[4 Seasons 01] Seducing Summer (22 page)

“Gene?” she spoke softly. She never held
his hand in public, never made the effort to act as if they were a couple, but
she touched him now, on the arm, gentle and concerned. “What’s the matter?
You’ve been quiet all evening. Is something wrong?”

He opened his mouth to reply, and at the
same time he saw the man approach out of the corner of his eye. The guy was
walking fast, straight toward them, and Gene’s professional training kicked in
without a second thought.

He turned and stepped in front of Callie,
briefly registering the man’s startled look before he grabbed his arm and
twisted it behind his back. Quickly, Gene propelled him forward to the nearest
wall and slammed him up against it. He pushed the guy’s arm hard up his back
and forced his knee between his legs, using his superior height and weight to
pin the man there.

“One twitch of your eyebrow,” Gene said
fiercely, “and you’re fucking dead, you understand me?”

“All right, all right!” The words tumbled
from the guy’s mouth where his face was squashed against the brick.

“Oh my God!” Callie appeared suddenly
beside him.

“Summer,” Gene yelled. “Back off.”

“It’s Jamie,” she snapped, tugging at his
arm. “It’s my ex!”

For a moment, Callie’s words didn’t
register in Gene’s head, and all he could think was that the person he’d pinned
to the wall was an enemy, the bastard who’d lain out in detail the cruel,
disgusting things he wanted to do when he got his hands on the beautiful woman
by his side. Behind him, Ian appeared out of nowhere, ready to help him take him
down.

She tugged his arm again, though, and
yelled, “Gene! It’s okay. It’s Jamie. Let him go.”

Her ex. Shock filtered through him, and he
stepped back and let go of the guy’s arm. Both he and Ian hovered, though, the
instinct to protect too strong to make them immediately back up.

Callie pushed between them, looking up at her
ex in concern. “Jamie, jeez, I’m so sorry.”

“What the fuck!” The young guy massaged his
shoulder and glared at him. “You’d better explain yourself quick or I’m calling
the police.”

“It’s not his fault,” Callie insisted. She
didn’t look at Gene. “Mum’s been getting death threats, and they’ve threatened
me, too—he thought you were going to attack me.”

Jamie’s eyes widened. “Death threats?” he
said. “Seriously?”

“Yeah. It’s a guy she put away ages ago,
some kind of psychotic mobster, and he’s threatened her and her family.” She
put a hand on his chest. “Don’t worry about it, I’m fine. What are you doing
here?”

While Jamie told her something about a history
course he’d been sent on at the Auckland War Memorial Museum, Gene glowered,
his stomach boiling with shame, rage, and jealousy at their intimate touch.
This was the guy who’d slept with someone else while he’d been dating Callie.
He’d cheated on her. What a fucking imbecile.

The two of them spoke quietly as if he and
Ian weren’t there, Jamie even turning his back on them, cutting them out of the
conversation.

When Jamie laughed at something Callie
said, though, and placed his hand on her arm, Gene saw red and knocked the
guy’s arm away.

Jamie spun around, furious. “Jesus, man!
What the fuck do you think you’re doing? I’m her friend.”

“Some fucking friend.” Gene put both hands
on the guy’s chest and shoved him hard enough to make him stumble. “You cheated
on her. You come near her again, I’ll shove your teeth down your throat,
regardless of whether you’ve anything to do with the death threats.”

Ian’s hand tightened on his arm. “Gene,” he
said urgently.

Callie’s cheeks had gone scarlet, and for a
brief moment Gene thought she was going to tell him to leave her alone with her
ex. Nausea rose in his throat, and he ran his free hand through his hair,
trying to get his emotions under control.

Callie’s eyes were cool. But to his
surprise, she didn’t tell him to fuck off, as he’d thought she might. Instead,
tearing her gaze from his, she turned to Jamie. “You’d better go,” she said.
“Sorry about this. It was nice to see you.”

Jamie backed away, not taking his eyes from
Gene’s. Four inches taller, thirty pounds heavier, and a whole lot madder, Gene
glared back, and eventually Jamie just rolled his eyes and walked off. Once he
was ten feet away, he turned and said, “I’ll call you,” to Callie, glancing at
Gene with a final twist to his lips before he disappeared around the corner.

Gene twitched, but Ian’s hand was still on
his arm. He didn’t follow Jamie, but he jerked his arm away, his chest heaving
with anger.

Callie cleared her throat. Ignoring Gene
for a moment, she turned to Ian and held out her hand. “I’m very sorry about
that. We haven’t met. I’m Callie.”

“Ian,” he said wryly, and shook her hand.
“Nice to meet you, ma’am.”

She gave a short laugh. “Yeah, I’m sure.”

“I’ll leave you to it.” Ian’s eyes met
Gene’s briefly before he walked away. Gene knew from that look that he’d
guessed there was something between them. Well, that was the least of his
worries right now.

His breaths still coming fast, adrenaline
continuing to course through his veins, he looked at Callie, who watched Ian
walk away before bringing her gaze back to him.

“Do you still have feelings for him?” he
snapped.

“For Ian?”

“Don’t be so bloody dense. You know who I
mean. Are you still in love with Jamie?”

She lifted her chin, and her eyes blazed.
“Of all people, you have an incredible nerve asking me that after what we’ve
shared.”

His chest heaved. He was so fucking screwed
up. He had to tell her the truth or he was going to explode. “Callie…”

She looked at him, her blue eyes as clear
as the water in the harbor behind her. And slowly, like the sun coming out, he
realized what she’d said.

Mum’s been getting death threats, and
they’ve threatened me, too—he thought you were going to attack me.

She understood that he knew about the threats,
and that he’d been trying to protect her.

His jaw dropped.

“You know,” he whispered.

She blinked a few times and sucked her
bottom lip.

“You know who I really am,” he said.

She looked at him for a moment longer. Then
she shrugged, her eyes holding a hint of amusement. “Of course I know.”

He couldn’t have been more baffled if she’d
hit him with a frying pan. “What… how…?” He walked backward until luckily his
legs met a bench, and he sat heavily. “Did Phoebe tell you?”

She shook her head.

“Neve?”

Another shake.

“Who, then?”

“You did.” She came to sit beside him,
looking extraordinarily calm, while his heart raced at a million miles an hour.

He’d told her? “What do you mean?” he
demanded. “When?”

“The first day we met. You had a notepad on
your desk. It had some kind of threat assessment of the office.”

He stared at her. His brain had turned to
sludge. “But… I wrote that in shorthand.”

She gave a sexy little shrug of her
shoulders.

“You can read Teeline?” he said, aghast.

“And Pitman.” Now she was trying not to
laugh. “Sorry.”

It
was
funny, but Gene was too upset
to laugh with her. He stood and walked up to the railing, gripping hold of it
until his knuckles were white.

Behind him, he heard her soft sigh, her
footsteps crossing to him. “Gene?”

“I can’t believe it.” He kept shaking his
head. “You knew. All this time, you knew who I really was. I can’t get my head
around it.” He turned to face her, chest heaving. “Why didn’t you tell me? I’ve
been tying myself up in knots for being unprofessional, for getting involved
with you when I should be protecting you. For not telling you the truth. And
all this time you knew!” It made him want to howl like a dog left in the car.

Her smile faded as she saw how distraught
he was. “At first,” she admitted, “I wasn’t sure what to think. I didn’t want
protection, and I was mad that my mother had organized it without asking me. I
presume it was her, anyway.” He gave a sharp nod. She rolled her eyes. “I knew
it. I was going to come in the next day and finish it. But…” Her lips curved in
an impish smile. “I liked you. I didn’t want you to go.”

“But…” His head was starting to hurt. “You
could have said at any time. You must have known how hard it was for me to
leave every night.”

“Why do you think I didn’t ask you to stay?
Or demand to know why you had to leave? I knew you had to go.”

“I don’t understand why you carried on with
it when you didn’t want protection.”

“I was angry with Mum, but for the first
time, I began to understand how serious this was. For her to go to that trouble,
for you to keep up the pretense of being my PA… To go to the lengths you have
done to keep me safe… I knew it must be serious.”

He slid his hands into his hair, tugging at
the roots. “I still don’t get why you didn’t just tell me. Callie, I’ve been
going mad. I’ve been so angry with myself.”

“I know.” A hint of shame crossed her
features. “At first it was fun. I’m embarrassed to say I enjoyed it. I was
interested to see what you did, and how you handled it. But the longer I was
with you, the less like a game it became. I realized what you were risking, and
how you were so torn between being with me and doing your job. I was sure that
if I told you I knew you were some kind of bodyguard, you’d tell me you
couldn’t do the job anymore. You’d have to get someone else in, because you
wouldn’t have been able to carry on doing something you shouldn’t when I was
aware of it.”

He stared at her. She was right. That was
exactly what he would have done. He couldn’t have acted as her bodyguard and
continued to sleep with her if she’d been aware of what he was doing. Wrangling
with his own angst was one thing, being openly dishonorable was another.

And then he realized she’d been going
through exactly the same as him, tying herself into a million knots because she’d
wanted to keep him at her side, knowing she should tell him the truth but not
wanting to lose him.

In a second, all his anger and anguish
drained away.

“Well, well,” he said softly. “Aren’t we a
pair?”

She met his gaze. Her lips curved slowly
up. “Aren’t we?” Her eyes filled with humor. “You were very impressive the way
you handled Jamie.”

He scratched the back of his neck,
embarrassed. “Shit. I’m sorry about that.”

“Gene, it’s okay. You’ve been protecting me
for two weeks. Putting your life on the line for me. Do you not think I
appreciate that?” Her eyes were filled with wonder.

“I…” He felt as bashful as a schoolboy and
couldn’t think what to say.

She took his hand and led him back to the
bench. The warm evening sun had dried up the rain, and he could smell the
jasmine growing in a pot around a nearby restaurant. Music filtered over to
them, some folksy jazz, and his muscles started to let go of some of the
tension. She knew now. He didn’t have to make a decision anymore. That, at
least, was something, whatever happened now.

They sat quietly for a while. He didn’t
interrupt her thoughts, wanting to let her think.

“So Ian’s a part of your team?” she asked
eventually.

He nodded. “He works for me.”

“He works for you? Are you, like, a team
leader?”

“I run the company, Callie. Safe &
Secure. It’s my company. I set it up after I left the Army.”

Her mouth formed an O of surprise. “I
didn’t realize that. But… why are you acting as my bodyguard? Why didn’t you
send one of your guys to do it?”

“I saw the file,” he lied. “Your picture.
Couldn’t resist.”

Her eyes appraised him. She wasn’t fooled.
But he wasn’t about to give away Phoebe’s secret, not yet.

“You should know that I’m flying four more
operatives up tonight,” he told her. “You’ll have another PPO—that’s personal protection
officer—from tomorrow, and Ian and three others will be around to carry out
threat assessments and watch from afar.”

“Why the increased protection?”

He told her about the new death threat, and
the fact that someone was obviously following them. “I was going to tell you
who I really was anyway, because from now on we need to take more care of you.
Up until now, it was a low to medium threat—I didn’t really believe Kirk was
interested in you. But knowing that someone’s following you has changed everything.”

She glanced around her, scanning the people
walking along the waterfront, glancing up at the buildings. “He could be
anywhere,” she whispered.

“I know. That’s why I’m here. I can type at
eighty words a minute. But I’m also an ex-soldier, and a personal protection
officer. I’m trained in surveillance, in threat recognition and assessment, in
first aid, in overt and covert protection, and in offensive and evasive
driving. I’m trained to operate under extremes, to prevent, detect, avoid,
counter, and combat all threats to the principal. I’m trained in unarmed
combat, and in handling ballistics, edged weapons, and explosive devices, and I
had to pass high-level physical tests.”

“Are you trying to turn me on?”

He gave a short laugh. He was crazy about this
woman. She was smart, sexy, funny, and she still seemed into him. Maybe there
was hope for them yet. “I told you not to boast, but so that you know I’m not some
two-bit cowboy. I’m here to protect you, and whoever’s following you will have
to go through me to get to you.”

They studied each other for a long moment.
It was as if a storm had stirred the silt up from a riverbed, but now the storm
had subsided, and the silt was gradually settling again, leaving the water
bright and clear.

“What do you want to do now?” she said.

“Personally or professionally?”

She smiled. “Both. I think at the moment
they’re too closely linked to be separated.”

“Maybe. I suppose the main question is
whether you would like to continue our relationship considering I’ve lied to you
for the past two weeks.”