Page 31 of The Bodyguard Affair
His entire face lights up with a grin. “Did you just say ‘canoodling’?”
“What’s wrong with canoodling?”
“Do you mean fucking?” he asks bluntly.
Pin prickles erupt everywhere. Why is my body reacting like this? I will never be able to unhear Nolan saying the word “fucking” in that deep, baritone voice. I will also never get the barrage of images out of my mind. Clearly, I need to write a closet sex scene.
“No!” I squeak. “I meant canoodling. It’s an all-encompassing word. It could mean anything from kissing to touching to, yes, technically having sex.”
He raises a brow. “If you say so. You are the writer.”
We’ve seriously gone off track, so I turn my legs in his direction and lean in. “Look, I didn’t get the chance to come up with an explanation on the spot with everything else going on. And now it’s too far gone. She thinks we’re a legit couple. Boyfriend and girlfriend.”
He lets out a low whistle, taking it all in. “Jeez. She seems…very invested in you.”
I don’t have time to explain that she’s desperate to fix this affair situation in any way possible. If us being a couple helps to quell the rumors on the Hill, she’s going to do whatever she can to make it happen. Instead, I settle on, “Gretchen is very passionate.”
“Well, I’m, uh…flattered, I guess, to be your pretend boyfriend?” he says, though I’m not so sure. He tugs at his collar, watching me expectantly.
“Just so you know, you don’t have to do this. Say the word and I’ll fix it,” I tell him genuinely. I’d rather jump out of this jet midair than tell Gretchen we aren’t actually together, but I also can’t force him to participate in this insanity and risk his job, too.
“Honestly, I’m just taking it all in,” he says when he notices me staring at him intensely, awaiting my fate.
“I’d understand completely if you were pissed. I mean, this isa lot. God.” I proceed to smoosh my forehead into the seat in front of me before looking at him again. “I’m so sorry. I’m very aware of how ridiculous this is.”
“Why do you always do that?” he asks, holding my gaze.
The serious inflection in his tone stops me in my tracks. “Do what?”
“Apologize incessantly for things that aren’t your fault? Roll over immediately to please people?”
I blink down at my tray, dumbfounded. “Oh. I didn’t mean to. I’m sor—” I squeeze my eyes shut, catching myself red-handed in the reflex. I don’t have a response, because it never occurred to me that I do this. All the time, apparently. And I certainly never expected him to notice.
Nolan offers me a sympathetic smile before standing. “I’ve got some things to do before landing.”
Chapter 14
Andi
Despite my best efforts to claim it’s too late to change the room booking, Gretchen wasn’t having it. That’s how Nolan and I find ourselves in a room with one queen-size bed.
“This is…small,” he remarks, closing the door behind us, the automatic whirr of the mechanical lock cementing this strange reality. This room can’t be more than 300 square feet, despite it being a luxury hotel.
My shoulders dip and I’m unsure where to even sit. The bed feels a little too intimate. “It is very small.” Compared to Eric and Gretchen’s suite of soaring wooden beams and massive windows, boasting panoramic views of the mountains. A silence falls between us as we quietly unpack our belongings. “Mind if I take the top drawers and this side of the closet?”
“Yeah, take whatever you need,” he says, unconcerned as he takes his jacket off, revealing a white dress shirt.
I stop folding my clothes to work down the lump lodged in my throat. Is it just me, or did he get even broader in the past three years? The sleeves of that shirt are doing some serious overtime over his biceps. “Hey, I just wanted to say, I really tried to avoid this whole sharing-a-room thing.”
“I know you did. It’s really fine. It’s only two nights. I’ll sleep on the couch—” He pauses to survey the space, only now realizing there is no pull-out couch, just a single desk chair, which is not conducive to sleeping unless you’re the approximate length of an infant. Great. “The floor.”
“No! I’ll take the floor,” I insist, cringing at the thought of him not getting a good night’s rest. For the PM’s bodyguard, being well rested is a necessity on the job. Besides, my conscience can’t handle some tragic incident occurring because he wasn’t on his game due to floor-induced back pain.
He swings me a look as he tucks his suitcase in the closet. “I’m not letting you sleep on the floor, Andi. It’s fine. I’ve slept in worse conditions.”
“It just feels wrong, since I got you into this whole mess,” I add as a condolence.
“And like I said, I really don’t mind.”
