Page 7 of In Bed with Her Billionaire Bodyguard

Simon Harcourt.

Luca narrowed his gaze. Through the strobe lighting of camera flashes, he could just make out the way Simon leaned into her space. Instinct warred against staying in the car and simply observing the interaction. He cursed Nate again, whether he’d been to hell or not, for the limits that he’d put on Luca’s ability to do his job. If he’d been beside Hope instead of stuck out here, the cousin wouldn’t have got within two feet of her.

Luca assessed the situation quickly. From outward appearances, it was two colleagues—cousins—simply having a quick chat on the way out. But he could read the lines her body was making. Sharp and tense, she was trying very hard to suppress her anger. He’d done it on purpose, Luca realised, cornering her in front of the press. He fired off a message to the case analyst, demanding all info on Simon Harcourt to be sent to him immediately.

The moment Hope moved, he moved.

He was out of the car and, even though he’d expected it, he was still slammed by the wall of sound that had been muffled in the car’s interior. Journalists jostled and shouted, trying to get a soundbite on the internal fighting that was about to take over one of the world’s most recognisable companies.

‘Hope, what would your brother be saying if he was here?’

‘Will Nate come back from his travels for this?’

‘Hope, who do you think the next CEO will be?’

She ignored them all, Simon having hung back to watch her walk into the braying madness from inside the department store. Sunglasses hid her gaze, as they did his, but despite that, he knew she was looking right at him, locked onto him as if he were her lifeline.

He closed the door behind her after she’d slid smoothly into the back of the car and resisted the urge to violently remove the paparazzo who tried to get a photo as Luca opened the door to get into the driver’s seat. He gently manoeuvred the car through the crowd and onto the road, leaving the chaos behind them. He counted down from ten and was surprised to get as far as three before she spoke.

‘Don’t question my decisions again,’ she said, her voice clipped.

Understanding that she was referring to his request to pick her up in the garage, he replied with a careful, ‘No, ma’am.’

‘Do you know the address in Tunbridge Wells?’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ he confirmed, having made a point of knowing all the likely locations she might need.

‘We’re going there now.’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ he said, making a left-hand turn towards the river.

A few minutes of silence passed between them before she spoke again.

‘It would have looked as if I was hiding.’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ he agreed. But it would have been safer.

Darkness fell as they travelled further and further away from the mess of the shareholders’ meeting, which was a metaphor for something, Hope was pretty sure. But out here, as they turned off the M25 and onto the A2, on the way to her grandfather’s estate, it felt almost as if it were just her and Luc alone in the world.

Luc.

She’d felt his frustration that afternoon. As if he’d wanted to protect her somehow. The thought was laughable if she were being unkind to herself, and fanciful if she were being charitable. Ridiculous was what it was, whichever way she looked at it. Her thoughts changing tack, she reached for her phone and hit the dial button.

Nate answered on the second ring, as if he’d been waiting for her call.

‘I didn’t know,’ he said immediately. ‘I thought something was going on, but I didn’t know what.’

‘And you didn’t think to warn me?’ she demanded, some of her feelings bleeding out into her tone.

‘I didn’t want to worry you,’ he replied.

She bit back a harsh response and swallowed around the hurt reminding her that her brother didn’t think she was strong enough to handle things like this. Just like he hadn’t thought she was strong enough to handle the truth about Martin.

‘What are we going to do?’ she asked. ‘The nomination for CEO is on Friday, the vote is in two weeks.’

Nate’s response was a curse. She understood his frustration. They both wanted great things for Harcourts, things they’d imagined that he would be able to do as CEO.

‘I’m on my way to see Grandfather.’

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