Bodyguard...To Bridegroom?

Something about her posture stilled his feet before he reached the steps, though.

And then he heard it... The choked hitch he’d attributed in amongst the other desert wildlife sounds. It wasn’t an exotic bird calling at all; it was Sera, crying—sobbing, actually, if only she weren’t doing such a good job of muffling it in her folded arms. He stood, frozen, and stared at her heaving shoulders and back. Everything in him burned to go and check on her. The urge bubbled up and made his feet twitch.

But a single image fought its way through all the instinct and kept him utterly immobile—a young, glittery-eyed face, splotched red with distress, pressed up against the rear window of a hastily departing transporter, his little mouth open in a cry that Brad couldn’t hear.

But he’d felt it down to his very soul.

He still did.

Sera’s tears could be about just about anything. The ex-boyfriend her file said she’d parted ways with. Bad news from home. Work hassles, if not for the fact that she didn’t have a job, at least, not a proper one. Her father’s money had brought her freedom from the worries of ordinary people.

He stared at the soft lurches of her pale shoulders.

Clearly, money hadn’t exactly bought her happiness.

Whatever it was, it wasn’t any of his business until it put her at physical risk. His job was to keep Sera out of trouble for four weeks. Muddling around in her emotional well-being was completely outside his remit. He wasn’t paid for it.

And he wasn’t remotely skilled at it.

He took a backwards step, and then another, and vanished the way he’d come, leaving Sera to her privacy.

And her pain.

CHAPTER THREE

‘HAVE YOU TASTED the bananas?’ Sera burst out, answering his door knock a little later. ‘They’re amazing. God, I’ve missed bananas.’

Brad reeled a little at the sheer joy on her face. Quarter of an hour ago she was inconsolable. Maybe the desert with its ever-changing moods was a fitting place for her.

‘Is there some kind of British banana shortage I’m not aware of?’ he said, rather than obsess on things that were outside his purview.

She turned and walked back into her suite, leaving him to follow. ‘I stopped eating them. All our bananas are flash-frosted and shipped in from West Africa or South America; it’s been ages since I’ve had a fresh, locally harvested banana. Sensational.’

Somehow, she’d even managed to make fruit political.

‘Are you okay?’

She smiled, and it appeared totally sincere. Obviously a quick rebounder, then.

‘Sure. Are you?’

He narrowed his focus on her red-tinged eyes. ‘Do you need some eye drops?’

Really, Kruger? You gotta keep snooping? Let it go, man.

She waved his concern away. ‘The pool is lightly salted.’

A little bit extra now, given her copious tears. But her easy dismissal made it impossible for him to exercise the absurd Galahad complex she seemed to have triggered in him.

Seraphina Blaise did not need—or want—his help.

His attention tracked to her still-unpacked luggage. ‘How are you settling in?’

Her mouth split into a smile as wide as the desert they sat in. ‘It’s unbelievable, already. Have you seen the light? It changes by the hour. It’s going to be amazing to photograph.’

‘We’ll be doing a bit of that, then?’

‘I’m here for a month,’ she murmured. ‘I’ll go mad without a focus. Besides, it’s what I do. You know?’

Yeah. He knew all about her photography. It was what had got her in the papers in the first place. Taking photos of animals in confidential research labs. And getting caught doing it. Though that hadn’t been quite the accident she’d first believed.

‘I figure I’ll be busiest in the mornings and late afternoon, when it’s coolest and the light is richest,’ she said. ‘Do you...? Are you supposed to be twenty-four-seven?’

The settling-in phase was always clunky, but Sera managed to make it feel extra awkward. As if he were some kind of stalker and they were negotiating the terms on which he’d lurk around after her.

‘I’ll be seven days a week for the next month,’ he confirmed. ‘But I won’t be in your face all the time.’

‘There’ll probably be three or four hours in the hottest part of the day when I’ll retreat in here. That’s time off for you.’

‘Maybe,’ he hinted. It all depended on what she got up to while she was alone. Complementary WiFi was a potentially dangerous thing. All it would take was one culturally bolshie blog...

‘I’m your protection, Sera. My job is to be here when and if something happens.’ And something could whip up like a sandstorm. ‘I’m not going to be out having shots at the bar when you might need me.’

She stared him down and it reminded him much more of Sera from the airport. ‘This place is like Fort Knox. What could possibly happen to me here?’

Any question whether or not she knew what he was truly here for evaporated on the warm desert air.

Okay, time to toss his cards on the table...

‘My brief is to ensure you keep a low profile for the next month,’ he admitted.

‘Actually, that’s my brief,’ Sera said. ‘You’re here because my father clearly doubts my ability to honour my promise to him.’

The politics of her family had no more place in his mind than her tears did. Nor the confused hurt that had just flashed across her bold gaze. He forced his natural empathy aside.

‘Your UK security firm are taking no chances,’ he said. ‘I’m paid for close contact, which means twenty-four-seven.’ Or as much as the culture here would allow. ‘That will keep you safe from any crazies and—conveniently—means I’ll be around to head off any...social issues that might emerge.’

‘What if I pledge not to publish any manifestos while I’m here?’ she joked.

He couldn’t match her light laugh. That was exactly the sort of thing he was hired to restrict. ‘I’ll be resetting your device passwords daily. More often if I need to.’

‘Of course you will,’ she grunted. ‘Why not just take them off me?’

‘Because you’re not a child.’

The irony of that made her laugh. ‘Thanks for noticing.’

‘My job is to create an environment that limits risk, Sera. I’m your protection, not your parent. You already have one of those.’

Again, the flash across her gaze. But while her irritation was real it didn’t seem directed at him.

‘You can’t work around the clock, Brad,’ she said, and he got the sense that the idea was genuinely troubling her.

‘You’ll barely know I’m—’

‘I’m not worried for me,’ she interrupted. ‘It’s not fair on you. I’m sorry that you have to be inconvenienced for something that won’t even be happening. I had hoped that no one would be put out by me this Christmas,’ she muttered.

Was it his imagination or was there an extra subtle leaning on the word ‘this’? But curiosity belonged between them about as much as empathy did.

Indifferent acquiescence...

‘It’s not an inconvenience. It’s my job. Besides, personal protection isn’t exactly taxing,’ he said.

‘Until it is?’ she guessed.

Again, that sharp mind at work.

‘Nature of the beast,’ he murmured. ‘It’s all waiting around and watching until it blows up.’

‘Well, it won’t be blowing up because of me,’ she vowed with determination in her eyes. ‘No matter what my father thinks. I’m afraid it’s going to be a dull month for you.’

Yeah... The road to hell was paved with good intentions. ‘Did your last protection detail buy that gentle sincerity?’

Right before he got reassigned over the whole research-lab debacle.

He deserved her annoyance, but the flush he got instead was shame. It peaked high in her cheeks and cast her eyes downward.

‘I’ll be all right,’ he assured her in lieu of apology. ‘I’ll take my downtime as I can.’

‘I just want you to know that I’m okay with the idea of personal space,’ she murmured.

He couldn’t help the laugh then. ‘I’m sure. Unfortunately, I’m required to intrude on yours quite a bit.’

She sighed and moved to the bedside table to collect her key. ‘Well, we might as well get on with it, then. The resort schedules a complimentary spa session for anyone who has come in on an international flight. Mine’s in half an hour.’

Back on the job. ‘I’ll call up the buggy.’

‘I’d like to walk. To get some pictures before the spa,’ she said. ‘Then perhaps some more shooting after lunch.’

It wasn’t a request, no matter how politely delivered. Here was a woman who’d been negotiating with protection details her whole life, though, while she was good at it, her tension told him she didn’t enjoy it. Fortunately, he did. Clear, confident directions boded well for a client who would accept his daily intrusions into her life.

‘Sounds good,’ he said.

In reality, protection details were dull more often than they were good. The trick was in staying alert and on your game while your mind turned to mush watching some client reading a book or watching their kid at a ball game or catching a movie. The consequences of losing focus could be bad. And prevention was a whole lot better than cure.

As he knew from experience.

Sera grabbed her camera from her luggage and a wide straw hat from her bedhead and turned for the door.

‘Let’s go.’

* * *

‘Did the floor say something to offend?’ Sera asked him, her voice husky from an hour of languorous spoiling in the spa. The rest of her was buried in her oversized robe, enjoying the dazed, spaced-out, post-massage moments.

Brad’s grey gaze shot upwards as he pushed to his feet. ‘Sorry, what?’

Her smile was as slow to form as her slurred words, but the uncomfortable expression on his face as he looked her over made her want to double-check that the robe was closed everywhere it should be. It made her want to fix her just-massaged hair, too, but she resisted the urge.

‘The floor,’ she clarified. ‘You’re frowning at it pretty severely.’

‘We, uh, disagreed on a few fundamentals.’

His gruff chuckle did more for undoing the stresses of her arrival in Umm Khoreem than the hour-long rubdown she’d just enjoyed. Or the good, cathartic cry she’d had in the pool. A laugh, on this man, was as surprising and rare as the light out here.

‘Feel good?’ he said, dragging himself up into professional guard stance.

‘Amazing.’ She smiled.

Her new favourite word. The desert was amazing. The suites were amazing. The massages were amazing. For someone who so easily found the beauty in the visual, her grasp of the verbal was taking a real hit this trip. It had to be connected to those eyes.

She never should have ordered him to take his sunglasses off.

‘I’ll wait by the door,’ Brad said, nudging her towards the changing room. She stumbled forward in her half-drugged state.

The Sera that emerged from the change rooms fifteen minutes later was more the woman she liked to present to the world. She’d taken her time redressing and scrunching her hair into something vaguely stylish—using every complimentary product in the place and delighting in the complex, Arabian smells—and her bare arms and throat practically glistened from whatever oils her masseuse had used on her. She felt spoiled and mellow and fresh.

She signed her tab at the spa’s reception desk and then turned and floated out the door. Brad trailed behind her, playing Sherpa to her camera gear.

‘Don’t forget to eat,’ he murmured. ‘One banana isn’t going to keep you going for long, no matter how delicious it was.’

‘After that massage I’m ravenous. Let’s go get lunch,’ she said. Sometimes—just sometimes—it was nice to have someone to do your thinking for you.

They headed for the resort’s pretty hub, stopping only once to take a photograph along the way—a leggy young gazelle standing in the sand, its little tail waggling madly. Sera captured its markings, coat colour and the deep, watery depths of its eyes. Then she remembered her growly stomach.

Brad had ditched the suit in favour of dark jeans and a light shirt, but he’d kept the pricey glasses firmly in place and added a neutral baseball cap for good measure. Totally Secret Service now. Did he imagine he blended right in with the other guests? Given how he carried himself, he probably blended in nowhere outside some elite force of Arab mercenaries.

It was all very distracting.

She forced her focus back onto the landscape as they wandered along the winding stone pathway criss-crossed by the traditional watercourse that ran through the whole resort. The light was gorgeous even in the middle of the day—textures, colour—and everywhere she looked were images worthy of capturing later. The wind ripples on a bank of sand that looked otherwise completely solid. Plants she’d never seen. Birds she’d never seen. A crazy little side-winding lizard that took its twisty time cutting across in front of her.

But right now she was all about eating. And partly about ignoring the man tailing so close behind her.

He followed her over the doorway plinth into Al Saqr’s heart—literally over it, all doors in the resort were cut into a much larger timber frame to keep the sand out—onto the plush rugs scattered across the stone floor. The heat and glare immediately dropped off. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust but only a moment longer to scan the entire space. The restaurant hanging off the back of the main building offered darkened, delicious-smelling dining indoors, or decorated, shade-covered tables on its deck, peering over the desert waterhole below.

‘Outside, I think,’ Sera said, when asked for her preference.

A minute later, she was seated on the edge of the deck, looming over the desert, her favourite juice on hand and a jug of icy water delivered. They seated Brad a few tables back, out of her view but presumably where he had a good clear outlook over the whole area. If she were her father, there was no way his security would have let him sit here, so exposed to anyone bedded down in a distant dune. But the kind of obsessive crazies The Ravens’ gothic music occasionally attracted and the kind of pathetic try-hards she would attract were totally different creatures.

The only shot someone was going to take at her would end up in the tabloids, not in a morgue.

There were six other diners also having a late lunch, all of them in couples and looking very loved up. This was exactly the right sort of resort for honeymoons or anniversaries. Or romantic Christmases, as it turned out. On balance, though, it was still better to spend the festive season here than back home. Alone.

Even if she was in disgrace.

Her meal came, and right behind that Brad’s did. They each ate in silence, the occasional clink of his cutlery a kind of Morse code reminding her he was close by. Sera never once turned to look at him but his presence almost hummed; the silence was thick with it. It dragged her attention off the gorgeous view and the delicious cuisine until she might as well have been eating airline food.

When the staff came to remove her first-course dishes, Sera pushed her chair back, turned and marched towards him.

‘This is crazy. Come and join me.’

‘I’m on the job,’ he declined. ‘But thank you.’

‘Okay, you’ve said what your employer would want you to say. Now, please join me.’

His eyes didn’t quite meet hers. ‘Let’s just keep it by the book.’

His manners did little more than irritate her further. Partly because she wasn’t getting her way. Mostly because she was supposed to be off men—she shouldn’t want his company.

But she did.

‘What’s problematic about having a conversation while we eat?’

His grey eyes turned wary. ‘I’m paid to shadow you, not monopolise you.’

‘I don’t feel monopolised,’ she said, low, glancing around at the other diners. ‘I feel conspicuous.’

‘You’re not used to dining alone?’

Was he kidding? She was mostly alone, even when she had company. A nanny had always eaten with her when she was younger but it was always a very...functional exercise. Any conversation they’d had was mostly limited to which hand she held her fork in or whether she had to eat all of her beans. ‘In case it’s escaped your notice this is a very coupley resort.’

His gaze scanned the pairs dotted around the restaurant. ‘You want it to seem like we’re together?’

Her hiss of annoyance drew more than one curious look. ‘Look. I’m the client, asking you to join me for—’ she glanced around for inspiration ‘—my safety!’

He wasn’t the slightest bit moved.

‘Okay, forget it. I’ll just go back to my gorgeous view and have no one to talk about it with.’

With that, she turned and flounced back to her seat, taking an oversized gulp of her dewy melon juice and sinking lower than before into her padded chair.

Stuff him—she was not about to beg. She’d never begged for someone’s company in her life.

No matter how tempted she might have been.

* * *

The first Sera knew that Brad had moved was the scrape of the chair opposite hers. He stepped into the gap he’d created, placed his iced water on the table and sank down in front of her.

‘The reason we don’t do this,’ he said without waiting for any kind of response from her, ‘is that it sets up awkwardness later. What if you want to dine alone in future? What if I do? This way there’s no pressure or expectation on either side. Everything remains easy.’

She turned a baleful glare at him. ‘You think I’m going to expect you to dine with me?’

He held his mettle and her gaze. ‘You wouldn’t be the first female client to misinterpret the terms of service for their protection. The rules exist for a reason.’

‘If you can’t handle yourself with some cougar, Brad, that’s on you.’ She turned back out to the desert.

His voice next came quietly—amused but slightly disappointed.

Oh, well...join the queue! Her father had communicated more disappointment in the past few months than any other sentiment all year.

‘You didn’t strike me as a sulker.’

‘I’m not sulking,’ she gritted, forcing patience she didn’t feel. ‘I wanted to... I don’t do the reach-out thing, normally.’

Because reaching out just wasn’t worth the potential rejection, in her experience. Which begged the question: Why bother, now?

‘But?’

‘But...even if some newspaper did track me out here into the middle of all this nothing, those gigantic fences and armed guards mean there’s no chance of a picture ending up in some tabloid with a fabricated story. I just hoped that maybe I could ease back a bit on the rules this trip. Since no one knows who I am out here. You know, relax.’

His steady regard made her fingers twitch, and she curled them subtly into her fists. It only seemed to drive the flutters inward, just below her sternum.

‘No one here knows you,’ he said, still without blinking, ‘but everyone knows me. These are my colleagues.’

The flutters fell to the floor of her gut and died there. That was right. Her plea for some latitude was essentially asking Brad to compromise his professionalism.

Remorse congealed in her blood.

‘Sorry, I wasn’t thinking.’ Well, she was...but not about him. ‘Maybe you should—’

He stopped her before she could send him away.

‘Leaving again is going to draw more attention than me staying,’ he murmured. ‘Let’s just finish lunch, yeah?’

But having achieved the company she’d set out to secure, Sera suddenly found herself struggling for a single fascinating thing to say. And he was apparently not about to help her out.

‘So, you’re ex-military?’ she finally guessed, though she wouldn’t win any prizes for intuition. Everything about him screamed Defence Forces.

‘Ten years in the Specials.’

Ten years? She was just a kid when he was first heading into danger. Was that why she felt so breathless around him? Like some sixteen-year-old? She was a mere teen, compared to his life experience. ‘You seem to know a fair bit about deserts.’

He paused, his fork halfway to his lips. ‘More than most.’

‘Were you posted to the Middle East?’

‘My unit provided support to the United Nations. Mostly based in the capital. But I got out in the sand often enough.’

That brought her eyes back up. ‘That sounds interesting.’

‘If by “interesting” you mean political and volatile, sure.’

‘When did you leave the UN?’

His eyes darkened over. ‘Two years ago, now.’

‘What made you leave?’

His eyes flicked out to the horizon.

‘A mistake,’ he murmured, discomforted. ‘My mistake.’

She wanted to quiz him further but every question she posed made her feel like that cougar that he’d mentioned; the rare Snoopy Desert Cougar.

‘And you’ve worked for the Sheikh since then?’

‘As soon as the opportunity came up. I held out for his team.’

‘Why?’

He shrugged massive shoulders. ‘They’re the best.’

‘Must have been competitive,’ she murmured.

‘So am I.’

Did he have any idea how intriguing that twisted thing he called a smile was?

‘And you’re always based out here?’

‘Not always. But Al Saqr is the gem in Sheikh Bakhsh Shakoor’s crown. All his guests come here at some point, which makes for pleasant work.’

She leaned back in her seat and smiled. ‘How many of them couldn’t leave again without risking deportation?’

He fought a proper smile, but failed. As with the last glimmer she’d had of it, it transformed his face. ‘You have the honour of being the first. My first, anyway.’

The idea of being Brad’s first anything resurrected all those butterflies lying prone in her gut and they lurched back to life. She fought to focus on their conversation.

‘Who was your most challenging client?’

‘It would be unprofessional of me to comment.’

‘No names, obviously.’

He stared in silence. Until she realised.

‘Truly,’ she gasped. ‘I’m your worst?’ How few had he had?

‘You didn’t say worst,’ he was quick to reply. ‘You said challenging.’

‘We’ve been here three hours. How can I possibly challenge you already?’

For the first time, she got the sense that he wasn’t saying exactly what was on his mind. ‘Do you think I improvise immigration incidents every day?’

‘Well, you didn’t seem the slightest bit troubled by it.’

Irritated, yes...

‘It’s my job to appear in control.’

Seriously? Did he have to remind her every five seconds that he was paid to be here?

A beautifully dressed young woman appeared at their table with two flat stone platters dotted with pretty little desserts. She placed them down with a gentle smile, enquired after their needs and then tiptoed off again. Brad’s eyes glanced after her.

For no reason at all that made her grumpy.

‘So, are we okay to get some photos this afternoon?’ she said, drawing his focus back to her. ‘Once it starts to get cooler?’

‘Whatever you need.’

He inclined his head, waiting politely for her to lift her dessert fork. She was happy to oblige, tucking into a mysterious, bluish sticky morsel—totally foreign to her but scrumptious—and the next ten minutes were all about eating in silence. Until he broke it.

‘What’s the story with the photography?’ he asked. ‘Hobby or job?’

Here we go. He wasn’t the first person to assume that someone with money didn’t want or need to work.

‘I don’t know that I’ve sold enough shots to truthfully call it a job,’ she said. ‘But I take it much more seriously than a hobby. Maybe we could settle on it being a...pastime?’

‘How’d you get into it?’ His interest seemed more than just polite.

‘I don’t remember whose idea it was, but I remember the excitement of the day my tutor took me shopping to buy my first equipment. And Friday afternoons when a professional photographer came out to teach me how to use it with any skill.’