Page 98 of The Unlikely Spare

“No one should be wearing shorts on Christmas Day. It’s unnatural,” Singh adds, side-eyeing Davis’s cargo shorts.

“You’re all being dramatic. It’s food. In summer. Adapt,” Blake says as she loads her plate.

Nicholas appears beside me. “I see the great Christmas assimilation is going well.”

“About as well as you’d expect when you serve roast dinner in beach weather,” I say.

“Would you prefer we’d had a barbecue on the harbor?”

“Might’ve been less cruel to the Yorkshire puddings.” I gesture at the deflated offerings. “They look like they’ve given up on life.”

“Much like Cavendish.” He nods toward our team leader, who’s staring at his plate like it’s personally offended him. “Though I suppose that’s his default expression.”

“He saves his joy for paperwork and protocol violations.”

“Then I must bring him endless happiness.” Nicholas selects a prawn to put on his plate, then considers it. “Do you think combining seafood with cranberry sauce counts as a diplomatic incident?”

“Only if someone from the Foreign Office sees you do it.”

He grins. It’s not his public smile but the real one that makes my chest do inconvenient things. “Your talent for finding loopholes is concerning, O’Connell.”

The bastard. I keep my face neutral. “I’m always professional, sir.”

“Professional.” He tests the word like wine. “Interesting choice of adjective. I would have gone more with ‘thorough’ myself.”

“You seem very concerned about my performance.” I turn to face him properly. “Should I be worried about a negative review?”

His eyes glitter dangerously. “On the contrary. Your…dedication has been noted. Extensively.”

Blake saves us by laughing too loudly at something James says, breaking the charged moment.

But the damage is done.

We’re playing with fire in front of everyone, and he knows it. Worse, he’s enjoying it. And even worse than that—so am I.

Fuck.

I can’t do this. I can’t protect him when I can barely think straight around him. I can’t find a traitor in our midst when I’m too busy fighting my own desires.

I’m compromised in every way that matters.

And the last thing I want—the very last thing—is to put Nicholas at risk.

I need to leave. Request a transfer, let someone else take over, someone who can actually do the job properly.

But as I watch him navigate between the others now, somehow making everyone feel like they matter while maintaining just enough distance to stay untouchable, I know the truth.

I don’t want to leave him. Not for a second.

And that’s exactly why I have to go.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Nicholas

As Christmas parties go, this ranks up there in the “surprisingly not ghastly” realm.

My protection officers have achieved that particular level of relaxation where they’re still scanning for threats but are far more relaxed than normal. Blake’s actually laughed twice, Cavendish has unbuttoned his top button—which is almost the equivalent of stripping naked by his standards—and no one’s mentioned protocols in at least twenty minutes.