Page 14 of Dragon Bodyguard
She hesitated, then turned on her heel and left the rose garden, keeping herself from setting off at a run. She didn’t know what to think, but she knew she couldn’t get answers from either her stepmother or her stepfather. Confronting either of them with this was unthinkable. She was going to have to swallow it down. And avoid Misha even though she was still shaking from having him close, her hands longing to bury themselves in his soft locks, his taste still in her mouth and his scent everywhere.
The last thing she needed was to become a distraction from the reason her father was visiting Dmitri; the very last thing she wanted was to somehow bring shame on her family, and if what Misha had told her was the truth—if her father and stepmother had somehow conspired to break them apart—then didn’t she owe it to them to honor their wishes?
They’d given her security and were providing her with a future, one that she had decided she was going to fully embrace, rather than live the rest of her life on the fringes. Wasn’t that the most important thing?
And if it was, then why was it taking every ounce of her willpower to keep herself from turning around and running right back to that sun-mottled garden? And the arms of the man lingering there.
Distraction.
She needed a distraction.
Stepping through the terrace doors, she was grateful to spot Mrs. Barley.
“Excuse me,” she said. “Mrs. Barley, was it?” The woman nodded, smiling. “Could I possibly go into the city and do some shopping? And could you arrange for a car to take me as soon as possible?”
“Of course,” Mrs. Barley said. “In ten minutes, okay? I’ll have them pull the car around out front.”
“Perfect. Thank you.”
She’d spend the rest of the day out of this house and, come dinner, she would have calmed down enough that there would be no more thoughts of rose gardens.
Or the men in them.
Chapter 5 - Misha
Was she for real? She’d come in and disrupted his morning and then she’d let him kiss her—damn if she hadn’t let him—and all that before just storming off again. What the hell was wrong with this woman?
Nothing.The word floated into his head from somewhere entirely unwanted.
No, everything is wrong with her, he told himself sternly.
He didn’t need to be treated like this again. And he really didn’t want to be dragged back into her orbit. Things tended to burn, and he had the scars left over from the last time. No, thank you. Very much. Better to stick to the sidelines, keep his head down, and, while she was there, stick to focusing all his energy on doing his job. He’d have to consciously stay out of her way, he knew that much now.
Why the hell had he kissed her like that?
His heart sped up at the thought of it. How reckless of him to give in to temptation so easily. So quickly. All it had taken was her standing close and her scent in his nostrils to bring back memories of all the things she’d done to him, on top of him, underneath him. He’d wanted to taste her again. Had wanted to feel the way she responded to him, that soft leaning into him, that grabbing hold of him. Like old times. Exactly like old times, in fact. Stirring winds within him that were better left unstirred. They could too easily turn into hurricanes and blow everything to pieces; he'd learned that the hard way.
He’d almost gone to see her, had almost thrown his chance at securing the future he’d always wanted for himself away for her. But then he’d thought better of it because whether what her stepmother had told him was the truth or not didn’t matter. He wasn’t the one able to step out of line without repercussions. If he went against her family’s wishes, the door would be shut in his face. He’d known it would have to be up to her. And she hadn’t shown, hadn’t come knocking on his door to tell him that she’d been wrong and that coming to her senses had been a senseless mistake.
What had she said? That he’d chosen work over her.
Hadn’t she chosen her family over him? Hadn’t she shrunk back and believed whatever her stepmother had told her about him without even once trying to reach out to him?
He kicked at the paper still on the stones. Kicked it again, ripping a couple of pages, relishing the sound.
After everything that went down, she still had the gall to come storming in here to tell him what an asshole he was.
The anger flared hot in his veins. He was seconds from shifting into his dragon shape to have a larger outlet for the fury, but luckily enough his cell phone ringing halted the impulse. He couldn’t shift on the grounds. The last time they’d had dragons flying over the estate, the military had had to be infiltrated, satellite images had had to be erased and a lot of very influential people had been handed substantial wads of hush money. He drew a slow breath.
“Yes?” he answered.
“A detail is needed to take Ms. Kuznetsova into the city,” Mrs. Barley informed.
“Fine. Send Anton.”
“Anton is with Mr. Kuznetsov,” Mrs. Barley reminded.
Fuck. There were a limited number of men around able to take on the responsibility it entailed to be a personal detail for one of the family members since two of said family members had already requested security details for a business excursion that morning. Ilya had left before sunrise. Aleksander would be heading in his father’s footsteps as soon as he got his ass out of bed. Misha couldn’t very well send someone with less experience than was required to watch over Kristina.
