guys a room with a horizontal surface as soon as possible or risk the entire building going up in flames.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Tess shuffled over to the dishwasher, opening it to see if the load was clean and needed to be put away. She peered into the dim interior and found only a couple of plates and mugs on the racks; a clear reminder that she was a single woman living alone. She shut the door with a thud and desperately looked around the tidy space for anything that could distract her sister or at least give Tess a refuge from the turn this conversation was taking. She spied a stack of catalogs strewn across the coffee table in the family room that needed her immediate attention.
“The house is spotless, you neat freak. Stop avoiding the discussion,” Mia yelled at her back from the kitchen.
“This isn’t a discussion, it is you letting your imagination run on that little squirrel wheel in your head. Adam Redhawk and I have a professional relationship only. He had a job that needed discretion and I had done good work for him already and so he asked me to stay on. As a small business owner, I’m not going to turn down a good job.”
Behind her she heard Mia jump down from the counter and she could feel the distance closing between them. Images of unsuspecting gazelles being stalked by cheetahs on the Nature Channel crossed her mind and Tess knew exactly who was the gazelle in this situation. She turned and faced her tenacious younger sister and decided to put this to rest once and for all.
Maybe she’d believe it herself this time.
“Mia, Adan Redhawk is a good guy...”
“And smokin’ hot.”
“Mia, please focus.”
“I did focus. I focused on those pictures of him in the L.A. Style weekly the last time he competed in a triathlon. I focused on his six-pack and I focused on his biceps and I focused on his bounce-a-quarter-off-it ass. Believe me. I was f-o-c-u-s-e-d.”
Mia grinned as she sat on the arm of the sofa, grabbing Tess by the arm and dragging them both down onto the seat in a tumble of cushions, arms and legs. It brought back memories of the many nights they’d cuddled up like this together on shabbier furniture, heads bent together as they shared secrets. Tess missed those days when things had been simpler and her crush on a boy had been something she could indulge in. Before sex was a weapon and trust was a fiction.
“You’re ridiculous,” she murmured, wrapping a strand of her sister’s hair around her finger. “Mia, I can’t get involved with Adam.”
“Because you might have to use him when you make your move to take down his father?” Mia asked, her expression ridiculously coy.
“Franklin Thornton is not Adam’s father.” Tess surprised herself at the visceral reaction Mia’s words triggered in her gut. And her rapier tone shocked her sister as well, if the raised eyebrow and gaping mouth were any indication.
“Wow. Protective much?”
And that was exactly what she was feeling: protective. Protective of a man who’d had very little of that in his life but who offered it to so many people around him. His employees. His best friend. His long-lost siblings.
She was neck-deep in background files because he needed to protect Redhawk/Ling from an unknown enemy. He had stood toe-to-toe with Franklin, demanding an apology for Estelle, and had put his body between her and the man, physically trying to shield her from his words. Adam had come into her life because he needed to find his brother and sister, determined to ensure that they were okay.
Adam had a hero complex. In only the best way.
It wasn’t the first time she wondered who protected Adam Redhawk. If he ever let anyone close enough to take care of him.
As far as she could tell, the answer to that question was a decided no.
“Yeah, I guess I am a little protective of him.” Tess remembered the moment this afternoon in his office and the jolt of connection that had leaped between them and seared her skin and down deeper in a place she didn’t want to acknowledge. “Franklin came into Redhawk/Ling today and Adam physically stepped in between the two of us. He actually used his body to shield me from the venom of Franklin Thornton.” She paused, remembering the shiver-induced goose bumps that ran up and down her spine during the moments when they’d been so close