Her Man in Manhattan

EIGHT



As someone who’d been looking forwards to a little one-on-one time with her new prison warden—albeit in the form of a continuing game of one-upmanship—Miranda found the addition of a second bodyguard a tad frustrating. By midafternoon she was glad to see Lewis go, especially when she hadn’t been able to get what happened off her mind. They’d barely left the civic reception at City Hall before she focused on what she could see of his reflection in the rear-view mirror and broached the subject with Tyler.

‘What happened this morning?’

‘I told you it was nothing to worry about.’

She scowled at his eyes when they didn’t look at her. The fact he was driving through heavy traffic didn’t seem to matter. ‘I didn’t push the subject when Lewis was here,’ she reminded him. ‘But I saw the look on your face and there’s no way you were that spooked about nothing.’

‘I wasn’t spooked.’

‘Call it what you want, I know what I saw.’

The atmosphere within the cocoon of the SUV grew darker, the lack of a response adding to her frustration. ‘The whole mean, moody and mysterious thing you’re working so well won’t cut it with me. If you want to build a level of trust in this relationship it has to go both ways.’

‘When I think you need to know something, you will.’

She tried to figure out why she’d wasted time worrying about him. Despite his denial he’d been spooked, Miranda couldn’t think of a better word to describe his reaction. When she’d stolen a glance at him as he watched the crowd he was frozen in place, ramrod straight and the colour seemed to have faded beneath his tan.

Momentarily distracted by the conversation she was having with the person closest to her, she hadn’t seen him move. She could still feel the pressure of his large hand on her spine, the heat of his touch branding her through the material of her blouse as an electric current zinged through her body. Adding the deep rumble of his voice so close to her ear she could almost feel his lips move left her skin feeling several sizes too small to fit over her bones. He would never know how much effort it had taken to make it look as if she hadn’t been so shaken by it she wouldn’t have noticed if the sky had fallen down.

As she turned her head and looked out of the side window she blamed her fantasies. The time she’d spent dreaming about having seriously hot sex with him combined with the forbidden aspect of physical contact with one of her bodyguards had left her body primed in a way it had never been for any other man.

The pang of hurt she felt was harder to justify.

When she’d looked into his eyes in the mirror, she’d thought she felt a flicker of understanding pass between them and dropped the subject until they were alone. It was the same way she’d felt in the school when she teased him about being mean and even made her wonder if giving her what she’d needed after the confrontation with her mother had been unintentional.

She wouldn’t make the same mistake again.

By rejecting the olive branch she’d offered him, Detective Brannigan had sealed his fate.

Fishing in her Herrera bag for a pair of sunglasses, she hid behind them while she plotted her revenge.