Wicked Attraction (The Protector) Read online

  “They shouldn’t have even gotten that close. They should never have been allowed in here. How’d they pass the background checks?” Nina demanded.

  Ewan had been looking back and forth between them, increasingly concerned. Now he turned Nina to face him. “What are you talking about?”

  “Two of the waitstaff attacked me while I was giving my speech,” Nina said, forcing herself to calm down. “Al helped me. Neither of us got hurt.”

  Ewan looked toward Al, who’d gone back to standing by the buffet table again, surveying the room. He glared at Katrinka. “We’re leaving.”

  “There are still people who want to meet her, especially now,” Katrinka protested. “I mean, even if it wasn’t planned, Nina, it’s admittedly brilliant. All of them have heard about what you can do, but I guarantee you most of them haven’t ever had the chance to glimpse you in action. It’s not what I’d have chosen, it’s in fact the opposite, but I’ve never been afraid to admit when I’m wrong.”

  Nina didn’t push herself out his arms, but gently stepped away from him. “This is not about me being in action. It’s about getting them to support the repeal. . . . Listen, I’ve had enough of all of this. I’m barefoot, my dress is torn, I’m starving because the food here was excremental—”

  Katrinka let out a shocked gasp and put a hand over her heart. “I hired the best chefs!”

  Nina would have laughed at the other woman’s clear affront, but she didn’t have any humor inside her. “And someone tried to stab me. Twice. I’m out.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  “Villanova’s going to vote in favor.” Ewan clapped his hands together in triumph and came around the side of the desk to kiss Nina’s surprised face. “Turns out that almost everyone at the party who saw you get attacked lent their support to the initiative.”

  Nina kissed him but then drew back. “I guess I couldn’t have hoped for a better outcome if I’d planned for it.”

  “Katrinka did ask me again if we’d staged it,” Ewan admitted.

  “Of course she did.” Nina shook her head and tugged him by the front of his shirt to give him a longer, more thorough kiss. “She’ll think we planned the whole thing no matter what we say, and she won’t care either way, because it got the results she wanted.”

  Ewan stroked her hair off her forehead and over one shoulder. “Also the results we wanted, baby. This is a good thing. And we’ll figure out who was trying to get to you, and why.”

  “I’m less concerned about why. It doesn’t matter, really, does it? If someone’s coming after me, I don’t need a history lesson on their messed-up rationale.” She frowned.

  He’d seen her be firm and serious plenty of times, but he’d never seen Nina this downhearted and concerned. It killed him to know that something was bothering her and he couldn’t help. Kissing distracted them both, but he knew she was still thinking about the attacks.

  Nina got up to look out the window of his office, her arms crossed over her chest. Today she wore a loose-fitting caftan, her feet bare and her hair pulled up into a glorious tangle of curls with several pieces falling artfully down her back. She didn’t usually wear cosmetics and normally didn’t need to, but in the glow from the window her eyes looked hollowed.

  “I was thinking we could go out for lunch today,” Ewan said. “Celebrate. We can get a high-speed transpo, head north and grab a bite at this little place I know on Lake Erie, great view of the water. Hell, we can make a weekend out of it, baby. There’s a terrific bed-and-breakfast resort there where all the bungalows are on pilings in the middle of the lake. The only way to get there is by boat. It would be—”

  “Safe?” She half-turned to give him only part of a smile.

  Ewan crossed the room to her and settled his hands on her waist. “I was going to say romantic. Sexy. Luxurious. Fun. But yes, also safe.”

  “I love you,” Nina said.

  Ewan pulled her close to nuzzle at her neck and breathe in the delicious scent of her. “I love you, too. I hate that you’re feeling scared. Anxious. Whatever it is, baby, what can I do to help you?”

  She didn’t say anything for a few seconds that seemed to last forever while he waited. Beneath his fingers, the thin fabric of her caftan did little to shield her curves from his touch, but although he still adored the feeling of her body, now was not the time to press for lovemaking. He wanted to comfort her.

  “Something isn’t right,” Nina said finally. “I haven’t felt right since the hospital.”

  “More glitches?”

  She shook her head. “This is different. The glitches . . . I could feel them happening. I could tell, after, what they’d done.”

  Frowning, he tipped his finger beneath her chin to lift it so he could look at her eyes. No signs of threading crimson, to his relief. “I can call the doc. Get you checked out. Are you having the memory losses?”

  “Nothing new that I’ve noticed. No headaches. If anything,” she said after a second, her expression serious, “all of that seems to have gone away.”

  “That’s good, baby. Isn’t it?” he added when her face showed she didn’t exactly agree with him.

  Nina’s brow furrowed. “I . . . I don’t know. Yes. It should be. Except I’m worried.”

  It meant a lot to him for her to admit that, even though it sliced at his heart. “Let’s get you an appointment with the doc. Get you checked out.”

  “Yes. All right.” Her expression still showed she wasn’t convinced that it was going to make a difference, but she smiled up at him and offered her mouth for a kiss. “You said something about lunch. How long will it take to get there?”

  “In a high-speed transpo, about forty minutes. Can you wait that long?” He cupped her face in his hands and looked into her eyes, searching them for any signs, anything at all, that something was wrong. Of course there was nothing, so he kissed her mouth as she laughed at him.

  “Yes, baby,” Nina said, “I can wait forty minutes. But it’s going to take a little longer than that, because if you’re whisking me away for a romantic weekend, I need to pack a bag.”

  Ewan shook his head, letting his hands slide up her sides to rest just beneath her breasts, delightfully full and and soft beneath the caftan. “You don’t need anything, because I’m going to want you naked the entire time.”

  “Oh my. The entire time?” She laughed again, this time breathlessly, as he slid his tongue along her throat and up to the corner of her mouth, where he tickled her lips with a lick.

  “Yep.”

  “Mmm,” Nina said in that low, contemplative tone he loved so much. “Sounds like fun.”

  “I’ll call the transpo as soon as I make you an appointment with the doc.”

  “That can wait until we get back,” she said. “Really. I’ll be shiny fine.”

  He didn’t believe her and was unconvinced she believed herself, but before he could argue the point, her personal comm pinged from its place on the arm of the couch where she’d left it. When she went to answer it, he went to his own to tap in a message to his doc, asking for a rec of someone close to the resort. They could still have their weekend away, and she could still get checked out. Next, he pulled up the information for the resort itself so he could book one of their bungalows. By the time he’d finished and looked up, Nina had also stopped typing on her comm.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “Nothing’s wrong. It was my sister again. Patrice. She really wants to get together with me. She sent me a long letter of apology.” Nina held up the comm to show him a screen full of text.

  Ewan couldn’t read it from this distance, but he could see there were several exchanges following the initial message. “That’s good, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. Apologies are good, when they’re sincere.”

  “You don’t think hers is?”

  Nina shrugged. “She took the time to write it. That says a lot, anyway. She’s making an effort at something, and even if her endgame is to get money out o