Dangerous Promise (The Protector) Read online

  Donahue stayed silent.

  Nina leaned forward. “I was dead, Mr. Donahue. Breathing, but dead. Do you want to know what I saw when I was dead?”

  Donahue leaned forward with a gleam of interest. “Tell me.”

  “I can’t remember,” Nina said flatly. “Not a onedamned thing. No white light. No chorus of angels, singing me home. I can’t remember anything at all.”

  “I’m not surprised,” Donahue told her. “There is nothing beyond death to see.”

  Nina had never believed that, and she didn’t want to believe it now. The blank spot in her memories between those last moments before the attack and her first recollection of waking up in the hospital haunted her more than any of the other myriad dark spaces. “I said I didn’t remember anything, not that nothing existed.”

  “Nothing does.”

  “You’re a self-professed atheist.” It was no secret and had been written about him in nearly every interview he’d ever given. Donahue had officially dissolved his affiliation with Monodeityism, which had surged into worldwide popularity and replaced most of the original faiths three decades before either of them had been born.

  “My lack of religious belief is exactly the reason why I don’t think we should be screwing around with that sort of tech,” Donahue said bluntly. “If humanity is meant to evolve, it will happen the way it’s supposed to. Not because we fill our heads with hardware. Don’t tell me you’re a Monodeist.”

  “I do believe in something,” Nina said. “I’m not sure exactly what. But I want to believe there’s something for us after we go. So many people have seen and felt and heard it.”

  Donahue shrugged. “Are you saying you’d rather have been left for dead than brought back?”

  “No. Do you think I should wish I’d been left dead?” When he didn’t answer, she shook her head. “Those enhancements saved my life. Made me more than I could ever have been without them. I would not be here now if not for those surgeries and that tech, and I will never regret any of it. But the decision to make the tech illegal wouldn’t stop anyone from using me or anyone like me for their own purposes if they wanted to. I mean, you are.”

  “That’s different!” The snap of anger in his eyes was a sudden, sizzling zing between them. His fists clenched, and though she didn’t want to imagine the strength of his grip and how it would feel if he put those hands on her, nevertheless she found her own fingers twitching in response. “I’m not choosing to use you for anything that’s against the law.”

  “But you could,” she said. “I exist. So do the others.”

  “And I don’t think there should be any more of you.”

  “Is the reason why you’re so adamantly involved in blocking all upgrades to the current tech and eliminating any future research because you don’t want super soldiers to be utilized in international combat? Or is it because you don’t want us to exist at all?” Nina asked. “Do you think we should all have been left dead?”

  Donahue shook his head and looked as though he meant to answer one way, but chose a different response at the last second. “Let’s just say the reasons for my working so hard to stop additional advancement in those technologies is personal.”

  “Fair enough,” she said lightly, though it took a lot of effort to keep from sounding caustic. She took another spoonful of jam and spread it on the toast. Chewed. Swallowed. “So, will I be collecting my last pay deposit from you, or not?”

  She felt the weight of Donahue’s gaze upon her, but she didn’t look at him. She concentrated on the flavors of the jam and the bread. She’d survived way worse than being fired by some rich bro with an axe to grind. He could think what he liked about her. It didn’t make it true.

  She was not monster. Not a moral dilemma. She was a person, full and whole, and . . . Nina’s throat closed and she couldn’t eat another bite, no matter how delicious. She set the knife on the edge of her plate and put her hands in her lap, staring hard at the white tablecloth. Her mouth tasted bitter, but she drank some coffee anyway. This time, she didn’t make a happy sigh at the flavor. She didn’t make a noise at all.

  “What would you do, if you were me?” he asked.

  Nina shrugged and found a scrap of jam in the corner of her mouth. She caught him once more watching the motion of her tongue and paused, assessing that look. She’d thought he was judging her for being messy, but the hint of heat there told her maybe he was looking at her in a different way.

  So many of them did, those powerful and rich men and women who’d hired her to keep them alive. They looked at her as something to be used. Sometimes, she let them. They never figured out she was using them, too.

  “I’d fire me for insubordination, I guess. I’m a lot to put up with.” Nina shrugged.

  He sat back in his chair, arms crossed over his chest. “But like you said before. You’re the best.”

  “I am.”

  “And I don’t settle for anything less,” Donahue said with a small, quirking smile that helped to ease the tension, if only a little.

  “Why should you? It’s your life, after all.” Nina pushed the plate away and dusted her fingers of crumbs. “I guess you could stop doing things that make people want to kill you. It would be cheaper, in the long run.”

  “Somehow, I don’t see that happening.”

  “Then I guess I’ll be sticking around, at least for a while longer.” She finished her coffee, wishing the richness of the flavor hadn’t dulled for her after this conversation. She studied him and put the mug on the table. “Look. I can’t do anything to make them stop coming after you. I do promise to keep them from killing you. Or causing you major bodily harm. But I can’t promise they won’t do something awful to your jam spoon.”

  She liked his face when he laughed. It made him seem accessible and human and fun, the sort of guy you’d want to shoot hoops with. Maybe hang out by the pool. It helped her to pretend he was not a close-minded bigot who stood in the way of her mental—and physical—survival.

  “I can afford another jam spoon, if I need one,” Donahue said.

  She leaned to dip it back into the pot of jam so she could spread it on another piece of toast. “Thank goodness for that. I hate to think what you’d do if you had to use, like, a plastic butter knife or something. I mean, oh, the horror.”

  “That’s really what you think of me, huh?” Donahue looked thoughtful, and perhaps the smidgiest bit offended.

  Nina shrugged, aware she should watch her words but not caring in that moment. When she got stung, she tended to sting hard in return. “Does it really matter what I think about you?”

  “Maybe. Yes. Of course it does.”

  “Why?” She pointed her triangle of toast at him before tucking it into her mouth. She chewed and swallowed and this time was able to find a happy sigh at the flavors again. “I mean, in the end, why do you care about my opinions of you personally? I’m just a hired hand. Right? I’m a nothing.”

  Donahue’s frown shouldn’t have made him as attractive as his smile did, yet the stern expression was still sexier than any man had a right to be. She was sure it got him places he wanted to go, but she’d hardly have to worry about that, would she? She wasn’t going to be a place he ever wanted to go.

  “Sure. Right,” Donahue said but sounded as though he were disagreeing.

  “Shiny fine, then.” Nina stood, hands on her hips. Brisk and matter-of-fact, bringing them both back to where this thing had to be and where it would stay. “So. What shall we do after breakfast?”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  It had been a long time since there’d been anyone in Ewan’s life who’d felt free enough to give him a hard time the way Nina seemed to feel so free doing. He didn’t count the journalists or social media commentators who viewed him as fair game and tore him apart for everything from his politics to his choice of socks. Or, of course, the various self-appointed social justice groups like the League of Humanity that had made it their goal to wipe him off the face of the