Broken Pasts (13 page)

And
Nathaniel Sutherland.

Oh
god.

Those
emerald eyes, that chocolate hair, that perfect suit, that wicked
smile.

I
groaned. Out loud. In the middle of a throng of people. Luckily
(or not?) I wasn't alone. People were shouting and moaning all
around me, signing song lyrics I didn't know, making out with
partners
they
didn't know. I pushed away from my boy toy and
stepped back, right into a girl with a sequined dress and then turned
and made a beeline for the bathroom. When I got there, I skipped
right past the line and stumbled over to a sink, splashed cold water
on my face and tried to breathe. My head was spinning like crazy and
I was having a hard time keeping my thoughts straight. Not that that
was a bad thing. Sometimes my thoughts were my own worst enemy.
Still, I had to keep
some
wits about me before I started
having wet dreams on the dance floor and ended up bumping into Gary.

I
looked up into the mirror and found that my carefully coiffed do had
come undone. Dark tendrils were dripping down the sides of my face,
teasing my shoulders and kissing the line of cleavage above my dark
dress. My lipstick was smeared just a bit on my chin and my
eyeshadow had bleed down my cheeks just enough that I looked like a
burglar instead of a girl on the town. I cleaned up as best I could
and stumbled back out of the bathroom and over to the bar.

“
Water,
please,” I said as I watched the bartender's brows raise.
Apparently that was an odd request this side of town.

“
What
are you doing?” Jamie asked as she found me a few minutes
later, nursing some sparkling water, no ice, no straw, no umbrella.
I glared at the bartender's back. “You're missing out!
There's an informal dance competition going on near the entrance.”

“
No
thanks,” I told her as I cupped my glass with shaking hands and
closed my eyes against the dull beat of the bass. “I think I
need to take a time out.”

“
Why?”
Jamie asked as if she thought I was crazy. “Aren't you having
fun?”

“
I
am, I just … ” Nathaniel's handsome face flashed in my
mind for a moment. His sexy lips were turned down at the corners,
and his eyes were sad. “I just can't lose myself, not
completely. Remember, I've got a stalker on my tail and I told my
bodyguards to take a night off. Besides, I'm drunk enough as it is.
What more do you want from me?” Jamie shook her head and held
out her hand for mine.

“
I
want Theresa McMaster to be happy.”

“
But
– ” I wanted to protest, to tell her that I was fine,
but was I? My heart thumped in my chest as I stared into my friend's
eyes and found that the music was falling away around me, leaving
room for my thoughts and a niggling, little voice that told me I was
most certainly not. But why? What was holding me back? Me? I kind
of knew in the back of my mind that I was three shots and two mixed
drinks away from blacking out, that now wasn't really the moment to
analyze my life, but that's not how revelations work. They come when
you least expect them, when you don't want them, when you're doing
anything and everything in your power to get away from them. “Me,
too,” I said simply. Jamie smiled and pulled me off the stool
and into the mass of people, into the pulsing heartbeat of the club
where hopes and dreams were out on everyone's sleeves, bared for the
world to see. Or maybe that was the alcohol talking. Either way, I
let myself melt into them once again. I danced and I smiled and I
laughed and then, I felt a hand on my shoulder.

I
whirled around, convinced that the iron grip of the hand belonged to
Gary Harper. I had this vague and rather creepy thought about him
putting a knife through my ribs before I realized that the hand did
not belong to Mr. Harper but rather to Mr. Sutherland.

“
Oh?”
I said, drunk as hell and confused as all get out. I mean, Nathaniel
Sutherland was standing in the club in his dark suit with a sad smile
on his face and a look that asked me if I was a crazy person.

“
I
just got Cedric's message,” he said, and he didn't have to
shout to get his voice over the music. Nathaniel just had this
strong, assertive tone that cut through everything and pierced me
right to the heart. He might as well have said,
I am going to
kick Cedric's ass tomorrow.
That's what it sounded like anyway.

“
What
are you doing here?” I asked as Jamie stepped up beside me and
gawped. Apparently she was as surprised to see him as I was.
Nathaniel took off his sunglasses and stuck them in his front pocket.
He looked … odd … I couldn't tell if it was because
he was the only person within a ten mile radius that was wearing an
Armani suit or because he had a space bubble around him that nobody
else in the club had managed to obtain. Something about Nathaniel
was dangerous and sharp. People sensed that, no matter how
intoxicated they were, and they stayed back. Just in case.

“
I
couldn't, in good conscious, leave a client unprotected,” he
said, but those were just words. There was something else in his
voice. Fear, I think it was. He was afraid that something was going
to happen to me.

“
I'm
not Gillian,” I said and regretted the words as soon as they
were out of my mouth. I hadn't meant them to be rude. I was drunk,
so sue me. It was just a fact. I wasn't his wife; I was a client.
If I wanted to go out on the town without him or Cedric or whoever
else, I had every right to. “Sorry.” Nathaniel smiled
and crossed his hands in front of him with a sigh.

“
No,”
he told me. “You're not.” And then he looked up and
stared at me as if he was seeing me for the first time. “And
I'm sorry. Still,” he continued as I stood there and tried not
to trace the firm line of his shoulders, fantasize about taking off
his coat, running my fingers down that crisp white shirt, tearing off
those fucking buttons … I swallowed hard. “You paid
for a week of protection, and I'm going to give it to you.” I
blinked at him. Talk about sexual innuendo!

“
Oh
my god!” Jamie squealed and then she was shoving me forward and
into Nathaniel's arms. He caught me easily, dragged me into the
private, little space bubble around his person and held me there,
nice and tight. His hands held my lower back and his firm midsection
was pressed against mine. I felt the hard bump of his gun under his
jacket and tried to adjust myself so I wasn't so close. It didn't
work. Nathaniel was holding onto me like he was grasping for a life
line. I looked up into his dark eyes and I was trapped. My
inhibitions were down and my body was on fire from the heat and the
sweat and the dancing. Before I knew what was happening, I was
kissing him.

At
first, it was just me, just this tentative little brush of lips
against lips. I almost pulled away, almost turned around and laughed
it off, but Nathaniel's fingers tightened, digging into my flesh with
a painful pleasure that was twice as intoxicating as the Mai Tai I'd
had earlier. Before I knew it, he was kissing me back.

Oh.
My. God.

If
I thought I'd been kissed before, I was wrong. Whatever I'd done
before had been a weak, watery prelude to this heat that Nathaniel
Sutherland was delivering. He didn't just kiss with his mouth or his
tongue. Nathaniel took my body against his, wrapped his arm around
my back and grabbed my hip while his other hand found my throat, slid
across my skin and buried itself in my hair. He kissed me like a
drowning man gasping for air, like he was tasting me, taking me into
him. He made my knees weak and my heart strong. I moaned into his
mouth, slid my hands up his chest and put my arms around his
shoulders. I think, maybe, if I hadn't been drunk that something
might've happened between us, something special, a start to something
permanent. Unfortunately, Nathaniel Sutherland was the world's
biggest gentleman.

“
Theresa,”
he said as he pulled his face away. I noticed that he didn't take
his hands off of me, not yet. “I'm sorry, but we have to
stop.”

“
Under
different circumstances?” I asked, and I hated the way my
breath smelt like Vodka. Ech. Nathaniel smiled and brushed some of
the hair away from my forehead.

“
Unfortunately,”
he said and I noticed that Jamie was actually standing with her ear
about an inch away from our faces. She'd never been very good at
eavesdropping. She was even worse when she was drunk. “Maybe
we can discuss this later?” he asked, and I nodded, smiled my
best girly-girl smile at him and promptly thre
w
up.

CHAPTER 14

I
woke to the horrid screeching of my cell phone. Rhea had been in a
dinosaur phase a few months back and had thought it would be cool if
my ringtone was
the sound of the screeching velociraptors from
the
Jurassic Park
movie. At eight in the morning with a
hangover and a horrible sense of vertigo, I can tell you firsthand
that it was not.

“
What?”
I snapped at Jamie. I'd snatched the phone from the nightstand and
was now lying with my head hanging over the side of the bed in case I
puked. It never occurred to me to check for Nathaniel.

“
You're
welcome. I took Rhea to school and Joel packed her what he always
packs for the boys on Mondays. A nutritious, delicious, cold slice
of pizza, a can of Pepsi, and a bag of potato chips.”

“
That's
great, Jamie,” I said as I yawned and threw myself back into
the pillows. “P.S. I hate you.”

“
For
what? You had a great time! Granted, you did sleep through the
entire movie, but at least Mr. Hot and Bothered Bodyguard was there
for you to rest your head on. Besides, you should be thanking me.
In what other situation would you have had the courage to stick your
tongue down his throat?”

“
Huh?”
I said, but I knew exactly what she was talking about. Okay, well I
didn't remember the movie (for obvious reasons), but I remembered the
kissing … I could never forget the kissing. I glanced
sharply up at the doorway and found Nathaniel's back, clad in …
a T-shirt? Oh.
You freaking vomited on him, Theresa, like some
sorority girl at a kegger. Nice. Real nice.
“I'm late
for work,” I blurted before she could say anything else. “I
have to go.”

“
You
own your own business,” Jamie replied as I rolled my eyes and
checked my clothes. I was still wearing last night's little black
dress. It didn't look so hot now, all rumpled up and smelling of
sweat. How attractive. “So, how was he last night? You did
sleep with him, didn't you?”

“
Don't
you have a life outside of mine? Go prosecute someone.”

“
We're
waiting on a plea deal from the defense. I have time to kill.”

“
I'm
hanging up now.” I ended the call and set the phone on my
nightstand.

“
Good
morning,” Nathaniel said, voice pleasant and perky. He glanced
over his shoulder at me and caught my eyes with his. His gaze took
my breath away, and I had to glance at the wall to remember a few
words in the English language.

“
Morning,”
I croaked as I swung my legs out of bed and hit the wood floor with a
thump. “I, um, am sorry about your suit.” Nathaniel
turned around fully to face me and dropped his hands from his
bodyguard position so that they hung comfortably at his sides.

“
It's
alright,” he told me and on his face was a genuine smile that
softened up some of that perfection. Honestly, his grin was just a
tad crooked, only noticeable if you looked at it just right. It was
a feature that my made my blood thrum with excitement and my hands
twitch.
Why did you have to be such a hottie?
“I was
wondering,” Nathaniel began and then paused. Something about
him was … off. I watched him run his hand through his thick,
dark hair and tried to figure out what it was. It took me longer
than I care to admit to figure out that he was
nervous.
Of
little old me. Go figure? “Could you go into work a bit later
today?” My heart started to pound and my head went all loopy.

“
He's
out there again, isn't he?” I asked as I scooted around the end
of the bed and paused with my fingers inserted between two dusty
aluminum slats on the horrible off-white blinds. I rose up on my
tiptoes and peered around for Gary with his shiny eyes and
disturbingly blank face. He was nowhere to be seen.

“
Actually,
no,” Nathaniel said as I watched the couple down the street
start a rather vicious row on their front walk. He was cheating, so
I didn't blame her. He even had the audacity to bring his mistress –
some teenager with too-blonde hair and the world's fakest smile –
over on Sunday mornings when the Mrs. went to brunch with her
parents.
Pig.
I dropped the blinds and turned around, trying
my damnedest to keep my eyes from focusing on Nathaniel's pecs.
Granted, the T-shirt he was wearing was
tight
and he was
tight
and well, they just sort of stuck out at me. “Since we
didn't get the chance to go shooting yesterday, I thought maybe you'd
like to go today.”

“
Now?”
I asked as I blinked at him and mentally ran through all the things
on my to-do list. My business couldn't run itself,
but
perhaps
I could go in later and get some work done? After all, if I didn't
learn to use that gun now, I was never going to. And when Nathaniel
left on Wednesday, I would be on my own. If Gary tried something,
anything at all, I wanted to be ready for him. “I have a
client with a very specific idea in mind for her website. She's so
obsessed with the specifics of it that she won't even discuss it over
the phone. I have a meeting with her in … ” I glanced
over at the clock. “An hour.” Even the thought of
meeting with Ms. Brown was horrifying to me. It made the headache I
was already nursing desperate to become a migraine.

Nathaniel's
face, although carefully schooled, drooped, just a bit.

“
Is
that a
no
then?” he asked me with a gentle smile.

“
That's
a
Let Brenda figure out,
” I told him and watched as his
face bloomed into a wicked grin.

“
Good,”
Nathaniel said as I reached up my fingers and brushed them across the
Kukui nut necklace. “Because I'm taking you out to breakfast.”

***

“
Isn't
this a breech of the whole client-bodyguard relationship thing?”
I asked Nathaniel as we handed our menus to the waiter and stared at
one another from across the admittedly short expanse of tabletop.

“
I'm
playing the boyfriend, remember?” he asked me as he leaned back
and studied my face with a bemused expression. “This is
something a boyfriend would do. That is, if I'm remembering
correctly.” I laughed even though I wasn't sure if it was that
kind of moment and took a sip of my ice water.

“
You
mean you haven't been on a single date since – ” I
couldn't say her name aloud. It wouldn't be right. I looked down at
my hands and laced my fingers together.

“
Since
Gillian died?” Nathaniel filled in for me. “No. Not
even one.” I looked up at him sharply and blurted the first
thing that came to mind.

“
Weren't
you lonely?” I asked him, taking my own life experience and
applying it like a road map over his.
When one lover leaves, you
move onto the next because life is going to happen whether you want
it to or not, and it's too hard if it happens when you're all alone.

“
Desperately
so,” he said and we locked gazes right there in the restaurant
and something passed between us. I don't know what it was, but it
made me sit a little taller, push out my chest a little further,
smile a little wider.
This is ridiculous! You can't be
interested in this man. You can't; you just can't. Remember your
New Year's Resolution.
I glanced away.

“
Oh.”
That's all I said because I was treading in unfamiliar territory
here. With Nathaniel. With myself.

“
I
loved her too much to
move on,
” he said with a bitter
tone. It wasn't directed at me. At least, I didn't think it was.
His voice held too much old hurt, too much pain. This was probably
something he'd heard before from his parents, siblings, friends.
Move on.
People told me to do that when I lost the baby, when
I lost Glen, when I lost my chance to be happy. I'd tried. I'd gone
out and I'd dated and I'd built the business and I'd found Gary. And
look where that had gotten me? I was still lonely.

“
She
must've been great?” I asked and I noticed that Nathaniel's
eyes softened, and I watched in wonder as he reached out and took one
of my hands in his. It was just a light touch, gentle and soft, but
there was a heat behind it that was frightening. Here we were
talking about his dead wife and how he'd never dated anyone and yet,
he was touching my hand.
And
he'd kissed me last night at the
club. We hadn't talked about it, but it was in the air between us,
hanging like smoke. You might be able to see through it, but you
knew it was there.

“
Let's
talk about something else,” Nathaniel offered softly.

“
Like
Gary?” I asked because I was absolutely, one hundred percent
convinced that this conversation was soon going to be steered back
towards my case. After all, Nathaniel had turned me down more than
once. The very fact that we were at breakfast together was strange
enough. I kind of just assumed that he brought me out to see if Gary
would show up. I mean, this wasn't really a date, was it?

“
No,”
Nathaniel said, leaning back and cocking his head to the side. “I
think we've talked enough about Gary.” He paused and flashed
me a guilty smile. “For now. I mean, I'm not going to forget
about your case or anything. I just … ” He paused and
sat there looking back at me from green eyes, one arm resting on the
back of the booth, the other sitting on the table. The suit hid his
arms from view and I was starting to think that although he looked
damn good in it, that that was a shame because Nathaniel Sutherland
was built to impress. He had well muscled arms, but they had a
different look to them, like they weren't just vanity muscles. They
were long and lean and ready to kick some ass. It was the difference
between a man who lifted weights to get big and a man who just lived
a lifestyle.

“
You
just … ” I supplied, wanting very much to hear what he
had to say. I had butterflies in my stomach. I hadn't had those
since seventh grade. The man was absolutely intoxicating. What can
I say?

“
I
just like you,” Nathaniel said and I swear, I nearly melted
into that chair. He leaned forward and put both hands on the
tabletop. “I shouldn't be saying that. I shouldn't even be
here. I should have
never
followed you to the club last
night. It wasn't my business, Theresa. If you dismiss us, that's
it. We don't get a say in your well-being unless you ask for it.
You could've fired me or sued me. You still could, but I can't stop
thinking about you.”

“
Because
I look like her?” I ventured even though I didn't think that
was it. I had to hear him say it though, hear him tell me that he
was interested in Theresa McMaster, not Gillian Sutherland.
Nathaniel looked at my hands like he wanted to touch them again, but
he didn't. He sat back carefully and shook his head.

“
You
do, but that isn't it. I mean, I'd be lying if I didn't say it
helped.
” Nathaniel smiled at me and paused while the
waiter set our plates down in front of us. “But that's not the
only reason. There
'
s just something about you that attracts
me.” I choked on my water and nearly spit it across the table
at him.

“
My
life is so messed up, Nathaniel. You don't want to get involved.”

“
I
already am,” he said as he picked up his fork and stared down
at his food. He wasn't seeing it though. Nathaniel's eyes were
clouded with memories. When he looked up at me there was a fierce
determination burning there that made my heart skip a couple of
beats. “I care whether you live or die, Theresa, and not
because you paid me to and not because of my wife. I just can't
stand the thought of you getting hurt. I'm not asking you to marry
me. I just want to give it a shot. What do you say?”

“
What
are you asking exactly?” I asked as I started stabbing at my
plate with the crooked fork. “For me to be your girlfriend?”
It sounded strange, even to me, like I was way beyond that point. I
had a kid and a business and two ex-husbands who weren't worth their
salt. “I don't know, Nathaniel,” I told him. “I
like you, but I … I don't know if I can do the whole
dating
thing right now. You know what I mean?” He nodded, but he
didn't say a word. Not one, single word.