Ridge: The Avenger. Leanne Banks

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       Two

      For a second, Dara wondered if she’d gone too far. The little sensation unfurling in her stomach told her she had.

      Ridge stared at her with both masculine challenge and pity for her heated demands. Leaning back in the seat opposite her, he unbuttoned his suit jacket so that it slid back to reveal the stark contrast of his black leather holster and gun against his white shirt. It was enough of a mix of civilized and uncivilized to make her uneasy. His dark trousers stretched taut against muscular thighs spread wide in a typically male pose that somehow made her think of him in anything but a typical way.

      “Tell me what you want to know,” he said in that velvet-and-steel voice she was becoming more and more familiar with.

      She could imagine him using that same tone with a lover. Only then he would say, “Tell me what you want, baby.” Her stomach tightened.

      Dara scolded herself for her outrageous thoughts. Playing with a man like Ridge would just get a woman like her burned. If she were prudent, she’d say forget it and fold her hand of cards with this little skirmish. More than her feminine pride, however, was on the line. She sensed that any shred of autonomy she could maintain during the next four weeks hung in the balance. Pushing back fear and another more vague emotion, Dara straightened in her seat. “Age,” she said crisply.

      He lifted an eyebrow. “Thirty.”

      “How long were you in the service?”

      “How do you know I was in the service?”

      She shrugged, gaining back her equilibrium. “Your manner, the way you walk.” She glanced at his feet then back to his face and smiled slightly. “Your well-shined shoes.”

      “Ten years, a marine.”

      She nodded. “I guess that means you’ve been a bodyguard for—”

      “Two years as a civilian. I worked on special assignment in that capacity for four years when I was a marine.”

      Dara hesitated only a second. Her natural impulse was to respect another person’s privacy. “Family?”

      His gaze turned cool. “None. My mother and grandparents are dead.”

      No wife. No mother. No children. No business of hers. “You don’t like answering questions about yourself, do you?”

      “I’ve learned that you have to reach a meeting of the minds with your clients. It makes the job work more smoothly.” He glanced away. “Most clients aren’t interested in me, though. They just want me to do my job.”

      Dara pictured Ridge’s usual client—a businessman, perhaps a rock musician, someone from a foreign country. They probably all treated him like he was part of the woodwork. She laughed at the ridiculous notion.

      He looked at her curiously.

      “I guess I’m not like most of your clients, am I?”

      His gaze skimmed over her. “No.”

      Lord, he was stingy with his answers. She sighed. “What else do you know about me?”

      He cocked his head to one side.’ “The regular stats. You graduated with a Liberal Arts degree three years ago and went to work for Montgomery. I’ve been briefed on your close contacts and some of your habits—you don’t last much past midnight if you’ve gone full-speed all day. You’re not usually demanding, but you prefer to feel like you have some say over your situation. I’ll have to agree with that one,” he said, his voice dry.

      “And if you were in this situation, would you be any different?”

      “No,” he admitted, but he looked as if he would like to argue the point. He loosened his tie. “The file said you have a lot of friends, but you’ve put those relationships on the back burner because of the election. You stay in touch with your mother. You’ve been out with a dozen men in the last several months on outings while you campaign for your godfather, and you’ve politely turned them all down when they asked for another date.”

      “And you really wonder why?” she asked. Thus far, Ridge had been incredibly perceptive. She was surprised he hadn’t figured out her reasons on his own.

      Ridge shrugged. “The only lethal thing about that guy tonight was his line.”

      Dara laughed and shook her head. “Oh, I don’t think so.”

      “Right,” he said, his voice full of skepticism.

      “I get this all the time. I’m given an escort to most of these functions. It’s part of the job, but these men are all the same. They all want the same thing—and it’s not my heart, not my soul. Or my body.”

      Ridge’s gaze flicked over her, lingering on her legs, as if he seriously doubted that last statement.

      Dara smoothed her hand over the hem of her dress. “They all want a closer connection with Harrison, and they’re hoping they can get it through me.”

      Understanding flickered across his face. “And you want?”

      Dara hesitated, wondering how the conversation had meandered back to such a personal topic. “Wasn’t that in my file?”

      He held her gaze, shaking his head slowly.

      Fighting an urge to fidget she thought she’d conquered years ago, Dara sighed. She still felt a pinch when she remembered how she’d fallen hard for one man’s line, only to learn that what he’d really wanted was an association with her godfather. The experience had made her gun-shy. “It sounds corny,” she said quietly, “but I just want to be wanted for me. I want someone who, for the most part, doesn’t really care that I’m Harrison Montgomery’s goddaughter.”

      Dara resisted her need to look away from Ridge although she was too aware of him, of how close his knee was to hers, of how his musky male scent mingled with her perfume, of how curious she was about him when she shouldn’t be. Taking a deep breath, she instinctively turned the conversation away СКАЧАТЬ