Page 95 of Bound By Fire
“I do say so.”
Rider cocks his head a little. The grin is still there. “You know what this means, right?”
“What?” I sound skeptical.
“It means you’re available. One little date, Robyn. Don’t give me the whole I-don’t-mix-business-with-pleasure speech.”
“I don’t.” I shake my head. “I like you, but it will never be like that between us. Can’t we just be friends?”
He pretends to put a dagger in his heart. “You’ve ruined me, Robyn. You know that, right?”
I laugh.
“Here is your champagne.” Ridge’s voice is a deep rasp.
Then he turns and looks at Rider, and the expression on his face would do well stripping wallpaper. His arm comes back around me, his hand returning to my hip.
“I need to tell you the story about how Robyn and I met,” Ridge says, eyes on Rider.
“I can’t wait to hear this.” Rider folds his arms across his chest.
“I told Rider that you’re my bodyguard, Ridge,” I murmur under my breath. “It’s fine. It’s all good.”
He doesn’t let go of me. Instead, he looks down at me, his jaw ticking. “Can we be excused, Rider? Robyn and I need to talk.”
“No problem.” Rider puts his free hand up, palm out, and his grin gets, if anything, wider. “You two carry on.”
He winks at me.
Then Ridge takes my hand and leads me across the room.
A male voice comes on over the loudspeaker. “Please, can everyone make their way to their designated table and take a seat. Appetizers are about to be served.”
“We need to take our seats.”
Ridge doesn’t answer.
“Ridge. We’ve been asked to sit.”
He stops walking, his hand still in mine. “I need a two-minute conversation with you, and then we’ll take our seats.”
“Okay…fine.”
We thread through the small clusters of people and around a column. We pass a waiter and then go through an arched doorway into one of the side passages that lead off the main hall. The light is lower in here. The carpet absorbs our footsteps. The noise of the function dulls behind us as we walk further away from the hall.
“I thought you didn’t want me anywhere near the staff areas, sweetheart,” I say, with as much sugar as I can pour into it.
“That’s cute, Robyn.”
“Oh, are we back on a first-name basis? I thought you preferred for me to call you Commander and for you to call me Doctor.”
He doesn’t take the bait. We walk past a service trolley that has been pushed against the wall, past a closed door, into adarker section where the light from the hallway barely reaches. Then he lets go of me and turns to face me.
His eyes have a glittering, almost-not-human quality to them in the dim light, and even though I am annoyed, my body decides this is an excellent time to remind me how big he is. How much space he takes up. How close he is currently standing.
“What’s gotten into you?” I ask when he doesn’t say anything.
“I thought we were telling people that I’m your date.”
