Scotland for Christmas. Cathryn Parry

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СКАЧАТЬ and comb to the case. Tossed a pair of shoes on top. She had better cover her disappointment soon, though she supposed it was the “attending solo” part that was truly bothering her.

      All she knew was that she would give anything to have someone to go with. Just someone who knew her as she really was—someone she didn’t have to pretend with.

      She heard a commotion outside in the corridor, near the lifts. Isabel straightened. Before she could investigate, her mobile phone rang. For a moment her heart skipped. Alex? But no, he was too busy to contact her on weekdays. And he was five time zones away, besides.

      She checked the caller ID. It was the driver service her uncle used in New York. Her spirits sank lower, but she stuffed the disappointment down. Smile. If she put a smile on her face, then a smile would sound in her voice. A pleasant voice covered all manner of sins.

      “Yes,” she said lightly into the phone. “This is Isabel.”

      “Ms. Sage?” the dispatcher said. “I’m calling to confirm your one o’clock pickup.”

      She forced herself to smile so hard, her lips hurt. “I was told it was a two o’clock pickup.”

      “That explains it, then. Your assigned security agent buzzed you on the intercom but received no response.”

      Isabel groaned. She’d been wearing a headset. Obviously, she’d been playing her music so loudly, she hadn’t heard the bell. “I’ll go down to the lobby and escort him upstairs myself. Is this the same driver who met me at the airport last September?”

      “No. It’s not.” There was a pause. “You’ve been assigned to Jake Ross.”

      A good Scots name. A Highland Scots name. That lifted her mood. Even if the man himself wasn’t Scottish, the name was a nice reminder of home. “Brilliant. I’ll go straight down and look for Mr. Ross.”

      She piled everything still on her bed into her case and then zipped it up quickly. Made one last check of her face in the mirror: fine. She looked presentable.

      As she opened her door, she bumped into Rajesh, his fist lifted to knock. He blinked at her. Rajesh was her suite mate, an engineering PhD candidate, with a dark moustache and snow-white turban.

      “Braveheart,” he said. “There’s a man looking for you in the hallway.”

      She didn’t react when he said Braveheart, though she felt a bit like cringing. So hard she’d worked to stay low-key amongst the members of her residence hall. For security purposes, she’d been taught since childhood never to let people know she was a member of the wealthy Sage family from Scotland.

      Still, she smiled at him. “Thank you, Rajesh. I appreciate it.”

      “Did you know he’s a Secret Service agent?” Rajesh asked. “Why would a Secret Service agent be looking for you?” He peered at her. “Did you do something wrong?”

      “What? No. Of course not.” Isabel never so much as dropped a wrapper on the street. Shaking her head, she marched past him, into the living area of their four-person suite.

      “Freedom,” Rajesh whispered as she brushed past, and he made that signal with his fist from the movie Braveheart.

      Usually, she smiled congenially when he did that, but today she just couldn’t. He walked off, back to his group of engineer friends. She couldn’t see what they were doing in his room, but she could smell the pizza and hear the adverts on his television set.

      Sighing, she headed off to staunch the much bigger problem before it escalated, like the good future CEO she hoped she’d be.

      She skipped out to the hallway that ran the length of the residence hall, hearing her neighbors before she saw them. They were four older graduate students who lived in the nearby suites, thirty-somethings, most of them midcareer, and they rented their miniapartments directly from the university. Usually the building was quiet, save for the occasional homeless person who set up camp in their lobby before being chased out by the superintendent.

      She found her driver trapped beside the lift doors, being quizzed by Courtney and Philip, the two most vocal of the group who also happened to be journalists. Isabel groaned. Her driver—Jake—did indeed dress like an active U.S. Secret Service agent. She understood their confusion.

      He had close-cropped hair. Dark sunglasses that screamed policeman! He wore a dark suit with a white collared shirt. At his waist, he definitely carried a gun.

      For a split second, Isabel froze. She’d been around security agents for most of her life, but they were never her security agents. They usually belonged to someone else—her famous uncle John, or her cousin Malcolm, who was lately becoming equally famous for his new startup venture in Vermont, at least in business circles and the financial press.

      But her? She’d never been assigned her own bodyguard before. Until now, apparently. And for the sake of the job she hoped for in the future, she had better show that she could handle it.

      “Isabel,” Courtney asked her outright, “why is a Secret Service agent asking for you? Are you threatening the president?”

      “Are you counterfeiting money in your room?” Philip asked, winking slyly.

      It took Isabel a moment to realize that they were mostly joking. Secret Service agents did in fact investigate both presidential threats and counterfeit money schemes, though this man her uncle had hired was no doubt a former agent, not current.

      She felt like shaking her head—why on earth would this Jake Ross telegraph who he was?—but she ran a hand through her hair and smiled at Mr. Ross as best she could.

      “I only counterfeit on the weekends,” she said lightly to Philip. But he was still staring suspiciously at Mr. Ross, so she tried another tactic. She didn’t want her suite mates to know she needed a bodyguard, or security of any sort. “Actually, Jake and I are old friends.”

      “Oh,” Philip said. “I see.” Courtney nodded as if she understood perfectly, too.

      Exhaling, Isabel glanced to Jake and found him staring so hard at her that there were two pinched lines between his eyes.

      She swallowed. “Jake,” she managed to say calmly. And then, because it needed to be done—she’d uttered her white lie and now it needed to be followed up—she hooked her arm around his. “Sorry I didn’t hear you—I had my headphones on. Come into my room. I’ve been waiting for you all day.”

      Deeper lines appeared on his forehead, and he glanced at her hand—clutched around the thin, fine wool of his dark suit jacket—as if she’d shocked him.

      Well, she’d shocked herself, too. She was definitely not in the habit of groping strange men. And really, it was his fault as well as hers. He shouldn’t be so obvious—he was a terrible actor.

      She would have to explain to him that if he wanted to drive her and be her security agent, then he could not go around looking and acting like a paid bodyguard, no matter how true it might be.

      She smiled harder and gently dug her fingers into his arm to spur him into movement.

      His biceps tensed beneath her fingertips. She heard a slight intake of breath.

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