“Excuse me?” she said, like he’d just told her Sasquatch was real.
“He’s too nice,” Andre said, like he actually thought she hadn’t heard him. “Anyway, trust me. You are waaaaay less annoying than his last client.”
I threw him a look that said, You can go ahead and shut up now.
He didn’t notice.
“Well,” Summer muttered, “maybe his next client will be even less annoying.”
“Nah,” Andre said, totally oblivious to the subtext. “You’ll probably be the last one anyway.”
“What?” Summer sat forward. “Why?”
“Well, the last one was supposed to be the last one.” I cleared my throat, loudly, but Andre didn’t even glance at me. “After that, he was supposed to be retiring his bodyguard services. We threw a party for him and everything. That was the night we met you, actually.”
It was like a record scratch. Summer actually shut off the music.
“What?” she repeated.
“Tell her, bro,” Andre said, like he wasn’t even sure why I wasn’t jumping in to speak for myself.
Like I wanted her to know any of this shit?
“Tell her how you said you’d never take another bodyguard assignment.”
I shot him a look and found him smiling at me. The smile fucking faded at the look on my face, though.
In the backseat, Summer said, “Why did he take this one, then?”
“Uh… Brody Mason is an important client.” Maybe he was finally receiving the shut the fuck up vibes I was sending. He cleared his throat. “We’re all about doing what’s best for the client, you know?”
“Uh-huh,” Summer said. “And if this last client was so annoying, why didn’t you guys just drop him or her?”
“Ronan would never drop a client,” Andre said, with confidence, though he was wrong about that. “No matter what a spoiled, ridiculous, obnoxious fucking princess they were.”
Okay; I knew he was still talking about my last client.
But who knew how Summer would take that comment?
“Hey. Why’d you turn off the music?” Andre glanced back at her, like he’d suddenly realized it was uncomfortably silent in the car.
“What do you want to hear?” she said quietly. Too quietly.
She was thinking back there, about something, and she wasn’t saying whatever it was.
I didn’t like it.
“How about ‘All Summer Long.’ Kid Rock,” he suggested. Then he winked at me. “She doesn’t realize I can go on like this all day.”
I sighed again.
“‘Sex in the Summer,’” Summer replied, halfheartedly. “Prince.”
I didn’t say another word for the rest of the drive.
Chapter Seventeen
Ronan
When we finally arrived in Hope, Andre had once again won the “Summer” song game. Summer seemed impressed but mildly annoyed with him—and still really annoyed with me.
I picked up on that fact when I opened the car door for her and she refused my offer to carry the laptop she had with her in the backseat—then went right ahead and let Andre carry it when he swung around and took it from her, clueless, like three seconds later.
I let it go.
We checked into our B and B, which was the nicest place to stay in town, according to Summer. I didn’t ask why she didn’t stay at her brother’s. Now that the car games were over, the conversation had died. She was civil but withdrawn, and quiet instead of her usual sassy self.
I fucking missed that sass.
Was she still rattled about what happened at the club last night?
Or upset about this morning?
I knew I’d handled things badly at the hotel. Okay, abysmally.
But I didn’t know how to deal with it any other way than to retreat behind my wall of professionalism.
And the more I did that, the more annoyed she seemed to get.
I took a quick look around the property, then scoped out her room while she waited on the threshold for me to give the okay for her to enter. We each had our own room along the walkway off the back garden. It was a giant house that had once been a single family mansion and had been divided into private rooms. It was pretty luxurious compared to the few chain hotels I’d seen along the way in, but something told me I wouldn’t be seeing much of Summer while we were here.
I lingered for as long as I could, and when I left her in her room, she muttered something about having work to do. What work, I had no idea.
At dinnertime, I had Andre run out to get us takeout again. And maybe it was my imagination, but Summer actually seemed annoyed when I brought her the souvlaki on a pita with Greek salad, which I knew she liked. This time, instead of thanking me, she gave me a strange, irritated look, took the food and shut the door in my face.
The next few hours were pretty much a waiting game, as I tried to figure out how I could be less of an asshole. How I could be nice to her and make her smile again, and still do my job—without fucking up and ending up with my dick in her.
I also took the liberty of aggressively jacking off in my room while picturing her wearing nothing but those white thigh-high boots of hers.
When I knocked on her door to pick her up at nine p.m., like she’d asked me to, she stepped out in a hot-pink faux fur jacket, black furry boots, and skintight black satin pants. My gaze dropped straight to her ass when she turned to close the door behind herself, and my dick had a fucking seizure.
Jesus. Christ.
I adjusted myself, quickly, trying to get comfortable in my jeans.
She turned to me, almost bumping into me. Clearly, she’d expected me to move out of her way, like a normal human.
I just stood there staring her. Her jacket was open, and she was wearing some kind of black mesh shirt stretched over a hot-pink bra underneath. Looked like she was ready to do some hardcore clubbing.
I could envision her perfectly… straddling me in some dark back corner of a bar, riding my cock with abandon. The vision
