Page 53 of Under Arthur’s Protection

Let go of her. She’s a client.

I couldn’t make myself open my hand. Every time I thought something was passing between us—like some fraction of magic was sparking—she shut down. Of course she did, because she knew the truth, too: Emotional connections are dangerous.

“I can’t,” she repeated, quieter this time. She slid her arm out from my grip and picked up her bag, disappearing into the bathroom.

Chapter 17

Gwen

I could still feel Arthur’s fingers around my wrist. Every piece of my heart had wanted to tell him the truth, but my brain had screamed at me to get out.

And now?

My brain wouldn’t move on.

The cabin was dark. The engine hummed through the frame of my bunk, mixing with the occasional sound of water against the hull. I’d changed in the bathroom, come out, and climbed up to the top bunk without looking at him.

He’d turned the lights off and taken his turn cleaning up before bed. I heard him come out, but didn’t see him. He didn’t say goodnight. Maybe he’d thought I’d dozed off. Maybe he’d thought me and my low-cut nightshirt were going to try to get something out of him, and he’d been avoiding me.

That had been an hour ago. Maybe shorter. Maybe longer.

Go to sleep, Gwen.

Was Arthur asleep? Or was he staring up at the bottom of my bunk like I was staring at the ceiling? What did I want the answer to be?

The umbrella slid into my memory again. In Glastonbury, in the rain, after Bridget, after I’d said I wanted to walk alone. He hadn’t argued. He’d just appeared beside me with the umbrella, and he’d walked with me.

Then there was the food. The desserts I hadn’t thought I’d wanted, but that were precisely what I needed when he brought them out. The pasta at the cottage. The soup. The waffles. He cooked for people—like a woman who’d been important to him had cooked for him—and he didn’t seem to realize it.

My fingers circled my wrist, as though it would take me back to the moment when he’d done the same. I’d pulled free, and he’d let me go. He hadn’t held on, hadn’t chased me to the bathroom, hadn’t been waiting with questions when I came out.

He hadn’t made any demands or expressed any expectations.

Not even after he’d talked about his father and his time with Pendragon. About the command he hadn’t asked for and the doubt following him because of it. He’d shown me a crack in his otherwise perfect exterior, and he hadn’t used it to leverage anything from me.

He’d asked for my truth, but he hadn’t said ‘I told you mine, so now you owe me yours.’ He’d asked, I’d said I couldn’t tell him, and he’d let me walk away.

I’d been watching for red flags since he’d moved through my hotel room with a gun in his hand, checking the closets and the bathroom with an intensity that filled the space. Arthur Penn was the kind of man whose mere presence commanded a room. I knew what men like him could do, because I’d let one into my life, and he’d burned my world down around me.

But Arthur kept not matching the pattern. He kept throwing up green flags instead of red.

He asked without demanding. He gave without keeping score. When I pulled out of his grip, he didn’t argue.

So what, Gwen? Lionel was charming at the beginning, too.

My chest tightened. Earlier tonight, when Arthur had stretched out on the couch, all rational thought had evaporated. I’d sat at the table with my laptop open and had a brief, stupid fantasy of him waving me over and pulling me down beside him. Honestly, it hadn’t been brief at all—the fantasy had continued to his arm around me, my cheek against his chest, and falling asleep right there.

I wanted to crawl into Arthur’s orbit and simply bask in his presence.

And there it is. He’s got gravity, exactly like Lionel did.

I’d loved Lionel Davenport. At least, I was pretty sure I had. Maybe not. Maybe it was nothing more than lust and stars in my eyes. He’d been twenty years older than me, and had sworn me to secrecy. A sinfully forbidden romance had sounded exciting.

What if this was the same thing? What if my heart was grabbing onto another off-limits man?

I stared at the ceiling.

Arthur had heard what Bridget said. Did he believe I’d slept with someone in exchange for my credentials? Did it matter? Plenty of people believed it, and it didn’t change⁠—