Page 32 of The Bodyguard Affair
I don’t have the energy to put up much of a fight, because what’s the alternative? As a romance writer, I’m familiar with scenarios involving shared rooms with Only One Bed. In fact, I’ve written many of them myself. They usually go as follows: One or both parties decide they won’t allow the other person to sleep on the floor. They invite the other to share out of the goodness of their heart (not because they’re horny or anything). Inevitably, they wake up the next morning locked in a full embrace.There’s usually an involuntary boner or two, and maybe a sexy dream thrown in the mix. In reality, there will be no boners and definitely no cuddling. I’m making sure of that.
“I hate to ditch you right away, but I’m due upstairs to brief the team about emergency procedures,” he informs, peering at his phone.
I straighten my spine, trying to hide my disappointment. I’d hoped we could talk it all out ASAP. But duty calls. “Right, of course. I actually have some stuff I need to work on for Gretchen, too.”
He lingers by the door as he puts his jacket back on. “We need to talk about this, though. I’ll be free later tonight. Probably around nine thirty. Late dinner?”
I watch him for a beat. His expression is sincere, earnest. “Sure. I’ll make a reservation. Again, I’m sorry about all of this. If you have a girlfriend or wife or something, this is really inappropriate—”
“Andi?”
“Mm-hm?”
“Stop apologizing. Right now,” he says, halfway out the door.
I squeeze my eyes shut. “Right. Force of habit.”
“One last thing,” he adds, poking his head back in. “I don’t have a girlfriend. Or a wife. I’m still very single. By choice.”
Chapter 15
Andi
Not to sound ridiculous, but after the shitstorm of media today, I selected a restaurant that listed “private” in its description. I just didn’t realize it would be located on top of a mountain.
I thought I’d be grateful to be out of that tiny hotel room, especially after Nolan confirmed his “very single, by choice” status. But as the ground below us shrinks away while the gondola ascends into the sky, I’m having regrets.
“You scared of heights?” he asks, noting my death grip on the bench beside my thighs.
“I didn’t think I was. But this is…ridiculously high,” I say as the wind rocks the gondola with a startling creak. I peek down at the river snaking through the expanse of lush evergreens below. We’re only a quarter of the way up, and we’re already approaching clouds. Technically, it’s excellent inspiration for the romantic scene I was writing at the hotel earlier, if I weren’t so petrified of an imminent demise. “You?”
He leans back on the opposite bench, lips curving into a cocky smirk that makes my thighs clench involuntarily. “If I had a fear of heights, there’s no way I could have gotten into JTF2.”
“You were in special forces?”
“Yup. For a couple years.” He says it so casually, as though he were a run-of-the-mill, low-level public servant, wasting away (physically and spiritually) in a windowless cubicle at the Department of Finance.
To be fair, I’m not surprised. It’s pretty common for the private CPOs to have a special forces background. Besides, Nolan just seems the type. He has that quiet confidence, punctuated by an I-could-kill-you-in-two-seconds-flat intensity.
I lean forward with interest, resting my chin on my hands, determined to keep my eyes on him and not the 2,900-foot distance between this glass hexagon and the ground below. “Isn’t there a huge screening process to join? Crazy fitness tests?” One of Gretchen’s main CPOs used to be JTF2, and he’d mentioned how strict they are about who’s even invited to try out.
“The physical tests are honestly the least of your worries. It’s mostly mental, psychological,” he explains, one muscly arm draped over the back of the bench. “They try to break you, exploit your fears, your weaknesses. They want to know that under immense pressure, in the worst circumstances, you can act right, make the safest choices. Most people fail. Ninety percent, at least.”
I gulp, mentally scanning my laundry list of fears. Heights, unfinished basements, public speaking, mole rats, being tagged in negative book reviews, readers taking the time out of their lives to email me about typos or grammatical errors in my books, disappointing Gretchen and my mother into oblivion, amongmany others. Any would suffice. “What fear of yours did they exploit?”
He gazes out the foggy window, contemplating. We’re on what looks to be the last stretch of incline. “This sounds ridiculous, but things like small spaces and heights don’t bother me.”
“What about death? Isn’t everyone afraid of death?” I ask, white-knuckling the bench as the gondola sways to the side from a gust of wind. Yup. I’m definitely not special forces material.
“Probably. But I’m not scared about it happening in those ways, I guess.”
“So what are you afraid of, then?” I ask, growing even more curious.
“I’ve been trying to figure it out, which is why I spent so much of my twenties pushing myself. Doing reckless shit. Trying to find out why things that should be scary as fuck don’t faze me. I haven’t come up with the answer,” he says honestly.
“You don’t even have weird, irrational phobias?” I prod, growing increasingly convinced that this man is some sort of lab-grown Captain America type (the bearded, maple-syrup-infused Canadian edition, obviously) with zero weaknesses.
“Aren’t most phobias irrational?”
