Page 41 of In Bed with Her Billionaire Bodyguard

These weren’t inconsiderable things to him. He’d spent his entire life protecting his mother’s reputation and he’d spent his entire adult life protecting and developing his own business. It was the one thing, theonething, that grounded him in this world. The one thing that would prove he’d ever been here.

But a reckless, demanding part of him didn’t want to give Hope up. He—who trusted almost no one—had trusted her with more of himself than he’d ever shown anyone. And he knew that he’d seen a side of Hope that no one else had ever seen, not even that bastard of an ex-fiancé.

His mind scrabbled to make the scenario work. Clandestine meetings, illicit encounters, ways around attracting the attention of the press... He’d do it, he realised. He’d do that for her. He could even see himself giving up the contract that Nate Harcourt had dangled in front of him like a carrot to protect Hope in the first place. He would stay in the shadows for her, like he had done for his mother.

And he didn’t know whether that terrified him because it was a good thing, or because it was the worst thing.

‘Thank you so much for making the time,’ Hope said, surprised that she wasn’t feeling nervous. The urgency and desperation that had driven her in their last meeting was strangely absent.

‘I’m glad I was able to,’ Sofia replied sincerely, her gaze assessing, as if noting the change in Hope too.

‘I don’t have any changes to the offer. I can’t and, to be honest, even if I could, Iwouldn’tmake any changes to what is already both a good idea and a good deal for us both.’

Sofia frowned slightly, her only outward sign of confusion about where this conversation might be going then. Hope didn’t want to waste either of their time with unnecessary platitudes.

‘But I did want to give you another answer to the question you asked before, about why I wanted this. If I’m honest,’ Hope admitted, ‘I wasn’t aware of what was driving me then. And in some ways, if you hadn’t forced me to question it, I might never have realised it, so I’d like to thank you.’

Sofia’s eyes were impassive, but Hope didn’t care. If the amazing businesswoman sitting opposite her didn’t get it or understand—even as she prayed that wasn’t the case—Hope realised that she’d find another way. Because she loved Harcourts and because she loved what she did. And shewouldfind a way of making it hers.

‘At the beginning I thought that I was trying to make this deal because it would wrestle the CEO position away from my cousin. I thought I was doing it for my brother, who had been groomed from childhood to become the CEO, first by my father and then my grandfather. I thought that I could maybe caretake it for him, until he returns, paying him back for all the times that he protected me after my parents died.’

Sympathy and a hint of understanding flared in Sofia’s gaze.

‘But... I don’t want to give it away,’ she said, finally admitting the truth out loud. ‘I want the CEO position for myself. And I want this deal because it’s anexcellentidea, it’s anexcitingidea, and because it’smyidea. I can see it so clearly in my mind, I can almost feel the gold handle of the hotel door, with our names across the top of it,’ she said, conjuring the images in her mind as she said them. ‘I want this because Harcourts is my legacy and my future. Because I want to thrust it into the twenty-first century, with new designers and a socially conscious ethos. I want Harcourts to speak to, notdownto, the communities that it supplies,’ she said, nearly out of breath with the passion pulsing through her body with every beat of her heart.

There was so much more she could have said, but Hope realised she didn’t need to as she looked at Sofia smiling back at her with satisfaction and an excitement of her own.

‘Nowyou are someone I would like to do business with,’ Sofia stated confidently.

‘I can’t lie, I’m not the CEO yet.’

Sofia nodded, clearly debating what she was about to say. ‘Hope, if they choose Simon over you, then you might have to think about leaving. Because as much as you love that business, it will never love you back.’

‘But you’re agreeing to the deal,’ Hope said, refusing to let Sofia’s warning dim the bright shining light building in her chest.

Sofia smiled. ‘Did you bring the paperwork?’

Hope managed to contain her excitement until she got back into the SUV and turned to Luca.

‘You did it,’ he said, a smile splitting his handsome features, his steely grey eyes bright with silvery sparks.

She didn’t answer. Instead, she grabbed him and kissed him hard and hot and deep, her hands pulling him to her meeting no resistance. She clung to the kiss, desperately almost, praying that Luca wouldn’t notice—that she couldn’t speak, couldn’t think past the fear of how much him being there had meant to her. How much she’d wantedhimto know that she’d got the deal. Not her brother, not her grandfather—the people she had spent her life wanting to impress, but Luca—who had come to mean so much to her in such a short space of time. Too much, she realised, as she responded to the pounding of his heart beneath the palm of her hand, where it rested on his chest.

He pulled back from the kiss, breath punching in and out of his chest. ‘I’m taking you home,’ he said, and she knew she should correct him, that the chalet wasn’t their home, but the words stuck in her throat, the fiery passion blazing in his gaze setting her body alight with that very same need.

Luca didn’t know how many speed limits he broke on the way home, and Hope hardly helped matters. She couldn’t keep her hands off him, her palm smoothing over his thigh muscle, dangerously close to where he really wanted her.

She looked at him, and where he’d once seen disinterest and aloofness, he now saw so much more. He saw need, raw and unvarnished, in the swirls of espresso and heated caramel, making his whole body pulse with a thick arousal he feared he might never satiate.

All he knew was that by the time they pulled into the driveway to the chalet he was ready to claim her in a way that was primal and powerful, in a way he’d never experienced before. Which was why he kept his hands on the steering wheel, trying to claw back some sense of control.

He felt her gaze on him. ‘Luca—’

‘I need a minute,’ he said, concerned by the intensity of his need for her, concerned about what that could lead to.

‘I don’t,’ she replied.

‘Hope...’ Her name was a plea and a warning at the same time.

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