Page 55 of The Bodyguard

“Want to talk to me about it?” he asked.

Ha. Absolutely not.

“Wimp,” he teased.

Angela curled into her blanket. “Why don’t you have someone?”

His gaze narrowed as if that wasn’t where he thought the conversation would go. “Like a girlfriend?”

“Yeah. You said you don’t do relationships. It seems like such a final statement. I’ve seen you date beautiful women. No one sticks. Why?”

He stared at the ceiling as though a good answer might have been hidden in the panels that concealed the oxygen masks. “Never enough time. Not enough interest. You know how it goes.”

“No, I don’t.”

His intense gaze dropped to her. “I don’t think that’s what you were thinking.”

“Don’t change the subject from you to me. I’m curious.”

“You’re much more interesting.”

“Did you have a bad breakup?”

“Are you thinking about Paul?”

“He’s the furthest thing from my mind.” Her nose scrunched. “I wonder if he had his political plan from day one. Like back in college. I mean, why did he want to date me? To rule DC one day?”

“I doubt it was that diabolical.” Her question appeared to catch Sawyer off guard. “It’s because you’re hot.”

Fire swept across her cheeks again. “Come on! I’m serious.”

“So was I. You’re beautiful.” Sawyer counted off with a finger, adding, “Kind, funny, smart, resilient.” He lifted his other hand. “Interesting, trustworthy, a good listener with sky-high integrity—and”—he winked—“you’re hot, sweetheart.”

“All right, Sawyer. Enough.”

“You asked. I answered.” He shrugged. “If that idiot never mentioned your finer points—”

She scoffed. “People don’t walk around listing their significant other’s attributes.”

His eyes locked with hers for a long moment. “Maybe they should.”

White noise hummed around them.

“I don’t want to talk about him anymore,” she said.

He nodded.

“Promise? Because he keeps coming up. I’ve thought and talked about him more in the last couple of days than I have in years. We can pretend he never existed. That no one exists outside this plane.”

Sawyer pulled in a chest-expanding breath and let it out slowly. He kicked off the blanket and stood up.

Again, her stomach dropped. She’d said the wrong thing. “What are you doing?”

He held out his hand.

“Sawyer?”

“Give me your hand.”

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