would have given anything to comfort her, but that wasn’t what was going to save her.
In order to accomplish that, he had to be convincing in his role. Which meant that he needed to go on with this charade, continue to maintain this facade so that he could, ultimately, get her and her friends away from these men.
If he went about it the traditional way, pulling out a service weapon and threatening to shoot the other man if he got in his way, Tate knew that he might—or might not—be able to get out of the hotel with Hannah. Most likely, they’d be stopped before they ever made it to the street level.
No, this way was more effective. It just required a great deal of focus and an iron will—and the ability to block out that look in her eyes to keep it from getting to him.
“What did I tell you about opening your mouth?” the guard was demanding angrily. He pulled back his hand, ready to bring it down on her face.
Hannah’s alarmed cry tore at his heart.
“If she has one mark on her, the deal’s off,” Tate warned him in a voice that was deadly calm, belying the turmoil that lay just beneath.
The guard stopped in midswing. The expression on his face told Tate that the guard was getting fed up with what he undoubtedly considered a high-and-mighty client. The man let his guard down for a second, the sneer on his face telling Tate that he thought he knew his type. Not just knew it, but hated it because he felt inferior to the supposedly rich client.
“You don’t buy her, someone else will,” the guard jeered contemptuously. But he dropped his hand to his side nonetheless. “Sit!” he ordered Hannah with less compassion than he would have directed to a pet dog. Only when she complied did the guard finally look his way. “So, I take it we’ve got a deal. You’re interested in acquiring this tasty morsel?”
Tate’s expression gave nothing away, including the fact that he could easily vivisect him without so much as a thought. “I might be,” he replied after a beat had gone by.
“Might be,” the man echoed with contempt. He was at the end of his patience. “Look, the man I represent doesn’t like having his time wasted. We’re alike that way because neither do I.”
Tate slowly walked around the young woman, deliberately pausing and taking a lock of her hair between his fingers. He made a show of sniffing it. “That goes both ways.”
Suspicion immediately entered the guard’s eyes. “So what do you have in mind?”
There was no hesitation on Tate’s part. “A man doesn’t buy an expensive car without taking it on a test run, seeing how it handles,” he pointed out, his voice continuing to be flat.
It killed him to see that Hannah had winced again in response to his words, and he saw real fear in her eyes as she watched him.
How did he get it across to her that he was one of the good guys without blowing his cover?
“Go on, I’m listening,” the other man said.
“I’d like a private session with her, to see how we ‘get along,’” Tate proposed.
“The boss doesn’t deal in damaged goods,” the other man snapped.
“I have no intentions of ‘damaging’ her. Just ‘sampling’ her,” Tate informed him. “There are a lot of ways a man can see if he likes the goods he’s getting.”
He was standing in front of Hannah now, looking into her eyes, wishing there was some way to set her mind at ease. His back was to the other man and he smiled at Hannah. The smile was kind, devoid of the lust that had supposedly brought him here. Lowering his head so that his lips were right next to the young woman’s ear, he whispered, “Caleb sent me,” before straightening and backing off.
Her eyes widened, but she held her tongue.
Tate said a quick, silent prayer of thanksgiving to whoever it was that watched over law enforcement officers.
“What did you say to her?” the guard demanded. There was no arguing with his tone.
Tate turned to look at him, emulating the latter’s previous smug look. “I told her that paradise was at hand.”
As he said that, Tate slanted a look toward Hannah, hoping she would put two and two together and take some comfort in the covert message. He couldn’t tell by her expression if she’d believed him—or even understood what he was trying to tell her. He wasn’t