Page 70 of Blood Stone

“I could have sworn…” He shook his head. “This storm has got me jumpy, I guess. Thanks.” He backed out and was gone.

The shakes were welling up inside her again and this time, she let them come.

“Kate,” Adrian said, just behind her.

Damn, he could move silently!

She turned and found herself turning right into his arms. She had no objections to that at all. Adrian pulled her up against him and simply held her.

It felt astonishingly good to be held hard and tight like that. Her shaking subsided. Kate wound her arms around his neck and lifted her head away from his shoulder so she could look at him.

Unlike Terry, Adrian’s expression was utterly closed. He was giving nothing away. And he was watching her for clues, too.

For three days, she had seen nothing but this wary watchfulness from him. Ever since Garrett had kissed her.

There was no way he could know about the kiss, so it was merely his instincts that made him wary. Adrian’s radar was far too sensitive. By telling him to stay away that single night and drinking herself into oblivion, she had told him far too much.

Yet he had just stepped between her and what might have been a bullet with her name on it.

“Why did you do that?” she asked.

“Hide Gunther away? I promise a much longer explanation later, Kate, but the short answer is, he has nothing to do with your movie and he is the last sort of publicity you need right now.”

She shook her head. “I trust your gut on Gunther. That’s not what I—”

“You do?” Finally,finally, he was showing a genuine expression. Surprise.

“You’ve proved a few times you understand me better than I suspected anyone has a right to, given how easy I make it to get up close and personal.” She grimaced. “I tried to warn you, didn’t I, that hanging with me for the entire shoot would test you in ways you probably couldn’t imagine.”

“You did,” Adrian agreed. “But having me here was supposed to preclude the need for other men, Kate.” He said it evenly, without bitterness or anger. Like it was just a fact.

Her gut and heart seemed to turn cold and heavy. She stared at him. “What is it do you think I’ve been doing?”

His smile was tiny. But it was there. “You’re not fucking anyone else. I’m not stupid. But you’re thinking about it.”

All the air seemed to evaporate out of her lungs. She just stared at him.

“Under the circumstances,” he continued, as if they were chatting casually. “I figured that someone has to be Garrett, which I find wildly ironic.”

Kate tried to swallow and found that her mouth was utterly dry. She realized that she was staring at Adrian with no schooling of her expression. He was probably reading on her face every last shred of horror and dismay she was feeling.

Adrian smiled again, and gave a tiny shrug. “I know you, Kate,” he finished.

“I thought I was starting to know you,” she whispered. “How can you be so calm about this?”

He considered it for a moment. “I have a long range view of things, I guess.” His smile returned, this time warmer and with more humour in it. “Besides, as your personal sex toy, it’s my role to know exactly what you want, isn’t it?”

“That joke is getting old,” she muttered.

“It’s the conditions you insisted prevail if I came on site with you.”

“If that’s the case then why are we arguing about what I want?” she asked. “If it’s really your job to give me what I want, then technically, shouldn’t you give me Garrett?”

Even as she said it, she hated herself. It was a cheap shot. And it was a false argument that she was using just to score a point. But his calmness in the face of her duplicity was stirring huge vats of guilt and she didn’t like that feeling at all. A petty low blow felt like a way to even the score. But now she had lashed out, she knew it wasn’t worth it.

The neutral, wary mask dropped over his face once more, tightening his features. “You want him that bad?” he asked quietly.

“No. No, Adrian, I don’t.” She rested her hand against his chest. “Please forgive me. That was…it was inexcusable. You’re making me feel like a piece of dog meat, and you’ve just done the most heroic, the most marvellous thing…”