Page 24 of What Doesn't Kill You…

The discussion had started as soon as Violet had uncuffed him from the bed that morning. It had continued through their room service breakfast and had carried on into their walk across the hotel grounds to their appointment with the wedding planner. The reporter loved using his words. All of them. All the time. He'd told her words were how he processed the world. Whatever the hell that meant. All she knew was that he wouldn't stop talking. She wasn't even sure she needed to be present for him to have this discussion, but as his bodyguard, she had no choice but to be at his side.

Earplugs.

She needed earplugs.

"What if I'd had a reaction to your drug, what then?" he demanded.

Ignoring him wasn't working, so she tried reason. "I'd have called Rodrigo," she said. "Or a priest to administer last rites. Whatever fit the situation."

"Violet, I'm serious. Please tell me you understand that drugging people isn't the right thing to do."

"It was the right thing to do last night," she said. "You wouldn't shut up and I was worried you'd storm off during the night to confront your nemesis. This way, we both got a good night's sleep. Don't you feel better?"

"What will Rodrigo say when he finds out you drugged the client?"

"Well done?" Violet wasn't sure if that would be his exact response, but it should have been. He wasn't the one being forced to listen to lectures on ethics first thing in the morning.

"Violet." Max put a hand on her arm to stop her. "You can't drug people."

She let out a sigh. They were going to be late for the wedding planner and, even though she didn't want to talk to the woman, she definitely didn't want to draw the whole thing out.

"Vi," he said again, his voice softening. "Drugging people is bad. You get that, right?"

"Is this a Canadian thing?" Violet asked, genuinely curious. "I heard you guys are real sticklers for the rules."

"No, it isn't a Canadian thing, it's a universal thing. Drugging people to make things easier is not the way to handle difficult situations."

"Sometimes it's the fastest and safest thing to do," she pointed out. "Would you have rather I put you in a chokehold until you passed out?"

"No! I'd have rather you didn't knock me out at all."

From what he was saying, she assumed cuffing him to the bed was still okay. "How about I promise never to drug you again? Would that make you stop talking about this?"

"It'd help, but I'm a bit worried you're some sort of psychopath who doesn't realize drugging people is a morally and socially unacceptable thing to do."

"I was a cop," she said. "I know it isn't the legal thing to do. But you wouldn't shut up about the bloody bed. And we were all worried you'd go crazy and attack Poole during the night. So, give me a break here, there was nothing psychopathic about my thought process. I needed to ensure you didn't endanger yourself or anyone else on the team. Plus, I was tired, and you wouldn't shut up. A woman can only take so much. And now, I'm getting pissed off because I have to explain myself, when I'm the security expert, and you're the client I have to keep safe."

"Trust me, I appreciate the explanation." And, weirdly, he seemed genuinely pleased she'd given it to him. "No more drugging and I promise not to run off and do something stupid. How's that?"

"Yeah, the problem with that is I'm not sure you'd know stupid if it smacked you in the face. You don't exactly have a great track record with intelligent decisions when it comes to Damien Poole."

"That's fair." He slid his hand down her arm to hold her hand.

She shook it off and frowned at him.

He smiled. Not quite a dimple smile, but his eyes crinkled at the edges in a way that was oddly fascinating. "Here's the deal. I'll run my ideas past you first, so you can check for operational stupidity, and you will resist the urge to knock me out when I annoy you. Deal?"

"You're going to get us both killed," she warned him.

"That's not my intention," he promised.

"Fine." She held out her hand for him to shake. "We have a deal."

He flashed those damned dimples at her. "That won't cut it. Engaged people seal the deal with a kiss."

"And annoying clients get drugged if they keep pushing their bodyguards. Do you want this deal or not?"

He wisely shook her hand.