Page 4 of Baby Daddy Protector

Good thing I wasn’t most women.

I nodded, and we headed down the hall and around the corner. A glance behind us showed another guard had already taken up residence outside my father’s door. Perhaps that was what Z had been talking to his team about earlier. If so, I admired his organizational skills.

Thankfully, it was late enough at night that most of the visitors were gone. Those who lingered were nestled in at their loved one’s bedside for the evening, so there weren’t many gawkers lining the corridor to stare at the two people who were grossly overdressed and out of place. Silence between us stretched taut, and I felt the need to fill it. I prided myself on my conversational skills. It was an essential part of diplomacy. After all, looks might catch a man’s eye, but sharp, witty conversation would capture his secrets.

“So, do you miss it?” I asked Z as we strolled past a long bank of windows. Nighttime DC glittered in the velvet darkness like scattered jewels. “The SEALs, I mean.”

Z shrugged, staring straight ahead. “Sometimes. I’ll get back there soon enough, though. My team’s like my family. It was tough leaving them behind to work in the palace.”

“But what about the danger? Surely you don’t miss risking your life every day.”

He chuckled, low and deep. The sound of it rolled over me like a gentle wave, pulling me a bit further under his spell. He glanced down at me, a good foot taller than my own five-foot-three, his blue eyes glittering in the moonlight streaming in through the windows. “You get addicted to the adrenaline of it, you know? The constant alertness and watchfulness. I love it. Love standing between whatever enemy we were fighting and freedom. Love the sacrifice and the salvation. Love everything, really.”

“What happened?” I’d tried to find out more about him in his employee files at the palace, but most of his career had been a series of missions so confidential that the files were redacted down to almost nothing. All I could really tell was that he’d been very highly regarded—until that had abruptly changed, after which he had been sent to my country as a gesture of goodwill to my father and a veiled punishment for Z, himself. I’d have to get my info straight from the source. But that was fine, I wanted to hear it from him. “Why did you leave and come to work in Prylea?”

“There was an… incident.”

“Incident?”

“Accident.”

“What kind of accident?” I asked, unable to stop myself even though the look on his face said I shouldn’t go there. We turned another corner and proceeded down another hallway, this one apparently unoccupied, if the quiet darkness was any indication.

“Are you always this nosy?” Z stopped abruptly and turned to me, his face half hidden in shadows.

“Are you always this secretive?” I countered before I caught myself. Thank goodness the hallway was dark, because my cheeks prickled with heat. I exhaled slowly and hung my head. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry into things that are none of my business.” So much for my vaunted conversational skills, I thought wryly. I always struggled with tact when I was tired and overstressed.

He leaned his back against the wall and scrubbed his hands over his face. “No. I’m the one who should apologize. You’re my employer, and I should never have spoken to you like that. I’m sorry.”

I walked over to lean beside him, not close enough to touch but close enough to feel his heat again through the fabric of his tux jacket. The silk of my gown swished in the quiet air. “I tend to talk too much sometimes, especially when I’m nervous.” I looked over and caught his wary expression. “It’s not you. It’s this whole situation. My dad’s condition, the impending succession, all of it. I’ve waited too long, and now I’m screwed.”

“Pardon?” He frowned. “How?”

“Well, my father sired no male heirs. No other children at all except me. You know as well as I do that my cousin is just waiting for news of the king’s death to make his move. I wasted what time I had to get my father to change the laws, and now I’ll be out of a country soon unless I think of a solution.”

He nodded, silent. Both of us stared across the hall into the shadows beyond.

“So,” he said a minute later. “Thought of anything yet?” His words dripped with amusement, and soon both of us were laughing. It felt so good after such dark times earlier, and I felt some tension leave my body.

In spite of myself, I laughed—even as I shook my head. “There is one way, but I don’t even know how I’d go about accomplishing it at this point.”

“What’s that?” Z asked.

“I’d have to get married.”

“Sounds awful.”

“Yes, well, I don’t have to worry about that because there are no men around who want to get hitched to me anyway, so…” I swiped my hand under my nose then gathered his jacket tighter around me. “It was a silly idea. Desperate times, desperate measures and all.”

“Aw, c’mon, Esme,” Z said, nudging my shoulder with his. The brief contact sent a shower of sparks down my whole left side before I tamped them down. Must be the exhaustion and jet lag. Had to be. This was my bodyguard, a man I barely knew. But when he looked me up and down, I couldn’t help the tingle between my thighs. He was a good-looking guy, after all, and I wasn’t totally immune to his charms. “I bet there are all kinds of guys lining up to court you.”

“Court me? What are you, from the nineteenth century? I believe we call it dating nowadays,” I teased.

“Fine. Date you, then.” Z turned slightly to face me, zeroing those bright blue eyes on me. The effect was quite mesmerizing. “You’re a beautiful woman. Men must chase after you wherever you go, if you don’t mind me saying so.”

“I don’t mind.” I giggled like a silly schoolgirl but then straightened, my mother’s voice echoing through my head reminding me to behave like a proper princess. “But no. Men are hardly flocking to me—except for the ones who only want a royal title to flaunt around.”

“Ouch.” He cringed. “Occupational hazard, huh?”

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