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Her bodyguard was none other than a former SAS trooper.
Now I know why the voice was familiar.
Fucking aristocrat. Lachlan Mackay’s golden boy. Always so proper. Never went out and tied one on with the boys or fucked the women eager to bed a Blade.
Or he had been proper, at least. Judging from how far he’d had his tongue down his client’s throat in a public place, he’d rekindled his love affair with Nathalie Williams.
Wonder if Mackay knows Montague is shagging his client?
This made the game so much more interesting.
A quick glance in the mirror confirmed the bloke in the blue Mustang hadn’t been able to keep up.
He’d get his hands on Nathalie’s software design. He’d just have to work harder. Fortunately, his current employer paid well and didn’t care how he did it, just that he succeeded.
Which was good because there was another objective now.
Ryder Montague, the proper, privileged bastard, had made a mistake. Exposed his soft underbelly.
Taking him down would be a bonus. A cherry on top of the sundae.
Who Dares Wins.
Chapter Eight
Nathaliepulledhercast-ironskillet from a bottom cupboard, placed it on the middle rack of her oven, and set the temperature to four hundred fifty degrees. She’d wanted to dress up the store-bought barbeque they bought on the way home and instinctively had gone to an old family favorite—cornbread. Her cornbread was Southern style, its sweet taste coming from the cornmeal, buttermilk, and butter rather than sugar.
Ryder lounged against the kitchen counter, observing. He’d taken off his jacket and tie and rolled up the sleeves of his crisp button-up dress shirt.
He managed to look both relaxed and breathtakingly arrogant.
She got the cornmeal—white, not yellow—and flour from the upper shelf, slamming the cabinet door in a fit of nervous energy. “Cameras outside my home, a camera in my home office, sensors on every window.” Flour, cornmeal, and baking soda exploded into the air. “A bodyguard.” She tempered the revolutions of her whisk. “It’s a bit overwhelming.”
After the guy on Ryder’s team, Danny, called to say he’d lost sight of the Explorer, Ryder told her Nathan Long had found listening devices in her home.
“You hired Dìleas Security Agency to protect you. You need to let us do our job.” His voice was so cool, so matter of fact.
She wasn’t cool. Not in the slightest.
Someone had been in her home. Her sanctuary.
She should be terrified.
Instead, she was angry. After everything she’d sacrificed, someone was trying to steal her technology. Threaten her and all she’d accomplished.
Like hell they would. She’d promised her father she’d find a way to make combat aircraft safer and now that she had, she wasn’t letting anyone stop her.
So why wasn’t she afraid?
Ryder.
Not because of all the improvements his colleague had made in her home security, or the extra precautions at the office. Because of him, his constant presence.
No one would get to her because Ryder wouldn’t let them.
At the networking reception, she’d wanted to yank Grace Winfield’s gel-tipped nails off Ryder’s chest and tell the woman to get her hands off her man.
Only he wasn’t her man. He wasn’t even the same boy she’d fallen in love with so many years ago. This new version was hard, with a darker edge that fueled secret wanton desires she wasn’t even aware she had.