She stopped, frowning his way. “Why would I do that?”
He was confused. And he had to stop himself from getting to his feet and into her space. “I think it’s clear you don’t find me acceptable.”
“Are you talking about that fight we just had?”
“I wouldn’t call it a fight.” He needed to lower the temperature in the room. “I would call it a misunderstanding.”
“I didn’t misunderstand, West. You need to understand that you can’t gaslight me.”
“Gaslight?” The accusations kept coming.
“The fact that you call what happened a misunderstanding is the very definition of gaslighting. We both know what you meant. Own it. If you feel bad about it, apologize, but don’t try to make me think I didn’t understand what was going on.”
She was rude and prickly, and he had to admit to himself that she was also right. How many times had he had a girlfriend tell him nothing was wrong when it obviously was? No matter what she’d done, he was also in the wrong. “Fine. I’m sorry, Allyson. I shouldn’t have said those things to you, and I shouldn’t have tried to twist it around so I didn’t have to feel bad.”
She stared at him for a moment and then seemed to come to some decision. “Okay.”
Things still didn’t feel settled. “We should talk about working together since this didn’t seem to go well.”
She shook her head, the chestnut strands caressing her shoulders. “We’ll be fine. I already told you I’m not picky. You don’t like me. I get it. Join half the world, man. I was the brat princess on a reality show. Everyone either hates me or they want to be me, which means deep down they hate me just a little.”
He definitely did not understand this woman the way he’d thought he would. Maybe she simply didn’t comprehend the stakes. She’d been a bit casual when talking about men who wanted to kill her. “You would trust me with your life?”
“No, West,” she said with a weary sigh. “That’s why it works. I don’t trust you at all, but then I don’t trust anyone with my life. You’re here because my parents need to know they’ve done everything they could to protect me, but I learned at a young age that I can count on no one but myself. I won’t rely on you in any way. Don’t get me wrong. I’ll stick to your schedule. I’m not going to run off and do something stupid. But I also won’t expect you to lift a finger to help me because in the end, you won’t find me worthy of saving. So I’ll save myself.”
She started for the conference door.
Now he did what his instincts told him to do. He stood up and blocked her way, looming over her because she didn’t cede a centimeter of space to him. She simply turned that gorgeous face of hers up, one brow rising in obvious challenge.
“I need to make something clear to you.” He was so stinking close to her, and the camera did not lie. She was even more beautiful in person. “I’m in charge while you’re here in Dallas, and I’m not in charge because your parents are paying me. I’m in charge because I am the man who will step in front of a bullet for you. I am the man who will take whatever is coming your way. We can not enjoy each other’s company and I’ll still protect you. I take my job seriously, and I will not put anyone’s life above yours for as long as we’re together. And that includes mine. Do I make myself clear, Allyson?”
She stared at him for a second, and a deep sense of satisfaction went through him. He now knew how to shut her up. Get into her space and challenge her. He would bet no one ever challenged her. She was a woman in control of the world around her, the queen of all she surveyed. It would do her some good to be around people who didn’t worship the ground she walked on.
He didn’t want to acknowledge that the air around them seemed to have come alive and was crackling with tension. Sexual tension.
The first woman he’d ever had real chemistry with and she was the one he was never going to touch.
“Perfectly clear.” She took a step back. “I’m going to wait on my stepdad. I’m taking him to the airport.”
“I’m taking him to the airport,” West corrected. “The job starts now. We have three guards, though I’ll be with you most of the time. When I’m off, it’ll be Tessa or Matt. I’m working out a schedule with them, but for the first day or two, it’s me twenty-four seven. I need to evaluate the situation and assess threats. When do we need to leave the office?”
“About an hour.” She didn’t look happy about it, but at least she wasn’t arguing with him.
“I’ll meet you and your stepdad in an hour then. Tess will meet us at your hotel and make sure it’s secure. I need an hour to pack and make sure everything at my place is handled, but then I’ll be with you for the night.”
She turned and walked away.
And West knew the real battle had just begun.
Chapter Two
West Rycroft was an asshole.
It wasn’t like she wasn’t used to dealing with assholes, but she’d kind of hoped for some older lady who might view her as a daughter type. She could hang with older people. When she’d been young, her mom had been preoccupied running her sister, Brynn’s career, and she’d been left hanging around movie and TV sets. There had been a couple of older women who had taken her under their wing. The woman who’d run the costume shop on Brynn’s long-running TV show had taught her how to knit.
Which was what she did now as she sat in the small break room waiting for her stepdad to finish up with the Taggarts.
She pulled out her knitting needles and cast on, starting with a garter stitch. It was the easiest stitch, but she wasn’t really trying to make something. This was self-soothing.
Do I make myself clear, Allyson?
He’d loomed over her, every inch of him masculine and commanding. Those stark green eyes of his had stared down at her, and she’d had the most ridiculous impulse to turn her face up. To see if she could tempt him into kissing her.
She was such a stupid girl.
“Aren’t you that person on TV?”
She glanced up, and the goth kid was standing there. Maybe not goth, exactly. The girl wore ripped jeans and combat boots, a concert T-shirt with her hair in a high ponytail. She looked an awful lot like Charlotte Taggart now that Ally really studied her. “I am. Shouldn’t you be in school?” There was probably a reason, and sympathy welled hard and fast. “Yikes. Suspended?”
The girl shrugged. “I’m always in some kind of trouble, but not this time. In this case, it’s a teacher in-service day and I’m grounded, so I have to be up here. I might have snuck out to see a friend a couple of months ago. At night. In the middle of the city. It also might have gone really wrong. Anyway, I’m stuck here for all vacation days. Fun. I’m Kala Taggart. The big scary guy is my dad, and my mom’s one of the owners of the company. What are you in for?”
Ally’s hands moved out of long habit, the rhythm of knitting soothing her. “Asshole guy killed a bunch of birds and presented them to me as a message that he wants to kill me.”
The girl’s face wrinkled up in distaste. “He killed birds?”