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Minutes later, dressed in her underwear, face and body moisturized, Dawn fumed inwardly as she surveyed the contents of her suitcase. She hadn’t allowed herself much choice of outfit since she hadn’t planned on doing much socializing.
Finally she selected a black and white Burberry silk georgette shift dress with a floral motif.
It would mask the grimy handprints she would undoubtedly be covered with on her return.
Slipping it on over her head, she pushed her feet into flat black pumps and reached for the handles of the two jumbo bags.
In retrospect, she realized that she should have asked for them to remain downstairs. Even though they were bulky rather than heavy, she now had to lug them back down.
“Going somewhere, Miss Jacobs?” a voice behind her asked as she got to the top of the staircase.
Damn!
She turned to see her employer standing in his doorway, dressed in a crisp white shirt and slim-fitting blue jeans, his eyes first lowering to the bags in her hands and then back up to her face.
“I’ll be back in time for dinner,” she assured him. “I just need to deliver these.”
She grasped the handles of the bags more firmly and made to step onto the top tread.
“Allow me.”
His words tickled the back of her neck as his right hand closed over hers. She hastily released the handle of the bag and stepped away from him.
“The other one, too,” he demanded.
“They’re heavy,” she warned.
She didn’t want him to hurt himself; he probably hadn’t lifted anything heavier than a coffee mug in years.
“Give it to me,” he insisted. “You were going to fetch them down, but you think I can’t?”
Whoa there, cowboy!
She’d obviously bruised his male ego.
“I can at least fetch one of them.”
She may as well have saved her breath. He reached out impatiently for the handle of the other bag.
“Okay.” She slid her fingers to its base as she extended the handle to him, so that their fingers didn’t connect again. Her body was still buzzing from the electric shock of his previous touch.
“After you,” he invited, hefting the bags as though they weighed nothing at all.
“No,” she replied, annoyed for suddenly noticing the breath of his shoulders and the way his biceps flexed under the smooth material. “You go first. I’d hate for you to fall on top of me.”
She immediately regretted her choice of words as Marc’s green gaze widened and locked with hers before he chuckled.
“I would never do anything as uncouth as fall upon you by accident, Miss Jacobs,” he promised, but he complied with her request and preceded her.
Dawn bristled as she followed him down the stairs.
The way he’d said the word implied that he would have no problem falling on top of her deliberately.
Her eyes were drawn to his surprisingly muscular butt as he effortlessly carried the bags down the stairs.
Tsk
She didn’t doubt that he was well aware of the way the denim hugged their firm contours and was putting on a show for her benefit.
When they got to the bottom, she hurried ahead of him to open the door.
He frowned at the sight of the yellow taxi waiting for her.
“Aren’t you taking the car?”
“No.”
She’d assumed the armored vehicle was for official business only and would have certainly not taken it without asking his permission first.
“I insist.”
“The taxi is already here,” she protested.
“Miss Jacobs, I’m responsible for your safety while you’re in my employ,” he said firmly. “You will take the car.”
“You’re not responsible for me,” she corrected.
It was the other way around, in fact.
“I’m responsible for your being here,” he insisted. “And we both know that John would be displeased if I failed to return you in one piece.”
Whatever!
Dawn barely stopped herself from rolling her eyes.
Why did the man constantly bring out her inner child?
“Okay, let me pay the taxi driver.” She would pay the full fare as it wasn’t the poor driver’s fault that her boss liked to control everyone and everything around him.
“I’ll take care of it,” he threw over his shoulder as he headed towards the armored car.
“If you insist,” she said coolly, lengthening her stride to keep up with him.
“I do.”
She could argue the point but she really didn’t have the time.
The taxi would cost him less than the price of a good cup of coffee—the exchange rate of the local currency to the British Pound was ridiculous—but, dammit, she liked to pay her own way.
If he wasn’t her employer she would have taken the greatest pleasure in telling him to stick his money where the sun didn’t shine.
The chauffeur had parked under the shade of a line of ornamental palm trees and looked as though he had been dozing, probably not expecting to be called into service for the rest of the day. As they approached Dawn heard the click as he released the lock of the trunk and then hurried out to load the bags.
Dawn opened the door and slipped into the car before Marc decided to come around and assist her. She didn’t want him treating her as though she was one of his ‘helpless’ women. She was his bodyguard and they both needed to remember that.
“See you at six,” he said, coming around the car to stand beside the open window.
“Yes.”
Technically he hadn’t asked a question, but she knew that his words were a reminder that she had to be back in less than two hours.
Bastard!
But, as the driver slid the windows shut and cool air flowed from the vents as they pulled away, she smiled and leaned into the supple leather seat with a sigh.
He might be an interfering ‘so and so’, but she didn’t at all mind being taken to her destination in comfort and style.
Thankfully, she didn’t feel jet lagged.
The flight hadn’t been as long and as arduous as her usual flights from the UK and though she’d twice refused Moira’s offer of the fold-out bed, she’d been very comfortable in the roomy reclining seat.
She’d kept her eyes closed mainly to avoid conversation with Marc, but she had slept for a good portion of the journey.
Since he’d previously told her that her duties didn’t start until tomorrow morning, she’d looked forward to spending the rest of the day as she pleased.
Now she would have to return far earlier than she’d planned, just to have dinner with him.
She hoped that the place settings would be arranged in a formal manner—the length of a table between them and not for some cozy tête à tête.
***
“Follow that car!” Marc commanded, returning to the yellow taxi and jumping in beside the driver. “Don’t let it out of your sight!”
“No problem, man.” The young driver smiled as he pressed the accelerator and fell in behind the other car as it exited the gates.
After a few minutes, Marc realized that he needn’t have worried about them losing the other car.
It was no high speed chase and other than a couple of hairy moments when a necessary stop at a traffic light allowed the car ahead to put several meters between them, the taxi driver stayed obscured but no more than a few vehicles behind the other car at all times.
Less than twenty minutes after they’d left, the car ahead pulled up in front of a large cream-colored building that looked liked a cross between a large house and a school.
“Do you know what that building is?” Marc asked the taxi driver as the man pulled in at a discreet distance behind them.
“Orphanage,” the taxi driver informed him, just as the chauffeur got out and lifted the bags from the trunk for Dawn. “It’s there on the front of it.”
“I see.” Marc could indeed now see the large signboard with the slightly faded black letters: Firm Foundations Orphanage.
What was Dawn doing here? he wondered as she grabbed the bags and hurried to the high gate.
Then, a dozen or so children he hadn’t noticed playing in the grounds on the other side of the gate, suddenly raced towards it as she approached it.
“Dawn! Dawn! Dawn!” They screamed her name, pressing their faces against the metal railings and reaching their small arms through the openings toward her.
A woman appeared behind them, a welcoming smile on her face as she undid the fastening at the top that held the gate closed.
Releasing the bags, Dawn moved forward to meet the children as they rushed through the gap as the gate swung open. A moment later, she was surrounded, their small arms wrapped around her legs, their raised voices a jumble of exclamations.
Marc sat stunned as she threw back her head for a minute, laughing at their eagerness.
The other woman clapped her hands and the children obediently stepped back so that she could envelop Dawn in a long embrace.
When she was finally released, Dawn pointed to the bags which were now behind them, as if explaining the reason for her visit.
The woman placed her hand on her chest as if overcome and then pulled Dawn into another quick embrace.
Marc had wondered what those bags contained from the moment he’d seen them that morning, stacked neatly by his front door in London, waiting for his chauffeur to bring the car around.
He’d suspected it must be clothing by their weight when he’d carried them earlier and assumed that they were gifts for her grandfather or relatives, or the ‘close friend’ she’d mentioned.
Instead they were intended for children at an orphanage?
Suddenly he felt like a voyeur for spying on Dawn.
“Take me back to the house,” he instructed the taxi driver as the woman and Dawn took hold of the bags and headed to the front door of the building.
The children raced ahead of them, voices once again raised with excitement.
“Sure thing,” the man replied, smiling as though he thought Marc was a crazy foreigner.
Marc ignored the man’s smile, too befuddled by the events of the last minutes to care.
Nothing about Dawn was making sense.
Up until they’d arrived at Rosewood, she had seemed impervious, as cool and as dangerous as he would expect any of John’s employees to be.
Then she’d faltered in front of the house.
Seeing her out of uniform had been as startling as seeing her with the bags in tow, looking as though she was about to walk out the door and leave him.
Even with her assurance that she would be back for dinner, he hadn’t been able to resist the temptation to follow her.
Not when there had been a car conveniently available for the purpose.
He was doing it purely in the interest of security he’d convinced himself when his conscience had bothered him twice on the short journey.
Yet, he’d exhaled in relief when the car had stopped outside the official-looking building and she had been greeted by a woman and children, and not the lover he’d suspected.
What was Dawn’s connection to the place?
She’d said her father was a doctor, so he doubted that she’d grown up there herself—unless she’d been his adopted child.
One thing was certain: she loved children.
And it was equally clear that they loved her back.
That was a big plus in his eyes.
And, in an afternoon of surprises, the biggest had been the sound of her unrestrained laughter.
There was a fun-loving woman inside her just dying to break free, but something was holding her prisoner, something that robbed her beautiful dark eyes of their sparkle.
Whatever it was, he’d find it.
And destroy it.
*****
