Guarding Temptation - Talia Hibbert Page 0,2

entirely black. She looked like heaven. And if things were different—if he weren’t such a thick-headed dick—he could be throwing an arm over her shoulders and taking her to lunch right about now. James wiped his oily hands off on his coveralls and lowered the hood. Calm. He would stay calm. He was always calm.

Only she ever threatened his peace. Only she could ever make him wild.

“I’m never too busy for you,” he said.

She huffed out something too bitter to be a laugh, turned on her heel, and stomped off in the direction of his office.

Things were rarely easy with Nina. But they were always worth it.

“I’m getting death threats,” she said.

James blinked. His mind, usually so smooth and methodical, ground to an abrupt halt. He used the lull in mental activity to stare at her—to devour her, in fact, all the tiny details he’d missed so fucking much. She was bold and beautiful in the grimy little afterthought that was his private office, sitting in her uncomfortable, spindly seat as if it were a throne. Around her, everything was exactly as it should be. His old, wooden desk had a huge, chipped dent in it where he’d once dropped a wrench. The paperwork strewn about was stained with engine oil he hadn’t quite wiped off his palms. The tiny, black-and-white CCTV monitor in the corner was playing crackly footage. There was nothing to suggest that he’d recently fallen into another dimension or that he was currently experiencing a mild stroke.

Which meant that he’d heard her correctly.

“Death threats,” James repeated, his mind lurching back to life.

“Yes,” she said, utterly expressionless. “Death threats. Definition: a typically anonymous threat made by a person or group of people regarding the planned murder of another person or group of people, usually—”

“Nina, stop it.” He ran a rough hand over his jaw, barely feeling the rasp of his own stubble. Barely feeling anything. His pulse raced as the implications sank in. Death threats? Nina? Who the fuck…? But losing his temper wouldn’t help. She hadn’t come to him because she needed a big strong man to punch a hole through the nearest wall; she’d come to him, presumably, for help. So James shoved down the volcanic explosion inside him and tried to stay focused. Detached. Logical. Even though his primary instinct, right now, was to wrap her in his arms and never let go.

That is not an option. Move on.

“Alright,” James said briskly, thinking fast. “I’m assuming this has something to do with the site?”

“Yep.”

Nina was the anonymous founder and editor of Reality Check UK, an independent political news site dedicated to explaining current events, human rights, and British law in a manner that average citizens could understand. Her work… upset certain people. To say the least. Nina was, supposedly, a radical. But most of the things she believed seemed like common sense to James.

“My article about Brexit’s Leave campaign breaking electoral law went viral,” she said. “Millions of hits. The Sun called me a black rights extremist.”

He frowned. “…What does the Leave campaign have to do with—?”

Nina rolled her eyes, waving a hand tipped with chipped, black nails. “Don’t try to make it make sense. It’s The Sun.”

Fair point. James’s temper rose again at the thought of Nina targeted by that rag. She’d had minor issues before, angry commenters and fascist trolls, but this… A thought, a glimmer of memory, struck him, cutting through the anger. “Wait. You published that Leave article, what, a month back?”

For the first time all day, her face betrayed a fragment of emotion, barely enough for most people to decode. But he’d met Nina when she was a permanently disgusted teenager heavy into her Goth phase; she couldn’t hide from him. He understood the slight flicker of her lashes, the way her direct gaze darted away for a moment. She was shocked. Apparently, she hadn’t expected him to keep up with her work while they weren’t speaking.

He had no idea why. They’d gone from texting constantly and talking every day to absolute fucking silence; he’d read more of her website in the past six weeks than he had over the last two years, just because he wanted to feel like he was with her. Which was probably pathetic. But not as pathetic as the fact that he’d been driving by her house every night just to check she was okay.

Her brother had asked James to keep an eye on her, after all. Though Mark probably wouldn’t approve of just