Page 43 of The Bodyguard

“How long have your family known Stefan Novak?”

Her head’s down again, her fork back to pushing those rapidly congealing eggs around her plate. “A long time. He’s never really been what you’d call a friend, but my father was always aware of him. He doesn’t do a lot of business in the UK, I know that much.”

We know that much, too. That’s why, when his appearance here was suddenly flagged up, we had to take action.

“He’s a dangerous man, Lena.”

She slowly raises her gaze, her eyes narrowed, her head slightly cocked. “You know a lot about him?”

“I know what I found out, for myself, when I knew I was taking this job.”

“I’m not sure a quick Google search is going to tell you much, to be honest.”

Then it’s just as well we used very different methods.

“Do you believe that your father and Ollie are meeting with Novak purely to talk about territory issues?”

Her eyes narrow a little further, and I wonder if I’ve done the right thing, taking this line of questioning. “Territory is extremely important in my father’s world. If someone like Novak is threatening to take something that doesn’t belong to him; something that belongs tousthen it’s serious. Why do you need to know all of this, anyway?”

So many fucking reasons… “The more I know, the better I can keep you safe.”

She lays down her fork, pushes her chair back, and gets up, taking her plate with her.

“Are you still scared?”

She sets her plate down on the countertop, but keeps her back to me. And she doesn’t answer my question. She doesn’t say anything.

“Lena?”

She takes a deep breath, I can tell by the way her shoulders rise up and then fall back down. And then she turns back around and crosses her arms over her chest. “A little. Yes.”

“I don’t want you to be. You shouldn’t be. I’m here to make sure no harm comes to you, and I don’t fail, Lena. I never fail.”

Almost never fail. Almost…

She smiles the smallest of smiles, so I’m guessing that she believes me. That she trusts me, I really hope she does, trust me. But I still don’t think we’re past what happened last night. Not yet. Not fully. Not as far as she’s concerned.

“Lena? Look at me. Please.”

She doesn’t respond to my instruction straight away, but when she does, there’s a hint of ice in her eyes. And I need her to lose that.

“What happened last night, no harm was done. Let’s just forget about it, okay?”

“Okay.”

And I’m not sure either of us can actually do that: forget about it. But we’re going to have to try. This can’t happen. It can’t. She’s this beautiful, confusing, messed-up woman and I have never met anyone like her before. Never had a job that’s suddenly become as complicated as this one before. I took my eye off the ball once, not that long ago, and I refuse to let that happen again. I need to stay focused, not become distracted, and I almost let that focus slip, because of Lena Nielsen. That’s why this can’t happen.

“I’ll clear up in here, then I should probably go back to the house.”

“You don’t need to clear up, I’ll do that.”

“No, I want to. You go do something else, go lift some weights, or whatever the hell else it is you do to get muscles that ridiculously big.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. Go on, go.”

I slip out of the back door and walk down to the bottom of the small, walled garden to the rear of the cottage. Far enough away for me not to be overheard but still within sight of Lena, who I can see through the open door singing along to the radio as she washes up.

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