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“Monday and Tuesday.”
Bloody hell.
“I need you in DC as soon as you’re done to head up the security detail for a female executive. I’ll handle the initial workup and brief you when you get here.”
As soon as he rang off with Caleb, memories of the girl he’d known—ones he hadn’t allowed himself to indulge in for years—drew him to the end table next to his bed like a siren’s song.
Seeing Nathalie in the Catz Library. Their first meeting—engineered by her because he’d been too shy to approach her. Their first proper date. The first time they made love. The plans they’d discussed for the future.
The day she turned her back on him and walked away.
He opened the drawer and took out the small black velvet box tucked in the back corner. Prying open the lid, he stared at the moonstone ring he’d found in a vintage jewelry store on St. Cross Street the week before he’d graduated Oxford.
He never had the chance to show the ring to Nathalie, let alone place it on her finger. He should have sold it years ago.
Now it served as a reminder of a mistake he wouldn’t make twice.
He’d come a long way from the naïve, pampered boy he’d been. Nathalie wouldn’t recognize the hardened combat veteran he’d become. If they were different before, the gulf between them had only widened.
His fingers tightened around the box, snapping the lid closed.
He’d go, perform the security assessment, then turn Nathalie’s protection over to Caleb and return to England by the end of the week.
Perhaps this was an opportunity to prove his feelings for her were memories best discarded. Put the past behind him and move on.
He went to text Lachlan about the change in plans, but his fingers stalled over the keyboard.
Let her expect Caleb.
Ryder wanted to see her unscripted reaction when she saw him for the first time in eight years.
He pocketed his mobile, tossed the ring box back in the drawer, and pulled his black duffel out of the closet.
Chapter Three
TheBoeing767-300reachedcruising altitude twenty minutes after takeoff from Heathrow to Dulles the next morning. Ryder waited for the seatbelt sign to turn off, then stood and removed his laptop bag from the overhead bin.
He debated what to tell Lachlan when he checked in. If his boss learned that he and Nathalie Williams had a past, there would be questions. Questions Ryder didn’t want to answer. Lachlan willingly walked into a trap two years ago to save his now wife, Sophia, and Nathan almost died last year because his feelings for Emily clouded his judgment.
Ryder’s situation was different, however. He wasn’t emotionally attached to Nathalie any longer.
Booting up his computer, he signed into the airplane’s onboard Internet and clicked open the file Penny emailed along with an appointment time at Williams Advanced Avionics on Monday.
For Caleb.
Nathalie’s picture appeared.
Ryder’s lungs filled, trapping air they refused to relinquish until forced. For a minute, he wondered if the cabin had lost pressure and oxygen masks were about to drop.
No, he decided after glancing at his seatmates and across the aisle. It was just him.
The face on his monitor was the same, yet different.
The glossy black hair that had capped Nathalie’s head in ringlets during their days at Oxford had been straightened and pulled behind her head. Her face was leaner, more mature, her tawny skin with its warm undertones still smooth and unlined over high cheekbones and a heart-shaped face with its slightly square chin.
He studied her large, tobacco-colored eyes for any trace of the joyful girl who’d teased him about being too serious. In a certain light, those eyes would turn to burnished gold.
The file contained a brief profile. She’d become president of Williams after her father’s death six months ago. The only family listed was her mother, who still lived in the area. There was no mention of a husband or children, but a woman as beautiful and accomplished as Nathalie wouldn’t be alone.