Still fuming, Suzanne replied, “It’s bad enough that he thinks he’s in charge of my safety, as if I can’t take care of myself, but now he’s digging into—”
She bit back the rest of her sentence when several of her employees came over to Harry to say hello. Her brothers were always a hit around the office, partly because they were so nice to everyone at her company parties—but mostly, she suspected, because they were so good looking. Thankfully, her brothers knew better than to date anyone on her staff. Few things would need more damage control than if Alec or Harry broke one of her engineers’ hearts.
Bypassing the sushi and salad bars, she headed straight for the burger and fries station. Normally, she ate healthier food, but after her showdown with Roman—a showdown she was all but certain she had lost—she needed to drown her irritation in a big plate of grease.
After she and Harry had their food on trays, she suggested they head back to her office. They usually ate in here with everyone else, but she was afraid she was going to have a hard time keeping her voice down while talking about Roman.
No one had ever torn at her self-control the way he did. Right from the first night she’d met him, he’d driven her absolutely bonkers. The only silver lining, she thought with a slightly evil upturn of her lips, was that she was certain she was driving him equally nuts.
Back in her office, Suzanne and Harry sat at the glass café table in the corner by the window…after she cleaned off the stack of computers, tablets, and phones that had taken up residence there.
Harry, who could eat pretty much anyone under the table and never gain an ounce due to the jousting and fencing he loved so much, immediately dug into his food. Suzanne, on the other hand, couldn’t eat anything just yet. Not when her stomach was still so twisted up over Roman’s behavior.
Not when she was still so twisted up over her own behavior.
Because even when she’d been furious with him for accusing her of keeping her fling with Craig from him, she had wanted to kiss him.
“What exactly is Roman digging into?” Harry asked.
She stood up and started pacing. “My personal life.”
She hadn’t meant to spit the words at her brother. Although it was his fault that Roman was around in the first place.
When a pang hit her in the middle of the chest at the thought of Roman not being around, she got even angrier. It wasn’t like her to waffle like this or to be wishy-washy over a guy. And it definitely wasn’t like her to break her own hard-and-fast rules about men. Rules she’d vowed to keep as soon as she’d been old enough to understand how destructive her parents’ marriage had been.
She had always made sure that the men she dated fell into a specific category. Good looking and fun and intelligent, of course, but also careful not to push her too far or too fast. The men she’d been with had been respectful of her wanting to move their relationship forward at a safe, careful, civilized speed.
Whereas the sparks that kept shooting between her and Roman felt almost primitive. Reckless. Wild. All the out-of-control emotions that had torn her parents to shreds.
“What parts of your personal life is he digging into?” In typical Harry style, his tone was gentle.
She hadn’t told any of her brothers about sleeping with one of the founders of CP Systems. It wasn’t something they or anyone else needed to know. Now, however, she hated feeling as though she had deliberately hidden it from them. Because wasn’t that what Roman had been insinuating earlier? That she should have divulged this information to him when they were talking about anyone who might have it in for her? He’d seemed so angry. So distrustful.
It had hurt to have him look at her like that. More than it should have, when all they were supposed to be to each other was bodyguard and client. Definitely more than it should have when she was currently supposed to be implementing a plan to get him to resign and leave her to go back to the way her life had been before him. Before everything had felt so electric and heated and—
She was doing it again, letting herself spin off on conflicted thoughts and feelings about Roman. She forced her attention back to answering her brother’s question. “He’s been doing background checks on everyone I come into contact with. And he’s got a crazy idea that one of the guys I’ve”—she paused to search for the right word—“dated could have done this.”
“Someone you’ve dated?” Harry mulled that over. “What makes Roman think it might be personal?”
She looked out her windows over the park. It was a great day outside. The sky was bright blue, the trees were leafy and green, and flowers were blooming everywhere. If only she could be out there running instead of trapped in her office with Harry having the most mortifying conversation of her life.