Page 42 of The Bodyguard

She pours out two mugs of tea and sits down. I join her, placing a dish of freshly-grated cheese in the middle of the table.

“I prefer the cheese to butter,” she says, digging her spoon into the cheese and sprinkling it over her eggs.

There’s still a lot of small talk going on here, and she’s still finding it difficult to meet my gaze for more than a second or two, but the more she does that, the more the memory of last night’s kiss plays on my mind. How she felt when I touched her, knowing she was naked underneath that robe… Actually, I don’t know for sure that she was. I just assumed.

I try some cheese on my eggs, and she looks at me as I taste it, waiting for my response.

“Good?”

I smile and nod. “It’s good, yes.”

She smiles back before once more dropping her gaze.

“Look, Lena, about last night…”

“I’m sorry.” She lays her fork down and sighs, and then she looks at me. Right at me. “It was a weird night, and I drank a little too much, let too many things get to me…” She shakes her head and drops it again. “I didn’t mean to do what I did, that really isn’t me. So, I’m sorry.”

“You have no reason to be sorry.”

Her eyes are back on mine. “I put you in an awkward position.”

“I’ve experienced worse.” I let the corner of my mouth inch up slightly, and she can’t stop hers from doing the same.

“I still shouldn’t have done it.”

“I didn’t exactly push you away, did I?”

She stares at me, and her smile widens a little, her head cocked. “No. You didn’t.”

And then she drops her head; starts poking at her eggs with her fork.

“If you want to go for that walk on the beach…”

“I don’t.” She looks back at me. “I just want to hang out here, at the house, I mean. A quiet day. You don’t have to stay with me, Mum’ll be around.”

That’s what I was afraid of. Today has thrown up the perfect opportunity for me to do some digging, with both Mikkel and Ollie out for most of the day, but Tawnee Nielsen stands in the way.

“Your mom doesn’t strike me as the kind of woman who likes to sit around and do nothing.”

Lena frowns as she takes a bite of her bacon sandwich, and granted, it’s a pretty odd statement to make. In her eyes I know very little about her mother, except, that isn’t strictly true. I know quite a lot about Tawnee Nielsen. About her heady days as a semi-famous super-model, back when they were a thing. The people she hung around with; became involved with. Her connection to everything. I know more about her than her own daughter. And I know that everything Tawnee Nielsen does, it’s for a reason. And one that usually involves her husband, and her son.

“How can you possibly know that about my mother?”

“She likes to keep busy.” I shrug and eat another mouthful of scrambled egg. “It’s a hunch, that’s all. I mean, she has all those charities she’s patron of, the Women’s Institute she’s involved with, I’m surprised she has any free time at all.”

Lena raises her eyebrows and pulls the kind of face that tells me she can’t argue with that. “I suppose you’re right.”

I need to take matters into my own hands now. And I know just how to do that, but it’ll have to wait until after breakfast. I don’t want to cut this short, it’s nice, having Lena here. It feels like she’s starting to open up more to me, which could, as Flick pointed out, prove useful. I don’t want to chase her away just yet.

I let another few moments of silence pass, because it isn’t one of those uncomfortable, awkward silences. We’ve moved on from that, and I’m relieved, this job would be a whole lot harder if she’d remained the slightly uptight person she’d been when we first met. And now we have to – in public – give the impression we’re a couple in the throes of a brand new relationship, and I’m not sure that’s going to be as difficult to pull off as I thought it might be, in the beginning.

“You told me you were scared, a few days ago, do you remember?”

She slowly looks up, and her eyes – man, she looks so sad. “I remember.”

“Any reason why? Any specific reason?”

She waits a second, her eyes now flitting this way and that, darting around the kitchen as though she’s trying to pinpoint something in particular. “I don’t know… I think this, having you here, it’s been a bit of a reality check.” She holds my gaze for the longest amount of time yet. At least ten seconds. And then her eyes are back down, staring at her unfinished egg and half-eaten sandwich. “A wake up call, if you like.” She starts pushing the scrambled egg around her plate. “I think, for a lot of years, I just pushed the truth to the back of my mind. I believed it was something I didn’t have to worry about, because that’s what they told me.” She’s looking at me again, and I hold her gaze, and I will her to not look away so soon this time. “They told me I had nothing to worry about. But I did. I do. Now I can’t stop worrying about my dad; Ollie; just how much my mother’s involved in all of this, and I’m scared for all of them. For us, as a family. For me.”

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