Dangerous Promise (The Protector) Read online

  “Yeah? Why yesterday?” Ewan turned to face the path, setting off at an easy, steady pace that would not too easily wind him. He couldn’t deny the rising thrill of anticipation inside him, and only some of it had to do with this plan they’d put together.

  Nina jogged beside him, keeping pace. “Because today I’m too busy.”

  “I love how you banter.” Ewan lengthened his stride, but slowly, easily. He needed a good, long run for the sake of how it would make him feel, but there wasn’t any point in running himself ragged if nothing was going to happen today. “Not many women can keep up with me.”

  “Yet, you don’t like one who can overtake you,” she said, pushing faster to get ahead of him. She turned, running backward to face him the way he had a few minutes ago. Laughing, Nina made a rude gesture. “C’mon, Donahue. Keep up.”

  He did, letting her stay just ahead of him. “You’re wrong about me, you know.”

  “Yeah?” She eyed him as she faced forward again. She was barely out of breath.

  “Yeah . . .” He, however, had to gulp some air, and that was all he managed to say.

  Telling Nina that her strength aroused him was probably a bad idea, anyway. Despite the back-and-forth tension that had been ebbing and flowing for the past few weeks, getting involved with her was only going to cause more trouble than it would be worth. Beyond that, there was the real problem of the threats on his life to be dealt with. He didn’t need to be thinking with his cock right now.

  They ran in silence for a while after that, heading up toward the fish ponds. Gravel crunched beneath his running shoes. Ewan lifted his chin and breathed in deeply. Fresh air. Mown grass. A tingling scent of water as they drew closer to the deep, cold ponds teeming with fish. Every sense was heightened.

  “Need a break,” he said, even though he could have run for another few miles. He feigned a limp. “Pulled something.”

  Nina slowed and turned. “Let me take a look.”

  There was no sign of surveillance. Nothing to indicate that someone was heading their way to harm him. Even so, a creeping sense of unease started tapping up his spine, raising the hairs on the back of his neck and bumping his flesh.

  Ewan paused in front of the pond’s concrete rim and bent at the waist to rub his calf as though he were cramping. Nina bent, too. Her fingers followed his, kneading the muscle.

  With her mouth against his ear, she said, “Something’s coming.”

  * * *

  Nina wasn’t surprised they’d sent a drone. This one was bigger than the one that had tried to take pictures and way more menacing. It was too far away for her to tell what it was loaded with.

  Assess the situation—approaching drone, unknown weaponry, but based on the information they’d leaked to Ewan’s staff and the way it had conveniently shown up right now when there were known vulnerabilities in his security, she was going to assume the worst.

  “It’s going to fire on you.” Still pretending to rub the faked injury to his leg, she put herself between Ewan and the drone, a position that wouldn’t do much because the unit was approaching from above. “I’m going to do my best to make sure the hit is deflected onto your torso. You’re going to feel pressure and some tingling that might spread out to your arms and legs, but that vest will protect you against all standard hits. I’ll try to avoid getting hit, myself, but if I do, you keep to the plan. Got it?”

  Ewan nodded. She didn’t look at him, keeping her eyes on the drone, but she felt the tension in his muscles. Heard the rapid panting of his breath, sensed the stepped-up beating of his heart.

  Nina had told him she was not a strategist, and that was the truth. She reacted to threats. There was no time for anxiety when she was fighting; she moved. Struck. Protected. But this whole thing was more complicated than that, because it relied not only on her skills at defending herself and her client against danger but also on the end result, over which she had no control. Ewan had been the one to take care of the final arrangements. She hadn’t asked him how, exactly, he’d managed to set up the transportation away from his estate, but she knew he’d done it through a series of “back doors” that were supposed to make the entire business anonymous and untraceable. By giving his staff all the information they had about how someone could get to him, they’d both hoped the rest of the preparations would go undetected. There were a lot of “ifs” that they hadn’t been able to control. No time to dwell on them now.

  She’d asked Ewan to trust her with his life, and now it was her turn to trust him.

  “What if they miss?” he asked under his breath as the drone zoomed closer, so silent they probably wouldn’t have noticed it if they hadn’t been expecting something to happen.

  “I expect it’ll try again until it thinks it killed you,” Nina said.

  Ewan stifled a laugh as though it were a cough, but his shoulders heaved with it. “Let’s hope it does, right?”

  He was laughing, even now? Nina drew a breath that slipped out of her on a chuckle of her own in response as she glanced at him. Ewan Donahue was an enigma to her, blowing hot and cold, serious and then goofy when she least expected it. She wasn’t sure she’d ever quite get a handle on him.

  “Is it going to hurt?” he asked.

  Nina straightened as the drone came closer. Two small portals in the front opened, dual tubes extending. “Yes. Stunbullets won’t kill you, but even if they have illegal ammunition, old-style bullets, that vest will stop them from getting too deep.”

  Incredibly, Ewan laughed again. “Great. Right. Bring it on.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The drone had arrived right on time, proving to him that someone on his team was selling information or was outright involved with any one of the number of organizations determined to end his life. Nina stepped in front of him, drawing her shockgun from the thigh holster and aiming it at the drone. She fired, because they’d agreed this had to look as real as possible, but missed on purpose.

  When the drone fired at him, Ewan’s instinct was to duck, to run, but Nina had warned him to stand his ground. He had every faith she would keep him safe, but he had to take the hit in a place where the vest would keep the bullet from causing major damage. If he were running, the hit could get him anywhere.

  “Stunbullets,” Nina cried. “Stay still!”

  After that, everything happened so fast Ewan couldn’t keep track. Three hard pops hit him in the vest, knocking him a few steps backward. It did hurt, just as Nina had promised, but worse was the spreading tingle of what felt like electric shock running through him. It seized his muscles into tight spasms, forcing his fingers to clench into fists as agony tore through his calves and thighs. His toes tried to curl inside his shoes but cramped instead. He heard his own grunts, animalistic and wordless.

  Nina pushed him toward the water. The drone fired again, the bullets heading for their target with a high-pitched whine that wasn’t nearly as bad as a decibel bomb but still rang in his ears, making it hard to hear what she was shouting. Ewan stumbled forward as another series of stunbullets hit him in the back.

  One caught him in the upper bicep, beyond where the vest covered. Instant, ripping pain seared through him along with another wave of that electric agony. All his muscles tried to lock up, but Ewan gritted his teeth and forced a step forward to keep himself from pitching onto his face.

  From behind him, Nina let out a garbled cry as another burst of stunbullets rained from the drone. Her hands on his back pushed him another few steps toward the pond’s concrete lip. Ewan managed a look over his shoulder. The drone had dropped to just above Nina’s head. While the twin turrets spun, preparing for another round, the window set into the drone’s face clicked and whirred. Taking pictures, making sure he was getting hit, Ewan thought and made sure to screw up his face in an expression of agony that this time wasn’t fake.

  Nina fired on the drone again, this time clipping it so that it went spinning upward into the sky before settling and righting itself back in th