Page 33 of Furever Loyal
“Not that,” she snapped, trying to keep her face neutral. “Why are you touching me?”
“Oh, that.” He dropped her arm, but only because they were at the table. “Here, let me take your coat, dear.”
She wanted to glare at him, to eviscerate him with her eyes, for calling her that. The gall in assuming she would just go along with this charade was near appalling. Still, she gave him her coat and let him hang it up on the post that divided the booths from one another.
“I agreed to come to lunch,” she said, sliding into the booth.
Thankfully, he didn’t try to sit next to her, easing his way into the other side. Thinking he was done, she surveyed the restaurant, seeing if she could see anything out of place. Her eyes were fixed on the front entrance when she felt warm, slightly rough skin sliding over her hand, holding it tight.
“Kincaid,” she said, warning.
“Just play the loving partner,” he urged. “For the next bit, while we’re here in public, okay?”
“Why?” Abandoning her survey of the place she focused back on him. “You told me you wanted to come here to be seen. To shake the feathers a bit. If I do that, I’m going to be associated with you.”
“Is that really so bad?” he asked, flashing her only the second or third real smile he’d ever given her.
It didn’t work.
“Do yourememberwhat you just told me in the car? Someone is trying to kill you. I don’t particularly want them to try to kill me either.” She pulled her hand back slowly, but he gripped tighter, holding on.
“I’ll protect you from anything, though trust me, you’ll be fine.”
She snorted. “I had enough of yourprotectionthis morning, thank you very much. I’m not too interested in more, especially if you’re going to fight everyone and get your ass kicked.”
Kincaid’s mouth opened, then closed again before he finally found his voice. “I didnotget my ass kicked. I was trying to avoid beating that guy until I got information out of him.”
“So, you call getting tossed across the room into a solid metal tablewinning?”
“In a matter of speaking. Yes.” His lips flattened into a line. “He just didn’t have anything to say, otherwise, you would have been proud of me.”
Haley nodded, noting that he still hadn’t removed his hand. Her fingers were starting to warm up, and the skin of his palm was gentle against hers. Different than what she might have expected. It was almost…tender.
Clamping down on her wayward thoughts, as she’d done in the car earlier, Haley slipped her hand free. Whatever it took to keep her distance from Kincaid and his roguish charm, she would do it. Even if that meant being rude and distant. This was business, and nothing more. She intended to keep it that way, no matter how hard he tried.
Kincaid noted that, sitting up straight on his own side. Even with the two of them seated, he still towered over her, tall and bulky to the point he mostly blocked out her view behind him. His shoulders and arms more resembled corded steel than anything.
“May I ask you a question now?”
The request caught her by surprise. Her first instinct was to say no. To shut him down, and to prevent him from learning anything more about her. He already knew more than she was comfortable with, but there was no taking it back. All she could do was limit any further damage.
Yet she could only besorude without starting to feel guilty about it. Kincaid had been quite candid with her, spilling one of the biggest secrets in the world. That was an awful lot of trust he’d shown there, a judgment call that he had to be terrified would come back to haunt him.
Haley wasn’t in the business of betraying people. She would never purposefully betray his secret of course, but accidents happened. Not telling her would have been the better option, but he’d decided to trust her. Haley supposed she should extend the same trust to him, at least this once.
“Go ahead,” she told him at last.
“Earlier, in your office, when I mentioned you’d be great at politics, you got upset with me.”
Haley looked down at the pattern of the tablecloth. “Saying I’d be a good politician, given the way politicians are looked at these days? That’s not exactly a compliment.”
Once more, Kincaid reached out and took her hand. This time, he turned it over, pulling one finger across her palm gently until she looked up at him.
“That’s not it.” He kept stroking. “It’s something else. You were…hurt, Haley. Not because I said you’d be good, but about your decision not to go into it.”
“Stop that,” she said, looking at her hand.
“Why? Does it feel bad?”
