“You don’t have to say anything,” Harrison says to me over his shoulder.
“Let her talk,” the guy says. “I’ve seen the pictures, she’s everywhere with them. As are you.”
“I’m their personal protection officer,” Harrison answers. His words are calm and cold. A warning.
“So then why are you with her? Obviously she’s a royal. I just want a picture, just a picture and a word.”
“If you even try to take a photograph, I will take that camera and throw it over the edge.”
“And then I’ll call the police.”
“The police that are entrusted with the same job I have? Go right ahead. You’ll find out that they aren’t on your side.”
“Miss, please, I just want a word.”
I see the man peering around Harrison, raising up his camera.
Harrison steps forward, snatching the camera from the guy’s hand and then holding it up high in the air, aiming it toward the water that’s rushing past the ferry.
“I warned you,” Harrison says.
The man lets out a squeal that has the whole ferry looking our way. He attempts to jump up to get the camera, but Harrison’s height and bulk are big enough obstacles, and all Harrison has to do is stick his palm straight out, keeping the man at arm’s length.
“You can’t do this to me! I have a right to make a living.”
“And I have a right to protect the ones I’m sworn to protect,” he says, and with those words, Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You” comes blaring into my head, making me feel dizzy.
“Now,” Harrison continues, oblivious to the scenes from The Bodyguard that are flashing through my brain, “I’ll give you the camera back if you promise to turn around and go back to the hole you crawled out of.”
I crane my neck around Harrison and see the man glance at me, bitterness and defeat clouding his features. He’s lost.
Finally he steps back and grumbles, “Fine.”
Harrison takes a moment before lowering his arm and handing him back his camera. “Now, politely, do fuck off.”
The man slinks away past the rows of seats and down the stairs to the main deck. Harrison’s head turns to follow him, and I can feel the intensity in his expression. Maybe that’s why he wears sunglasses all the time. Otherwise he’d cause people to burst into flames.
“I . . . I can’t believe you did that,” I stammer. It’s only now that I realize how hard my heart has been pounding. I lean against the railing, my grip tightening on it.
“Why not?” Harrison asks, fixing his focus on me, one brow quirked up. “You think I won’t protect you?”
“It’s not your job.”
“It doesn’t matter. I’ve now made it my job.” He tilts his head, examining me. “Do you have a problem with that?”
Do I have a problem with this man protecting me? Hell no.
I shake my head. “No.” I give him a shy smile. “Thank you.”
“As I said, it’s my job,” he says dismissively. “Shall we go back to the car?”
I nod. I hate that this has now become my reality, whether I like it or not. But I’m grateful to have him.
And, well, if we’re being honest here, it’s more than just being grateful.
I’m swooning over him. Just a bit. Just for that.
Nothing else.
I swear.
Eleven
The drive from the ferry terminal at Swartz Bay to the Costco outside Victoria is about an hour with traffic, which meant plenty of silent driving. That is, until Harrison reached over and turned on the classic rock station, satisfied with Black Sabbath riffing “War Pigs.”
“I didn’t peg you for the heavy metal type,” I tell him.
“What kind of music do you think I listen to?” he asks, sitting back in his seat, his fingers drumming along the edge of the open window.
“I don’t know. What do soulless people listen to? Dave Matthews Band?”
He turns his head to look at me, and I feel his glare beneath his sunglasses. “I would rather stick broken glass in my ears,” he says firmly.
Whoa. Okay, so definitely not a DMB fan.
“What music do you listen to?” he asks after a moment.
I place my hand on my chest. “You’re . . . you’re asking questions . . . about me?”
His mouth moves into a firm line before he says, “I’m always asking you questions.”
“Ha! No, sir, you don’t. Maybe you do in your head, but that mouth of yours never opens to speak.”
“I’m speaking right now.”
“I know. It’s shocking.”
“So?”
I shrug. “Music? I like all kinds. Except country. I will take that glass you have in your ears and jab it in mine if I hear any sort of twang accompanied by some dude singing about his lost dog. I mean, why are you singing about it? Go out and put some Lost Dog posters on the telephone poles or something.”
He laughs. He actually laughs.
I gawk at him. “What’s the date today?”