a flashlight or something? For all your fine talk about being the best, you seem unprepared.”
“I am definitely prepared,” he growled in her ear, his breath tickling the fine hairs on her nape.
“Prove it,” she said, her voice even huskier if that were possible. Dear God, what was she up to? There was no way on earth she was truly egging this man on, was there? She might find him amazingly attractive—devastatingly so—but she was not about to lift her gown and wrap her legs around his body in reality.
No matter what Brady seemed to think she was capable of. No matter what she might have done a little over a year ago when confronted with a man of such beauty and power as this sexy tiger in black.
The old Veronica would have made him blush.
“I’m beginning to understand you,” he said in her ear. “You challenge those around you as a way to deflect attention from yourself. And yet you’ve been elected to a very public position. Odd, is it not?”
A stone dropped inside her stomach. It was too close to the truth. Too close to who she’d been before she’d lost her way. “Save yourself the trouble of trying to analyze me, Mr. Vala.”
“Don’t you think you should call me Raj now?” His hand around her wrists was hot, his skin still burning hers with his touch. Though it was dark, she closed her eyes.
Raj. It was exotic, like him. She wanted to say it aloud, wanted to try it on her tongue.
But she would not.
“I see no need,” she said. “As soon as the lights come back on, I don’t ever intend to see you again.”
“You need me, Veronica. Whether you wish to admit it or not.”
She swallowed. “I don’t need anyone.” She’d made sure of it over the years—and she’d only been wrong once.
His hand dropped from her waist. A moment later, she felt the tips of his fingers sliding along her spine where her dress opened, leaving a trail of fire in their wake. “Mr. Vala …”
“Raj.”
“Raj,” she said, giving in to his demand because she hoped it would stop the insane stroking of her skin. It did not.
She wanted. And yet she couldn’t allow this side of her nature to surface, not now. Not ever again. The only way to protect herself from harm was to suppress her feelings. Feelings of need, of loneliness, of desire.
Human feelings.
No.
Veronica sucked in a shaky breath, fighting for control. “This isn’t very professional, is it? Do security consultants usually attempt to seduce their charges?”
The torturous track of his fingers ceased. Her heart hammered in the thick darkness. She’d scored a hit, but it didn’t make her feel any better. In some ways she wanted to take the words back, wanted him to continue the light stroking of her skin.
He did not. “Forgive me,” he said, his tone clipped—but whether it was with anger at her or himself, she wasn’t certain.
A moment later she was moving sideways, falling—but just as she was about to grab for him, about to wrap her arms around his neck so she didn’t fall, he eased her down on a bench and let her go. She searched the blackness for him, but could see nothing. Panic filled her until she willed it away.
“Don’t leave me here,” she said, nearly choking on the words as she did so. She hated to admit weakness, hated to admit she did need him, at least for the time being.
“I’m not leaving,” he replied, his voice coming from across the room. But she could hear the door easing open. He was going to leave her alone in this dark, lonely room. She would be lost, as lost as she’d been at sixteen when her father had locked her in a closet to punish her for trying to run away.
Blindly, she shot upright … and fell forward as her foot hit a nearby table.
Somehow, she managed to catch herself, but not without bending her wrist too far. She cried out as needles of pain shot through her arm.
“What are you doing?” Raj demanded.
She groped her way back onto the bench, relief flooding her as she held her wrist, sucking in deep breaths to keep from crying. “I thought you were leaving.”
“I told you I wasn’t.” His voice sounded closer now. A second later, light illuminated the small room.
She blinked up at him. “You have a light.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you use it to begin with?”
“Because I needed to be sure no one was outside first.” He bent in front of her, his dark head close as he took her arm in his hands and probed her wrist. She didn’t bother to ask how he knew she’d hurt herself. Veronica hissed as he found the tender spot. “It’s just a light sprain,” he said.
Then he stood and the light blinked out again.
“Why do we have to sit here?” she asked. “Why can’t we use your light and go to my room?”
“So now you want my help,” he said softly, almost teasingly.
“You have the light,” she replied, as if it were the most logical thing in the world to say.
She felt movement, felt a solid form settle on the bench beside her. He reached for her arm, finding it so surely that she swore he must have a cat’s night vision.
His fingers danced over the skin of her wrist, his thumbs pressing in deeply, making her gasp—and yet it felt good, as if he were easing the sprain out of her by touch alone.
“This is what we are going to do,” he said. “We’re going to spend the next twenty minutes here, while pandemonium reigns in the hotel, and hope the lights come back on. If they don’t, we’re going to your room.”
She hated being told what to do, and yet she’d tacitly agreed to it when she’d panicked over being alone in the dark. “Did Brady hire you?”
His soft snort was confusing. “In a manner of speaking. I’ve done work for him in the past. Protecting his celebrity clients.”
She had to bite back a moan as his fingers worked their magic on her. “I appreciate your diligence, Mr. Vala, but Brady should have known better.”
“He cares about you.”
“I know,” she said softly. Brady was a true friend. She knew he’d always wanted to be more than that, but she’d never felt the same in return. In spite of it, their friendship flourished. Brady was a good man, the kind of man she should have been interested in. Life would have been a whole lot easier if she had been.
The pressure of Raj’s fingers was perfect, rhythmic. Why did she always want the kind of men who were terrible for her? Men like this one, handsome and dangerous and incapable of seeing past the facade of her outward appearance to what lay beneath?
It was her fault they could not. She’d spent so many years building a wall, becoming someone interesting and compelling and, yes, even shocking, that she no longer knew how to be herself with a man. She had no idea if the real Veronica was even worth the trouble.
And she wasn’t planning to try and find out.
Raj’s voice startled her. “After what happened tonight, do you still trust your staff?”
A chill slithered down her spine. That was something she hadn’t wanted to think about. Because how could she admit that she didn’t know? That she was out of her depth and uncertain where to turn?
She thought of the letter she’d gotten that morning, and shivered. It had been so simple, one word in cutout letters: slut. It had been nothing, really. The work of a former rival. Who else would