Black Ops Warrior. Amelia Autin
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iPhone out and click! Then click again.
He held the phone for her to see without even looking at them himself. “Okay?”
The first picture was typical tourist fodder—they were both smiling at the camera, and in the background you could clearly see the Hall of Supreme Harmony. The second picture, the one she hadn’t been expecting and therefore wasn’t posing for, was troubling. Because she’d turned in that split second between the first and the second clicks, and was staring up at Niall with an expression that could easily be called...yearning.
She wanted to insist he delete that photo because it was too revealing, but she didn’t want to call attention to it, either. So she just nodded and handed him back the phone, then watched in silence for his reaction.
“Not bad,” he said judiciously, reviewing the first one. When he swiped a finger over the screen to view the second one, however, he said nothing at all. But his eyebrows twitched into a frown before he shut the phone down and pocketed it.
“Come on,” he said, grasping her hand and drawing her willy-nilly after him toward the northern end of the Forbidden City. “There’s still time to visit the Imperial Garden. I’ve heard the rockeries there are not to be missed.”
* * *
Savannah had signed up for one of the few optional side tours, the Peking opera, so Niall had, too. But unlike Savannah, whose gaze was fixed on the stage practically the entire night, Niall spent most of the evening watching her. Wondering if he wasn’t making a bad mistake.
The photo from this morning bothered him. A lot. It was one thing to become Savannah’s lover—which he had every intention of doing. It was another thing entirely to make her fall in love with him—which he had no intention of doing.
He had a healthy libido and an active sex life. He’d long since gotten over Francine, the one and only woman he’d ever asked to marry him, back when he’d been young and stupid enough to fall for a woman so shallow her only reaction to his being shot was disappointment that his body was no longer perfect. Back when he’d still been in the Marine Corps. He wasn’t carrying a torch for his “one true love” or anything like that—he’d said goodbye and good riddance in the same breath. And he wasn’t nursing a wounded heart, no matter what Savannah might have thought last night. He’d had nineteen years and a plethora of women to make sure of it.
He’d broken no hearts over the years because he’d never settled into a long-term relationship, which was just fine and dandy with him. He’d cared a couple of times more than the rest, but he’d never let himself fall in love again for one reason and one reason only: the job that meant more to him than anything.
Problem was, the woman sitting next to him didn’t know it. Didn’t know him. Didn’t know she’d been his target as recently as yesterday.
He’d never gotten involved before with a woman who didn’t know the score. Who didn’t know the rules of the game going in. Who didn’t know it was a game. Which meant he’d never spent time with anyone as naïve as Savannah.
He considered this carefully and concluded, yeah, that word applied to her. But there were other words that came to mind. Words he shied away from, because they only added to the guilt he was carrying over how he’d met her in the first place.
And if he wasn’t careful, he could hurt her. Badly.
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