Page 76 of Once a Hero

Jake looked up, trying to be nonchalant. He wasn’t sure why he was this way. If his older brothers could see him now, they’d never let him hear the end of it.

“Meeting in five,” Beatrice said.

Jake barely looked at her. He couldn’t help himself. Never in his life had he experienced such a feeling, as if only he could want her, have her, and no one else.

He couldn’t recall his last girlfriend making him go topsy-turvy like this.

What’s happening to me?

When Beatrice smiled at him, his eyes clouded over. He knew then that he would protect her at all costs.

“Jake,” Beatrice said his name again, softly this time.

Without waiting for him to reply, Beatrice leaned down and kissed his forehead.

“What was that for?” Jake managed a smile even as he was all undone inside.

“A stamp of approval.” Beatrice laughed.

“A what?”

She waltzed off. “See you at the meeting. Don’t be late.”

Jake felt all warm and fuzzy and all giddy inside.

A stamp of approval.

That woman is full of surprises.

Chapter Thirty-One

“They could have put it in a Faraday bag,” Kenichi said, trying to explain why the signal was lost over the Pacific Ocean. “No signals go in and out of the bag.”

Across from him, Raynelle walked in, her hair all askew. Beatrice felt bad that they’d had to wake her up. Beatrice wanted Raynelle to be in the meetings so she would know what was going on firsthand. That way, Benjamin would have nothing to say about Raynelle being only a bodyguard.

She was more than a bodyguard. Beatrice considered Raynelle an invaluable member of her team. She wished that Benjamin would at least be nice to Raynelle, whenever or not he liked her.

“Where are they heading?” Jake asked.

He was sitting next to Beatrice. In fact, he had followed her to the conference room and sat down after she did so that he could choose to sit next to her. Whenever Kenichi talked, he reached over to pat her thigh.

It was most distracting.

Surely it could not be because Jake had seen Kenichi enter her cabin. Surely not that?

Perhaps Jake didn’t know that there was nothing going on between Beatrice and Kenichi. They were only professional colleagues.

As far as relationships were concerned, Beatrice was open to Jake. They were two single people without any attachments.

And yet she wanted to wait for God.

Just in case Jake was not the one.

Like Benjamin said, Beatrice had to be careful about thinking with her heart and feeling with her head. She didn’t want to do anything that she would regret later.

“We know that all roads lead to Paris,” Kenichi said. “That’s Molyneux’s Rome.”

“So why the circuitous route over the Pacific?” Jake asked. “To throw us off?”

---