Page 21 of The Wrong Husband (The Davenports #6)

Phoenix

I get in the car. The question of disobeying His Royal Bossiness doesn’t even arise.

Sliding into his car feels like slipping into a warm yet erotic embrace.

His extraordinary eyes rake over me, checking for any sign of injury or hurt, and damn my traitorous heart, it skips a beat.

His full focus on me is like the sun coming out after a week of dark clouds.

I hadn't realized how much I wanted to feel its warmth again.

To stop that treacherous line of thought, I firm my lips. “What’s so important that you scare the daylights out of me when I’ve not even had my coffee?—”

“Here.” He offers me the cup I hadn’t noticed in the cupholder next to my seat.

“What’s that?”

“You have a fondness for dirty chai latte, so?—”

“Thank you.” I take the cup and sip from it. The heady taste of cinnamon, cloves, and star anise, mixed with tea, milk and sugar explodes on my tongue and slides down my palate like honey.

“It’s still hot,” I breathe.

“It’s an insulated cup.”

Because, of course, he’d think of everything.

“Coffee shops aren’t open this early.” I skipped my coffee because I didn’t want to face a glowering Drew in the kitchen. I opted to forego my morning caffeine rush, again.

Having a dirty chai, first thing in the morning, is more decadent than being gifted diamonds.

“I know one that is.” He shrugs.

Like it’s not a big deal that he went to the trouble of finding it and then turning up at my place before daybreak.

I take another sip of the caffeinated nectar and feel myself slip a little more in ‘like’— not going to use the other L-word —with this walking dopamine hit with a jaw that seems to be carved by someone with a scalpel knife and too much time.

"Happy to see me?" he drawls.

"Of course, not,” I try to huff, but my words come out soft and melting.

"Liar,” he says in a husky voice, carrying within it the implication of all the dirty things he could do to me. I shiver.

I become aware of the butterflies in my stomach… And all because I’m sitting so close to him. Ugh!

To disguise how turned on I am just by being in this enclosed space smelling of his dark scent, I toss my head. "Did you just diagnose that with zero lab results? Impressive."

"So, you were lying."

"What gives you that idea?" I take another sip of the chai, then place the cup in the holder.

His lips quirk. "You have a tell."

"A tell?"

"When you’re trying to be evasive, you like to use medical jargon to confuse the other person."

"I do?" I chew on my lower lip.

“Also, when you’re nervous you wrap your arms about yourself."

“Oh.” I look down to find my arms are, indeed, around my waist. I drop my hands in my lap.

As for the medical jargon? He’s right. It’s my fall back. Something I do by default. It used to annoy Drew, but I would laugh it off. Because, as I've recently come to realize, I was trying to drive him away.

"Where did you go to?" He leans over and tugs on my lower lip, pulling it free from my teeth.

His touch shoots an incendiary signal across my nerve endings.

Like a distress flare from a stowaway marooned on an island who's spotted a ship on the horizon.

Is that why he came into my life? Because he heard my cry for help and responded to it?

He must sense some of my conflicting emotions, for his eyebrows knit. "Are you okay?"

I lean away, so he’s forced to drop his arm. "Being with you confuses me. It makes me want things I didn’t think I could have."

"You can have anything you want. You deserve everything ."

The vehemence in his words makes me raise my gaze to his.

I see the sincerity in his eyes, and a pressure knocks behind my eyes.

It’s ridiculous that this man, whom I barely know, can move me so deeply with his words.

When the man I tried to convince myself I loved never once evoked such feelings in me.

"Hey." He reaches over and pinches my chin, so I have no choice but to turn my head in his direction. I keep my gaze averted, though.

"What is it, Phe?" His voice is tender, and there’s a gentleness to his tone that further undoes me. Why does he affect me so much? And this, despite the fact he was sent to spy on me by my brother, and he didn’t share that with me earlier.

I try to pull away from him, but he doesn’t let me. "Tell me what you’re feeling."

Oh, I want to. So much. Perhaps, it’s the understanding in his eyes. Perhaps, it’s just him taking up all the oxygen in the enclosed space of this car.

"Fever"—he lowers his voice to a hush—"talk to me."

That edge of dominance in his voice spurts a frisson of need under my skin. My blood heats. My lower belly clenches. Before I can stop myself, I murmur, "You don’t even know me. How can you surmise that I deserve anything?"

He notches his knuckles under my chin, so I have no choice but to look up and into his eyes. The burning intensity in them makes my heart stutter. My breath comes in small pants.

How is it that a simple look from him has me wanting to obey him?

It wasn’t like this with Drew. I never felt this need to make him happy. I never cared enough to want to please him.

With Connor, it’s different. He doesn’t just stir something inside me—he unleashes it.

Every look, every touch, every word from him crashes into me like the monsoon breaking over parched earth.

Sudden. Overwhelming. Impossible to ignore.

He doesn’t wash over me gently—he drowns out everything else. And I want to let him.

It’s wrong to compare them. My guilt where Drew is concerned is only amplified by how powerfully attracted I am to Connor.

"I may not have known you long, but the unhappiness in your eyes tells me you've been through a lot."

I open my mouth to protest, but he places a finger over my lips.

"I am going to do my best to lighten those shadows. My instinct tells me you deserve every happiness possible. And I plan to do everything in my power to deliver on it."

His words are overwhelming. I glance away, trying to get a grip on my emotions. Then, to buy myself time, I go on the offensive, again.

“How did you know to drive by my place to pick me up as I was leaving?”

“You leave for work every day around the same time. It’s not difficult for me to drive by in time to pick you up.”

He does have a point.

“And you’re right. I do also have someone watching you, to make sure you’re okay.”

I jerk my chin around to stare at him. “You have someone watching me?”

“The gray sedan parked at the top of the street, then the janitor who works the ER, among others.”

Anger squeezes my guts. I curl my fingers around my backpack, which I placed on the floor of the car earlier. “I can’t believe you’d do that again; and after you know how much I hate surveillance on me.”

“Better you be pissed off at me than unsafe.”

“Why would I be unsafe?”

“The Davenports are a wealthy family with enemies. We have security on all family members—it’s discreet, so unless something goes wrong, none of us would ever know there were people around guarding us.”

“That’s your family. I’m not a Davenport?—”

“But you will be.”

Argh, the arrogance of this man. I don’t know whether to be impressed or upset with him. Or both? I throw up my hands. “But I’m not yet , so why the security?”

“Our enemies will have clocked that I’m interested in you.”

I begin to protest, but he raises his hand. “And even if they haven’t, I can’t take the chance.” He stops at a red light and turns to me. “I cannot… Will not let anything happen to you.”

His words land with surgical precision—direct, focused, undeniable.

A part of me registers the shift in my own physiology—elevated pulse, tightened breath, a warmth in my chest I can’t quite classify.

I assumed he stepped back the moment he told my brother I was safe. That he’d done his duty and moved on. And maybe, part of me resented it—his silence, his distance. It felt like I’d lost something vital.

I felt his absence like a phantom limb.

Now, hearing this? Hearing how much I still matter to him? It hits somewhere deep. The intensity in his voice, the way he says interested like it’s code for something far more dangerous, far more intimate—it coils heat through my chest.

I should dismiss it. Compartmentalize it. Log it as irrelevant to the situation at hand.

But I can’t ignore the effect it has on me.

Not as a woman. Not as someone who’s been seen by him—in ways I didn’t know I wanted to be seen.

I don’t say anything. Can’t. Because I’m not supposed to want this. Not his protection. Not his obsession.

And definitely not this reckless, magnetic pull toward a man who sees everything, misses nothing… And still chooses me.

Hearing him declare how much I mean to him makes me realize how much I crave his attention.

Not trusting myself to voice the words, because it’ll give away the changing state of my emotions toward him, I continue to look ahead.

We ride in silence, until he misses the turnoff to the hospital.

“Umm, you’re going the wrong way,” I point out.

“I’m not,” he says with a smile that makes me think he’s hiding something.

“What do you mean? The hospital's in the other direction.” I jab my thumb in the direction we came from.

“You’re not going to the hospital.”

“Excuse me?”

“Check your messages."

With a scowl, I pull out my phone, and sure enough, a message from the Clinical Director informs me that, as per Health & Safety rules, I have the day off and I should not come in. What the— I drop the device back into my bag. "How did you manage that?"

"What makes you think I did anything? " His voice is innocent, but the twist in his lips says otherwise.

Anger begins a slow burn in my gut. "You do realize that if you’re trying to woo me, this isn’t how to do it? My job is sacred to me. And by interfering in it, you’re pissing me off."