2
" First of all, she was uncertain how to read the statement. Did Harry actually mean what he said, or was there another underlying message? Did he mean “Wow, you are so completely unattractive, no other man could possibly be interested in you, so I’ll take advantage of you by pretending to desire you. And maybe I’ll get lucky and get laid while having a big laugh at your expense?”
Or did he mean “I’ll tell you this to make you feel better because, even though it’s not completely true, you don’t repulse me, and if we do end up having sex, I’ll just make sure all the lights are off.”
“Look, Allie, I didn’t mean to freak you out or anything,” Harry said. “I mean, by saying what I said back in the car . . .”
Alessandra realized that she had blindly followed him and they were standing on one of the lines, waiting to order their daily indigestion. She had been staring sightlessly up at the menu.
“It’s just . . . You wanted honesty,” he continued, “and I . . .” He shrugged. “I took it a little too far, as usual. Some things probably just shouldn’t be said.”
“I don’t know how to do this,” Alessandra admitted. “Talking to men was easy when I was beautiful. But now . . .”
Harry was looking at her, studying her very naked, very plain face, his dark brown eyes so intense. It was as if the crowd around them had ceased to exist, as if they were the only two people standing in that fast-food lobby. He touched her hair, pushing a limp lock back behind her ear.
“The haircut really sucks,” he told her.
She closed her eyes. “Yes, I believe you mentioned that once already today.”
“But it’s just hair.”
“Spoken by the reigning king of bad hair days.” She reached up and took off his baseball cap. His hair, as usual, was standing up in all directions.
He shrugged. “Maybe we should just get matching Mohawks.”
Alessandra had to laugh.
He touched her again, his fingers warm and slightly rough against her cheek. “You’re still beautiful,” he said softly. "
― Suzanne Brockmann , Bodyguard
3
" You shouldn’t pull out the chair for me, or even open doors for me,” she told him.
He pulled back slightly to look at her, his face only inches from hers. Even in the dim light, she could see that his eyes were brown and only brown. There were no flecks of gold or green, just one single, deep shade of chocolate.
He studied her intensely then leaned toward her again, his breath warm against her neck as he spoke. “You don’t think Alice Plotkin deserves that kind of respect?”
“She’s supposed to be invisible.”
“She’s not invisible to me.”
Again, he pulled back, and the warmth in his eyes seemed to heat her from within. His gaze flicked down to her mouth, and Alessandra knew with complete certainty that he was going to kiss her. In just a moment, he was going to pull her toward him and kiss her. She couldn’t think of anything she wanted more.
Cutting his hair had been torture. He’d sat there, without a shirt on, Ace bandage around his ribs, obliviously sexy. She’d touched the hard muscles on his shoulders and back more than once, using the lame excuse of brushing cut hair off him.
Sometimes—okay, more than sometimes—the hair had been imaginary.
Touching Harry was like touching electricity. She hadn’t wanted to stop. His hair was so soft and thick, his skin silk over steel. "
― Suzanne Brockmann , Bodyguard
4
" You look at yourself in the mirror, and I don’t have a clue who you see looking back at you. It sure as hell isn’t the woman I see.”
“I look in the mirror, and the person I see is so . . .” She shook her head. “The way I look, I can’t believe anyone would want me. Not the way you seem to want me.”
“Seem to?” Harry looked down at himself. “This is only a seem to? You better come over here and check this out, because when it comes to wanting you, this rates a definitely.”
Alessandra laughed softly in disbelief. “See, I just . . . I know you’re nice, so—”
“Yeah, I’m always getting erections just to be nice. Come over here, and I’ll be even nicer.” Harry held out his hand. “Come on.”
She went to him. “May we turn off the light?”
“No! Are you nuts?” It wasn’t the answer she’d been expecting. Harry held tightly to her hand so she wouldn’t pull away. “I want to look at you,” he explained. “I love looking at you anyway, and I’ve just discovered that looking at you while you’re naked is a special treat. "
― Suzanne Brockmann , Bodyguard
5
" We could hide,” she said.
“They’d find us,” Harry told her.
“Well, we could find a place—I don’t know, a cave or something—where we could hold them off with your gun.”
“And hope that the FBI finds us before they go back to their car and get a grenade thrower out of the trunk?”
Allie was silent for a moment, just pushing forward, using both hands to scramble up the ever-steepening hill. “So what exactly are our options?”
“We keep moving."
“That’s it?” Her anger wasn’t far from the surface, and it bubbled up again. “Do you screw up all your cases this way, or is there just something about me that brings out this incompetent side of you?”
“I didn’t set this up,” he told her for the four thousandth time. “If I did, there would have been backup. Believe me.”
“I’m done believing you. I believed you twice—and you know that old saying? ‘Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.’ I’m making up a third part to that saying. Fool me three times, just shoot me now.”
Harry laughed. It was the wrong thing to do.
“You think this is funny? We’re probably going to die, and you think this is funny?” She was furious. “You said I’d be safe here, and I trusted you. I did more than trust you, I slept with you, over and over again! Oh, God, the whole time you were probably laughing and—”
“Allie, you gotta believe me—I didn’t set this up. George did. George knew about that letter I got from the lawyers. He probably figured out there were court records with Shaun and Em’s names and address on it. And this snafu stinks of Nicole Fenster, too. But I swear to you, I didn’t know. There’s no way in hell I would’ve set you up. And I didn’t mean to sleep with you. I mean, it wasn’t something I planned and . . .”
Yeah, and that wasn’t exactly helping. Making it sound as if the lovemaking they’d shared had been some kind of an accident, like Whoops, golly, how’d my penis get in there? "
― Suzanne Brockmann , Bodyguard
7
" She cleared her throat but still her voice came out much too huskily. “Are you all right? I didn’t see you there. I didn’t mean to kick you.”
He was looking at her, examining her, and he smiled crookedly. “You look good in the morning, Al.”
Her hair was stringy, her eyes were tired and puffy, and she had on absolutely no makeup. “I look like hell.”
“Whoa, that’s pretty harsh language for you.”
“You look like hell, too.”
“Hell is an improvement for me,” he told her. “In fact, I consider it a compliment. See, shit’s my usual look. On really bad days, I look like total shit. So, yeah, hell is a big step up for me.” His smile made his eyes crinkle. “So, thank you very much.”
Alessandra couldn’t keep from smiling back. "
― Suzanne Brockmann , Bodyguard
8
" Do me a favor,” he said to her, “and stay close to me at all times. If I tell you to get down or to run like hell, you do it. No questions, you just do it, you got that?”
A small furrow creased her perfect brow. “I thought I was safe in this town.”
“You are.” George shot Harry a what-are-you-doing look behind Alessandra’s back.
Harry ignored him. “Humor me,” he told her. “Please? I know you don’t believe this, but Trotta’s a son of a bitch, and he’s known for his persistence.”
George opened the door. “Harry just wants an excuse to put his arm around you.”
Alessandra glanced quickly at Harry, surprise lighting her eyes. Surprise and something else. Something as hot and electric as lightning. It brought her to life so completely and made her exquisitely beautiful despite the heavy makeup.
But as instantly as it appeared, it was gone. Quaffed and shoved back inside. Somewhere down the line she’d learned to hide any excitement, any life, any passion. Someone hadn’t wanted her to be anything more than a pretty bauble. A decorative but unobtrusive piece of art.
George closed the door. “If you want, I’ll turn around and you two can kiss.”
Harry eviscerated George with his eyes. “George imagines there’s some kind of weird attraction thing between us, Al. But George is wrong. George is dead wrong.” He muttered under his breath, “In fact, George is dead.” He looked at Alessandra. “I’m sorry if he offended you.”
“He didn’t. I’m aware that you’re not . . . that we’re not . . . I’m aware.”
“Still, that was completely inappropriate.” Harry looked at George again, who was totally amused. “Stupendously, asshole-ishly inappropriate.”
“I think we’re all a little punchy.” The ice princess had been replaced by someone softer, someone less certain. Someone he had far more trouble resisting. Someone he did want to kiss.
And George knew it, too. The son of a bitch was grinning at him, damn him. "
― Suzanne Brockmann , Bodyguard
9
" She sighed, wishing he had been the hero she was looking for, wishing that ambush had been as much of a surprise to him as it was to her.
“You still haven’t tried to set the past behind us,” he pointed out. “Why don’t you go ahead and tell me what a sorry-assed son of a bitch loser I am, so we can start moving forward?”
She glanced at him.
“Come on,” he said. “Let me have it. Full power.”
“You’re . . . such a jerk.”
“What, are you kidding? Jerks cut you off when you’re driving. They steal your parking space. They don’t nearly get you killed. You can do better than that.”
“You’re a . . .” She couldn’t say it.
“Start with bastard. I’m a bastard. Come on, Allie. The word’s barely even offensive. Try it. Bastard.”
“You . . .”
“. . . stinking sack of shit.” He laughed at the look on her face. “Yeah, you’re so polite, but I know you want to say it.”
“I . . .”
“. . . hate you, you scum-sucking loser. Asshole. Dick-head. Multiple choice, Al. I’m making it even easier for you.”
“I thought you might be special.” She finally forced the words out. “I thought you were better than the others.”
Silence.
Harry stared at the road, all laughter gone from his face. “Yeah, well. You were wrong, huh?”
She had been wrong. But he couldn’t begin to guess how badly she wished she hadn’t been. "
― Suzanne Brockmann , Bodyguard
11
" That’s how I met Griffin, you know.”
“What, at the racetrack?”
She gazed at him again for several long moments. “You must be really bored.”
“I’m . . . interested in . . .” He took a deep breath. “The truth is, you’ve been handling all this shit really well, and I’m, well, curious about you. You’re tougher than I thought—smarter, too. Frankly, I just don’t get how someone like you got hooked up with Lamont and Trotta in the first place.”
“Ah,” she said. “There’s that refreshing honesty again. It’s very appealing, Harry, the way you put all the cards out on the table for everyone to see.” Her voice hardened. “Except the last time you did that, you had an entire deck still up your sleeve. You can’t blame me for wondering what you’re hiding from me this time.”
Alessandra was staring out the window again, her chin held self-righteously high. But it was just an act. She was working hard to hide her hurt. He could see it trembling in the corner of her mouth. It was there, too, lurking in her eyes.
I thought you were special.
“Jesus,” Harry said, hating the guilt that pressed down on him. “You want complete honesty? Sweetheart, I’m more than happy to give it to you. No secrets, no tactful white lies, just the hard truth—is that really what you want?”
“Yes.”
“Great,” he said. “Let’s see. We can start with the fact that I’m scared shitless about seeing my kids again. I don’t know if Emily’s going to recognize me—or worse, if I’m going to recognize her. I’m dreading talking to Marge, and I’m still worried about George. I knew a cop who was recovering nicely from a gunshot wound. One day he seemed fine. The next day he was back in the ICU with an infection. Day after, we were sitting shivah at his house. But I digress.
When you sit that way, you look kind of like a beach ball with a head,” he continued. “Your haircut is really, really bad, I’m probably going to lose my job for helping you this way, and I’m dying to fuck you.”
He glanced at her. “Honest enough for you? "
― Suzanne Brockmann , Bodyguard
19
" Harry’s clip jammed.
Of all the fucking bad times for his clip to jam, this had to take the cake.
Some six and a half feet tall, six and a half feet wide gorilla had somehow gotten past him and was on top of the shelves about to permanently mess up Alessandra’s makeup by putting a bullet hole in her forehead.
Moving at a dead run, Harry threw his gun—useless piece of crap—at the King of the Apes and it bounced off of Kong’s arm, distracting him for several brief seconds.
But several seconds were all Harry needed. He launched into the air for a perfect intercept just as the gorilla fired a double burst.
Both rounds caught him square in the chest, hundreds of pounds of energy pushing him back and down, on top of Alessandra, on top of George, on top of George’s semiautomatic.
He couldn’t breathe, he could barely see, his ears were roaring from the tidal wave of pain, but his fingers closed around George’s Beretta. He raised his arm and squeezed off a shot and King Kong disappeared. "
― Suzanne Brockmann , Bodyguard
20
" I hate to break it to you,” he said, “but this time a pair of sunglasses isn’t going to cut it. People are probably going to know you’ve been crying.”
“I thought you were dead,” she told him, her voice muffled, her face buried in his shirt. “When those bullets hit you, I thought . . . I thought . . .”
“Yeah, I know,” Harry said, stroking her hair. His heart was in his throat. Was it possible she really cared that much? “I know you pretty well by now, Al. You thought, ‘Oh, fuck, the dumb son of a bitch is dead. Now who are they going to send to annoy the crap out of me? "
― Suzanne Brockmann , Bodyguard
