I glanced outside and saw Rafe’s silhouette on the front step. I jumped over Bruno and pulled open the door in record time, glad I’d put on my only matching bra and panties. If this conversation went the way I hoped it would, we’d be taking them off within the hour. But as soon as I saw his face I knew something was wrong.
Really wrong.
“What did you tell Grace?”
Uh oh. Not even a kiss hello. “Do you want to come in?”
He didn’t answer or move from where he was standing. “Did you tell her what happened? That we slept together?”
“Of course not.” I reached for his hand, but he put it into his pocket. A muscle twitched along his jaw. “Why? What did she say?”
“That I was on leave effective immediately. Because of your request.”
I went cold. “My request? Wait. She put you onleave? I thought she’d just...that’s not what I asked for.”
“What did you ask for, exactly?”
This had seemed like such a good idea at the time. Now I was beginning to see some flaws with it. “I told her maybe it would be better if I had a female bodyguard.”
A rumble came from the back of his throat.
“I thought it would mean we could…”be together, I almost said, but then a chilling notion occurred to me. Maybe Rafe didn’t want the same things I did. Maybe he was perfectly content to put our one-night stand behind him. I lifted my chin and looked him squarely in the sunglasses. “We could be together,” I finished. I wasn’t going to lie or hide my feelings. “But if I was wrong, and you don’t want that too, then I’m sorry.”
His chest rose and fell. As usual, I couldn’t read his expression. “It’s not that I don’t want it,” he said after a long minute of silence. “It’s that there’s no way for me to have it. Not now.”
“But I thought Grace would just assign you to someone else.”
“Thereisn’tanyone else, not currently. Not with her company. Being on leave basically means I’m out of a job, Victoria.”
“What about another company? There have to be other people around here that need a bodyguard. This is D.C. Half the people who work on The Hill get death threats on the regular.”
“Sure. But do you know how hard it is to land a job like that? Let alone that pays what Grace was paying me?” He swiped a hand over his head. “It’s not that last night wasn’t amazing. It was. And you are.” He looked at my front door, the street, the budding trees above us. “But I’ve got a shitload of bills and no way to pay them as of an hour ago.” His gaze returned to me. “I wish you’d talked to me first.”
Me too.“I’ll call Grace again. I’ll tell her I changed my mind. Or I’ll wait until after I meet my new bodyguard andthenI’ll say I changed my mind. That no one compares to you and I want you back.”
But he shook his head. “Don’t play games. You’ll get yourself so twisted around a lie, you won’t remember what the truth is.”
“Yes, I will.” But I knew he was right. I already had a hard time keeping track of the fibs I’d told Angela. With my luck I’d end up telling Grace the real reason I wanted a new bodyguard, and then he’dreallybe screwed, and not in a good way.
“I have to go,” Rafe said, and he backed down the steps. When I looked over his shoulder, I saw a beat-up Harley parked at the curb instead of the black Cadillac. “I just...I need some time to think about all this. And figure out what I’m gonna do now.”
“Wait. Please. Can’t we –”
But he was gone before I could finish asking. One long leg slung over the bike, the engine roared to life, and with a glance in my direction he drove down the street and out of sight.
I’m not sure how I made it back inside. My stomach turned over, and I thought I might be sick. I felt my way to the couch and fell onto my face. I’d failed again. Hot tears welled in my eyes.I should go home. I should tuck my tail between my legs, come clean to my parents, and make the long drive back to upstate New York, where I could nurse my wounds and find a job as a waitress at the local bar and grill. Or maybe a substitute teacher at the K-12 school I’d attended.
Everyone would know my business, my mistakes, my failures, within a week, but I’d get over it. Eventually. Maybe I’d even look up Dean, my old high school boyfriend, and see if he was still dairy farming. He supposedly still held a torch for me. I could be a farmer’s wife, raise a few kids and some dogs and have a home right around the corner from my parents.
There were certainly worse things in the world.
But there were other things I wanted, too, right here in D.C.
I’m not sure how long I lay there feeling sorry for myself. Bruno stopped pawing at my hair after a while, and I fell asleep. When I woke up again the light had changed, and I could hear late afternoon traffic outside the townhouse. I rolled over and reached for my phone.
U got him fired?Remy’s response came less than thirty seconds after I typed out the long, terrible explanation of what I’d done.
Not fired. He’s on leave.
