“I’ve never heard anyone refer to Alec Sullivan as pissy before,” Roman commented dryly as the elevator doors opened and they headed through the lobby to catch a cab to her office. “Never heard anyone live to tell about it, at least.”
“My brother works really hard at projecting that intimidating image,” she said, “but the truth is that underneath it all, he’s a pussycat.”
“Pussycat?” She could tell Roman was trying not to laugh. “If you say so.”
“Trust me, Alec might do the tough player act to perfection, but when he finally falls in love one day, he’s going to turn to absolute mush. And it’s going to be awesome to watch his downfall.”
Roman finally let his own grin loose. “I know plenty of people who would pay good money to see that.”
He was so handsome when he smiled that just sitting next to him in the taxi made all her girl parts flip around inside. Honestly, if he hadn’t been a bodyguard foisted on her against her will, she’d be jumping him six ways to Sunday. Especially given her extremely long dry spell. A woman had needs, after all. A couple of times in the past she’d hooked up with a guy she knew from another company at a conference for a quick fix. Today, the thought of it made her scrunch up her nose. She didn’t want anyone else. She wanted Ro—
God. No.
Soon, if she played her cards right, Roman would be resigning his position with her. And then she would be all alone again, with no one to wait outside her front door every morning. No one to laugh with about her brothers. No one with muscles to sneak glimpses of throughout the day. No one to tease by wearing the sexy dresses and heels her cousins had filled her closets with over the years. No one to tell her to grab some dinner instead of heading straight into her next meeting. No one to go running with her when she needed to shake off a morning of intense work. No one to put his arms around her when she needed just that.
Okay, so maybe his leaving didn’t sound quite as good when she looked at things in that light. Nonetheless, she already knew all the reasons she needed to soldier on. Not only because she didn’t need a bodyguard and couldn’t let her brothers win, but also because Suzanne made it a point to keep her relationships with men neat and tidy, nice and calm—the polar opposite of her parents’ destructive relationship.
But Roman pushed buttons in Suzanne that no other man had pushed before. He made her feel things she’d never felt before. So she couldn’t let him stay. Couldn’t take the risk of losing control of her emotions the way her mother and father had with each other. Which meant it was time to gear up for her seductress act again.
When it came to brainstorming software or new digital security plans, she couldn’t turn her brain off. But trying to figure out what to say or do to be “sexy” made her mind go completely blank.
She would have laughed at herself if she hadn’t been so irritated by her own ineptitude. But before she could either laugh—or groan—her phone rang. She pulled it out of her bag, and though she didn’t recognize the number, she picked up anyway. There was no response on the other end.
She already knew how this was going to play out for the next several hours, damn it. One call would turn into a hundred or more. No one would ever be on the other end, and there wouldn’t be any messages either. Unfortunately, even her fastest tracer software hadn’t yet had any success, because the numbers were generated from all over the world. Once she had a few more business items checked off of her to-do list, she’d definitely be putting more effort into digging into the junk calls and server attacks.
But though she already had turned the phone from ringtone to vibrate, she couldn’t put it away or turn it off. Not when someone at her company—or one of her family members—might legitimately be trying to reach her at the same time that the barrage of fake calls was coming in.
“This is what your brothers were talking about, isn’t it?” Roman said in a dark voice.
She’d been so hopeful that this wouldn’t happen while he was still around. But since her phone was currently buzzing like crazy, she simply told him, “It’s irritating, but it isn’t dangerous.” She knew she sounded defensive, but she didn’t want him to think a bunch of phone calls all coming one after another from random numbers meant she needed a bodyguard.
“Stalking often starts out as an irritation before it escalates.” There was no hint of laughter left in his voice from their earlier conversation. “Especially when the target doesn’t respond the way the stalker wants her to.”