Up Close And Personal: Captive but Forbidden / Unnoticed and Untouched / Revelations of the Night Before
and she bit down on her lip to keep from nibbling him in return.
Oh, he was good. Good enough that she began to wonder if he hadn’t missed his calling in life. Gigolo seemed a perfectly acceptable occupation for a man with his skill set.
“Then tell me this option,” she stated, hoping she sounded businesslike and cool as she dragged her attention back from the summit. “Let’s see how good you are.”
His fingers slid along her jaw now, so light, so erotic. His soft laugh was a sensual purr in his throat, and she knew she’d made a mistake. A dreadful, heart-pounding mistake.
“It’s quite simple. You need to acquire a lover, Madam President.” His voice was so sexy, so mesmerizing, his slight British accent combined with another she couldn’t quite place.
Everything inside her stilled. Her stomach clenched painfully. Of course.
He might be here to help her, but he wasn’t above helping himself, either. Men like him made her sick. Always wanting something in return. Brady might truly care, but this man did not.
“It’s out of the question,” she said, her voice tight. “I don’t want to hear another word of this—”
“Ah, but you will listen. Because you’re smart, Veronica.” His fingers continued their damning track across her skin. She felt his presence in the dark as a solid wall of heat, and she tilted her head back, sensing somehow that he loomed over her, that his mouth was only inches from hers.
She should pull away, and yet she couldn’t seem to do it. “Flattery will get you nowhere.”
“Why deny the truth? You know it as well as I do.”
Heat suffused her from the inside out. Somehow she managed to scoot backward on the bench, to put distance between them. Was she that transparent? “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
But she did. Because he touched her so lightly, so expertly, that her body was tightening like a bowstring.
There was definitely something there, something between them … something that would combust if she let it. Part of her desperately wanted to let it …
“Yes, you do,” he said softly. His tone was that of a lover.
Did he feel it, too?
“Maybe …” she breathed.
But his next words shattered that illusion.
“Your presidency is too new, Aliz is in turmoil and you aren’t safe.”
Every word was like a blow. Embarrassment flooded her in bright, white-hot waves. She’d been preoccupied with the way he made her feel when he touched her, and he was nothing but business. Damn him for making her forget, even for a moment.
“Those things are none of your concern,” she said evenly, thankful he couldn’t see her flushed face. Thankful there was no light to give her away. “Nothing you can do will fix it overnight.”
“This isn’t a game, Veronica. You can’t quit this party when it no longer amuses you.” Raj heard her draw in a breath. He’d probably insulted her, but he didn’t give a damn.
Because Veronica St. Germaine was precisely the sort of woman he had no sympathy for.
She was a slave to her passions, her wants, her desires. She was the worst kind of person to be entrusted with the welfare of a puppy, let alone a nation—yet here she was.
And here he was, damn Brady to hell. Raj hadn’t wanted to do this job, but Brady had begged him.
For old time’s sake. And since Raj owed at least a measure of his success to Brady’s faith in him when he’d been fresh out of the military and working his first security job so many years ago, he couldn’t say no.
So now he was sitting in the dark with a too-sexy, spoiled society princess and arguing over whether or not she needed his help.
He should just kiss her and put the matter to rest. He wasn’t unaware of her response to him. He also wasn’t unaware of her reputation as a woman who pursued her appetites relentlessly, be they clothes, shoes, fast cars or men.
And at least one part of his anatomy didn’t mind the prospect of being an object of her desire.
Not that he would allow himself to go down that road.
It’d been a long time since he’d personally guarded anyone, but he had never allowed himself to get involved with a client. It angered him immensely that he’d nearly violated that creed with her.
He didn’t know why he’d allowed himself to succumb to the temptation to stroke his fingers along the creamy skin of her exposed back. She was not the kind of woman he would ever get involved with. It wasn’t that she wasn’t desirable—she definitely was—but she was self-centered and destructive. Poisonous.
“I know this isn’t a game!” she barked. “Do you really think I don’t?”
He’d heard those words before. Or ones very like them anyway. He knew all about people who had no control over their impulses. People who claimed to want to conquer their addictions, but inevitably slid back into them when life got too hard or too boring or too hopeless.
He had no sympathy for her. She’d taken on this task, and she deserved no pity if it was turning out to be too difficult. After all, her people would get none if she faltered. “It’s a big responsibility you’ve accepted. Not quite your usual thing, is it?”
He could feel the fury rolling from her in waves.
“You know nothing about me, Mr. Vala. I’d appreciate it if you’d keep your pop psychology to yourself.”
She was cool, this woman. And blazing hot on the inside. He was beginning to understand the public fascination with her.
He’d made sure to have his people prepare a dossier on her before he’d ever come to the hotel tonight. He hadn’t read the entire thing during the limo ride over, but he’d skimmed enough to get an idea.
A dilettante in the worlds of fashion, music and television, she’d designed a line of clothing, recorded a hit album and had her own late-night talk show for a brief time in America.
She’d been a darling of the tabloids. Her face and figure were splashed on more magazine covers worldwide than were the royals. It was astounding.
Until about a year ago, she’d regularly appeared. Then she’d dropped out of sight. Working on a new project, her spokesperson had said at the time, though the speculation had been that she was nursing a broken heart after a failed affair.
When she’d emerged from hiding four months later, she’d been relegated to a small blurb on the pages she’d once dominated. It had been shortly afterward that she’d declared her candidacy for president.
It wasn’t difficult to figure out why she’d done so, because suddenly she was back on top, a darling of the media once more.
He understood where that kind of need for attention came from, but he had no patience for it. People like her destroyed those foolish enough to get close to them.
Or those who had no choice—like children.
More than once he’d watched his mother spiral into the depths of her selfish need for attention, unable to stop her. Unable to prevent the crash. He’d survived that life, but he certainly hadn’t come away unscathed.
“A lover could get close to you without suspicion,” he said. “It would be a way to provide extra security without anyone on your staff questioning the addition.”
“You aren’t listening to me, are you? I don’t like you, and I can’t take a lover. Even a false one.”
He didn’t bother to point out that she did like him. That she’d been sending him signals from the moment he’d entered the room. Frustration hammered into him. Why was