Page 74 of How To Tempt A Bodyguard
She'd heard about his lethal efficiency, but he'd always been the protector. The man who stood between her and danger.
This was different.
This was a man capable of killing with his bare hands. The man who'd been raised as a weapon. The man who'd kill again without hesitation.
His eyes had gone distant. Cold. The warm brown she'd grown accustomed to had gone eerily flat… icy like stones at the bottom of a frozen river.
Florence said nothing. A tremor ran through her spine. Not quite fear. But something close to it.
He sat now like a hollowed-out version of him.
"Matthew." She reached for his arm.
He flinched.
It was small, barely perceptible, but she saw it. The instinctive recoil of a man who expected touch to bring pain, not comfort.
She withdrew her hand. Folded it in her lap.
She thought of his gentleness with Jack's children. His patience teaching her the Scottish accent.
That man existed too. She'd seen him.
But so did this one. This cold, calculating killer with empty eyes and a voice like a blade.
Could they coexist? Could she have a future with a man whose soul was steeped in this much darkness?
The question terrified her.
"I've been thinking," she began, hoping to draw him out of his dark place.
Silence.
Just when she thought he didn’t hear or wouldn’t reply, he spoke. "About what?"
"About Edinburgh. About what happens after."
He stared ahead of him. More suffocating silence.
"One thing at a time," he said. "I've never thought much about after."
The admission hung heavy. Crushing.
She didn't ask anymore. Wasn't sure she wanted to know.
The wagon rolled on. The sun climbed higher. And Florence sat beside a man whose name was Carrick, whose brother was a monster, whose heart was a stranger.
Chapter nineteen
His Roots
Florence
They hadn't spoken in hours.
The silence had settled between them like a third passenger, heavy and impenetrable. Matthew's eyes stayed fixed on the road, his jaw set, his hands steady on the reins. Whatever had surfaced during their conversation—the cold fury, the calculated violence, the emptiness in his eyes—he'd buried it again.
The wagon creaked through the gathering dusk. Florence was left alone with her thoughts, questions without answers, despair without escape. The man she'd made love to sat beside her, wordless, unreachable, lost somewhere she couldn't follow. He'd admitted only one thing: he hadn't thought about their future. Together or apart. She'd survived heartaches before. This one was different. This one bled.
