how I shouldn’t rely on anyone but myself when it comes to personal protection. Doesn’t your determination to play bodyguard whenever Nate’s around go against all that?”
“You must always be ready to protect yourself against regular people,” he acknowledged, nodding. “But that guy... He is part Goliath, part Viking.”
“Just because he’s big doesn’t mean he’s into raping and pillaging.”
“It doesn’t mean he isn’t.”
And there was no way she could fight against that form of logic. “So you’re saying that training me as hard as you have, for as long as you have, is worth nothing and I can’t take care of myself?”
“It’s not that we don’t trust your abilities or your conviction to protect yourself, Ella.” Phoebe’s calm voice soothed the agitated atmosphere, and it helped Ella’s iffy temper ease back from the boiling point. “But let’s face it—your new client needs a personal trainer like Dolly Parton needs breast enhancement.”
Ella tried not to sigh out loud. It irked her no end that she’d come to the same conclusion. “You’re both blowing this way out of proportion.”
“I have trained you to fight your way out of danger should you ever again find yourself immersed in it.” Jacob’s grave tone got her attention, and she turned to find an almost worried frown darkening his face. “I have given you all the tools I know of to fight, to maim, to kill. To survive. The one thing I have not yet had the time to teach you are all the mental skills necessary to read your opponent and see him for what he is. And what he isn’t.”
“At the risk of repeating myself, he’s not my opponent.”
“The world must be your opponent. To trust is to let a person close. To let a person close is to invite them to do harm. Have you not had enough of this?”
She tried not to flinch. “If I went by that philosophy I’d fear every single person on the planet, including you and Phoebe. One hell of a lot of my life was taken from me, but that little part... That’s the part I’d have to give away, and I refuse to do it. That’s not living.”
“That’s not what we’re saying.” Phoebe put up both hands palms out, clearly trying to apply the brakes. “Of course we don’t want you to go back to the way you were when you first landed on our doorstep, and why would we? You’ve made such tremendous strides since that time. The last thing we want is to shove you back into your shell.”
All too well Ella remembered how uncommunicative she’d been when she first came to Chicago. Her obsessive drive to learn every trick in self-defense had landed her at The Body Electric, first as an addicted gym rat, then as an instructor recruited by Phoebe. Her wariness and personal proximity issues had been obvious to both Phoebe and Ella’s then-personal trainer, Jacob, and it had taken the better part of a year to give them the barest explanation of her past. Only when she’d started to work there and experienced a snafu with her Social Security number had she been forced to come completely clean with them regarding her former life. From that point, Phoebe and Jacob had been her fiercest allies, and at times—like now—her overbearing protectors.
“There are people who need you as a trainer, and there are people who could single-handedly defeat a Navy SEAL team.” Jacob’s chin was angle so high it was a wonder he didn’t get a crick in his neck. “Surely even you can see that.”
Phoebe shot him an exasperated look. “Jacob, stop helping. Ella, what we’re asking is that you just look at this guy who’s decided to latch onto you, and judge accordingly on how you’re going to manage your personal protection. That’s all.”
“Drop him as a client.” Ignoring Pheobe, Jacob instead chose to display why he had never worked in a diplomatic capacity while in the Mossad. “Or at the very least, hand him over to me. Give me one day and I will find out what his objectives are, or break him in the attempt.”
Phoebe sighed. “Jacob, seriously, you need to switch to decaf in the worst way.”
“You two must think I’m a complete idiot,” Ella interjected before Jacob could retaliate. “No matter what’s happened in the past, I assure you that I do have a functioning survival instinct.”
“We never said that you didn’t,” Phoebe began, but stopped when Ella scowled at her.
“Whether it’s conscious or not,