Never Mine by Clare Connelly
Chapter 5
“I’M GOING OUT.” She fixed him with a cold stare, totally at odds with the lava-like heat of her arteries. “I presume you’ll need to come with me?”
She’d chosen the dress on purpose, but even then, Max hadn’t been prepared for what it would feel like for Noah to see her in the dress. A red column that barely covered her ass, that had no sleeves and sat tight on her breasts, and in fact hugged her body like a second skin, she’d bought it at the fashion shows in February and had been waiting for an excuse to wear it. Getting under the skin of Noah Storm seemed like as good a reason as any. The dress on its own should have come with a health warning, but coupled with the silver Louboutins that drew attention to her long, slender legs, she looked sensual and traffic-stopping. She left her hair wild and loose over one shoulder and her make up, from the fashion show, just required a little touching up. The diamond pendant fell close enough to the valley of her cleavage, impossible to miss.
To Noah’s credit, after his initial double take, he was all bloody professionalism again, standing and reaching for his jacket in one movement. “Where to?”
Her heart sank. Great. He’d called her on her bluff and now she had to go through with it. She angled her face away, chin jutting at a defiant angle. “The after party. Elvira begged. I don’t want to let her down.”
“Sure.” A single word – an agreement, for god’s sake – yet she felt exposed, as though he saw right through her and was even laughing at her. Something like acid stung her throat.
She refused to show it.
Goddamnit.He stared at her from the biggest distance he allowed – about six feet – kicking himself for the fact this was how he was spending his night. Watching her socialize, flirt, be flirted with, drooled over, adored, all from where he stood, hands in his pockets, wishing they were roaming her insanely delectable body, wishing he’d ignored common sense and decency and made her his, just like she’d begged him to.
I need this tonight.
That one little throwaway comment could just as well have been a grenade though. Max Fortescue might act like she had the world eating out of the palm of her hand but he knew better. He saw beneath the act to her vulnerability and he understood that right now, when she was literally afraid for her life, those vulnerabilities would be a huge tangle inside of her. The last thing she needed was to be taken advantage of by the guy she was relying on to protect her.
It was completely out of the question.
But damn it, he’d wanted to ignore his black and white morals, just this once. Then, instead of being in a packed, exclusive, Parisian nightspot right now he’d be investigating all the places on Max’s body that made her whimper.
He swore inwardly, his eyes narrowing as she took another drink from yet another man, the woman from the fashion show clearly desperate to show off Max’s presence. She made sure they were photographed often, she circulated Max to a large group of people, including journalists, and Noah followed dutifully behind, his expression impassive, even as she began to speak to one man in particular for longer than the others, even as she leaned closer, her hand on his chest, an invitation unmistakable in his eyes.
So help him, God, if she brought this guy home with her, it would test every ounce of his professionalism. Not quitting would be the hardest thing he’d ever done.
It was clear that the man in question was keen. He laced their fingers together, spoke low, leaned close. Noah wanted to strangle something. For a moment he looked away, because the sight of them was burned into his retina, before he remembered that his job was to watch, no matter how hard he found it.
She laughed at something the man said, then looked towards the doors. This was really going to happen. He braced himself for the inevitable, tried to preempt how he’d react, how he’d keep his face from giving him away when she told him she was bringing some other guy home, spending the night with him.
She finished the drink and put it on the table. The man nodded to the bar; Max shook her head.
Suit guy leaned closer, his hand came around to the top of Max’s butt. Noah was surprised the steam coming from his ears didn’t set off the smoke alarm. Max laughed; Noah clenched, then she was pulling back, turning around, her eyes fixing to his so he could see everything, her haunted expression, the realization that she didn’t know what the hell she was doing, that she had started this to make him jealous and was now regretting it.
He swooped in, putting an arm beneath her elbow. “What do you want?”
She didn’t even look at suit guy. Her lips chattered together. “To go home.” Her eyes didn’t meet his.
He ignored the burst of relief, and didn’t hesitate. He propelled her out of the club, onto the sidewalk where a smattering of paparazzi remained, their lenses trained on whomever stumbled out. Thanks to Noah’s support, that wasn’t Max, but she shrunk into his side anyway, burying her face in his shirt, so he instinctively put an arm around her and kept her close as he pushed through the crowds and into the waiting car. Double parked on a yellow line he noted the ticket with a sardonic grimace, opening the door for Max. She ignored it, rounding to the front passenger door, which she opened herself and stepped into. He compressed his lips, not arguing, just glad he was able to take her home. And without the suit guy.
A glance at the dash when he started the engine showed it was past two. She’d been there for hours. Had she enjoyed herself? Was this how she spent her spare time?
“You must be starving.” Her words sounded so small, so concern had him whipping around to look at her, before quickly returning his gaze to the road.
“Yeah.”
“I’m sorry.” He stopped at traffic lights and looked at her properly now, seeing the way her throat moved as she swallowed, the look of being lost clear in her eyes. She bit down on her lip and he had the most unsettling realization that she was staving off tears.
“I can go twelve hours without eating,” he promised. “I’m not going to die.”
She smiled, a half-smile, turning away from him, her hands running over the elasticized hem of her dress.
He took the most direct route back to the apartment, fighting an urge to put his arm around her as he led her into the building. There were no camera lenses here, no paparazzi, just two more doormen who greeted her with the same deference as the earlier two.
In her apartment, Max slipped out of her heels and padded into the kitchen. He stayed where he was, watching, before rousing himself. Distance.
He bolted the door, inspected the windows, checking each meticulously, then the double doors that led to the rooftop terrace. He went through the entire apartment, the mechanical act of carrying out his job vital for reminding him what he was doing there.
Fifteen minutes later, when he returned to the lounge room, it was to find a very different Max. She’d showered, washing off the full face of cosmetics and brushing out her long hair so it was silky and soft, pulled back into a low ponytail. She wore a pair of silk pants and a loose fitting top – it was obvious there was no bra beneath, the roundness of her breasts so perfect that he ached to simply stare. But he didn’t.
“Your apartment’s secure.”
“Thank you.” She waved a hand towards the kitchen. “Help yourself to anything. Or call for delivery. I’m going to bed.”
“You haven’t eaten either.”
“I had some hors d’oeuvre at the club. I’m fine.”
Except she wasn’t fine. He could see the lines of strain around her eyes, the sense of powerlessness, and he understood. Having someone stalk you, the persistent, niggling fear, the sensation of needing to be ever-ready, always vigilant, was exhausting. But that was why he was here. So she didn’t need to be so vigilant. Why she didn’t need to worry so much.
It was also why he had to make sure he did his damned job properly, not get distracted by their chemistry.
“You’ll feel better if you eat.”
“You seem to forget I’m twenty six years old. I’ve lived perfectly well up until this point without your tips. I think I’ll manage another few days.”
He thought about fighting back, about insisting, but at the end of the day, she was right. He would never get involved in the dietary habits of any other client. It wasn’t his place. So why did he care so much about Max, wanting to stop her from feeling crap in the morning?
“Suit yourself. Goodnight.”
After he’d polishedoff a whole pizza, Noah checked on her. Not Max so much as her room, to be sure everything was as it ought to be. He simply pushed the door inwards, flicked his gaze around the room – window closed, nothing disturbed – then stepped back out of it again. It was only as he got ready for bed he realized the same little nightlight that she had in London had been glowing with warmth, casting a gentle light over her room as she slept. Why?
Please, please, please let it have been a dream.
Max squinted into the room, hoping her mind was playing tricks on her, that she hadn’t begged her bodyguard to make love to her then dragged him out to a club where she flirted with any guy she came close to, just to piss him off.
But the claggy feeling in her mouth and fogginess of her head told her that it had happened, just as she remembered.
“Oh, hell.”
She showered and changed into a pair of jeans and a singlet top, put on some lipgloss and mascara and fluffed her hair a bit. She looked like herself, but she sure as hell didn’t feel like it.
Maybe if she pretended it had meant nothing to her? That she’d hit on him because she was bored, just like he said? That it was simply a matter of her wanting to get laid and him being conveniently close at hand? But even imagining having that conversation made her feel icky. It wasn’t true. She was nothing like the press liked to paint her. She didn’t hook up with random guys every night of the week, she actually liked to get to know the men she slept with. She even held out hope that one day she’d fall in love – a crazy notion given the way she was raised. But lying to Noah was preferable to letting him know the mortifying truth – that she had wanted to sleep with him. Just him. Not out of boredom, not out of habit, just out of…necessity.
Ughhhh.
Coffee. She needed coffee.
“Oh.” He was, of course, awake when she stepped out into the lounge area, and he was, to add insult to injury, shirtless.
Their eyes met and he dipped his head in greeting before crossing the room, grabbing a shirt off the back of a chair and pulling it over his head. “I was working out,” he said, by way of explanation.
Great. Yet another visual she didn’t need.
“It’s fine.” She moved to the coffee machine, careful to give him a wide berth.
“Is your itinerary still accurate?”
She blinked, trying to remember what flight time she’d nominated. “I guess so. I’ll have to double check.”
“Just let me know any changes.”
“Okay.”
The silence throbbed with a mix of awkwardness and awareness. She watched coffee spool into a mug, moved it aside, then forced herself to look directly at Noah. “Would you like a coffee?”
“Sure.”
She reached for another cup. “How do you have it?”
“Black.”
Just like her.
She made another, passed it to him, and unlike last night, was abundantly careful not to let their fingers brush. His mocking half-smile showed that he realized.
Her stomach squeezed.
“About last night…” She curled her hands around the cup, searching for words, her eyes on his face.
The only sign that he’d heard was a slight narrowing of his gaze. Other than that, he stood as still as a statue.
“I shouldn’t have done that.”
He waited, unspeaking.
“The whole kissing you thing was a mistake.” His eyes flashed with something she didn’t understand. His silence was making her nervous. “It won’t happen again.”
He drunk his coffee, eyes pinned to her face, so she felt as though he were touching her.
“It was stupid. If you don’t want to do this anymore, I’ll completely understand. There must be a thousand other things you’d prefer to be doing, in fact.” She laughed uneasily.
Silence crackled between them, his eyes roaming her face, until finally he put down his coffee and walked towards her.
“The problem isn’t that I don’t want to do this.” His words were hoarse, his voice throaty and deep. Her gut pulled. “It’s that I can’t.” He stood so close she could feel heat emanating off his frame. “I have a job to do here, and I can’t do it if I’m thinking about you in that way.”
She swallowed, his explanation a balm she hadn’t known she needed.
“But it’s more than that.”
“Oh?”
“What you’re going through is incredibly difficult. I’ve seen it before. I know what this kind of anxiety does to a person, how isolated and scared you feel. You’re vulnerable, Max, you’re looking for reassurance, for someone to make you feel okay, to tell you everything’s going to be okay. I’m not going to be the asshole who takes advantage of that.”
“When you saidyou wanted to go shopping, I presumed you meant for clothes,” he drawled, as she turned down another aisle of the antique bookshop.
“Stereotyping much?”
His grin warmed her belly. She tried to ignore it, but the sensation of heat spiralled through her anyway. She hadn’t been able to turn off her awareness of him since that morning.
“I just wouldn’t have guessed antique books,” he said.
“I love it here,” she responded, drawing a centuries’ old complete works of Shakespeare from the shelf. “These books are from all over the world – upstairs there’s African and Middle Eastern, some of the oldest texts the general public can buy. I don’t know why it’s not busier.”
“I guess people don’t come to Paris to buy antique books?”
“Philistines,” she joked, replacing the Shakespeare. “I already have one.”
“You like books.”
She frowned. “Obviously. Doesn’t everyone?”
“No.”
“I guess that’s true now. We scroll our phones more than we actually read. Kind of sad, actually.”
“Social media is a form of reading.”
She made a sound of disapproval, then gasped. “Oh, look! It’s an early copy of To The Lighthouse – Virginia Woolf. I love this book.” She turned it over in her hands. “I have to have it.”
He walked silently behind her as she moved to the register, and as excited as she was by the book, she was aware of his every step, his proximity, his warmth, his masculine fragrance, so she slowed down a little, stretching out their closeness, enjoying being near him.
What time was her flight supposed to leave? She couldn’t remember, and as they emerged onto a sun-filled Parisian street, she tilted her face to the sky and breathed in, feeling relaxed for the first time in a long time.
“I feel safe with you,” she said, without looking at him at first, but when he didn’t respond she turned to him slowly. “You make me feel safe.”
His eyes lanced her then wordlessly he reached out, taking the book bag from her. She smiled as she passed it off, and without thinking about anything as frivolous as her fingers and their placement, their hands brushed, quite by accident, and it was like being struck by lightning. Did he feel it too?
Her eyes flared to his, then away again, her mouth dry, her knees wobbly.
“That’s my job.”
She pulled her lips to the side, as he approached the car, opening the rear door and placing the book in. She stared at the open door a moment then transferred her gaze to Noah.
“Let’s walk for a while. I don’t want to go yet.”
He lifted a brow, but closed the door, locking the car before joining her once more.
“You’re happy here.”
“In Paris? I guess so.”
“Why?”
“Look around you.” She gestured down the small rue di Antoinette, smiling as a little girl stumbled down from a chair in the pursuit of a pigeon. “It’s so beautiful.”
Noah scanned the buildings that surrounded them. “Yes.”
She laughed. “Not exactly a ringing endorsement.”
He grinned, surprising her, pulling at something in the region of her heart. “You want me to burst into song about it or something? I think that’s been done already.” To her surprise, he began to sing the Ella Fitzgerald ballad, so beautifully she stopped walking.
“You have a stunning voice.”
He laughed. “That’s something I’ve never heard before.”
“Then you mustn’t sing for people often because it’s not really subjective.”
“I don’t, actually. Ever.”
It was ridiculous that such a throwaway comment should set her heart on fire like that. She felt…special.
She began to walk again, and at the corner, pointed to a boulangerie. “Coffee?”
He lifted his shoulders. “It’s your walk, your choice.”
Her heart extinguished quickly. They were not two lovers strolling the streets of Paris. He was there out of duty, protecting her, indulging her wishes, not living out his own.
Darkness spread over her mood but she acted as though she were completely fine. “I’ll get it. You can wait outside.”
He opened his mouth to object but she shook her head. “I’m sure you’ll be able to keep me safe from the footpath, just this once.”
He frowned, but did as she wished, remaining outside while she ordered their drinks and got her rioting nerves under control. She bought a couple of pastries as well, and a cupcake, then pushed out onto the street. He stood, completely alert, his body tense, his eyes wandering in every direction, underscoring just how much this was work for him, not pleasure.
It was something he’d pointed out to her again and again, but seeing him like this just made her realise what a ridiculous fantasy she’d somehow been concocting.
“I got pastries too. Let’s eat them on the flight.”
Suddenly, she just wanted to be back in London.
