy and