Page 29 of In Bed with Her Billionaire Bodyguard

He waited in the open doorway, unwilling to enter the room, desperately needing to keep some space between them. It was the first time he didn’t trust himself. The first time ever. But as he looked to where Hope sat, staring into the distance, he realised that the meeting hadn’t gone well.

‘We can’t go back to London yet,’ she said, staring at the wall.

‘Okay.’

‘We’ll be here for another two days, maybe three.’

‘What happened?’ he asked, wanting to know so that he could fix it, so that he could take that look from her face.

She shook her head as if unable to put words to it.

‘She said no?’ he demanded.

She looked up at him as if seeing him for the first time. ‘She won’t sign unless I’m CEO.’

‘But you won’t be CEO if she doesn’t sign,’ he said, realising the predicament instantly. ‘What did she actually say?’

‘She wanted to know why I want to do the deal. And then that we should both think about it.’

He frowned, wondering how Hope had answered the question, wondering what would have swayed the woman who had just left the room by a discreet back exit.

‘You’ll make it happen,’ he said confidently but absently, distracted by the hemline of her dress, which had ridden up on her thighs. She had turned him into an animal.

‘Why?’ she asked, genuine curiosity in her eyes. ‘Why do you think that?’

‘Because that’s what you do,’ he answered as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. ‘People underestimate you and you prove them wrong.’

There was an imperceptible breath held between them. He’d been too observant. He’d betrayed himself in an instant. He knew it. She knew it.

Hope stood and closed the distance between them and he held his ground, refusing to back away from what had become nearly the greatest threat he’d ever experienced.

‘Why are you angry?’ she demanded.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ he dismissed quickly. Too quickly.

‘Yes, it does. Why are you angry with me?’

He felt it burning in his gaze. The frustration, the helpless fury, the indignation and the want. It was all too much.

‘You let that man put his hands on you,’ he growled.

CHAPTER SEVEN

HOPEBACKEDUPas he stepped towards her, crossing over the threshold, closing the door behind him and coming into the room. Not because she was scared but because she didn’t know what to do with all that testosterone.

‘You let that man touch you,’ he said, rephrasing his objection to what had happened in the VIP section of Meister, closing the distance between them so that his chest pressed up against hers.

And a purely feminine power unfurled deep within her, knowing that she’d made him jealous. That he wanted her enough to be jealous. Standing in the centre of the room, she knew there was plenty she could do to create space between them if she needed to. If shewantedto. But she didn’t. She was tired of running from this, running from how she felt about this man, from how much she wanted this man. And instead she breathed deeply, the action pressing her chest against his with the force of her inhalation, causing fireworks to ignite in his silvery gaze.

Tonight, he was dressed in a dark grey shirt, a thin black tie hanging down the centre of his broad chest. His shirtsleeves were rolled back and he looked like he belonged in the shadows. What she wanted to do felt like it belonged in the shadows.

He peered down at her, his height requiring her to crane her neck just a bit, just enough.

‘Yes, I let him touch me,’ Hope said into the thick tension weaving between them. Taunting him was dangerous—instinctively, she knew that, but she also craved it.

A part of Hope registered that this was crazy. She didn’t do things like this. Having been burned by too many people posing as her friends only for access to what they could sell to the nearest journalist, she was incredibly careful about who she spent time with.

But this was entirely different.Hewas different. She knew that as well as she knew her own name. It was in his clear distaste for the media, in his intense discomfort with anything to do with them, in the anger she’d seen barely restrained at the headlines he believed her cousin to be involved in. But whatever this was—her feelings for him—she didn’t have control over it. It was as if she was being swept away by it and there was something inherently seductive about that. About letting go. About just letting go.

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