Page 57 of Some Like It Deadly
His lashes dipped once and his gaze slid away from hers. “No. I was drunk.”
“Ripping the Band-Aid off?” She threw his words back at him.
“No, drowning the Band-Aid. I was angry and terrified. You bled so damn much and I wanted to strangle you for trying to save me.”
“Well,youtold him to shoot you.” Her anger surfaced. “You never tell a nutjob to shoot you, they just might do it.”
“I didn’t want him to shootyou.” The words gritted out between his teeth were a fierce snarl and the distance in his eyes vanished to be replaced by fury. “He had a gun to your head,Kate. He had a gun to your head and my heart stopped. All I could think about was making sure you got out of it alive.”
She knew damn well where the gun had been pointed. “Without you it wouldn’t have mattered,” she whispered.
“Why?” He leaned toward her, their faces inches apart. “Why was it so damn important to do your job when you’d quit? Or was that an illusion too?”
“No, you jackass, I quit because I was falling for you and I couldn’t be rational or reasonable about your security. I had to save you because I love you.” She hit him, but the blow didn’t move him. Not when she barely had any force behind it. “I love you.”
He stilled, his gaze searching hers. “I want to believe you.”
“Believe me or not, a man can be convinced of anything only if he wants to be convinced.” She closed her eyes, but it was too late, a tear slipped out. “The scariest moment in my life happened when I saw him swing that gun at you. I knew I had seconds to act. Even though I hit the panic button, they would never get there in time.”
“So you stepped into the bullet.”
“I’d do it again.” His face wavered through her tears. “I’d do it in a heartbeat. I don’t want to be in a world that doesn’t have you in it. I wasn’t lying when I said I’d never met anyone like you before. You—blow my mind. You’re so damn smart and so incredibly dedicated and you make me crazy. I loved every moment we spent together and I loveyou,Richard Prentiss. Call me a fool, call me a liar, call me anything you want. But I love you.”
He cupped her face and brushed away one of her tears with his thumb. The utter gentleness in the action took her breath away. “I let you in, deeper than I have ever let anyone.”
“I know.” Her heart sank. Trust was a huge issue for him and she’d violated it. She’d violated it before she’d ever loved him. “If I could go back…”
“You’d change it?” He continued to stroke her cheek with his thumb, the hard line of his mouth softening. “But if you changed it, I wouldn’t have met you.”
“I could have told you the truth, that day in your office.” It was bravado. Peterson would never have given her the job if she couldn’t maintain the confidentiality.
“I would have thrown you out on your sweet ass.” His lips curved in a hint of a smile.
A flash of humor raced through her. “You could have tried. You forget, I’m damn tough.”
“No, I haven’t forgotten at all.” His tone gentled. “You keep proving your strength to me over and over. If you’d told me the truth then, I wouldn’t have gotten to know this wildly capable woman with her ability to manage me so finely tuned she does it while recuperating from multiple gunshot wounds.”
“His Highness brought you your prescriptions.” Another weight lifted off her shoulders. He was so bad about remembering them.
“Okay, before we go any further— Again, His Highness is named Armand. He called you a sister today, so you can call him by his name to his face. Or jackass, or pain in the ass, or son of a bitch—I highly recommend all of those. But no more formality with him.”
Surprise flickered through her at his fierceness. “Richard…”
“No, I’m not done. You had your turn, now it’s mine. You can’t bodyguard anyone anymore. No more stepping into bullets, no more Wonder Woman. I know you can and I think you’re brilliant because you do it so fearlessly, but my heart can’t take it. So I need you to tell me you’ve retired from that.”
Laughing through a fresh wave of tears, she winced. “Okay, don’t make me laugh, that hurts.”
“Yeah, you still haven’t said you’re retiring.”
“I don’t really think it’s going to be a problem after I ditched Peterson at the hospital.” The security chief had been on hand every day since she’d been admitted and she’d gone out of her way to avoid him in the hospital.
Concern mixed with curiosity filled his tired eyes. “How did you get out of there?”
“You don’t seriously think you’re the only one who knows how to avoid a security team, do you?” Taking a shallow breath, she shifted on the sofa and sat forward. Not having the pressure on her back or her chest helped. Richard watched her like a hawk, but when he would have spoken, she pressed two fingers to his lips. “I’m not a big fan of the undercover bodyguard job and to be honest, I took this work because I have a pretty specific skillset. I like protecting people.”
Brushing her fingers with a kiss, he caught her hand in his. “I can learn to adapt, just not a fan of you being shot.”
“Well that makes two of us and it occurred to me the other night…before I got shot, that what you do for those women? At the shelter? You’re amazing. That’s why you have all those clothes upstairs.”
