He was pretty sure he knew where she was headed, and his stomach dropped. “But this one?” She pointed to the screen, now showing her in that professional-but-oh-so-sexy red dress she’d worn for her visit to Janus.
“Or this.” A close-up of her face as she walked away from Janus beaming with satisfaction appeared on the monitor.
“I couldn’t help myself,” he blurted. Heat spread from his neck to his scalp. “It’s not like I was going to build a shrine or anything…creepy. As a photographer, I have an eye for beauty. I wanted to capture yours.”
An answering blush tinted her cheeks, and she swiveled the laptop in her direction again, her gaze darting to the image. She bit her lower lip as she studied the picture.
Scott abandoned the coffee maker and moved around the bar to stand next to her, careful not to get too close. He shoved his hands in his pockets so he wouldn’t try to touch her. “In the beginning, you had me fooled,” he said.
Her chin came up and her brow dropped, and he plowed on. “You dressed to be ignored, and it worked. Even on me at first. You were an assignment, nothing else. Pretty, but otherwise unremarkable.”
Her lips thinned.
“Which is exactly what you wanted,” he reminded her. It hadn’t taken him long to realize that she hid behind her dumpy clothes to help the men she worked with forget that she was a woman. As much as that was possible. The fact that she felt like she needed to go to such lengths made his fists clench. But then, he’d been a Marine. He understood how subtly—or overtly—hostile a predominantly and historically male culture could be for a woman. He’d just never given it much thought until now.
“But that day,” he continued, “after you got past the Janus guard, I saw a new side of you, smiling and fearless and confident. And fucking stunning in that dress… I couldn’t help but snap a few photos.”
Returning her gaze to the screen, she ran her fingertips lightly over the glass. Did she even realize how much he gave away with that picture? His feelings might as well have been written in neon given the lighting, the focus, the way he framed her face.
It was as if he stood naked before her, but this time it wasn’t his clothes that were missing, it was every defense he’d ever built, every barrier he’d ever erected for concealment. He realized now that he’d begun to fall in love with her that day, and it was obvious in every pixel of her image.
He stood rooted to the ground, his breath shallow, head spinning. He could no longer deny it.I love her.
Fuck.
“I was playing a role,” she said finally, scattering the jumble of thoughts in his head. “That’s not me.”
“Bullshit.” He shifted close enough to catch her light floral scent and pointed to the picture, fighting the urge to bury his nose against her neck. “Thatisyou. That’s youafterpulling off the lie, when you thought no one was looking. The only other time I’ve seen you look that honest, that unguarded, is during sex.”
Spots of color rose on her cheeks again, and the memory of her coming apart while he took her against the wall made him uncomfortably hard.
She opened her mouth and then closed it again, biting her lower lip as she returned her focus to the computer monitor.
“Take a good, hard look at yourself, Valerie,” he said. “You are more than your failures, more than your scars, more than your past. You arethatwoman,” he tapped the monitor, “and she’s incredible.”
And now that he’d pretty much given away his hand, Scott wished he had some kind of ghillie suit that would make him invisible in Dan’s living room.
“Thank you,” Valerie finally said, her voice soft as a puff of air. She stared at the image for several heartbeats before giving him a curious look. “Taking pictures is a lot like being a sniper, isn’t it?”
Talk about being blindsided. His pulse drummed in his ears. “What do you mean?”
“Oh, come on.” She met his gaze with a skeptical brow, warming to her topic. “You need the patience to find the right position, the ideal angle. You have to sight your target and adjust your aim. And then you have to lie in wait for the perfect moment to take your shot.” Her expression softened, and she reached up to trail her fingers through the hair above his left ear. “But in this case, no one dies.”
He kept his hands jammed in his pockets as his throat closed up. She had just nailed him.
How had he never seen the parallels between his old life and his new hobby?
But in this case, no one dies.
For him, photography was a therapy of sorts. A way to help him deal with what he’d seen and done. An excuse to ignore everyone around him for hours at a time without appearing crazy. A way to frame the world exactly as he desired.
A way to preserve a target rather than destroy it.
“Don’t make me out to be something I’m not,” he said. “I don’t regret a single kill. Every one of them was a threat.”
“Protector,” she whispered with a nod.
Her fingers wrapped around the back of his neck, and he couldn’t look away. He began to feel decidedly un-calm standing so close to her.
